Traveler's Notebook - a couple of entries

I have been working in my TN making some fun pages,

I have been slacking in getting them on the blog.

However, I have some right here.

Our favorite eatery is the Fishery - if you live

in Florida near Bradenton (it's in Cortez) you really need

to go. 

Best seafood with a view ever.

Hanging out with our gang at the Boca Lupo

best pizza in town.

We had a great time and it was good seeing

all them at once we settled in.

Hubby and I dined at Carrabba's another favorite

and of course, no photo, but I did get

in the habit of picking up business cards, menus and

keeping those envelops they put the cutlery in.

Fun stuff for scrapbooks.

So it was during this time, my macpro of 8 years was

getting quite cranky so I was fortunate

enough to be able to replace it.

Tucked my journaling in a pocket behind that PL card.

I love doing that.

Of course Apple decals. 

Gotta do something with them.

And wa-la my lovely new computer.

It's amazing, however, none of the slots are the same.

Surprise!

I use a lot of die cuts - sissix and quikutz.

The apples are from Illustraited Faith,

Tim Holtz of course.

Studio Calico.

 

Handwritten Bible journaling

1 Corinthians 3:9

Labourers together with God.

In quoting or paraphrasing Oswald Chambers - God engineers everything:

wherever He puts you - your one great aim is to pour out a 

wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work -

no matter how menial the task or labor.

I have since changed my attitude about daily tasks - especially with housework

which I particularly do not like - and it does make

the tasks alot easier and the end result alot prettier.

So my very own handwriting - Gasp I know.

I decided to give it awhirl and I'm feeling

pretty good with it.

My handwriting really isn't that bad until I try

to do something on a page with it

and then like a clutch hitter-

I choke. 

In fact, the handwriting actually

 went better than the stamping did.

Sigh.

I used enamel paint and Panda Eight embellishment and a punched heart.

Poured out wine - Bible Journaling

and broken bread.......

Love this quote by Oswald Chambers and

he uses this phrase thoughout his devotional -
referring to Phillipians 2:17, 4:12,
2 Timothey 4:6 and Isaiah 40:26.
The common theme throughout these verses is that
by faith and through the Holy Spirit,
God is at work in our everyday lives and in the people around us
and that it is in the everyday things in life that we
realize the magnificent diety of the Jesus Christ.
In reading about the saints in days goneby, time after time they
lived their lives to the fullest in their faith and love for Jesus.
What a lovely example and guide for us to emulate.
(paraphrased quotes by O.C.)

I used mists and watercolors together
with some thickers and Studio Calico alphas.

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day yesterday!
Mine was sweet and lovely, hearing from both my boys.

First Bible Journal Entry

This is my first one - other than the cover and I quite 

like how it turned out. 

I used regular enamel paints and alpha stickers I had

in my stash. The banner tag is a design from Penguin Eight.

Head on over to Illustrated Faith  as they have an amazing site

for faith and journaling inspiration.

I chose this verse - well actually it chose me - I use an Oswald Chambers

devotional - My Utmost for His Highest that a dear

friend gifted me. On that

day the verse was Hebrews 11:8. I just love what it said and 

felt compelled to  not only highlight it in the margin

as well as the verse.

The version of the devotional I have was written in the early

19th century so there is an English language

issue that I either look up in the dictionary or on line where

they have a contemporary version that helps with the translation.

I also have a different Bible translation that comes in

handy as well.

I have to admit it was really hard to get started - because its the Bible after all.

But once that first dab of paint hit, it opened up the creativity and

it became easy to highlight and pray over.

Taking my devotions to the next level

If you have not yet found Shanna Noel at Illustrated Faith.com, you need

to check it out. I found her by following Amy Tangerine

another talented scrapper, both on many design teams.

Shanna and her team takes devotions and Bible studies 

to a whole new level in using their  "journaling Bible".

I had no idea journaling Bibles even existed - I just wrote in the

itty bitty margins hesitantly or an everyday spiral bound notebook.

Not a whole lot of creative juice going on there.

Although if you guys think about it - you know from previous posts

that I have issues ripping out pages from an 

out of date dictionary so to actually do something in a Bible

wouldn't even cross my mind.

Until now.

Please check out the illustrated faith blog because they can explain

it way better than I can since I have only progressed

to the point of getting the cover done.

So I purchased the NIV journaling Bible - it also comes in ESV version

however, I have mostly used NIV so I stuck with that.

The difference is there are lines in NIV for journaling and on in ESV.

I ordered it from Amazon and danced around for weeks

waiting for it to arrive.

Once I had it clutched in my grubby little mitts,

and after days of waiting for the inspiration and guts to start, last night

 I daintily began to spread some gesso on the front cover.

My thoughts were to keep the cover minimal

so that it wouldn't get too torn and trashed.

I also had the mindset that if I really screwed it up with the paints

 I could cover it up with paper. 

Plan A and Plan B.

 I then spread some watercolors on and after letting it sit overnight

decided that they were a bit bold.

 I became braver and added some white enamel paint to mute

the colors and decided that doing the entire front

looked better than just a colorful blob

in the middle of page.

 As you may have noticed in the past I have trouble stopping,

so adopting a somewhat cautious mindset

I decided to stop here because I can still see the

polka dots, which I like, and the colors seemed somewhat less wild.

 I broke out my Technique Tuesday stamps - that I had forever

and they had a goofy unused quality to them.

In fact, my "g" fell apart. Sigh.

I went with stamps because as you know, my handwriting caves

under pressure - and the pressure would be unbearable.

Although if you peek at the top I did feel brave enough to actually

write the verse there.

I will be using them a bit more - love the fonts I have on hand. However,

when I purchased them years ago I was in my

eecummings phase - where I wasn't using capital letters.

I did find one set that thankfully was all caps because 

I didn't feel right using a lower case "g" for God. 

I kept the cover simple because I'm brave that way.

I picked this verse because I loved singing it in church for the Offertory and 

it just seems right for the start of devotions.

As I progress, which is being even more brave, as I actually 

pu my thoughts creatively on the inside pages.