Loved, with a Love that Endures Forever - a step by step project by Sarah Anderson

"Give thanks to the Lord,

for He is good,

His love endures forever"

Psalm 118:1 NIV

I was given this stamp set as a rep for Creative Bea but it is one I would have purchased anyway. Hannah's sets are beautiful, designed here in the UK, and very useful for stamping bible art journalers like me!

The phrase 'His love endures forever' stood out to me.  It's a phrase that is repeated a numerously in the Psalms.  I frequently pray

"I pray that I (you), being rooted and established in love,

may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people,

to grasp how wide, and long, and high, and deep,

is the love of Christ,

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -

that I (you) may be filled to the measure of

all the fullness of God"

Ephesians 3:17-19 NIV

because to be honest, I don't think I have grasped that yet, because if I had, I wouldn't worry about the many things I worry about ! (amongst other things).  So reminding myself, through verses elsewhere in the bible, about God's love, can only help deepen my understanding of His love.

I adore stickers, and love making my own.  The size of sticker I had in my craft room wasn't quite big enough for the whole phrase 'His love endures for ever' so I decided to go with one or two words on each one.  I know I'll be making more of these to put elsewhere in my bible!!

I used Distress Oxide inks but you could use watercolour paints (just paint them across your stickers with a paintbrush) or Distress inks.  I pressed the inkpads onto an acrylic sheet (or use an acrylic block or lid of a box, or a glass worktop saver) and spritzed with water.

I then 'smooshed' my stickers through the ink ...

.. and dried them off by rolling a kitchen roll over the top.  Some stickers had more white space than I wanted so I just dipped them back in the ink.

Using Distress Oxide Fired Brick I stamped the heart cluster.

I then added splashes of Distress Oxide Wilted Violet by pressing the inkpad on an acrylic block, spritzing it with water, picking up the ink with a wet paintbrush then tapping it against my hand over the stickers.

To add a single word to a sticker, I focused on just inking up one part of the stamp with my Versafine Onyx inkpad, then cleaned off any over-inking with a baby wipe.

The page I wanted to work on had something on the other side so I rummaged in my paper drawer and found some gelli printed deli paper (there's a previous blog post HERE on this) to add to my page

I tore a small strip, folded it in half, added glue stick then stuck it in the centre of the bible pages, using a ruler to make sure it sat right against the pagefold.

The stickers were added ..

..followed by some stamping (which could have been done before the stickers, but I had been considering handwriting 'Give thanks to the Lord, for', but I changed my mind!)  Stamping repeatedly, 'until the ink runs out', gives a variety of texture to the page, and stamping in black makes it stand out over the Deep Lagoon blue ink used in the background.

So there you go!  Praying that you will know His love, that endures forever; there is nothing we can do to stop God loving us, nothing!

My Bible Art Journaling Journey by Rachel Blundell

Hi lovely people!

I’m Rachel, a Christian, wife, mother, friend and owner of EllieBeth Designs UK Ltd. (www.elliebethdesignsuk.com) I began Bible journaling in March 2016, and can honestly say it has completely changed my prayer life and relationship with the Lord, as well as lead to a lot of lessons He’s wanted to teach me being learned!

A friend sent me a link to Illustrated Faith, and I was immediately drawn to all the colour and gorgeousness that I saw – all there to honour and worship God. As someone who loves colour – I find it makes me so happy! – I wanted to have a try. BUT. I was a bit nervous – because, you see, I’m not artistic. My whole life I have believed that I can’t draw, I can’t paint, I can’t do beautiful lettering and I’m no good at it.

What a wake up call.

Because God doesn’t say I can’t draw. He doesn’t say I can’t ‘do’ art, or be artistic. He says that I can do all things through Christ; He says I am fearfully and wonderfully made; He says I am given gifts with which to honour and glorify Him – and it’s He who chooses what they are, not me. No, I’m not capable of drawing in the same way as others, or painting what I perceive to be ‘art’ – but I can use the creativity He’s placed within me to worship and to praise Him. That’s my gift and it’s become an absolute joy to use it to create.

I’m a planner girl first and foremost, and I’ll let you into a secret – I REALLY like stickers. So much so I have an entire God-given and God-driven business around them! So I figured that stickers were a good starting point – I don’t have to be able to do amazingly beautiful brush lettering because I have a sticker for that (and stamps!) Finding things that I could do meant that the anxiety and fear of ‘what if it all looks awful and I hate it?’ went away. Plus – it’s not about whether I like it or not – God will like it, just as I love every picture my daughters bring home from school for me. I love those early messy, occasionally almost identifiable pictures from my littlest one because she did them for me, with love. We are God’s children, and He loves what we have to bring Him because of who He is – our Father – not because of what we bring Him. He just wants us to spend time with Him, and I tell you, for me, there is no better place to be than in the Word, surrounded by colour and sticking stickers, or slapping paint down.

Colourful page tabs! 

Test page in the back of my Bible

Cover page – I love this verse

My first ever entry – looking at gifts and being creative 

I love rainbows and colour – it’s great to incorporate it into my journaling

First two page spread – paint on one side, simple highlighting and a tip-in on the other

In April 2016, God clearly spoke and gave me a direction for my business. It was to bring Illustrated Faith products over into the UK and to share more about Bible Journaling. He used the description in Proverbs 31 of the woman who plants a vineyard out of her profits to show me that I was to invest my profits into things that would lead to people being helped towards a deeper relationship with Jesus. I went with it – His plans are always better than mine! – and I’ve been so blessed and humbled to see how it’s impacted other people’s journeys. There is no better email than the one which describes how taking that step (because in small business, it was a BIG investment!) has changed their relationship with the Lord.

I tried out using journaling cards for extra space to write – or for hidden journaling as here!

I recently filmed a full flipthrough of my Bible, which you can see here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi-4khVqHME

More rainbows and paint! 

I also order the Illustrated Faith Devotional Kits each month, which are available at retail price only, so I operate this on a non profit basis, simply covering costs. If you’re interested, drop me an email at hello@elliebethdesignsuk.com with details of the kit(s) you’re after.

As a thank you to the Bible journaling community, I’ve also got some Get It Together Zipper Pouches which are free in the month of November with all orders containing over £40 of Illustrated Faith items (excludes anything ordered especially from Dayspring )

Bible journaling has truly changed my life – and I hope that by sharing some of my journey, it may help you to identify the lies that you can’t be creative, and have a go anyway, or, give you some new ideas to try out!

God bless,

Rachel xxx

Watercolour over gesso – and a reminder to pause, breathe and rest in Him

I’ve been experimenting with full page tip-ins – great for creating lots of space to be creative in.