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!

Distress Oxide Inks in my Bible - by Sarah Anderson

Oh my!  I've been converted to prepping my pages!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yes, that statement does merit that many exclamation marks!  I am not a prepper; I am a dive in and see what happens kind of girl.

So how did this happen?

Well, I adore inky splodginess.  It makes my insides all happy!  And I recently got my hands on some of the new Distress Oxide inks from Ranger.  These are a combination of pigment and dye ink so when you add water, they react in a different way to any other inks, and they dry with a wonderful chalky finish.

I have played and played with them in my journals but they are made up of watercolour paper, which is happy with lots of water being splooshed around.

Bible pages, on the other hand, are rather on the thin side, to say the least!!

I trialled the inks in the first pages of my bible, by using a cosmetic sponge to add the ink to the page, then spritzing them with water to create the unique oxide effects. [The top splodge is normal distress ink, with the distress oxide below it.]  I then pressed the distress oxide ink pad onto an acrylic block, spritzed with water and printed with it on top of the inked area.
 

                                                             reverse side - some bleedthrough

I think it was Claire who said recently that she prepped her page with Matt Medium, something I use as a glue, so I had a go with this in my bible

                                                                                and look, no bleedthrough where the Matt Medium was!!

Then I thought I really ought to use some Clear Gesso as someone would want to know if it worked with that too

                                    and yes it did!!

So I duly prepped my page with Dina Wakley Clear Gesso 

and let it dry whilst I gathered an inkpad, spray bottle and acrylic block.

I smooshed the inkpad onto the block

spritzed it with water

then pressed it down onto my bible page.  I manage to get the page quite wet and a bit of the colour went on the other side of the page, but I'm ok with that!

I spritzed it with water as I dried it with a heat gun, then repeated the printing with the acrylic block, again spritzing with water as I heat dried it.  Just look at those gorgeous inky marks ...

..and that's just with one colour of inkpad!

I stamped the word 'Jesus', from the Illustrated Faith Names of God set, using Faded Jeans Distress Oxide, then sprayed it with water as I heat dried it to see what happened.  What happened was the ink drifted so much you can't tell I stamped a word at all!  But it still looks pretty and makes me happy inside.

 I love this effect so much I think I'll add it to pages and leave them like that!  Today though I added a verse that really spoke to me as I was looking up a different verse from the same chapter from Sunday's talk in church.

It's a verse you'll be familiar with as

"For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,

but gives us power, love and self-discipline"

2 Timothy 1:7 NIV UK

but I read it in The Mirror, a paraphrase by Francois du Toit and it really spoke to me.  I know first hand how debilitating it is to have a mind that is full of anxious thoughts, bound in fear.  It is a conscious choice to change that thinking and choose to fill my head with the truths from God's word (something I've been really focusing on these past couple of weeks as I go through a really tricky time) but it makes a huge, huge difference!!  And it's so easy once you start.

His truths liberate my mind, setting it free from fear.  Sometimes I've had to sing those truths very loudly in my car, and sometimes I wake up with those songs going through my head (look up Godfrey Birtill's songs, they are full of fabulous truth!)  Amazing peace follows and it's possible to keep going through what is a tough time.






And for those who are keen to know...

 this is the other side of the page!  I accidentally printed some of the green on here which is why it looks like it has more bleedthrough than it does.  And I think the blue is because I didn't quite cover the whole area with gesso!

And the little heart?  They were made by pressing the Worn Lipstick Distress Oxide pad down on a sheet of deli paper, spritzing it with water as I dried it with a heat gun

..then punching out a heart shape etc