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.
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| Colourful page tabs! |
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| Test page in the back of my Bible |
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| Cover page – I love this verse |
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| My first ever entry – looking at gifts and being creative |
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| I love rainbows and colour – it’s great to incorporate it into my journaling |
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| 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.
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| I tried out using journaling cards for extra space to write – or for hidden journaling as here!
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I recently filmed a
full flipthrough of my Bible, which you can see here
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| 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
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| Watercolour over gesso – and a reminder to pause, breathe and rest in Him |
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| I’ve been experimenting with full page tip-ins – great for creating lots of space to be creative in. |
