It was sooo tempting to draw a line of drying laundry after a whites’ wash for this week’s ‘winter whites’ theme over at Less Is More challenge blog. I decided that this possibly wasn’t the best idea for a greetings card, so dropped it in favour of this design:
Five more Bible illustrations for your inspiration, this time from 1 & 2 Kings. These are books I am less familiar with, so finding and reflecting on the verses was very valuable.
There will be a chance to do your own versions of these at a Bible Journaling session at The Studio in the New Year, if you haven’t already done so using the free downloadable PDF featuring the designs (search for Bible Journaling 14 in my shop).
It’s lovely to have restarted my art journaling sessions here at the Studio (first and third Monday evenings of the month). This means that I have also returned to my art journal after a several-month hiatus to create the sample pages for the session. This month the theme is scratch ‘n’ scrape, in part known in the trade as sgraffito. We’ll also be playing with analogous and complementary colours. The overall effect is quite grungy and builds up using quite a few layers and media.
If you’d like to know more then I have one space left on Monday 4th October and four spaces on Monday 18th October, just let me know if you’d like to come.
Oh, this one is a real toughie! I don’t think it’s a secret that the design team were all scratching their heads with the latest challenge over at the clean and simple card challenge site, Less is More. We could think of several ways of making a monogram, but most weren’t only one layer. That ruled out die cuts, cutouts and all sorts of other clever stuff.
Anyhoo, I scratched my head successfully and came up with three designs. The first, the N, technically didn’t fulfil the definition of a monogram, being a single initial. Then the stencilled and embellished A didn’t fulfil the definition either and turned out not to be a favourite. Finally, the graffiti monogram meets the definition, but might not be considered a traditional monogram.
Flicking through my Bible where I do my journaling, there are some books that don’t seem to have very many illustrations. I guess they are the lesser read books or those which are lists from which little is quoteworthy. I find Chronicles (1&2) to be in these categories, so have spent a little time finding little nuggets and illustrating them. A free downloadable PDF of the illustrations can be found here if you’d like to trace your own versions.
Challenge time again at Less is More, the clean and simple challenge blog. This time, it’s a colour challenge: use pale blue and yellow, and black and white are allowed. It took me a little while to come up with my design – a couple of the design team had already posted their cards and I didn’t want to do the same or a similar card. Here’s my final take on the challenge:
A new year arrives and it seemed a fitting moment to do some Bible journaling. I have to admit that without a group to prepare for, my journaling has lapsed – since April! It was lovely to be designing again and I’ve been adding to my font and design collection. I’ve kept the same style to allow me to share the printable versions and as always, I think it’s the colour that makes the design pop. A printable template is available for free from my shop.
I’ve chosen verses that offer some encouragement as we start the new year. They are mainly on the theme of ‘new’ – I had to start my search somewhere. I also admit to choosing some on the basis of whether there were any competing completed Bible journaling illustrations on the same page.
Another challenge is live at Less is More. This time it is a one layer card with the theme ‘festive’. As before, one layer cards mean just that: no hiding behind layered papers or mats, perfect printing first time and minimal embellishments. Even die cuts aren’t allowed as they are an added layer. I normally paper-piece the stamp I chose to use, so that was not an option in a one layer card. Instead, I went with some colouring-in:
I stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black using a stamp platform, and then again with Versamark as I then decided to heat emboss the outline with clear gloss to make it stand out a little. I then coloured in with ProMarkers adding lots of layers and then highlights with a correction pen and Posca markers. Finally, I added some stickles and liquid pearls to give a little more interest to the card.
It’s recipe time at Less is More and the theme chosen is ‘more than one type of foliage’. One of the main aims of the challenge (aside from making sure the card is clean and simple) is to make the theme to be the focus of the card. There was only one stamp set I could think of in my collection that would fit the bill – a set of five fern fronds by Hero Arts. Here’s the eventual winner, from three I made, for my design team card:
It’s a while since I have done any Bible journaling, but for this month’s session, I did an off-the-page piece. I wanted to encourage my class to work outside their Bible and show off their skills. This is designed to fit into a Ribba frame from Ikea and is approx. 8″ square. It is available to purchase here.
