Bible Journaling - Decoupage Serviettes onto the Title Pages

I am still on the opening pages of my Inspire Praise Journaling Bible, with very little to read, but lots of decorating to enjoy. The title page must be the first exception to this rule. Not even the Table of Contents, on the opposite page, makes up for the dull dreariness that I was faced with when I turned to this page. I would go all out to make this page more acceptable, when compared to the rest of the pages. That is why I decided to decoupage some lovely serviettes onto this double page spread. I felt as if I was sitting down to a feast when I looked at the Table of Contents, which seemed to resemble a menu to the finest dining. For this reason, I opted to use the theme of dining and feasting on this page layout. When my mind started to wander into the area of feasting, it reminded me of the passage in Matthew 22, The Parable of the Great Feast.

Jesus also told them other parables. He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify those who were invited. But they all refused to come!
“So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘The feast has been prepared. The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the banquet!’ But the guests he had invited ignored them and went their own way, one to his farm, another to his business. Others seized his messengers and insulted them and killed them.
“The king was furious, and he sent out his army to destroy the murderers and burn their town. And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor. Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the proper clothes for a wedding. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how is it that you are here without wedding clothes?’ But the man had no reply. Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind his hands and feet and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Whatever else we do in life, let us all make sure that we are both among the chosen, as well as the prepared when we are invited to the Great Feast.

The page that I was faced with today, was the Contents and Title pages in the Inspire Praise Bible.

I knew that I wanted to experiment with using serviettes in my journal Bible and grabbed a box that I keep for this purpose.

If I was going to decoupage a serviette into my Bible, I wanted to be absolutely sure that it would not cover any of the writing in my Bible. I therefore decided to test the possibility on one of my poems first.

I decided to use Dala Acrylic Matt Glaze Medium to decoupage with as this was the medium that I wanted to work on after the decoupaging was done. I also settled on these cute serviettes of jolly chefs. I liked the idea of sitting down to a feast when looking at the Contents page of a Bible, for this is pretty much how I feel when I feast on the Bread of the Word of God. I decided to work with this theme of food and feasting for this double page spread.

I first took precaution to remove the backing from the serviette.

The I cut the section from the serviette that I would like to use.

I coated the page in a layer of the medium.

Then I lay the serviette in place. It was only when the serviette became wet that I realized that these particular serviettes had yet a second layer of backing paper that needed to be removed. My first attempt was therefore a dud.

I removed the extra backing paper from the serviette.

Then I decoupaged the serviette to the page.

I let it dry completely before continuing.

Then I sealed the serviette with the medium.

I noticed that the brush I had used, was much to hard. It dragged the serviette along in places. It would be better to use a very soft brush or a sponge.

I was very impressed with how legible the print was beneath the serviette. I could repeat this in my Bible then.

Here you can see my test page for yourself.

I was now ready to turn to the Bible.

These were the food-themed serviettes at my disposal.

I removed the backing papers and cut the pieces from the serviettes that I wanted to use. I lay them on my Bible to test the layout.

Then I decoupaged them to the pages, as I explained in the steps above. I made sure to cover my pages completely with the medium, as I wanted to ensure that nothing I used on the pages later on, would bleed through to the backs of the pages. Remember to place your page protection shields in place before your start! I let the pages dry completely before I continued.

I trimmed the parts of the serviettes that peeked out from the edges of the paper.

Then I sealed the serviettes with a coating of the medium.

Once the medium was dry, I placed the page protecting shield between the two treated pages, and wedged the Bible under the weight of yet another Bible to straighten the warped and wrinkled pages.

What the pages looked like when I opened the Bible back up.

I then painted the pages a bright yellow, using my aqua brush and watercolours.

I used a metallic pen to colour the word 'Content.'

I used fineliners to colour the intricate small detail on the sides of the journaling.

I then used a stamp to spell out the words 'Come to the feast Matt 22.' I stamped this in green Distress Ink on both pages.

What the pages looked like when I was done with it.

You can watch a short compilation video of the steps above on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/XJvKUnLMw_k

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2005,2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

Inspire PRAISE South Africa edition copyright 2017 by Christian Art Publishers, PO Box 1599, Vereeniging, 1930, RSA. All rights reserved.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great product reviews, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
If you are in a literary mood, follow Miekie's musings, stories and poetry on A Pretty Author - Miekie.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making life PRETTY.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs and receive regular updates by email. Simply register your email address at the top of the applicable blog.

Bible Journaling - Colouring the fifth and sixth pages of the Bible while contemplating Names

The page that faced me next in my Bible, was the one that had the title of the Bible printed boldly on it. The Bible makes a big issue of names, both those of people, as well as those of God Himself. My thoughts trailed off to the names that I mention before God in my prayers. I also mentions issues by their names in my prayers. Then I remembered a poem I had written a while ago. It seemed to fit nicely with this whole idea of names and titles, so I include it in today's blog, before I share the steps I took to decorate this particular double page layout.

Prayer warrior
There was nothing frail about her;
clad in the armour of a warrior,
as she lay propped up in her bed,
her cheeks all flushed and ruby red.

She called them up, one by one
as she put them all before the Son
Who gave His life to set them free
so they could live life fearlessly.

She mentioned sickness, pain and strife
as she pleaded for abundant life
for those she held dear in her heart
though their lives were torn apart.

She called temptation by its name
and begged that it be put to shame,
asked for wisdom in its place
for those who met it face to face.

This grey old girl, her body small
stood in her prayers erect and tall,
for she knew her Father’s loving care
would keep the ones mentioned in prayer.

An original poem by Miekie (Marietjie Uys)

These were the two faces that I encountered today.

I decided to prepare the pages by coating it with Dala Acrylic Matt Glaze Medium.

Never forget to put a shield in your Bible to prevent you from gluing your pages together with the medium.

Clean the shield and move it over to the next page to prepare that side as well.

Allow the Bible to lie open while the medium dries.

Once the medium is touch dry, place your shield between the two treated pages and place weight on top of the Bible to straighten the wrinkles in the pages.

See how nicely my pages have recovered from all that buckling and wrinkling?

I decided to do this page in autumn colours and started the butterflies in yellow and orange.

The journaling was also started in yellow and orange.

I used more shades of orange and brown to complete the journaling.

Then I coloured the most prominent leaves.

I then moved on to the most prominent flowers.

I used a very muted green on the smaller leaves.

I used more green and yellows on the remainder of the leaves and the bases of the flowers.

I used a bright red on what appeared to be something like berries. I left the smallest flowers uncoloured.

Then I washed the whole background in blue watercolours. I used my aqua brush for this purpose.

Finally, I inked the edges of the page with Tim Holtz Distress Ink.

The completed page layout.

You can watch a short compilation video of these steps on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/LrPCgk4lUtY

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2005,2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

Inspire PRAISE South Africa edition copyright 2017 by Christian Art Publishers, PO Box 1599, Vereeniging, 1930, RSA. All rights reserved.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great product reviews, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
If you are in a literary mood, follow Miekie's musings, stories and poetry on A Pretty Author - Miekie.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making life PRETTY.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs and receive regular updates by email. Simply register your email address at the top of the applicable blog.

Bible Journaling - Colouring the third and fourth pages of the Bible while contemplating Attitude

God makes me happy. I find such immense pleasure in my relationship with Him. Do you know what I mean? I am sure you must, because the idea is not one that originated with me. There are numerous passages in the Bible that speaks of the joy that is to be found in God. The best known is probably Philippians 4:4 which says, "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again - rejoice!" Years ago, I wrote a very short four line poem in which I expressed the attitude with which I intend to approach life. This has since become somewhat of a life motto for me. In today's blog, I share this poem with you, while I show you how to prepare your pages to receive mediums that would otherwise bleed through to the reverse side of the page, if left untreated.

Ecstasy

I shall embark once more on a journey of ecstasy.
I shall travel light, for I shall indeed need naught but who I am.
I shall hold closely, I shall give freely, and I shall laugh every step of the way,
for I am a woman, wanting and willing, to give my love as I may.

An original poem by Marietjie Uys (Miekie)

The next pages in my Inspire Praise Bible, again has a double spread layout of pages that need to be coloured. This time they have left the journaling block open for me to fill. I decided that I would like to fill it with the poem that I had shared above, titled Ecstasy. In the meantime, I had the issue of bleeding to contend with on this layout as well, as my previous journaling attempts had left its mark on these pages when the markers I had used, bled through to this layout.

I decided that I would use mainly inks on these two pages. It would therefore be essential that I prepared the surfaces well before I started. Not having been able to obtain clear gesso yet, I opted to use the Dala Acrylic Matt Glaze Medium in my possession, instead. I slipped the plastic cover from my Mont Marte Watercolour pad behind the page I was working on and painted the whole page with the Glaze Medium.

Then I pulled the protecting plastic out and slipped it behind the opposite page, before painting this page with the Glaze Medium as well.

I added a weight to the cover of my Bible that kept on wanting to close and left the Bible open like that for the medium to dry.

When it was completely dry, I slipped the plastic shield in between the two painted pages and turned the Bible upside down to press the paper flat, as it had become slightly wrinkly from the wet gel medium. When I opened it up the next day, the pages were perfectly smooth again.

I started the colouring of these pages with my brand new Mont Marte Adult Colouring Duo Markers. These have a fineliner tip on one end and a brush tip on the other end, making them perfect to fill larger or smaller areas quickly and accurately.

I also used the Giotto Turbo Dobble markers on the page. Once again the markers each have to points; a fine point on one end and a thicker tapered bullet point on the other end.

I decided to add a little bit of bling to the page and introduced the Giotto Turbo Glitter markers, as well as some metalic pens. It was the Glitter markers that had bled through from the previous pages, but this time I was confident that I had taken the proper precautions.

I also used my trusted Staedtler Triplus fineliners on the page.

When I wanted to use the colour from the fineliners in the larger areas, I found it very tedious to colour these with that small tip. I therefore only scribbled a couple of lines in the leaves I wanted green.

Then I wet the ink with my wet Aqua Brush and painted the ink into the areas. The Aqua Brush is a watercolour brush that has a reservoir in the handle which can be filled with water. When you paint with it, the water runs down the brush at a steady and controlled rate, allowing you to do watercolour painting without needing to dip the brush in water. As the palm of my hand was smudging my inks as I was working, I used the plastic shield I had cut from my Mont Marte Watercolour Pad as a shield to rest my hand on as I worked. This solved the issue of smudging my own work very effectively.

I then wet some blue watercolours to fill in the background on the page.

I carefully painted the background with watercolours paint using my aqua brush. Be careful not to lift any of those watersoluble inks, though!

I then fetched my mouth atomizer and a large metal paper clip from my art and craft collection. I wanted to spray some ink on my page to mask the blotches left from the bleeding. The mouth atomizer allows me to see more clearly where my ink will end up. Otherwise, you can simply use a straw as well. Place the tip of a marker right under the opening of the straw and blow hard. A fine mist of ink will end up on your paper. With the atomizer, I clamped the marker so to the bottom leg of the atomizer so that the tip of the marker was directly under the opening of the top leg. Then I blew hard and had the same results as with the straw, but more hands-free and with better control. I tested this on a loose piece of paper first, before using it in my Bible.

I then went ahead and prayed the glitter ink on my page. The effect was lovely and it masked those blotches beautifully.

The question was if all of this ink and water and spraying had bled through to the other pages? As you can see, no damage was done to the previous pages. I loved the idea that suddenly occurred to me as I did this check. As Christians, we can never allow ourselves to live lives that do not consider others as well. Whenever we do, the effects may be damaging to those others, not unlike the blotches left by my first inconsiderate start to the project. However, it is also true that the pages that had their foundation well prepared and in place, did not damage any other pages, nor did it suffer too greatly from the damage done by the inconsiderate ones. With a little preparation, it was possible to take the necessary steps to reduce the damage done by others and even turn it into a thing of beauty. There is a lesson to be learned here for all of us.

The pages on the other side of the project did not show any signs of bleeding either. Fabulous!

In a previous blog, I had commented on how it was necessary for us as believers, to always consider others in our Spiritual walk on this earth. I now again found myself having to stop what I was doing in consideration of the next page. This is very much the way we are supposed to live as Christians as well. Sometimes we need to stop what we are doing, not for our own sake, but for the sake of our fellow believers, or for the sake of the damage our actions may do to the perceptions others have of God. I wanted to decoupage a poem onto the page, but that would leave a line when I coloured the next page. This meant that I would have to colour that page, before I could continue on this one. The blog cannot show you the timing of these projects, but that is exactly what I did, before coming back to finish this page.

I found this printed version of the poem that I wanted to decoupage onto the page.

I had to crop it extensively to fit in the given block.

I would use Dala Acrylic Gel Medium to decoupage the poem onto the page.

I painted the Acrylic Gel Medium onto the backs of the individual lines.

I then stuck them down individually in their places.

I waited for the gel medium to dry before continuing.

I sealed the poem with the same medium that I prepared the page with, as I wanted the mediums that I would use on top of the poem, to react similarly as for the rest of the poem. The medium is Dala Acrylic Matt Gloss Medium.

After the sealant had dried, I coloured the poem block with watercolours.

The I sprayed some glitter ink on the poem to make it part of the rest of the page.

The finished product.

You can watch a compilation video of these steps on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/U8g_SuFgckE

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2005,2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

Inspire PRAISE South Africa edition copyright 2017 by Christian Art Publishers, PO Box 1599, Vereeniging, 1930, RSA. All rights reserved.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy my books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
You may prefer to follow the traveling blog, A Pretty Tourist.
For more crafty ideas and great product reviews, visit A Pretty Talent on Facebook.
If you are in a literary mood, follow Miekie's musings, stories and poetry on A Pretty Author - Miekie.
Remember to keep nurturing your TALENT for making life PRETTY.
You can subscribe to any of these blogs and receive regular updates by email. Simply register your email address at the top of the applicable blog.