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:
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