Trust - the Language of the Heart

I love the quote below which comes from Streams in the Desert, a most wonderful devotional book by Mrs C.E. Cowman.

"The word TRUST is the heart word of faith.  The word faith expresses more an act of the will and belief an act of the mind.  But TRUST is the language of the heart."

We all go through difficult times when we don't know what on earth has hit us.  This is when the only thing we can do is reach out to God and trust Him to bring all to good as He has promised.  To quote from Streams in the Desert again: 

Trust sees and feels and leans upon a person, a great, true, living heart of love - that's God.  We may not understand what is happening to us, but we know He loves us and will see us through this time and indeed bring it to good.

Here is my art journal page where I simply wanted to play with my new PaperArtsy Jofy stamps which I won :) their current challenge is 'Flowers'.

I wanted to have a mainly white backround with just a little colour.  A scoochy sponge is perfect for this, giving a speckled backround.  I also stamped the circles which came with the set to add a bit more interest:

I love Jofy stamps and these flowers are so much fun to use.  I coloured them in with water colour pencils:

This bird, another Jofy stamp, is so adorable, I had to add him, his expression is so cute:

I'm linking up at:

PaperArtsy
Create With Joy Friendship Friday

Religion/Relationship

The Glory Art Scripture Challenge this time was on 'religion' and I really liked the following quote:

"Religion is about our attempt to reach God. 

The Gospel is about the truth that God reached out to us. 

God is not about religion, He is about relationship."

People can be pretty negative about 'religion'.  And can you wonder at it when religion is all about following a set of rules whereas what God really wants is to be in a living relationship with us which we do through the power of the Holy Spirit. We follow God and obey Him because we love Him, not because we are following a set of rules. 

Here are my scripture cards:

I had a partially finished masterboard which I added more layers to:

I added stamping for interest:

Then I cut the masterboard up:

and added texture paste through my new leaf stencil from PaperArtsy which was part of my prize :)

I sponged  colour with the stencil in place and the texture paste still wet:

So don't be put off about God because you think religion is not for you.  Open your heart to Him and you will see that He wants a living relationship with you.  He wants you to know that Jesus His Son died on the cross and paid the price for your sins so that your sins would be forgiven.  Jesus rose from the dead and now wants you to come and follow Him.

I'm linking up at:

Glory Art Scripture Challenge

Creative Every Day

Create With Joy Inspire Me Monday

Clock flowers

 We have a custom at my church where we take it in turns to make birthday cards and everyone signs them and says encouraging things to the person whose birthday it is.  This time it was my turn to make a card for Penny who is 60 and happens to be one of my closest friends.

 I used stamps and stencils including some of the new goodies I won recently from PaperArtsy.  Their current challenge is 'Time' which fit perfectly with the verse which I chose.  Leandra showed us a wonderful journal spread where she used clock faces as flowers.  I just had to do that too but made my flowers to have clock centres all stamped with different times. 

The backround was painted and then stencilled with the leaves which I overlapped.

I stamped the flowers on painted card and cut out.  I don't often do fussy cutting it takes too long!

I'm linking up at:
That's Crafty Masks and Stencils challenge
Craft Stamper
PaperArtsy

Double Portion - SOC 6 Orange Orange Blue

This is the final week at Summer of Colour - its a challenge where we are given different colours each week and can make anything we like.  Its been so much fun and I am oh so sad that it is going to finish after this week.  A big big thank you to Kristin for hosting this.  There is still time to join in, everyone is so friendly and encouraging too with their lovely comments and you might even win the final giveaway!

Talking about giveaways.... I was amazed and thrilled to win the Summer of Colour week 4 giveaway.  But I was even more amazed and totally thrilled this week because I also won the PaperArtsy £50 giveaway for their last topic which was stencils!!!  2 giveaways in the space of a week - a double portion - how incredible is that??!!!

The SOC colours this week were orange orange blue which I love and I decided to use them for the new PaperArtsy challenge which is 'Time'.  Pop on over and see, there is always so much brilliant inspiration from the designers and also from everyone who takes part.  I love their stamps and chalk paints too.  I made a card for a friend who is celebrating both his 60th birthday and also getting married.

I brayered the backround with two different oranges and stamped a script and the clocks, layering a few of them.

I made another quick and simple card using the leftover brayered backround:

 I just had to create an art journal page to mark the occasion of winning the giveaways and went with the orange orange blue.  This time I majored on stencils - the current challenge at That's Crafty  where they are bringing out their own range of stencils.  I haven't got one yet but they look great.  I used a Sunburst stencil from That Special Mask which I used with different colours:

I used the Sunburst with texture paste painted over in the blue and then added another texture pasted one and sponged it orange with the stencil still in place.  I like doing this because you get a nice bit of white edge too from the texture paste.  It did leak underneath though because it wasn't an even surface but who cares!

The title folds out and has my journaling.  I quite often add hidden journaling like this:

I felt so incredibly blessed to win these two giveaways.  As a Christian I don't believe in coincidences, I think they are God-incidences :)  I felt God was saying to me, 'Why shouldn't I bless you?'  We are His children and He loves us and loves to bless us - so I am very grateful for my double portion!

I'm linking up at:
Summer of Colour 5 at Twinkle Twinkle
PaperArtsy
That's Crafty
Art Journal Every Day
Create With Joy Friendship Friday

Glory Art no 12 - God's Will

The Glory Art scripture challenge this time was on God's Will and Patter was encouraging us to think about how much we ask God to know His will for ourselves for each day rather than following our own agenda.  This is quite challenging really because we all have things we need to do and things we would like to do.  But are these God's plans for us?  The bible tells us that God loves us, knows what is best for us and has good plans for us.  So it behoves us to stop and consider if what we are doing is really God's will for us.  It also applies to our loved ones.  We need to trust God for His plans for them.

I am so enjoying this challenge.  I love reading the bible and love reading the different scriptures which Patter chooses each time and it encourages me to go search the bible for more on each topic.  I'm doing scripture cards for this challenge and making them up into a devotional book.

These scriptures are wonderful!

I scraped red for the backround and added speckles of white with a scoochy sponge, which I'm really into at the moment:

I added stamping in the backround, two of my favourites - Kaisercrft 'Arty':

 and IndigoBlu Script Backround:

Then I added Ultramarine Blue through a stencil.  I found this at a knockdown bargain price but its gone all funny!  A clear gunge comes out first followed by the blue paint which is all gungy.  Now I know why it was so cheap, I can still use it though.

The thing about God's Will is that it is good and best for us.  When we try and go our own way we get into trouble!  Read these verses and KNOW that God's plans for you are good and best.

I'm linking up at
Glory Art at Triple the Scraps
Create With Joy Inspire Me Monday
Creative Every Day

Pour Out the Oil (SOC 5 - Green Green Pink )

At Summer of Colour this week's challenge was to use green green pink - we can create anything we like.  But before I go on I must just say - I was THRILLED, totally THRILLED, to be last week's giveaway winner!  I never expected it, how amazing is that???  Can't wait to receive my red and metallic goodies.

I was inspired to do this journal page by something I read in 'Streams of the Desert' by CE Cowman.  It was the story of a man who went through his life carrying a little can of oil.  Whenever he went through a door or a gate which creaked or was hard to open he put a little oil on the hinges.  People thought he was weird but he carried right on filling his can and oiling the hard places he went through.

We are also called to do just that.  There are many people around us whose lives creak and grate and are harsh.  We can carry our own little can and pour our oil of kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, encouragement into all those hard places.  A little kind word or help can go such a long way and make all the difference to someone who might not know how they are going to get through the day.

Here are my two greens and pink:

and my page:

I drew and painted the can separately and then glued it in - I wasn't brave enough to try straight onto the page!  We are allowed black and white too.

I did a second page because I did my usual trick of squeezing out way too much paint.  This time I used a different second green:

This page was inspired by the theme at Art Journal Journey this month which is Post and Postage.  I've been praying about a family situation for a long time and waiting for God to answer in His own perfect time which is I don't know when.  It got me thinking that it's just like waiting for a parcel from overseas in the post, its definitely coming but you're not sure when its going to arrive!

I spread the leftover green thinly with a baby wipe and used the second green to stencil the diamonds.  I wanted to have another go at the bump technique which Leandra showed at PaperArtsy for their Stencils challenge - you stencil a first colour then 'bump' the stencil a little and use again with a different colour, giving a lovely shadow effect.  My first attempt was not a success due to too runny texture paste which seeped under the stencil.  This time was a bit better although still not quite right:

The stamp was a freebie from Craft Stamper magazine. 

Summer of Colour 4 - Red Red Gold

Its already week 4 at Summer of Colour where we have to create anything we like using the colours of the week which are 2 shades of one colour plus one other colour.  This week was a real challenge, we had to use red, red and gold!  Now I love red, but 2 reds?  Challenge was the  name of the game!

I wanted to use stencils because that is what the current challenge is at PaperArtsy but actually mainly because I love stencils and use them on nearly everything!

After a promising start stencilling a wall in black, white and gold the page quickly became one of those pages where everything goes wrong!  I wanted to use my favourite PaperArtsy flower stencil Jofy 009 with my home made texture paste tinted in one of the reds. Also to do the bump technique which Leandra showed in a video where you stencil a dark colour first, then move the stencil just a little and use a lighter colour giving a lovely shadow.  My first layer was black.  Then the trouble began.  The texture paste was too runny because I used too much paint and I had started on the left hand side of my journal where the textures on the previous pages were giving me a bumpy surface - not good for texture paste!  My bump shadow effect was distinctly blurry.  Next, I added my second red to the flowers and hated it!  So I covered it in gold.  Anyway, enough already, I kept going and this was the final result:

I went around some of the flower parts with a black pen to bring back some of the shadow effect:

I like to have crisp edges when I'm using my texture paste but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.  I wrote the words on paper painted with the dark red and added the splatters and spots in the other red. 

Sometimes our old preconceived ideas or ingrained habits prevent us from growing or developing and we need to sweep them aside to learn something new.

I had way too much texture paste left so scraped the remainder on the facing page.  Obviously still very much in red mode I painted all over it with the bright red - did I really want to do another page for this week's colours?!  Yes!  My first page only had a bit of red, I needed to go really RED, or RED RED:

I painted the flowers in the dark red, added gold through a stencil and for the flower centres, and black through a dotty card which I also used as a stamp to get the reverse:

I outlined the flowers to lift them:

And the words?  Well I used to be a perfectionist, but I'm learning to simply enjoy the process.  Not quite there yet but I've made big progress!

I'm linking up at:
PaperArtsy - Stencil challenge
Summer of Colour at Twinkle Twinkle
Art Journal Every Day
Creative Every Day