Did Dinosaurs Lie

You know, I always walk around with the Cheshire cat talking in my head. He knows so many fascinating things. I wonder what really happened to the dinosaurs. I thought I'd ask him but Absalom said he's not available.

My concern, you see, is what if dinosaurs incurred the wrath because they couldn't tell the truth? Even if you're a big dinosaur, you still have fears of lava, limited food choices, and no fizzy water.

I mean...we even get trepidatious if we have to share an unpleasant truth. Sometimes we feel like we are the littlest prey item out in big jungle. Stick fast to the truth. I'm going to tell you the truth right now. This page was a blast to make and God intervened to make sure the message was perfect. Here are some stepped out images so you can see it. I don't video all of these because it takes a while to develop. It gets to a certain point, then I have to set it aside until I hear it whispering again. You don't get that? Uh oh. Maybe that's too much truth! I'm weird!

My process starts with slapping on acrylic paint and adhering paper text, different fiddly design items, like archival ink on a random word or background stamp. It looks very chaotic and unnatural. So I take out my stencils and some white acrylic paint to push the background, um, to the back. I'm sorry - it's hard to explain, but light paint colors with a random pattern actually calm everything down and promotes cohesion.

While that is resting, I pull out some gel prints that were left-over from another project I added white gel pen marks, black pen marks, and liquid pearls. I cut them into this shape because I knew I wanted flowers. I set these aside to cure.

I love a grungy brayer. The background was a still too assertive so I added light colored acrylics paints to push it back a little more.

I test fit the letters and flowers. The large letters are Stampin' Up! dies, and the smaller ones are by Mama Elephant. I cut them out of Very Vanilla cardstock. [All supplies will be listed at the end.] I added Dylusions paint to the stems of the flower trees. I love this type of art. Nothing has to make sense or fit with reality. Kinda like me! The leaves are die cuts from SU! botanical builder.

A little more paint love, it really needed grass. Here's where God took over. There was an amazing hop with great artists and I was reintroduced to My Favorite Things. I fell in love with this dinosaur set. When it arrived, the journal was just sitting in one of it's quiet periods. God said put a dino on it! Make it scary because that's how the truth is sometimes. I had no idea where this was going until those dinos arrived. Hence, grass. You'll note the chicken wire stamped over TRUTH, and some shading going on at this stage.

Now, I often seal or "freeze" my work as I go. There are 2 good reasons. The cat is an arse, I frequently mess up. I use Mod Podge matte paint-on sealer if there are few things the wetness of the MP will react with. I use Mod Podge matte spray-on sealer if there are lots of waterbased mediums in play. I use Matte Gel Medium (Liquatex, but many brands are just fine) if I'm too lazy to reach for MP, or if I have it out on my table already.

Here we are. I've glued down the leaves and flower petals. I've added one of my favorite dies from Botanical Builder - the centers of the flower. I cut those out of glimmer paper just for fun. The butterfly is just resting there. He decided to move on to a later project. You can see that I've added some shading around the flowers and black ink (Versafine) around the edges of the pages. Back on the shelf.

Lady Pi just helped herself onto the blog. 

This is where the dinosaurs just took over. You have to watch these - they will eat all your Cheetos, or Beaver Nuggets. I watercolored them with  my Pebeo kit. I added some texture to the background with SU!'s hardwood background stamp and Ranger Archival ink.

This is where I thought it was finished. But that upper right corner bugged me. Nothing I tried looked right up there. I went back and talked to God. He was the one with the dino plan, after all. Yes, I firmly believe you can talk to God about anything. And He does answer.

He asked me to remember how speaking the truth felt. How it felt when it was easy and no one disagreed. How it felt when you were unsure about how it would be received. And especially how it felt when you knew no one would agree with you and attach ugly labels to your name. I realized it was possible to be anywhere on that spectrum - easy to very frightening. This is how that corner became significant.

That's the final item. Complete with additional shading, random added white gel pen accents, a splattering of black and white acrylic paint, random liquid pearls, etc. I added the flower centers (gold faceted gems and a custom color enamel dot) and some glitter enamel dots. I darkened the edges again because that really frames things and pulls your eye inward.

Aren't they scary?

It would be hard to take them seriously.

Distress Oxides and Concord & 9th Hope set.

Here's the project where I used those leftover leaves. I just couldn't bring myself to throw it away. By the way - there's a group over on Splitcoast Stampers that does Bible art journaling. You're welcome to swing by. I don't bite. Meet some nice people. Get ideas. Have some fun!

Hey - I want to thank you for spending some time here reading my crazy posts. I hope I've given you a little laugh - I mean, you know someone who's worse than you, right? LOL Thanks so much for stopping by. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. You're important. You're perfectly imperfect. You matter.

Ta for now,
~ky

----- Supplies -----

Dylusions journal
Dylusions Cut Grass paint
Acrylic paint - various colors Dina Wakley and Liquitex
Gel Press
Brayer
Liquid Pearls - various colors
Versafine ink
Ranger Archival Ink - various colors
Circle stencil - SU! retired
White Gelly Roll pen
Pebeo watercolor kit
Copic 110, C5 pens
Copic Multiliner
Grass die - the Cat's Pajamas
Glimmer paper - SU! retired
Botanical Builder framelits dies - SU! retired
Large Letters framelits dies - SU!
Hardwood background stamp - SU!
Chicken Wire background stamp - SU! retired
Glitter Enamel Dots - SU!
Gold Faceted Gems - SU!
Inline Letters - Mama Elephant
Khaki QuicKutz letter dies - retired
My Favorite Things Delightful Dinosaurs dies and stamps
General's carbon sketch pencil

Benaiah Sets An Example

Hello friends! Welcome! I wanted to tell you a little story today. It's about tackling fears. Do you need help with that? I do, quite often. I'm always amazed by God's divine writing - every jot and tittle is critical.* You know, then, that even the boring genealogies are there for a purpose. Let's look at this little passage from 2 Samuel 23:20.

Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, performed great exploits. He struck down Moab’s two mightiest warriors. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion.

Did you see it? That last little bit. Who does that? He went down (voluntarily) into a pit (an enclosed space) with a lion (hello, apex predator) on a snowy day (slippery when wet). Talk about facing your fears!?!

Ok, so my fears usually aren't that life-or-death. I still need courage, and God is the one I trust to bring it. This little revelation came to me through the reading of Mark Batterson's book.

Facing fears just for the sake of facing fears is one thing. However, not chasing the lion might be your biggest regret in the end. I've been told I was crazing for doing certain things - lighting fires out of a helicopter, walking the rim of the Grand Canyon in the dark, going to Africa with my health issues. Yet, if I hadn't done those things, I could be sitting here in retirement with a memory filled with regrets and shoulda's. I don't like the idea of coulda-shoulda-woulda-ing all over myself. So I jump! Besides, that's where God does His best business!

This revelation had to be captured in my journaling Bible. I started by sealing my page with clear gesso, then laid down yellow Frog tape to make a clean edge along the text.

I foam blended several colors of Distress Ink for the background. Then I put a diamond stencil over removed some of the Distress Ink with a damp paper towel, revealing a subtle pattern.

I used this image from the internet (credit to Philippines-based designer Kerby Rosanes) and traced it on the page. After tracing, I went over the image again with Copic multiliners. Getting all those lines and dots on there was a treat. I love that part! I followed that with General's carbon pencils and a smudging tortillon to smooth it over.

The letters are stickers that I shaded with carbon pencil and added white dots with my white Gelly Roll pen. I sealed it all with Mod Podge matte spray sealer.

I hope this inspires you to move out of your comfort zone a little, and into your Bible more. Feel free to join us on Splitcoast for the Mix-Ability challenge and our monthly Bible Journaling challenge! Have a great day!

~ky

*(A jot is like the dot of an "i", an iota; and tittle is the crossing of the "t". Reference link.) 

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Watercoloring in Your Bible

Hello sweet people! Thank you for visiting my blog today. I really appreciate your support. I've been getting a few questions but no way to reply to those asking, so I'll answer them today in this post. Please remember to leave me a way to contact you if you have questions. Or you can post them to my Facebook page. This is a bit longer than my usual posts, but I think you'll find it worthwhile.

Beth and Angie both asked about using Stampin' Up! inks in your Bible. I use an onion-skin Bible. The pages are thinner than most journaling Bibles. When I stamp SU! classic inks, they act just like Memento - they are both dye-based inks (water reactive). Because they are very wet water-based inks, they soak through bare pages easily. They also take a few moments to dry and smear easily. They not only soak through, they will imprint the previous page, as well.

What can you do? You can prepare your pages for all kinds of media. I use CLEAR gesso - this came up last week in discussion. If you use regular gesso, it has white acrylic paint in it, making it opaque. I use Liquitex Clear Gesso found at both Hobby Lobby and Michael's. Gesso seals your pages, and it also provides "tooth" or a rough surface that will hold ink, paint, colored pencil, etc. It feels a little gritty when dry. You can get a sanding block and gently smooth the gesso once dry but I usually don't bother.

Please note - thin paper is always going to show the image on the reverse side. This is a function of thin paper. Bleed-through is a totally different problem - it actually obscures the page behind and can affect working that side of the paper. If the thin paper visibility is a problem for you, I'll be giving you some tools next week to help avoid that. Clear gesso reduces bleed-through. If you know you're going to put a lot of wet media on the page, consider using 2 or 3 thin coats of gesso.

Using Versamark ink and heat embossing is another trick to stamping without shadowing or bleeding. If you're going to color with pencils, that's all you need. But if you're using wet media, you will still need to prepare your page with gesso.

I hope that gives you enough info to go on, ladies. Please feel free to ask questions, just make sure you give me a way to respond! Now, today I'm sharing with you how I use water-based pigments to color in my Bible. In this video, I use Stampin' Up! reinkers with a waterbrush to watercolor after heat embossing.

I have always loved the story of Noah and his family. Of course, my predilection of loving animals really drew me to it. It's amazing to think we all trace our roots back to this event. I've been reviewing Genesis and how inclusive it is. It covers creation, the fall of man, a huge flood - all the way to the exodus. A lot of things are going on in this single book! So, dig in and see what you come up with - be sure to share your work! You can inspire someone else no matter what your skill level is. We are all growing, still. Colossians 1:3-14, growing and bearing fruit.

Next week, I'll be sharing my tests of various inks and a variety of papers. I'll have some great samples for you using the most popular inks and providing other tips. So, please look for that!

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Now, a bit of other news. Some of you know that my church has planted a church in San Francisco. This Christmas, our church provided 30 gift cards for needy families identified by a San Fran local school. I was asked to make card holders for those cards. I prayed over every card holder as I made them. It was a joyous time of worship for me, as well.

I was wondering the other day, just a mindless musing, what became of those envelopes and gift cards. I was ok with not knowing - many kindnesses occur daily without shouting back. Yesterday I opened my mailbox and a friend who had worked closely getting all this coordinated had sent me photocopies of notes.

Now, I'm not posting this to toot my own horn. I just want you to enjoy how God chose to use this. The pastor writes:

"I wanted to say thank you so much for sending the Target gift cards. You allowed us to be a blessing in ways that we couldn't imagine! By the time we got the cards and went back to the school counselor, she said that the school community was so generous that there were no more needs. So we went back to our church community and began to pray and ask the Lord what we should do. (Pause.) 

Last October, one of the families we were working with in the homeless/park community got in some trouble and their child was taken away by social services. My family is now fostering him and the families in our church are helping care for him. His mom entered a rehab facility and [is] getting her life back in order.  

She now proclaims Christ and is trying to get her kid back. We have been given the responsibility of supervising her visits with him and helping her learn to parent him better. It's tough, but it has been a huge blessing. (Now back to the story.) 

We felt the Holy Spirit tell us to bless the women & children living in this particular rehab facility that his mom is in. When we inquired, we found out there were the exact amount of kids in this home as there were cards/money that you guys provided us. So as a church we bought each kid a stuffed animal and gave the gift card to the parent to help w/Christmas. I wished you could have been there to see the smiles & tears on their faces. 

God once again has shown us when we follow Him, His plans are way better than ours! Thank you for partnering with us and being a Blessing to us so that we could be a blessing to this community. We now have a huge open door to share the gospel with these women/moms. I attached a "Thank You" card they sent to us but it more appropriately belongs to you guys. From the bottom of our hearts - Thank you for loving and caring for us here in San Francisco. God is at work! To Him be the glory, 1 Peter 4:11."

I'm just blown away. We couldn't have planned or predicted any of this, and I'm grateful to have been used to provide a very small part of this blessing. The handwritten notes from each of the moms are a treasure to read. So much love has been exchanged with such a small gift, and so many more opportunities are waiting to build on this foundation. Just remember - give good.

            Luke 6:38 - Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down,

                 shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. 

                 For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Have a blessed day!

~k

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His Eye Is On The Sparrow

Today I have a treat for you - a new video! I'm working in my Bible, doing some art journaling. I'm using mostly stamping staples for this episode - gesso might be the only thing you don't have on hand.

I love this little birdie! He's really ruling the roost in my house lately. I've colored him with Copic markers. Yes, you can use Copics over gesso if you are quick and light-handed.

I decided he needed a crown. After all, he is one of God's creatures too! Do you love this guy? He's free if you buy $50 (US pre-tax/shipping) of product from Stampin' Up!

Thanks for stopping by today - I hope you've been encouraged and inspired. See you soon!

~ky

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog