It Is Well With My Soul

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3

 Hi Friends! Happy 4th!

What Psalm 46:1-3 is telling us is that through the storms of life, we can rest in Christ. I have always loved the hymn "It Is Well With My Soul". I want to be at peace whether things are calm or stormy. But honestly? I'm not there yet. I want to be like Paul:

"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:11-13

He learned to be content no matter what. And he tells us how he does it: "I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." (Phil 4:13) He learned how to be content in every circumstance and he gets the strength to be content from Christ. I love that! I'm still learning. But I hope one day, that I can say what Paul did. And when I sing "It Is Well With My Soul", it's not just a hymn I love, but a testimony.

Now let's talk about the page. SNEAK PEEK ALERT!!! The hymn is from a set that Sweet n Sassy Stamps will release later this week called Hymn Blocks. It has 6 different hymn stamps and 3 accent stamps. It's a beautiful set that works well for Bible journaling and cards. The other set I used is Living Water.

I used watercolor crayons for the color. The way I use watercolor crayons is to color the page just as if I were using normal crayons. Then I go back with a paint brush and add water. As I paint the water on, the colors melt into watercolors. I love the crayons because they give me control of where each color goes. 

Lord, please teach me and all believers to be content in every and all circumstances through Christ who gives us strength. Yes, and amen!

I wish you all a happy and safe 4th of July! Andrea

Child of the King - Romans 8

You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” - Romans 8:15

Hello everyone! Today I want to show you a page I made with two stamp sets: mini grunge alpha and Child of the King. I love the smaller alphabet because you can just stamp an entire sentence and you’ll still have room to add something else ;). Child of the King had just the perfect elements for this page; the little diamonds and the crown were perfect for this part of Romans (Romans 8:12-17). And of course the sentiment: child of the King matched this part too.

I prepared my page with clear gesso (I use a Dutch journaling bible with extremely thin pages, almost every waterproof ink will bleed through so that’s why I prepare my pages) and started stamping the sentence ‘always wear your invisible crown’. When I stamped the sentence I ended with the word ‘crown’ from the stamp set ‘Child of the King’ but when I finished the stamping I thought the lettering didn’t really match the rest of the sentence so I decided to add some white gesso on top of the stamped word and stamp the word crown with the mini grunge alpha too. I think it would be hard to see if I used another background. But these crayons got a lot less color on the white gesso than on the rest of the page so you can still see that I tried to fix the page. I don’t really mind it (I learned to be a little bit less hard on myself when it comes to journaling mistakes ;)), but it gives a weird color change in the middle of the page. I colored the background with wax crayons that I blended out with odorless mineral spirits. After that I colored the images with colored pencils.

Have a nice day!!
- Lucinde

Sweet As Can Bee

Psalm 119:103 (NLT)

How sweet your words taste to me;

they are sweeter than honey.

I wanted to do some research to find out what exactly this passage meant. When I think of someone writing how sweet the gospel is I can think of my own experiences when I read a passage or passages, or even a devotion that is just what I needed to hear at that exact moment. It literally refreshes the soul, almost like quenching a thirst. I found the Matthew Henry Concise Commentary that I believed summarized it best as he writes:  "The written word is a more sure guide to heaven, than all the fathers, the teachers, and ancients of the church. We cannot, with any comfort or boldness, attend God in holy duties, while under guilt, or in any by-way. It was Divine grace in his heart, that enabled the psalmist to receive these instructions. The soul has its tastes as well as the body. Our relish for the word of God will be greatest, when that for the world and the flesh is least." 

So I created this page using a stamp set from the upcoming Sweet N Sassy July Release. Stay tuned because it's set for July 7th, and you can scoop yourself up some really awesome sets, including this really versatile set that I used. The bees are just gorgeous and the set would be great for journaling or card making! 

I created this page by first prepping with Dina Wakley clear gesso. Once that dried I played around with the layout with the stamps. Once I was satisfied I marked my verse & then stamped with Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black. (Sorry my process pic was taken on my phone with poor lighting)

Once I was sure my ink was dry I began to watercolor with Prima Tropicals & Pastels. I finished off by highlighting my verse in yellow & adding some paint splatters. I also found some washi I felt went well and added a bow tab at the top to mark my page!

 So that's it for today! Hope y'all enjoyed my page, the sneak peek, and are looking forward to the upcoming release ♥

Make sure to hashtag us #sweetnsassystamps on FB and IG so we can see how you 've been inspired & inspire us! 

Be sure to check out the Creative Worship facebook group as well! 
Until next time!

xo
Maria
♥

Shine...

 {jane bosi}

I super wish my photography set up could actually do justice to the projects I create using these amazing stamps!!  The exact minute I saw the Fantastic Flower stamp set, I knew I had been holding on to this $4 wooden mirror purchased a decade ago for a reason!  I am not kidding when I say I've been hoarding it for a decade.  I've had it "on display" in my current studio for the last 4 years we've lived in this house--because I discovered it in the unpacking process.  For the last 4 years, I knew I would eventually be inspired by what was an unpainted 12 x 12 mirror in shrink wrap.

It's been a bit like prayerful waiting.  I knew the answer would come.  Several times, I thought I knew only to realize "no" was the response.  And then, without a doubt, the answer was clear--pretty much after I surrendered and decided it would tell me rather than the other way around!  Fantastic Flowers with a bit of Worthy King.....the project just about did itself!!  :)

Enjoy; be blessed--Jane

You can call me Flower

Hey friends! I am a lover of Disney movies and Bambi is one of my favs! I love the part when Thumper's mom reminds him of what his father tells him, "If you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all." Good advice! Then my other fav quote is when Bambi thinks that the skunk is a flower and the sunk says "You can call me flower if you want to , I don't mind." Two great quotes to remind us to use our words for good and to always see the best in people.

I printed a coloring page that I found online and traced it into my interleaved bible. Then I water colored the skunk "flower" and then I stamped the flowers, Not the skunk;) lol! from the Fantastic Flowers stamp set on some water color paper. I water colored them using mermaid markers to get the bight vibrant colors. I cut the flowers out and attached the flowers with my tape runner to my page. I used the Kindness Matters stamp set to stamp the quote at the top. This movie reminds me of my childhood and I love having a piece of that in my bible now. I journaled it with the verses in Job 3:3-4 Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. We need to remember that our words can either make people stumble or help strengthen weak knees! That's so good! Lift eachother up! The world can tear us down but we can lift each other up by using kind words, so simple right?

Robed in Majesty...

Hi friends,

One of the things I love to do to help with my study of the Bible is to do word studies. When I get a new stamp set I often look up the key words in a concordance or online search and read the scriptures with that word in it. I also like finding out the meaning of the Greek or Hebrew word from which the English comes from. When I received the new Child of the King stamp set I saw the word Majesty and knew I needed to study this word. Majesty means to inspire awe or reverence in the beholder; greatness of appearance, dignity, grandeur and glory. When I looked up the word majesty in the Bible I was struck by how many verses speak about God being clothed or robed in majesty... wow! God is covered with glory, grandeur and dignity and when we behold Him we should be inspired to awe and reverence!

I took a few photos as I created this page so here's a quick tutorial...

Step 1: Stamp the robe and crown image. Use a circular shape to draw around it then a ruler to draw lines to the edges of the pages.

Step 2: Stamp words and letters and arrange alpha stickers to create the text. Go over pencil lines with a fine pen (I used Micron). I stamped the little words on scrap vanilla card and punched out to create the little arrow pieces.

Step 3: Add colour using a water brush and Inktense blocks and some pearl and gold paint.

Step 4: Trace over pen lines with a Faber Castell gold marker and add shadows and darker lines to letters and image.

Be encouraged - no matter what you may be facing, our God is robed in majesty and armed with strength! He is more than able to deliver us from our trials as well as strengthen us while we are in them.

Be blessed!

x Amy x

The Word of the Lord

The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the Lord. And so it is with people. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. 

Isaiah 40:7-8

I love flowers. Ironically enough, I can't keep a plant alive for anything. Seriously, I somehow killed a succulent. Try as I might, the green thumb is non-existent in my limbs. However, I have something much bigger alive inside of me that stands firm. I have the word of God living inside of me ready to be poured out and flourish among others. 

The word of God is alive and powerful...

Hebrews 4:12

Only His word lasts forever. Many people have come and gone preaching and hearing the Gospel. And that's just it. The people preaching and hearing will change, but the word of the Lord stands firm forever. I'm always left in awe when I'm reminded of how constant our Father is. It is the greatest comfort. 

With love,

Lynzee

Stamps Used: 

Mini Grunge Alpha:

http://www.sweetnsassystamps.com/creative-worship-mini-grunge-type-alpha-clear-stamp-set/

Mason Jar Bouquet 

http://www.sweetnsassystamps.com/mason-jar-bouquet-clear-stamp-set/