Anxiety v faith - beginning and end

When we go on holiday to Teesdale (this year I wrote about it here ) our first port of call is a wonderful huge second hand Christian bookshop in Barnard Castle.  There are all sorts of wonderful books here, new and old and very old.  This year I found some real treasures. Here are two of them:

One of the topics in Streams in the Desert really spoke to me.  When we pray we need to hold onto God's promises whether it be promises in the bible or those quiet assurances He gives us straight into our hearts.  If we don't and we start to look at the problem we are praying for while we go on praying we are liable to pray ourselves out of faith!  I realised this is what I had been doing.  Well I straight away stopped praying in a panicky, anxious way and reminded myself of God's faithfulness and goodness and His promises to me.  Faith immediately returned and grew :)

Here is a journal page I did with one of the quotes in the book:

 

I used Cosmic Shimmer sprays for the backround and then my lovely Paper Artsy Jofy stamps:

 

I added the Tim Holtz Rays stencil over the quote:

At the Name of Jesus is a wonderful compilation with a daily verse from the bible, a name of Jesus and a commentary.  Here is the page I read around the same time as I read the one above:

It was a double whammy!!!  Anxiety and worry took a running jump and I haven't allowed them to return!

As you read this I pray that you too will allow Jesus to take every fear and burden of your life.  He is able to do great things in you, for you, and through you, today and every day.

I'm linking up at:

Art Journal Every Day 

Word Art Wednesday 

Art Journal Journey - Flower Power 

Creative Every Day 

Fun with Darcy

I came across Darcy Journaling at Paper Artsy for the first time this week and was amazingly inspired by her wonderful page with her step by step insructions which included things I'd never done before like pressing stencils into texture paste and making a stunning backround and then RIPPING IT UP!!!  I thought I've just got to give this a go.  I got mixed results......

I was really pleased with the texture paste effect (I used my own home made paste):

which was painted:

then covered with white paint and I loved the effect:

But my backround was a bit of a disaster because I chose the wrong colours and I was in a hurry.  Here it is ripped up (forgot to take the photo when it was whole :)

I stamped hearts rather than flowers because I've got a thing about heart shaped flowers.  Here's how I used my ripped up backround.  I made several blunders like trying to doodle flowers which I really didn't like and had to cover with more white paint!!!  Maybe I'll add a title and / or journaling.

 

This was super fun to do and I shall be using this technique again.

I'm linking up at
Art Journal Every Day
Paper Artsy Darcy Journalling
Create with Joy Friendship Friday
Art Journal Journey - Flower Power

Summertime

I LOVE SUMMER.  I love the sun, love the heat, love the flowers, love the beach, love the long evenings, love summer clothes.... I could go on listing all the things I love about summer, but one of my very best things about summer is my garden and my wonderful roses.  I have a small garden but I counted my roses the other day and I have 14!  That's a lot of roses in one small garden!!!  They are all different and all scented - light pink, dark pink, white, yellow, deep red.

I should of course at this point show some pictures of my roses but unbelievably I haven't taken any this year.  So instead I did a journal page which was really inspired by the heat of summer and summer flowers.  I didn't think I could paint a rose so I've used flower stencils (didn't have a rose stencil) and punches instead:

The backround is yellow and a small amount of pink scraped with a credit card.  I was amazed when it resulted in this wonderful texture and colour.  I wanted to keep the warmth so the stencilling is all in white:

 

The ric rac was white and I dyed it green for the stems by running an ink pad over them.  The flowers are made using punched hearts:

 

I liked the punched hearts negative so stuck that down too:

What a beautiful world we live in!  I made a card celebrating creation recently (see it here) and this page follows on.  Our God truly is the awesome Creator.  He's blessed us with infinite variety and wonderful beauty and its so good to be able to enjoy it.

I'm linking up at:

Art Journal Every Day

That's Crafty - Masks and stencils challenge

Country View Challanges - Stencil It

Art Journal Journey - Flower Power

Our Creative Corner - Home made flowers and hand dyed ribbon challenge

Simple greetings for summer cards

The theme next Friday 25th July at Scrap and Yap, a monthly craft group I help run in Northampton, is summer and boxes - ok, that's 2 themes :)  We usually make a few examples as inspiration for our members and I decided to use some lovely Hero Arts seashell stamps which I've had a long time.

Sometimes a simple greeting is all that is needed on a card and here is one of my favourite ones.  The shells have been embossed in white and then sponged with distress inks:

Shells just speak to me of hugs!

 

I wanted to make a super simple stamped shells card but couldn't resist adding the twine and buttons:

 

And finally, another greeting with hugs.  Sometimes if we can't be with a loved one the next best thing is to send a hug :)

Here they all are together:

I had fun with my seashells but it made me want to be on a beach!

I'm linking up at  

Word Art Wednesday

Create with Joy Friendship Friday

Inspiration Emporium 

Craft Stamper - embossing resist challenge 

Creative Every Day 

Let Creation Rise

We take it in turns in my church household to make birthday cards for each other which we all sign and write encouraging messages.  Here is one I did for a really good friend.  She and her husband love to walk in beautiful places and really appreciate God's wonderful creation so I thought I would use some of the lyrics of one of our songs:

The backround is sponged distress inks, sprayed with water, dried and then sprayed again with Cosmic Shimmer Pearl mist which gives it a lovely sheen.  I stamped butterflies on the backround and then made extra butterflies which I cut out:

 

The wings are folded up and they are glued only in the centre to give a 3d effect:

I'm linking up at:

 Word Art Wednesday 

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge 'Start From Scratch' 

Creative Every Day

Scrapping Everyday Miracles New Heart - Create/Creation challenge

Be Still and Know

The verse this week at Word Art Wednesday is a lovely one:

Be still and know that I am God

Ps 46: 10

In today's frantic world where we hurry, hurry, hurry to get more and more done it can be difficult to find the time to stop and really think and pray or just be.  There's a beauty in the phrase 'be still'.  It conjures up an image of ... stillness, serenity, calm, focus, peace, a quietness deep in one's being.  When we are still like this we can see and hear so much more clearly.  God is saying we need to be still to fully understand who He is.

Here is my art journal page where I did no journaling at all; after all, when we're being still and quiet there's no need for words :)

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is W is for White so I used a lot of white on my page including my home made texture paste - made with white talc :) ; and at Country View Crafts the challenge is to Stencil It so it was a good opportunity to use my lovely new stencil from Finnabair:

 It was quite tricky adding the texture paste through the stencil over the middle section.  I like to have rougher areas of texture but this turned out really blobby!

I hope you too manage to be still and find that quietness, peace and focus which we all need.

I'm linking up at:
Art Journal Every Day
Word Art Wednesday
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge
Country View Challenges
Create with Joy Friendship Friday