Nautical metaphors - for Country View Challenges

I was over the moon to have won the stencil challenge at Country View Challenges and to be given the opportunity to be a guest designer for their September challenge which is Nautical.  This is my first time as a guest designer so I admit I had a complete attack of nerves and wondered why on earth I had agreed to do it!!  I also have NO nautical items in my stash so I had to engage in lateral thinking to do this project which in the end was a lot of fun.

I decided to do an art journal page using nautical images as metaphors for Jesus:

• He is my Saviour so the lifebelt shows He rescued me and has given me new life.  
• He is the anchor of my soul and I hold tight to my hope in Him - with an unbreakable chain He links me to the Father heart of God.  
• He is the Light of the World and the Way, the Truth and the Life.  Like a lighthouse shining in stormy seas He shines His light in my life and shows me the way to live and to go.  
• He is the wind in my sails and I want Him to be the driving force in my life.

 I wanted plenty of texture to replicate stormy seas.  I started by scraping my home made texture paste (white acrylic paint, pva glue and talc) over the lower two thirds of the page, then pressing a swirl embossing folder into the paste:

I added acryic paint:

The texture shows through:

I tore white paper into strips for waves:

Then scraped white all over:

The texture is still showing through:

Then I added stencils (Tim Holtz Rays and Crafters Workshop Mini Flying Geese) and stamped all over with a lovely script stamp which has lots of the names of Jesus:

I embossed the four tags with the swirls embossing folder and coloured them in different ways.  The words were printed out.  I journaled on the backs of the tags then cut red card strips and doodled love on them - can't leave love out when doing a page on Jesus!  I downloaded the images and stuck them to the strips.  The strips are glued down on 3 sides and the tags are slotted in so they can be removed to read:

So here are the finished tags and pages:

After being in a complete panic when I saw the challenge I ended up really enjoying doing this spread.  It was also really inspiring and a blessing to come up with the metaphors and think about all that Jesus means to me in this way.

May He be these things to you as well.


I'm linking up at:
Create with Joy Inspire me Monday
Creative Every Day
Art Journal Every Day