My New Journaling Bible and Weeks 1 & 2 of The Bible Journaling Challenge

Hello Everyone,  Today I'm introducing my new art journaling Bible! For those of you who are not familiar with Bible art journaling, it is a fantastic way to spend time alone with God, in a very creative way. I own a regular Bible for general Bible study as well as a downloaded Bible onto my smartphone for church service. (with the sound muted of course!) 

Not too long ago I ran across Bible art jounaling on Pinterest when I was pinning Christian inspirational art. I was immediately taken with it. I started pinning more and more Bible art jounaling and finally came upon Rebekah R Jones. From there I viewed her YouTube Channel which inspired me to participate in her "Heaven Is Calling" Bible art journaling series. Her voice is so calming and the way she explains the art process makes it so simple and doable for any level of artistic ability. And each week is centered around a particular scripture which you focus and meditate on as you spend time with Jesus. I love it.  She is also sponsoring an art journing Bible giveaway!

This is week 1 for January.  The series comes out once a month on the first Thursday. Rebekah gives a full video step-by-step tutorial on YouTube.  She says in her tutorial that you can also use different supplies and/or methods than she uses.  I'm very relieved about that because ironically, I had just recently purged my craft room of all of my scrap booking supplies. At the time I thought "I really don't scrap book anymore, so when am I ever going to need these?"  I had all kinds of great stamps and other supplies that would have been great to use. Fortunately, I'm a very frugal person and acquired everything from yard sales, etc, anyway. So it wasn't a financial waste and donating them to Savers is a great way to bless someone else.
Anyway, fast forward to now.  Oops, those supplies would of come in handy. I had no idea that there was going to be Bible art journaling and that I would love it.
No matter, my other favorite hobby is being frugal. and so far, I've figured out a few good tips for saving money on supplies.

If you don't own any stamps and ink pads, you can print out images and words on your computer and transfer them to your Bible using graphite paper. Or you can free hand your design, which is what I did this time. You can measure and line up the lettering if you want to. Mine is not spaced out perfectly, but I don't mind.

I covered the moon and stars with masking fluid and after letting that dry, I applied my water color paints.  
After the paint was completely dry, I carefully rubbed the masking fluid edge with an eraser. Once the edge was up, it's rubbery and was easy to pull it completely off.

Since the masking fluid had spread during the drying process, even though I carefully applied the masking fluid inside of the lines, I think it may have spread when I used my old hair dryer on low setting to dry the paint. I will air dry the next time masking fluid is being used.

So I needed to fill in around the stars a little.  I used my Crayolla twistable pencil in the closest shade.  The pencils seem to be pretty compatible with water color paint. I also filled in the hand lettering as well. After that was finished, I went over every line with a black micron pen.

And here it the finished result. I like how this turned out.  You can view Rebekah's original version HERE

I'm including week 2 for February,  because I don't have as many photos to share.  For this week, Rebekah included a printable download. She even shares a tutorial on her YouTube channel of how she created it. I printed it out and transferred it onto my Bible with graphite paper. I used Rebekah's finished page as a reference to color in the art work with my Crayolla twistables.  For some reason the twistable package of 28 colors I purchased, didn't come with a red!? I thought that was unusual, since red is such a bare basic primary color. I will purchase some regular, everyday colored pencils at the Dollar Store the next time I go, just so I'll have red. That will save some money instead of purchasing an additional package of twistables.

Here is the finished art work. For some reason that I can't recall, I didn't photograph the steps as I colored this. I think it's because I was enjoying this so much, I just forgot to. But I'm sure that all of you can pretty much see how I did it.  Since I din't have a red pencil, I used a light and a darker purple. I used a light and darker green for the leaves and lettering and a light and darker brown for the tree branches. I filled in the background with light blue. When I was finished, I traced all of the lines with a black micron pen. You view Rebekah's original version HERE.