Illustrated Faith Creative Team!

I can't believe I'm typing this blog post right now, but it's happening! I was chosen to be on the Illustrated Faith Creative Team! I can't believe it & I've been absolutely floating since I got the email a couple of weeks ago. (& also dying a little because I haven't been able to tell anyone!) After meeting Shanna at a workshop back in September, I knew that God was nudging me to become a bigger part of the bible journaling community. So I applied to be on the 2015/2016 Creative Team for Illustrated Faith & Bella Blvd. 

After hearing how many people applied I was seriously shocked! I mean, how completely wonderfully awesome is it that so many women want to be a part of this awesome movement glorifying the Lord through art!? Answer: BEYOND AWESOME! I love that I live in a world where creative worship is a thing. :)

I've been getting to know my fellow team members & these are some seriously amazing women with so much talent! I can't even tell you how incredible they all are! I really encourage you to go check out everyone's blogs & Instagram accounts because you are going to find more inspiration than you can handle! The fact that I'm allowed to be on a team with them is beyond flattering.

So a bucket list-type dream of mine is being realized today: being a part of a design team for a scrapbooking company. Wow. I know this is a total "God Thing." I know God put me in this place! He's using me to inspire others and I'm going to do the best job that I can for Him! I'm so blessed!

-Elaine

P.S. Be sure to head over to today's Illustrated Faith blog post to enter an awesome giveaway for a complete Genesis Kit! Can you guess which "get-to-know-me" photo is mine!? Come back & tell me which number you think is me! I'd love to see if my readers can guess! They will post the winner of the giveaway tomorrow morning along with full bios of each girl!

Gratitude Documented Devotional

Happy November! Tis the season to be thankful! Well... the season to be thankful is actually EVERY season. But remembering to show gratitude to our friends, strangers, our spouses, family, & God is sometimes one of the things that gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list-- & it's one of the simplest things to do! It's amazing how a little gratitude can affect our lives. Have you ever heard the phrase "Happy people aren't thankful, Thankful people are happy?" There is so much truth to that.

This month, Illustrated Faith has released a devotional kit to be used each day of November leading up to Thanksgiving. It's a plain white fauxdori-sized notebook with simple black prompts at the top of each page. These prompts are meant to be a reminder & point of reflection for all the different things God does for us! This notebook also comes with a clear stamp set with some incredible words & phrases to help illustrate your gratitude as you meditate on each prompt. I'm hopping on board the train this month & am going to be playing along with this thankful challenge.

Today I sat down at my craft table unsure how I wanted to design my cover, so I just chose a color palette & started painting. This is the result & I think I'm in love. I carved a leaf stamp out of a linoleum printmaking block last night. (purchased from Hobby Lobby.) I knew I wanted that to be my focal point above the script words. Since it's autumn and the season of gratitude, I wanted to symbolize the season in some way.

So I used a palette knife & some acrylic paint to scrape some thin layers of color all over the cover. Then I stamped the leaf on with some Staz-On ink. Those little hearts are from the Gratitude Documented Devotional kit stamp set. (The bigger heart that you see is from an old Love, Elsie stamp set from my stash.)

Finally, the "thankful" stamp (from the kit as well) & some of the specks & gold hearts are heat embossed on with some gold embossing powder. I REALLY loved adding the gold touches because I thought it just gave it a really warm & glowing look! Love me some heat embossing! The bottom of the notebook was just begging for some gold washi tape, so I listened. ;) I did have to take my watercolor palette & go over the "wow God" words in black because they were getting lost under all the layers of paint. That ended up working really well. 

On the back of the notebook I opted to go very simple. I heat embossed the same leaf in gold & stamped the same "Wow God" words underneath. I love how the painting from the front makes a colorful little border edge on that back as well! The whole journal was misted with some Heidi Swapp color shine spray ink in Marigold. 

I can't wait to really get going on this book. I know it's going to remind me of all the things in my life that I take for granted. Things that I rely on to just be there. I'm looking forward to making little lists of all the little things I love & are true blessings in my life! It's so rad to think of this notebook being filled up with paper scraps & blessings!

You should totally go get yours & play along with me! There's even a really affordable gratitude printable that goes along with it too! It's a total steal and totally adorable. Can't wait to share more pages with you as I complete them!

Illustrated Faith Workshop: Lafayette, IN

On Saturday I had the delightful pleasure of attending my first Illustrated Faith Workshop in Lafayette, IN at the Evangelical Covenant Church. I packed up my bible, my faith journal, & some cute supplies & trekked 2 hours north to hear the testimony of the sweet Shanna Noel. Since I attended workshop, the most common question I've been asked is "So how WAS it!?" And the short answer to that is: it was life-changing.

If you haven't been to one of the workshops for this incredible movement, I'll tell you a little about what goes on. There were about 65 of us in attendance & apparently the workshop was completely sold out! (No surprise there!) The workshop was basically broken down into 4 parts: 1. Listening to Shanna's testimony. 2. Listening to a 15 minute sermon via audio. 3. Free time to dive into your bible & illustrate your faith. & 4. Sharing your thoughts & creations with the other students.

As you can imagine, it was absolutely surreal meeting Shanna. She just walked right up to me & started chatting like we were old friends & it was the most casual thing in the world! (I die!) She's so down to Earth and real! I loved talking products with her and showing her my little journal. I can't tell you how awesome she is-- so encouraging and exuberant about everything! Listening to her speak was riveting. Her story is so inspiring because she's just a "normal" girl that climbed the ladder in the scrap industry and she has TOTALLY used the journey to do God's work. Her aim with Illustrated Faith isn't for people to use the products a certain way or fit into a cookie cutter version of what someone believes Bible Journaling "should" look like. She just encourages everyone to grab some paint, & go to town making a mess & talking to Jesus in the process!

Most people do their journaling in an actual journaling bible, but I'm going a different way. The photo above is the faith journal I created for Illustrated Faith using a Simple Stories Sn@p Album. I have NO issues with creating in an actual bible-- in fact I think it's beyond RAD!-- but I just love the bible I have SO much & it has personal significance to me. I've always been a journaler & a mini book-maker so going this route just made sense to me. I want to be able to layer in all sorts of goodness that inspires me to talk to God & just punch holes in anything I find. I want to be able to write 6 pages if I feel moved to & just chuck them in the journal & go. I want thick paper to get really messy with. So here I go!

This is the little "page" I created during the creative portion of the workshop. We listened to an audio sermon on Colossians Chapter 3 & were then turned loose to make something beautiful. I felt moved to use this Simple Stories card from the I Am Collection to talk about being "tailor made" by a saviour! How incredible is that!?

During the creative time, Shanna passed her first journaling bible around the room for us to peek into. It was so special being able to flip through the bible that kind of "started it all"-- the original document that began such a massive movement in Christianity! Needless to say, it was heavy with importance. ;)

There was also a little table of merchandise that Shanna brought with her that was available to buy. I purchased that stamp set pictured above. Everything else in that photo was included in a little goodie bag we received for the event! I'm especially excited for that faith words washi tape! Eeeeeek!

Here are a few of the pages I've created since Saturday just about the workshop and documenting the turning point for myself:

My thoughts on Illustrated Faith as whole are this: what a spectacular way to draw people into the gospel even if they've never been to church a day in their life. This is a way to PROVE to people that there is no right or wrong way to serve the Lord! There's no template you have to follow when spending time with God! You don't have to be sitting in a pew with your hands folded to speak to Christ! Shanna hit the nail on the head by giving creative-minded individuals permission to throw the rule book out the window and just worship right there in your craft room. He will hear you wherever you are. Shanna is SUCH a personal hero & role model of mine & spending creative time with her this past weekend was a dream come true!

If you're interested in getting started with Illustrated Faith, check out the website and just start. You can also comment or email me at kelainedavis @ gmail . com if you have any questions, need help getting started, or just need a prayer. :) I'm happy to chat with all of you!

<3
E