It is Well remake

I made an identical journal to this over two years ago for a stamp challenge. It just might be my favorite journal. A friend requested that I make one for her, and with a need for journals for the Houghton College craft fair in December, I made two. The only difference with this one here is that the background is wallpaper (I always use that now), and I had a sort of face silhouette on the "Christ hath regarded my helpless estate" oval. It was definitely a feminine face, and as I though this journal would be good for a male as well, I omitted the image on the one I made for the craft fair. My friend's journal was purple, but a shade that my camera decided was gray. :-)

I was inspired all over again by this hymn as I re-created the journal. The pictures are from the actual tragedies of the author's life: the Chicago fire in which he lost his businesses, and the ship collision that cost the lives of his daughters. If you don't know the story, google the name Horatio Spafford.

Music journal

Here is the journal that I made with the music panels. I love making music-themed cards and journals. Not only do I love music, but their are just so many related symbols for stamping!

The music notes were cuttled, and the white on black sheet music was done with white on white embossing.

With all my lined journals, I used 24 weight paper instead of the standard 20 wt. copy paper; it makes for much crisper lines. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a printer that will give me a two-sided, double page layout that will have back and front matching, so I have to have the paper done at a printshop. This makes the price more expensive than I'd like, but for now, it's the way I need to do it. I make mostly cardstock filled journals now.

I forgot to photograph the journal cover before assembling, so my apologies for the poor quality of the photo. In order to preserve the cover, I punch a no-flap bag from clearbags.com along wo\with the cover before assembling. It's easy enough to remove when the journal is full.

Yet another music circles card!

Here's the last card made at the same time as the previous cards. I was actually working on a journal cover design, and not knowing exactly what I was wanting to do, made a bunch of music panels.

This scripture is very special to me. God used it during a time about a year and a half ago, when I went through a sort of crisis of faith. I spent four days in a motel room sized cabin at a retreat center in Alabama. It was on a lovely piece of property with a pond, etc, so great for walks as well. I spent the days reading the Word and praying throughout the day (I was the only guest in the entire place), and then reading some great Christian fiction in the evening. It was a fabulous time, and I highly recommend it.

Music hello

This is, of course, another card made from the music panels used in yesterday's card. The little piece of ribbon or something is a mystery to me, it's definitely not part of the card - I don't know how I failed to notice it when taking the picture.

Salt Challenge: JOY

I have absolutely loved participating in the bi-weekly Salt Challenge, but this fall was so intensely busy, I spent almost no time on any blogs at all, and completely forgot about Salt. I "rediscovered" it last week. "Joy" is a wonderful challenge theme, and if there is any stamp I have multiples of, it's ones that express Joy. How perfect to find that to be the word selected on Salt. Problem: I have a brand new Joy stamp I wanted to use for this challenge, but I just could not make it "work" on a card. So instead, here's a card that I haven't posted yet that still "qualifies"!



I used a joy stamp on this ministry card because I think it's easy in ministry to be overwhelmed by the responsibility of it all, and forget that God desires us to be joyful.

We're studying Hebrews in a church class our pastor teaches, and I've been thinking about this joy-related scripture about Jesus:

"...therefore God, your God, has set you above your
companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."

This is speaking of Christ's superiority over angels ... and one of those ways is that He has been annointed with the oil of joy. Isn't that fascinating?

Music, music!

Okay, I just got carried away on this one ... no work of art here, just fun! Using one of the opalite backgrounds, this one with music notes, I cuttled with my music folder, then used my music note die cut! Then I remembered I had black ribbon with the same colors, so of course I had to use that! I knew as I assembled the card that it was a bit "much," but I'll find some victim for it, lol!

Ordination card re-make

I was asked to re-create an ordination card that I had made some months back, using silver instead of gold, and adding something that would reflect the recipient's added ministry with guitar. It also needed to be larger as a number of people were to sign it. I love music, and have a bunch of music stamps, but it never occured to me to get a guitar stamp! Living in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't rectify that in time to create the card, but I replaced the narrow strips of cardstock with silver cord to give an effect of guitar strings (Wow, that was a nuisance, lol - elastic cord is not easy to attach: it doesn't lie limp like string or ribbon!).