St. Patrick's Day Traceables

 

Bible Journaling: St. Patrick's Day Traceables
Hey Bible J-ers! Here are a couple of fun new traceables in time for St. Patrick's Day. You can find and download the file at the bottom of this post.

 

The first one is a shamrock design for 1 Corinthians 13:13. "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

 

 

 

The second one is a pot of gold and rainbow design for Matthew 6:21. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

 

 





 

In the interest of full disclosure, I did not actually color these in my Bible.... yet. Instead, I overlaid the images into photos of my Bible using Photoshop and then experimented with different looks. You can color them however you want. Be creative and use your own unique ideas for coloring your traceables.

 

Want more Bible J ideas?

Check out this post with 10 Bible Verses for Spring (and a free download).

 

To Download & Trace
To use these, print them out and follow the directions here for tracing them into your Bible. Easy peasy!

 

And when you're done, please share your ideas with me on Facebook.

Now, who's going to try these traceable designs in their journaling Bibles?

To download, click the image below to open. Then right click and save the file.

 

Bible Journaling With White Crayon

Bible Journaling With White Crayon
I fondly remember doing this in elementary school art class, and the first time I discovered I could write a secret letter, that my friend could reveal when she colored over the words, written in white. Now, I'm taking those childhood skills and putting them to use in my journaling Bible. Here are a few ways to use white crayon in your journaling.

Granted, some of them did not turn out so great, but I'm sharing those, too. Maybe they will give you new ideas. Or save you the trouble of ruining a perfectly good journal entry.

Use A Traceable
So, first, I used my traceable (available at the end of this post). Putting it under my paper, I traced over it with white crayon. Of course, you could just freehand something, but keeping track of white crayon on white paper is no easy task, so I like to follow a guide--in this case, my traceable "faith, hope, love."

Method 1: Gelatos
For my first experiment, I used Gelatos. If you haven't used these before, they are so beautiful and fun. I highly recommend them for any Bible J-er. You can read about my first experience using Gelatos here.

I colored Gelato over my white crayon and then smeared and blended it with a paper towel. I think the effect is very soft and pretty. And the crayon shows through nicely. Plus, I know from experience that Gelatos don't bleed through fragile Bible pages. Win!



Method 2: Brush Markers
Next, I tried coloring over my white crayon with my Tanmit brush markers. This worked very well, leaving a crisp outline. However, it's a fairly simple look. I wasn't able to do any blending. These brush pens also do not bleed through too badly as long as they are not too thickly applied to the page.

Method 3: Watercolor Paints
My third attempt was a watercolor, which I did over another printable of an umbrella (find it here). I simply dipped my brush in water, swirled it around in my watercolor paints and applied them over the crayon. I was surprised to find the watercolor did not work very well. The image looked faded. But I wasn't ready to give up on the watercolor look yet. I decided to try a trick I'd learned.

Method 4: Faux Watercolor with Markers
I colored on a plastic sandwich baggie with my Tanmit brush markers, using different shades of purple, pink and blue. Then I lightly misted the baggie with a water bottle and scrunched it up a little. I applied the wet colors to my paper, right over the top of the white crayon. I had to do this a few times, but it did leave a decent image... much more clear than traditional watercolor. However, I think this would most likely bleed through a Bible page.

Conclusion
Overall, the cleanest methods seemed to be the Gelatos and the straight-up marker. Which one are YOU going to try? Let me know in the comments and send me your pictures on Facebook.

To download this free traceable file (faith, hope, love arrows), click the image below to open, then right click to save.

Want more Bible J Ideas?Check out my post on Bible Journaling Supplies. 

Bible Journaling: Words & Fonts

Have you ever looked at Bible journaling on Pinterest and noticed how amazing other people's handwriting can be? People often don't realize that many of those fancy-looking words are actually FONTS. Or maybe you knew this, but you have no idea how they get those fonts.
Or where.
Or how to put them on your computer, let alone USE them in your Bible.

It can all be so confusing! So today, I'm writing about fonts... the different kinds, how to find, install and use them in your Bible journaling.

Types of Fonts

In college I took a class where our teacher taught us about fonts. There were all kinds like serif, sans serif, Egyptian, script. None of this is important for you, except to know that mixing fonts can have a very nice effect.

For instance:

In the above photo, I actually didn't use fonts except for the words "holy spirit". And you're going to hate me for this, but I don't know what that font is. I just happened to see it in someone else's photo and totally stole it to use in my own Bible. But I want to point out that my handwriting is a mix of blocky, straight-edged letters (except for "of them" which is cursive). But the contrast of the blocky, straight letters with the curvy "holy spirit" makes the words really stand out.

It's something to keep in mind. When you're writing out a verse, try using blocky letters for the regular text and curvy or exciting letters for the bigger, more important words.

Finding Fonts

The next time you're on Pinterest, search for Bible journaling fonts. You'll get lots of ideas like this one from CdotLove Design:

This list conveniently shows you different types of fonts and their names. On the blog page, she also provides links to the fonts: http://cdotlove.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/some-new-great-fonts.html?m=1

 

Downloading and Installing Fonts

A word of caution. Any file you download to your computer can potentially cause harm. It's something you'll have to use your judgement for, or get a tech-savvy friend to help you with. I leave all the techy stuff up to my hubby. However, some font websites are well-known and generally considered "safe" such as:

dafont.com
fontspace.com

I've used fontfreak.com for years and haven't experienced any troubles. But again, do your research.

To download you go to the font website and either search for the font you want or follow a link provided. In this case we'll use a link from the example above and try to install "Sweet Pea" because I think it's adorable. And I wants it (best Gollum voice). *Note this font is for personal use only. I'm using it here just as an illustration for how to download a font.

I'm using cdotlove's link to find the Sweet Pea font on dafont.com. I'll paste the link here for you:
http://www.dafont.com/sweet-pea.font

First, download the font by clicking the DOWNLOAD button on the right.

 

 

 

Next, choose to SAVE AND OPEN the file.

 





 

 

Now that you have the font, here is how to install it on your computer. If you have a Mac or a different version of Windows, you will have to look up this step for yourself. This is how I installed it on my own version of Windows:

Step 1: Go to "My Computer"
Step 2: Open Local Disk (C:)
Step 3: Open the Windows Folder
Step 4: Right click on the Fonts folder. Drag it to your desktop and "create shortcut." Now you won't have to search for your fonts folder again, you can access it through the new shortcut.
Step 5: Open the fonts folder. Drag and drop the font file (in this case, it is called Sweet Pea_2.ttf) to the desktop FIRST. Then drag and drop it into the fonts folder. It should say "installing font."

Now you should be able to use your new font! Open Microsoft Word (or similar program) and find your font. You can type up words or Bible verses, print them out and either glue or trace them into your journaling Bible!