Taking Stock

I don't know what to blame it on. Was it lack of inspiration, playing dodge-ball, or was it procrastination? Maybe some of each, so I'm way behind in getting my Documented Faith-book for 2016 finished and taking stock on what worked and didn't and here it is at nearly the end of March.

As for my monthly dividers, I've got about five doodled coloring book type pictures so far with a faith-book theme as "Daughter of the King." My doodling/drawing skills aren't good enough yet to include details like faces and heads, so I looked through Pinterest to find images that wouldn't include those details and found Sunbonnet Sue and Sam. Remember those applique quilt patterns? (Note: I was going to scan and upload my first month's doodled divider here, but my scanner is on the blinky at the moment).
 
When I figured out what I wanted to continue with, I decided to use 5 worksheets altogether. I thought I was going to throw out the calendar, but like my friend, Karen said, it's nice to visualize the week and a list just doesn't cut it. Two months of going without convinced me.

I also knew I wanted to add some sort of pocket to my Faith-book for cards I received from my Documented Faith group, church friends, Christmas cards, and odds and ends, so began watching videos and scouting through Pinterest during my down time with my broken hand during December until my computer's battery pack went dead. I found an idea I liked and will make some pockets similar to this.

One of the things I've had trouble with the last two years is knowing how to arrange the pages in my faith-book, since I use my own 3-ring binder notebook. Thank God for creative people with great ideas;  I watched a Dyan Reavelry video. She's  a designer for Ranger Ink, and she was showing a new diary (artist journal) that is coming out in the stores this year. One page is a diary page and the other side of the two page spread is a art journal background that can be used as a starting point for an art journal page. Ah-ha, I could do that also, but I switched the order around, since I wanted to use the back of the divider as a quote/poem collection like last year, so I went through my faith-book, changing the order of my worksheets, so that a background was on the left side of the spread and a worksheet was on the right.

I also want to resurrect the paraphernalia idea after seeing a smash book spread on Pinterest. On one of the art journal pages, I would like to make a collection of things that pertains to my relationship with Jesus/Christian lifestyle each month, so after watching many, many videos on glue books for ideas,  I am gonna ask my Documented Faith buddies to do some scavenger hunting for me. I hope they will be able to find images or words that pertain to some of the  themes or categories below to send to me in happy mail that I can collage and glue down to some of the art pages each month. Many of the people who made the glue books, said they collected photos from travel brochures and the free catalogs that they picked up a tourist offices, restaurants, and museums' front doors and thrifted for other items like tickets, store receipts, crayon papers, postage stamps  and so forth. I was thinking Sunday School papers might yield some more. I'm going to collect all the bits and pieces, then glue down, but so I don't lose any of the bits, I'm going to save them in the proper document sleeves in my faith-book until I get enough to fill the page. (NOTE TO SELF: Label category in upper left-hand corner so I don't forget!)

By the way, many of the glue-book creators said it was very relaxing to sit and cut and glue, so this may be a meditative activity to do while reflecting on the goodness of God or listening to the audio Bible or instrumental hymns during quiet time! Good re-charging time!

After I got a few ideas from all the online sources, then went to my Eerdman's Handbook to the Bible where I got more.

Here's my list for some themed pages. I need at least twelve, one per month (I also included some for children as my brain leans towards teaching ideas, you know -- wink!):

Address Labels (Church Friends, Pastors, Ministries)
Angels
Animals of the Bible
Animal Symbols of Jesus (5)
Baptism
Bible-man (cartoon)
Bibles
Bugs of the Bible
Business cards (church friends, pastor, ministry)
Candy Canes
Church Art/Bells
Church Buildings
Church Signs
Christmas
Christian Acronyms
Christian Soldier/Armor of God (Eph. 6)
Circles (infinity)
Crafts of the Bible
Crowns
Coat of Many Colors (stripes)
Davey & Goliath (cartoon)
Dead Sea Scrolls
Dreidels
Ears
Easter
Eggs
Everything Egyptian
Family (physical/spiritual)
Feeding of the 5,000
Feet/Sandals (Good News!)
Festivals of the Bible
Fingerprint people
Food of the Bible
Flags of the Middle East
Flowers of the Bible
Fishermen/Fishers of Men/Fish of the Bible
Friendship Tea (envelopes, tags)
Fruit of the Spirit
Garden of Eden
Hearts
Hebrew/Greek Fonts
Helping Hands
Heroes of the Faith
Honey Bees
Houses in the Holy Land
Inspirational poetry/quotes (handwritten/photocopied)
Kosher Food Labels
Labels/Logos/Price Stickers/Tags from Inspirational Products
Last Supper
Love Notes
Mary Engelbreit's Queen of Hearts (cartoon)
Menu's (Judeo-Christian owned restaurants)
Money of the Bible
Mountains
Musical Instruments of the Bible
My Name - Dolores or Nickname - Grace
Names of God/Jesus
Noah's Ark
Passion Play (inspirational dramas)
Patch the Pirate (cartoon)
Portraits of Jesus
Positive words
Postal Stamps from the Middle East/Postmarks
Praying Hands
Precious Moments (cartoon)
Psalty (cartoon)
Purple
Receipts from Christian Bookstores/Mail-order Companies
Recipes (hand-lettered, Stephanie's cookies, Scripture Cake, Church Friends, Jewish)
Romans
Rubbings of Things in a Church (1 1/2" x 1 1/2" square pieces of paper)
Saints of the Bible
Sand-dollar
Scarlet Threads

Scripture Garden
Seven
Shepherds/sheep
Stained Glass Windows
Symbols (ie. Jesse Tree)
The Robe (the film)
The Tomb (Christ's, gravestones, crypts of the Holy Land)
Things You Are Grateful For
Transportation of the Bible
Treasures/Bling/Boxes
Triangles (the 3-in-one; Trinity)
Tree of Life (Christmas trees/crosses/dogwood tree blossoms/Jesse tree)
Veggie-Tales (cartoon)
Water (Dead Sea, Jordan River, Ocean, Nile River, Sea of Galilee, wells)
White
Wise Men
(Wo)men of the Bible

Well that's enough to get me started anyway. Now the hard part -- CHOOSING at least  twelve and finding the parts. Smile!

Update: A couple people have asked what I meant by glue book pages, so here's two videos that show what I'm talking about:
1. "Hello, My Name Is" by Becky Gladhill
2. "Seed Packets" By The Meri Atelier. 

Update: Niece has a bruised collarbone from the seatbelt in an accident. Thank goodness she's okay otherwise!

5/1/2017 Update: My first glue-book page! The center piece "I Am Loved" was inspired by Stephanie Ackerman's artwork. Click on the images to enlarge if you want to see details.

A shout-out to my Documented Faith friend, Karen L. She sent over some friendship tea bags/tags today, so I was able to finish up this Thanksgiving Tea glue-book page tonight. I really appreciate Karen, as she is almost always willing to help me in any art project I have going. I really like that about her. smile!

10th Glue-book page -- the letters and words have been cut from mostly food packaging. Across the top I spelled out "Daughter of the King," of Great Value. I'm the apple of his eye and his favorite art. I'm first born, God crafted, natural love gift and a God made treasure. My nickname is "Grace" for my grace-less state. lol! My real name is below on the tuna can label. The rest of the words are reminders to me of what the life journey is all about as a daughter of the king while I travel on the road toward the gates of heaven and perfect holiness. If I find more words, I can certainly add them into the space that remains, but for now, I call this page complete.