Christmas Journal Title Page

Well, I've managed to pretty much stay on track with making my Christmas Journal pages, but life has gotten in the way of me doing much blogging about my pages. I just HAD to make the time to share my title page, though, because I love it so much. Earlier in the month, I participated in a Christmas Inchie Swap through Christian Paper Artists. On Saturday, I received my 24 new inchies. Aren't they all wonderful??? I decided to use them to make the title page for my Christmas Journal, and I think the page turned out very well.

Maybe one of these days, I'll actually get the time to show some of my other pages.

Ali Edwards was the person who first pointed me to Shimelle and her "Journal Your Christmas" project, and now I'm trying another of Ali's suggestions: "one little word." You choose one word to focus on for the entire year. I've decided to focus on LOVE. Such a small word with such power! I want to increase my love for God; for my wonderful DH Mike; for my 3 amazing children, Jarrett, Kendra, and Keegan; for my extended family; for my coworkers and my students; and for myself. I think right now, the best way to increase my love for myself is by taking better care of my body. It's only 39 years old, but it's the only body I've got. I really miss working out; that stopped a year and a half ago when I went from being a stay at home mom to a part-time teacher. I hope to get back into regular workouts. So here's to LOVE. May you all have a happy, loving 2009!

Christmas Inchies and Christmas Journal

I made these inchies for a swap that Corbi is hosting on the Christian Paper Artists email group. I made 6 of each of these inchies, and I will get 24 different ones back. This was my first time making inchies for a swap, and they are addicting! The top left one is a Creative Memories Christmas sticker on some mulberry paper. For the top right inchie, I painted cardstock with Twinkling H2Os then used a rubber stamp to stamp a swirl design. I let it dry a bit, then put glitter around the edges. Obviously not all the ink was dry, because the glitter stuck to some of the swirls. Oh well - the more glitter, the better, right??? Then I put a Creative Memories ornament sticker on top. Bottom left: I started with a dark red cardstock square, cut patterned paper into a 3/4 " fancy square with a punch, then cut a 1/2 inch square of solid green, and glued a button on top. Bottom right: painted cardstock with emerald Lumiere. Cut circles out of some paper I had marbled using shaving cream and a few red nailpolish colors. I attached the circle with a gold brad, and wrote "J" and "Y" on either side of the brad, so it says "JOY". Then I attached a bit of gold German scrap paper to the bottom.

In other news, I've decided to do Shimelle's "Journal Your Christmas" project. I'm doing this in an 8 X 8 scrapbook. Most of the products I've used are miscellaneous things I have. I also used several new products from the making memories line, FaLaLa. Although I've managed to keep up to date with my scrapbook pages, this is my first chance to blog them. Here's Dec. 1:

Journaling reads, "I have always been a journaler. I got my first diary when I was 9, and 30 years later I’m still recording my thoughts, fears, and celebrations. Last year I started a visual journal to document the journey of buying, gutting, and totally rebuilding the inside of a house on 2.75 acres.

I was online over Thanksgiving Break and I came across Shimelle.com. When I first read Shimelle’s description of “Journal Your Christmas,” I thought it was a great idea, but where would I find the time? Besides the usual Christmas busy-ness, I still have a non-functional kitchen, laundry room, and master bath. And if I’ve got time to spare, I really should be painting some more molding for the half of the house that doesn’t have baseboards and casings yet. And painting the hallway from the foyer to the garage. And unpacking a few more boxes. And the list goes on and on….

That’s when I realized that this is EXACTLY why I should be doing this “Journal Your Christmas” project. I desperately need some me-time in the midst of a very crazy season of my life. I need to forget about the house for a few minutes each day. I need to sit back and reflect on why Christmas is so important to me: celebrating the birth of Jesus, my Savior.

So this is my Christmas present to myself: committing to at least 15 minutes a day, no matter how busy the season becomes, for reflecting, writing, and scrapbooking."

Here's Dec. 2. I cut out the snowflake and put some silver glitter on it:

Journaling reads, "I love the snow…in December. It’s the bitter cold of January and February that I can do without.

A fresh snowfall brings such stillness and peace, muffling sounds. It’s so sparkly on the trees and ground.

Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed watching the kids (along with Canyon and Immie) go sledding for the first time in our new backyard. Mike even got in on the fun, snowmobiling with Dean between our yard and his."

Here's Dec. 3, with a picture of my happy family on Thanksgiving and a picture of our house:

The journaling reads, "One of the many things I love about the Christmas holidays is the exchanging of Christmas cards and correspondence. We’ve been sending out photo cards for most of our marriage. We try to get all five of us in the picture, but there have been some years that we’ve had to use a photo of only the three kids. We also send a letter to friends and family who we don’t see very often. Each year my goal is to get the cards in the mail during the first week of December, but that is not usually my reality.

It’s always so fun to receive cards from others and catch up with them. I especially enjoy the pictures, seeing how children grow and how adults mature from year to year. There are some people who we haven’t seen in person in a decade or more, so those pictures are especially meaningful. We hang cards on our ornament-shaped card holder; letters go into a basket."

Dec. 4 (I really like the paper I used on the left side):

I took this picture 2 years ago, when my husband and kids gave me a digital camera for Christmas. I had fun experimenting with it. When I read Shimelle's prompt, I decided to print this out. It's just some beaded garland sitting on a piece of gold organza fabric. In the picture, you can see the shimmer of the fabric.

The journaling says, "My ideal Christmas would include:
All gifts bought by Thanksgiving
All packages and cards mailed the first week of December
Christmas Eve service at our church
Waking up in our house Christmas morning to a light dusting of snow: enough to make everything pretty, but not enough to make the roads dangerous
Family time seeing what Santa put in our stockings and exchanging gifts among the five of us
Christmas Dinner with the entire extended family
Reading the Christmas Story out of the Bible
Dessert: a piece of Mom’s apple-cranberry pie with whipped cream on top, various cookies, Mom’s homemade fudge and caramels, shishkie topped with apricot preserves and whipped cream (to actually eat that yummy Slovak pastry again would be ideal indeed!)
No-one expecting us to travel anywhere over Christmas break
Snow and still warm enough so the kids can play outside over break"

Here is today's journal entry:

The journaling says, "I bought this advent calendar before the kids were born. It looks like a book, but it opens to a pop-up scene of a Victorian Christmas. There are little doors and windows to open each day of December. It was in storage once the kids were born, until about two years ago.

This has been the Advent calendar we’ve used since Jarrett was quite small. Each day, someone takes the person, animal, or item out of its pocket and places it on the Bethlehem morning scene.

We received this beautiful signed book last year from Pam, John, and Ryan. Each day’s page has a door. Behind the door is a gorgeous illustration and part of the true Christmas story. This year, Jarrett, Kendra, and Keegan have been taking turns reading each door’s message."

I apologize if, when you double-click on the pictures, they do not expand. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. I'm probably inadvertently doing something wrong when I upload, so if you know how to always make them expand when someone double-clicks, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!

Fay's CQ

As promised when I posted the picture of my CQ ornament, here's the 7" square mini-quiltlet that Fay in South Africa sent to me. It happened when she joined the CQ email group I belong to. Someone else was talking about "squishies", and she wrote in asking what a squishie is. (A baggie full of fabrics and embellishments that crazy quilters sometimes send each other.) Since she was new to the group, I emailed her privately and offered to send her a squishie. She's such a sweetie, because after I sent the package to her, she sent one back to me. There were some awesome African fabrics and beads, laces, the above CQ, and a CD of pictures of the animal reserve she lives near.

Vive le France ATCs

Anna with Christian Paper Artists is hosting another ATC swap; this one is "Vive le France." I was so excited when I first read about it, but then I didn't kow what to do. Mike and I visited France two and a half years ago, on the first trip we chaperoned through his high school. I fell in love with France: Paris, the countryside, the Cote d'Azur. How to translate that into an ATC? I decided to concentrate on Paris, using some pictures I took of some of my favorite Paris places. Going clockwise from the top right is Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and Arc de Triomphe. I printed the photos in sepia tone to give them continuity and to make them look a little older, like memories.



I apologize for the slightly fuzzy picture; the brad in the left corner (from JoAnn) sticks out, so the ATC wasn't laying flat when I scanned it. I'm having issues with my digital camera, so I can't just take a photo and upload it.



For the base of the ATC, I painted a thin wash of Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint over a page from a French book I picked up at the used bookstore in town.

I made five of the same ATC for this swap. Can't wait to get some from other artists.

CQ Christmas Ornament

I made this crazy quilted ornament for a swap Lisa D. is hosting through the Quiltropolis Crazy Quilt email list. The ornament is about 4 1/2 inches in diameter.



The center gold fabric is a piece of silk that I got from Fay in South Africa. (I'll have to post a picture of the crazy quilted mini-quilt that she also sent me). The top red is cotton velveteen. I had bought a few yards about 8 years ago, planning to make a Christmas dress for my daughter Kendra ~ she was 3 at the time. However, I was so exhausted due to being pregnant with my 3rd child that I never got around to making it. When I started crazy quilting 2 years ago, I started cutting into that velveteen, since there's not enough of it to make Kendra a dress now that she's grown into an 11 year old. It was just sitting in my armoire, begging to be used! The other red fabric and the greens are poly satins that I've collected.



On the left side, I attached a button cluster with some gold beads. The seam treatment is a piece of ribbon I got at Hobby Lobby. The top red has a small lace motif which I painted using my (favorite) Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint. I attached it to the velveteen using an iridescent-type white bead. The feather seam treatment has yellow-ish clear beads. On the right green fabric, I stitched a swirl motif out of Carole Samples' wonderful book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches, then I added a few red and gold beads. The bottom seam has green buttonhole and lazy daisy stitches to look like flower stems and leaves, and gold bead flowers.

I added a pretty, sparkly gold braid to hang the ornament, but it got cut off in the picture.

It was such fun to make a small CQ project. In fact, I've started making one similar to this one, so I can keep it. One of these days, I also need to take some pictures of the big crazy quilt that I finished in January.

Give Thanks

These ATCs are serving two purposes. I made them for the "Give Thanks" ATC swap that Donna is hosting at Christian Paper Artists. Then I saw that the current theme at SaltFaith Challenge is also "Give Thanks."

It's so easy to forget the wonderful gifts God has given us through His Son Jesus: eternal life, an abundant life here on earth, the Holy Spirit. I've loved this verse from the Psalms for a long time. God's unfailing love is what makes everything worth while. When I start to get bogged down with the things of this life, these verses help remind me of all the good things that I do have.

For this swap, we are each making 9 ATCs. Donna had said that if less than 9 people sign up, we would get more than 1 ATC from some people, so we might want to make some of the ATCs different. I made 4 of the first version, and 5 of the second.

I live in the midwest and we are in the middle of all the leaves changing into their glorious autumn colors. So I naturally associate leaves with the Thanksgiving holiday.

For the background, I mixed Lumiere in metallic russet and halo blue-gold to get the brown color. The text was printed on cardstock which I painted Irish Mist Twinkling H2o (gotta get some sparkle in there). For the leaves, I first painted a piece of watercolor paper with a wash of yellow, orange, and red watercolors. Then I used a small leaf punch to punch out the leaves. Finally, I added a "trail" of microdot stickers by a.muse, to look like the leaves are falling.

I'm back...and Going Green ATCs

We finally moved into our new house two weeks ago!!! We thought we would only live in our temporary house for about a month, but construction delays kept us out of the new house for three months. Actually, the new house still isn't finished, but it's far enough along to move into.

Since we didn't have internet at our temporary house, I've been unable to post in all this time.

While I was gone, I received these gorgeous ATCs from the Going Green swap that I participated in back in August:




This was my first swap, and I really enjoyed seeing the different techniques the other women used. I'm working on ATCs for my next swap with this group, Christian Paper Artists. I'll get those posted when I finish them.

I'm not sure how to get my pictures to expand when you double-click on them. If you know, please share the secret.

Going Green ATCs part 2

Last night I finished up my last 3 ATCs for the "Going Green" ATC swap through Christian Paper Artists yahoo group. Although they're not due until the middle of August, with our move next week, I don't anticipate having a lot of time for fun in the next few weeks.

For this first one, I painted the background with Mustard Green Twinkling H2O watercolor, then stamped over it with that new Tapestry stamp from Stampabilities (I told you I love that stamp!). All images are from ArtChixStudio. The girl originally had the words "Spoil me" on her forehead, but I thought that "dream" was more appropriate to the theme of recycling. I'm not sure if I like how her dreams are depicted, with the little dots going up to the nature pictures, but I don't know how else I'd do them. Text is all computer-generated.
For this second ATC, I used a photo that I took a few years ago of one of my home-grown roses (I can't remember if it was "Peace" or "Diana, Princess of Wales"). Either way, it's a beautiful hybrid-tea, cream colored with pink on the edges. I printed the photo on a transparency. Then I used another technique from Carol Murphy's "Tempting Techniques" online class through Joggles to use Therm-O-Web to adhere the transparency to cardstock, with glitter in between. The ribbon is 4 mm silk ribbon from my stash. I printed up "sweetest flower" on cardstock, and placed it in a label holder from making memories.The third ATC has a vellum pocket to hold a tag.

I used the same rose stamp (unknown maker) as the red marbled paper ATC I posted yesterday. For this one, though, I painted the whole ATC with Twinkling H2Os in Irish Mist, Blue Flame, and Cranberry. I used brads to attach the vellum pocket. I pianted the tag in Irish Mist, then printed the quote off the computer. As an added touch, I adhered a real rose thorn from my garden onto the tag. A brad and a small piece of silk ribbon finished this off.

It may be obvious that I love roses and quotes! In fact, I'm contemplating a project about the storms of life, so if anyone has a good quote about that which you want to leave in the comments section, I'd appreciate it!

These ATCs have been such a fun way to experiment with different techniques. I can't take all the credit for the ATC designs. A few weeks ago, I checked out a book from the library called Rubber Stamping Artist Trading Cards, which is chock full of examples (sorry, I don't remember the author). I've added my own spin - and my own stamps - to some of their ATCs. It was a great jumping-off point, though.

I'll probably be taking a few weeks off of blogging. Final packing, doing work at the new house, and unpacking will be taking up most of my time and energy for a few weeks. If you leave a comment that doesn't appear on here, that's the most likely reason why.

By the way, I am not affiliated with any of the companies I've mentioned in this or any other post.

Going Green ATCs

I've recently joined a Yahoo group called Christian Paper Artists (CPA). They seem like a great group of very talented ladies. Anna is hosting a swap of ATCs called "Going Green." To participate, you make 6 ATCs and will get 6 back. Each ATC must have green on it somewhere, and it must either have something recycled or have a nature theme. For the back of each of my ATCs, I'm going to use an empty toilet paper roll which I've flattened. I'll write my name and contact info on that.

I think this first ATC is my favorite of the three I've finished so far. The base is made of green fused Angelina. It looks SO MUCH PRETTIER in person ~ the sparkle and shimmer just doesn't show up on the screen. I saw this quote on a tag that Ros made. Hers looks like it's a stamp, but I printed it out on vellum. I do need to find a better way to adhere vellum. I used Diamond Glaze, but I don't like how, even after it's dried, you can still see the dark marks. The gold border and butterfly are both German scrap papers from ArtChixStudio.

For this ATC, I first painted cardstock with iridescent rich gold acrylic paint (Liquitex), then stamped over it with Colorbox gold pigment. I LOVE this new stamp I got from Hobby Lobby: Tapestry Pattern by Stampabilities. For this ATC, it adds just the right texture to the background. I used my ever-handy Susan Branch ABC letters to stamp the quote, and hand-wrote "Ralph Waldo Emerson." The mini flowers are by making memories.

For my 3rd ATC, I painted a piece of cardstock using Twinkling H2O "mustard green." I marbled a separate piece of cardstock using a shaving cream technique I learned about in Carol Murphy's online "Tempting Techniques" class through Joggles. I added drops of three different red nailpolishes to get the marble look. The stamp is an old one; there's no label indicating what company made it. Lace is from my stash.

That's it for now. I'd better get packing some more boxes, since we only have 9 days til the big move.

Word Verification

Heather has written an interesting post about word verification, which I've copied and pasted here:
"This is an appeal on behalf of busy bloggers. Please spare a thought for the poor bloggers who work so hard at getting round as many blogs as possible to leave sprinkles of pixie dust and good vibes wherever they go. The terrible proliferation of this awful plague of word verification is a blight on their efforts to make Blogland a cheerier place.So please (see.. it's a pretty please! lol)... Cancel word verification on your blogs! Have blog owner approval by all means, but word verification is a pain in the proverbial (insert appropriate noun here)!!!I know it is supposed to prevent spam, but I got rid of it on my blog some time ago, and I have only ever had to reject one single spam message.OK.. rant over. Thank you for putting up with it, and ~ obviously ~ do what you wish on your blogs, but I had to say SOMETHING!! I love to get around and leave comments, but this is driving me scatty."

I also hate word verification but was concerned that I would get tons of spam. I've decided to turn off the word verification and see what happens...

No new pictures for today, as I spent most of the weekend getting ready for the big move in 11 days!

SALT: Freedom in Christ

Here's my latest for the SaltFaith Challenge. Casey has set the newest challenge: Freedom in Christ. Here's what she said about the topic:

"Just recently I attended a conference where an international Christian speaker presented the message to us. One of the things he spent time on was the identity messages we get from the world and our actual true identity. He said we often try and change our behaviour to match someone elses. But, it is essentially our identity message that we hear in our heads that will determine our behaviour. So, we need to gradually align our identity with the identity Christ has given us which says we are accepted, significant and secure. Then our behaviour will be changed and be more Christ-like . Knowing and believing the truth of these messages which Christ has died and risen for, will indeed set us free from all our striving and comparing."

Being a patriotic American who also happens to love the color red, I couldn't help using a red and navy theme for my 4 X 4 page.

I used this photo for two reasons. First, it's a decent, recent picture of me. Since I usually am the one taking the pictures, there aren't a lot of me. Second, it was taken on a special trip Mike and I took. Mike is a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach. Two years ago, he and I, along with 2 other teachers from his social studies department and the wife of one of the teachers, chaperoned a trip to France and Italy over Spring Break with 24 students. That trip went so well that we chaperoned another trip this past Spring Break, this time with 7 adults and 34 students, to Ireland, Wales, and England. As chaperones, we got to take both trips for FREE. I know that doesn't have to do with Freedom in Christ, but it's still a free thing:) Anyway, the picture was taken by Swallow Falls near the beautiful mountainside village of Betws-Y-Coed in Wales. Mike and I loved this little town and would love to return someday, just the two of us, to hike up in the mountains.

When you lift the flap with my picture on it, the top of the flap has the words to Chris Tomlin's version of Amazing Grace. We were just singing that in church Sunday morning, and I thought the words were so appropriate for this piece.

On the bottom of that flap, there's an accordian-folded paper that lists some of the things Christ has set me free from. The sin part is obvious.

I grew up in a church that was more "conservative" ~ or maybe you'd call it "legalistic" ~ than my current church. Drinking any alcohol and dancing of any sort were seen as sin. You very rarely saw women wearing pants to church on a Sunday morning, and IF anyone there had a tattoo, they kept it quite hidden. (In case you're wondering, I love Coca-Cola and always choose it over wine at dinner, my hair is shoulder length, I like to dress up for church, so I usually wear a skirt, and I'm way too chicken to get a tattoo. But I could do any of those other things if I wanted.)

Then there's the "I am free to love the 'unlovely' " part. I wrote that because of two people I know. The first is a neighbor of ours, who is shunned by the rest of the neighborhood because of a big mistake he made in his past. His wife is a Christian, and he has told Mike that he is "searching" for what he believes in . The second person is a teenager who comes from a terrible family life and is addicted to drugs. I can tell that the love and acceptance I've shown to this teen have made a positive impact in his life. Because of Christ's love, I am free from the fear of reaching out to these two people who Christ loves enough to die on the cross. My prayer is that they would see Jesus in me.

I got the idea for a flap with an accordian-folded paper underneath from a book I got from the library called Artists' Journals and Sketchbooks.

Supplies:

red papers: Creative Memories

navy paper: Stampin' Up

Key: Dress It Up Nostalgic Treasures

Anniversary card

We've had a very busy past few days. We've had 6 showings of our house since Saturday, and yesterday, we received a purchase offer. After negotiating, we've settled on a price! The buyers want to close on July 25th, which gives us 3 1/2 weeks to pack up this entire house. Since the work on our *new* (built in 1970) house most likely won't be done by then, we also need to figure out where we'll live for a few weeks.

But it's all good. We've all gotten quite tired of trying to keep the house spotless for those showings.

Among the craziness, I did manage to make this anniversary card for my sister Darla and her husband Colby, using this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 you. Awhile ago, I bought an old book written in French from a local used bookstore. I painted over a page from that book using watered-down Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint. The images are from the ArtchixStudio collage sheets "All My Love" and "Tiny Bubbles." Ribbon is from The Paper Studio, and alphabet stamps are Susan Branch.

On another topic, I've been thinking some more about the fiber ATCs I'm going to make for the CQ list swap. Although I like the prints I made with the Penscore pads, I don't think I'll use them on each ATC. Probably only 2 or 3 will have that, and the others will have some other fun stuff. Still not sure what, though.

I love to have a creative outlet to stay sane (or at least, as sane as I can ever be), so hopefully I'll be able to continue blogging somewhat regularly in these next few weeks.

House Twinchie and SALT book cover

I just found a challenge blog hosted by Nancy from the Netherlands, Small world of Inchies. Each week, she issues a theme which can be carried out in either an inchie (1 inch square) or a twinchie (2 inch square). I've never done either size, so I decided to try a twinchie, since it's bigger. This week's theme is "house." My text on the blue cardstock was computer generated. I cut the house out of yellow cardstock because the house I grew up in was a yellow Victorian. The image is from the ArtchixStudio "My dear Mother" collage sheet. The ribbon is from The Paper Studio. This is a fun size to work with. It came together pretty quickly. Could be an addicting size:)

I also made the cover for my SaltFaith Challenge chunky book. I used Mustard Green Twinkling H2O watercolor paint (you know I love my shimmery products) to paint Bazzill chipboard for the background. Then, using a gold Colorbox stamp pad, I stamped the flourish. I absolutely ADORE roses, especially red ones, so I couldn't resist ordering the Victorian Roses scrap paper from Artchix Studio. I probably should have ordered several sheets of it, though. For the labels, I painted cardstock with gold Pearl-X watercolor, then stamped the words. The label holders are by making memories.

My first fiber ATCs

Joanne from the crazy quilt email group I belong to is hosting a fiber ATC (artist trading card) swap. Although the group is for crazy quilting, the ATCs don't have to be crazy quilted, as long as they're fiber. The only other rule is that they must be "regulation" ATC size, 2.5" X 3.5". Participants can make up to 5 ATCs, and we'll each receive the same number back that we sent in. I've never made fiber ATCs before, but I think it will be fun to play. My plan right now is to make 5, but we'll see how busy I get over the summer. They will be due in Sept.

I think I'm going to do a series using this image from my Penscore pads. I first heard about Penscore pads and how to use them in an online class called "Tempting Techniques," taught by Carol Murphy through Joggles. (I have no affiliation with Joggles.) Anyway, I used the Penscore pad to make an impression of some woodwork on my daughter's antique headboard. Then I used some different colors of Lumiere paints to stamp onto muslin fabric. Each impression is 3" X 4", so I'll have to trim them down when I make the ATCs.

I made several different impressions, so I can pick my fave 5. The second one didn't turn out at all like I planned. I thought I had cleaned all the green paint off the Penscore pad before I put the gold on, but apparently some green was still on there. Actually, though, I like the effect. It looks kind of aged.
These two green ones were the first two I painted, and they may be the best prints.
I don't think Lumiere makes a RED paint, but this pearlescent magenta is pretty in its own right:)

I'm not really sure what I'll be doing for each ATC. This is probably the first time in my life when I've started a project without having a set plan in mind. I wouldn't want to work without any plan on a bigger project, but with such small end-products, I don't mind. I'm looking forward to doing some experimenting.

SaltFaith Challenge: Rejoice

I've been enjoying the SaltFaith Challenge blog for several months, and I'm excited to finally have an opportunity to participate, now that I've started my "creativity" blog. At Salt, every two weeks they issue a challenge to make some paper art using a particular prompt about God or Christianity. I'm planning on doing all my Salt challenges on 4X4 pages, so I can make a chunky book. I'll probably bind the book with metal rings, so I can easily add more pages.

For Rejoice, I wanted something glimmery and colorful to go with the verse I chose. I imagine that God's glory must be pretty sparkly! I painted my background with silver Pearl-X watercolor paint. I've been experimenting with Angelina (which I now love), so I put a small piece of that on top. The verse is handwritten, and I finished the page off with a strip of gold German scrap paper. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't do justice to the shimmery, sparkly look of the page.