Faith Art Friday - A New Twist on Advent

 

 

 

It's the first Faith Art Friday of the Christmas season, what could be better?

In case you're new, each Friday Erin from Art by Erin Leigh and I will be posting tips, prompts, ideas and inspiration for your faith art journals!

We'll also be participating in our private facebook community  and we'd love to see you there posting your art!

If you love bible journaling and illustrating your faith, you are going to love Faith Art Fridays!!

 

 

 

““About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing songs to God as the other prisoners listened. Suddenly, there was a strong earthquake that shook the foundation of the jail. Then all the doors of the jail broke open, and all the prisoners were freed from their chains.” -Acts 16:25-26
                                        

 

This Week's Prompt

Create a journal page about one of your favorite Christmas Carols that celebrates the Lord Jesus.

The links below include affiliate links.  I hope if you choose to purchase any of the supplies you'll use my links as this helps me to continue providing free tutorials, printables and more.  You won't be charged more, but I will receive a small fee for referring you. Thank you so much for your support! It means the world to me. ♥♥♥

Supplies Used:

Truth in the Tinsel (enter the code: peptalk at checkout for a 20% discount!)
Heidi Swap Gold Color Shine
Gold Star Sequins similar to these
Acrylic Paint
Alcohol Inks (I used Purple Twilight and Clover)
Plastic Gems similar to these
Gold Metallic Sharpie
Black Sharpie
Chipboard Shapes (really old from my stash)
Glitter paper similar to this

 

As you may know, for the last few years I've done the "Truth in the Tinsel" advent activities with my son.  It's one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  You can learn more about it here and download a free, printable mini-book to use with the activities here.

This year I decided to use the prompts for myself as well, and create a bible art journaling page each day.  It's been really fun, because I'm keeping it casual, not overthinking it, and just painting and playing and then feeling all Christmassy for the rest of the day. :)

I was pretty excited that this week's Faith Art Friday prompt (one of my favorite Christmas carols) happened to line up with day 2 of Truth in the Tinsel (the newborn King)!


How I'm using Truth in the Tinsel in my Advent Art Journal

I'm using a copy of The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that I picked up in the dollar spot at Target as my art journal.  I really wanted  it to be something I wasn't too attached to so that I would be more relaxed about it (process not perfection).

I tore about half the pages out to reduce the bulk of the book and I'm doing most of my backgrounds with acrylic paint.


How to Shrink PDF Patterns in Adobe Reader

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each of the Truth in the Tinsel advent activities comes with a different craft.  Sometimes it's a printable.  For Day 1 the prompt is about light and there is a printable candle.  The candle was a little too large for my journal page so I shrank the image before printing it.

That's super easy to do in Adobe Reader. 

Just navigate to the page you want to print in Adobe Reader.

Hit print (or the little printer symbol) and your print dialog box will open as seen below.

Next select "Custom Scale" and then choose the percentage amount by which you want to shrink the page.  I chose 50% and that was perfect for my journal.

 

Truth in the Tinsel day 1

 

 

I cut out the candle shape, and after painting my pages black with acrylic paint, I stenciled the candle with gold metallic paint and then glued stars all around it (mostly to cover my bad stenciling job, but then I ended up loving the stars so much).

To finish I wrote the scripture (Is 9:2) out with a gold sharpie pen. 

 

 

The Newborn King (Truth in the Tinsel day 2)

One of my favorite carols is "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".  I think partly because it's in one of my favorite Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life), but also I just love the lyrics so much.  I especially love hearing them when I'm in the mall or in the grocery store, "Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled"  

 

 

 

For this page  I painted the background with gold metallic acrylic paint and then layered stamps, alcohol inks and papers over it.  Inspired by the Truth in the Tinsel craft for day 2, I cut a crown shape from glitter paper and added jewels and gold trim.

I painted the raw, chipboard shapes with gold paint as well and then hand-lettered lyrics from the song with a black sharpie.



I'll share more of my pages as I complete them.  I'd love to see your pages too!

If you think you might like to use the prompts from Truth in the Tinsel in your art journal this Christmas, the author, my friend Amanda, has given me a 20% discount code to give you!  Just enter the code: peptalk at checkout.  (You can also hear Amanda talking about Truth in the Tinsel on this Christmas episode of the Pep Talk podcast.)

 

Be sure to stop by Erin's blog and check out her take on this week's prompt.  (If it's not there today, check back through the weekend, it will be there!)

 

I hope you're having a wonderful start to your Christmas.  Do something Christmassy this weekend!  (If I keep using the word Christmassy, I think it will catch on as a real word, ha!)

 

Peace and Grace,

 

♥ Melissa~
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"And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased."  -Luke 2:13-14