Throwback Tuesday: Gratitude
Original Challenge: Take photos of things that fill your heart with gratitude, include journaling.
This week’s Throwback Tuesday post is just in time for celebrating the holidays. It is fall; Thanksgiving time; Beyond the feast and football it’s time to express our gratitude to God for all our blessings. Whatever your family traditions may be for Thanksgiving, I imagine we all stop and reflect about the people and events in our lives for which we give thanks. Expressing our gratitude is an attitude that we can do 365 days of the year.
A while back I taught a Mosaic Moments style scrapbook class incorporating the application of a challenge to “scrap your faith.” I first discovered this concept several years ago in a book “Scrapbooking Your Spiritual Journey” by Sandra L. Joseph. I began thinking of scrapbooking as a journal of life events, not just the fun moments of vacation or birthdays, first days at school or graduations, but incorporating for future generations the story of our lives including our faith. I wanted to be able to scrap with a purpose and document my spiritual journey in life through pictures and words.
That is part of how I approached the original layout that you can find HERE.
MM Throwback Tuesday: Gratitude
For this new layout challenge I wanted to go a bit further. I wanted to feature a few trending ideas and a few techniques to breathe a bit of new life into my layouts.
The two techniques are:
1. Turning the white Mosaic Moments grids into your own “designer” paper and
2. The combination of digital scrapping and mosaics for a hybrid page
The two trends are:
1. Bible Journaling
2. Coloring Books for adults
TECHNIQUE ONE: Making Designer Paper
Let’s begin with creating your own “designer” paper from the White Mosaic Grid Paper. Some of you have asked about ideas and I’d ask you to consider adding this to your bag of tricks.
I began with the White Mosaic Grid, White Paper Tiles and Pattern # 166 a column pattern.
Page Pattern #166
We’ve shown you misting your grid paper before but what I did differently this time was to lightly tack in place white paper tiles in the places for the pattern, except for the 1” squares.
Mosaic Moments White Grid Paper Creating your own “Designer Paper” step one.
Next, I used several fall dye ink colors by direct to paper application all over the page and paper tiles.
Mosaic Moments White Grid Paper Creating your own “Designer Paper” step two. Using leaf die shapes to mask areas and create patterns.
Mosaic Moments White Grid Paper Creating your own “Designer Paper”.
Using glimmer mist, the whole page received a coating of color (Crushed Shells).
Mosaic Moments White Grid Paper Creating your own “Designer Paper” step three adding glimmer mist for color and shine.
Mosaic Moments White Grid Paper Creating your own “Designer Paper” step three. Close up of color, tiles and pattern.
Once dry the pieces were removed and saved to attach to a pumpkin grid, but, I’m getting ahead of myself!!
These two layouts created with this technique include using the same photo and journaling content in two different formats, with the same pattern.
MM Gratitude layout #! with Pattern # 166 and “designer” paper tiles.
The first layout uses the inked and misted paper tiles for the title and journal spots. I printed the tiles with journaling and verses then used the layering tile to trim, and then mount, on paper tiles and then onto the pumpkin 12×12 Grid Paper.
MM Gratitude using designer paper print, crop and mount. trimmed using the layering dies of Set C
Using cardstock colors to coordinate with the page I ran it through an embossing folder then divided the sections into 1” squares to fill the spots along the outer border.
MM Gratitude Creating Designer paper with White MM Grid Paper Layout #2 Pattern #166
The second layout with our “Designer Grid Paper” uses different patterned papers to print the title and journal blocks. The papers read as solids, one with a leaf pattern (same paper from the original layout!) and the second in a small gingham print adding more color to the page.
MM Gratitude the white grid now inked and misted and applying the borders.
MM Gratitude the white grid now inked and misted and applying the borders.
This second layout also uses triangles in the border as I did not cover the 1” spots while misting and the grid lines still were visible after the inking. I wanted to let that glimmer and color show through, so triangles were the solution. A fall leaf pattern paper blends in nicely with the misted grid color and adds a bit of definition to the blended border background.
TECHNIQUE TWO: Hybrid Scrapping
For this layout I’ll be using digital kits from Kimeric Kreations and Page Pattern #103 a pinwheel pattern.
MM Pattern #103 pinwheel
This page allows me to create four separate spots with “journaling” and four color blocks around a center title.
MM Gratitude Layout #3 Hybrid Scrapbook page using Pattern #103 flipped, digital kits from Kimeric Kreations.
All sections are created with digital paper, embellishments and alphabets that coordinate and then printed and mounted on the grid. The color blocks and title have paper tile mats.
MM Gratitude Hybrid page four 3×5 block journal spots.
If you enjoy digital scrapping you may enjoy this change up being able to incorporate your Mosaics and digital together for a hybrid page.
This next layout incorporates two trending techniques:
MM Gratitude Scrapping Your Faith Layout #4 combination of Bible Journaling and Color Book techniques using Pattern #103
TRENDING TECHNIQUE: Bible Journaling
On this page, I have incorporated a trending technique…Bible Journaling.
Bible Journaling has been growing in popularity and there are many different ways to do it. If you’d like to see some examples you can see more on Pinterest here. Essentially, the idea is to enhance your worship as you study the Scriptures by highlighting verses or themes and illustrate that in the columns of your Bible. There are Bibles specifically designed to be able to take notes with a two inch ruled column, where additional artist flair can be placed. Others make use of greater portions of the page.
MM Gratitude Scrapping Your Faith Bible Journaling. Going beyond Highlighting verses one verse is pulled and arranged in the side column and can be added to with color or illustrations.
I realize that this is not something that many people are comfortable in doing, but the idea of being able to illustrate a special verse is very appealing. Some people love to write and can fill volumes of journals, some of us like to tell our story in pictures, either by hand or in photos.
So what better way to incorporate your faith, your favorite verses into your favorite way to scrap? After all, this week, we are looking for ways to scrap about Gratitude. Who you are is also about what you believe. What are you grateful for?
The patterns and styles that are achievable with the Mosaic Grid system are limitless! If Bible journaling isn’t for you maybe scrapping your faith is!!
When I have worked on my family tree I can find dates of birth, marriage and death. I find where people lived and the jobs they held. The biggest mystery is the personal things like what they believed, the story behind the dates, places, and events. I wish I knew more than just the vital statistics found in a census record.
Who will tell your story to your family when you are gone? This is one way to begin to tell your story, your way. Scrap Your Faith!
As it is Thanksgiving this layout shows one way to highlight your gratitude. I chose four verses I love that talk about giving thanks. Using a digital format I was able to get the exact sizes I needed for the pattern and was able to create a hybrid page quickly and easily. So if you like to scrap digitally too, be sure to try it out.
TRENDING TECHNIQUE: Coloring Books for Adults
In previous posts I’ve shown you creating titles using Tangles and Dangles in the Zenspiration style. This is only a small version of what is being created in the ever growing coloring books for adults trend. This layout will have both small and larger blocks to create a full 12×12 page of illustrations.
MM Gratitude Scrapping Your Faith small journaling blocks for “titles” using “coloring book” techniques
This page includes four smaller tiles with hand drawn titles describing four things I am thankful for and a larger tile with the accompanying verse.
While not full blown coloring pages, you can create small vignettes with a Micron pen or two, a few color markers or pencils, and a ruler! A few semi-straight lines, a few doodles and there you have something to color that’s all your own. It can be a word, a phrase, a verse, or a quote…the choice is yours. Be creative! Enjoy!
If you try any of these ideas and upload to Pinterest would you click on the send icon and send me your pin? I’d love to add it to my board about Scrapping Your Faith…here’s my boards.
For some people, they’ve been doing this right from the start of their scrapbooking journey and it’s not new at all. Yet, what is unique for Mosaic Moments is the absolute versatility with the numerous patterns we have in our Pattern Gallery and those you create on your own. No two pages need ever be the same, the possibilities are endless!!
Whatever your family traditions have been maybe this year you can incorporate a new one and a new way to think about what you scrap and a new story to tell. Scrap what you believe, tell your story, someone will want to know if not now, someday.
Wishing you and your family a very Blessed Thanksgiving Season,
Andrea Fisher
MM_Gratitude, Scrapping Your Faith, Designer Scrapbook Paper, Hybrid Mosaics, Bible Journaling
As always the Pinterest Board has lots of ideas and you’ll find this one there too!