Illustrated Faith Workshop: Lafayette, IN

On Saturday I had the delightful pleasure of attending my first Illustrated Faith Workshop in Lafayette, IN at the Evangelical Covenant Church. I packed up my bible, my faith journal, & some cute supplies & trekked 2 hours north to hear the testimony of the sweet Shanna Noel. Since I attended workshop, the most common question I've been asked is "So how WAS it!?" And the short answer to that is: it was life-changing.

If you haven't been to one of the workshops for this incredible movement, I'll tell you a little about what goes on. There were about 65 of us in attendance & apparently the workshop was completely sold out! (No surprise there!) The workshop was basically broken down into 4 parts: 1. Listening to Shanna's testimony. 2. Listening to a 15 minute sermon via audio. 3. Free time to dive into your bible & illustrate your faith. & 4. Sharing your thoughts & creations with the other students.

As you can imagine, it was absolutely surreal meeting Shanna. She just walked right up to me & started chatting like we were old friends & it was the most casual thing in the world! (I die!) She's so down to Earth and real! I loved talking products with her and showing her my little journal. I can't tell you how awesome she is-- so encouraging and exuberant about everything! Listening to her speak was riveting. Her story is so inspiring because she's just a "normal" girl that climbed the ladder in the scrap industry and she has TOTALLY used the journey to do God's work. Her aim with Illustrated Faith isn't for people to use the products a certain way or fit into a cookie cutter version of what someone believes Bible Journaling "should" look like. She just encourages everyone to grab some paint, & go to town making a mess & talking to Jesus in the process!

Most people do their journaling in an actual journaling bible, but I'm going a different way. The photo above is the faith journal I created for Illustrated Faith using a Simple Stories Sn@p Album. I have NO issues with creating in an actual bible-- in fact I think it's beyond RAD!-- but I just love the bible I have SO much & it has personal significance to me. I've always been a journaler & a mini book-maker so going this route just made sense to me. I want to be able to layer in all sorts of goodness that inspires me to talk to God & just punch holes in anything I find. I want to be able to write 6 pages if I feel moved to & just chuck them in the journal & go. I want thick paper to get really messy with. So here I go!

This is the little "page" I created during the creative portion of the workshop. We listened to an audio sermon on Colossians Chapter 3 & were then turned loose to make something beautiful. I felt moved to use this Simple Stories card from the I Am Collection to talk about being "tailor made" by a saviour! How incredible is that!?

During the creative time, Shanna passed her first journaling bible around the room for us to peek into. It was so special being able to flip through the bible that kind of "started it all"-- the original document that began such a massive movement in Christianity! Needless to say, it was heavy with importance. ;)

There was also a little table of merchandise that Shanna brought with her that was available to buy. I purchased that stamp set pictured above. Everything else in that photo was included in a little goodie bag we received for the event! I'm especially excited for that faith words washi tape! Eeeeeek!

Here are a few of the pages I've created since Saturday just about the workshop and documenting the turning point for myself:

My thoughts on Illustrated Faith as whole are this: what a spectacular way to draw people into the gospel even if they've never been to church a day in their life. This is a way to PROVE to people that there is no right or wrong way to serve the Lord! There's no template you have to follow when spending time with God! You don't have to be sitting in a pew with your hands folded to speak to Christ! Shanna hit the nail on the head by giving creative-minded individuals permission to throw the rule book out the window and just worship right there in your craft room. He will hear you wherever you are. Shanna is SUCH a personal hero & role model of mine & spending creative time with her this past weekend was a dream come true!

If you're interested in getting started with Illustrated Faith, check out the website and just start. You can also comment or email me at kelainedavis @ gmail . com if you have any questions, need help getting started, or just need a prayer. :) I'm happy to chat with all of you!

<3
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Volume 1

As I've been cleaning out my computer and transferring old photos over to my external hard drive, I've realized how very many INSTAGRAM photos I have and I needed a way to document them! I used the new Pictogram style photo book from Shutterfly to create Vol. 1 of the Davis Instagram Collection!

This review, my friends, is a rave! I got our photo book in the mail last week and I LOVE it! I must have looked through it 100 times since we got it.

The quality is amazing and the resolution of the images is great! I got the 8x8 hardback with glossy pages-- great choice.

I went really simple with this photo book. I took my best-of-the-best Instagrams from the pst birthday year (since Oct. 31 2011) and arranged them by theme. I started to go straight chronological, but I thought it would be better to group them by event/activity.

For text, I kept it really simple with easy captions about each photo basically describing the photo and where/why it was taken.

The photo book designer allows you to choose a style and then customize all the layouts, backgrounds and embellishments.

I just wanted to share the way the book turned out and encourage everyone to check them out! They're super affordable, incredible quality, and totally worth it! I'm so excited to collect enough photos to get volume 2 made. I love that someday we're going to have a little library of our real life in photos: unedited and amazing. :)

<3 E **Note: I wanted to clarify that I'm not being paid to write this review, I got this photo book from Shutterfly.com on my own and loved it! (plus I obviously intend to get many more!

Smash* Mash-Up

I'm sure by now, everyone has seen the Smash Journal from K&Co! They're seriously the most amazing looking books ever. I have been loving it for awhile, but then when Allie posted about it, I saw it as a sign. haha



The premise of the Smash book is just to basically cut out and paste in anything and everything that you feel inspired by. Treat it as a sort of "catch-all" for all the random clippings that accumulate in drawers, tabletops, etc. Well I've really been wanting to buy the Smash Journal, but I know that's its really nothing more than a big blank book with a glue stick and pen. I probably WILL buy it someday, but being broke as I am right now, I decided to create my own Smash Journal inspired book! So... I created the Summer Book.



Products used on cover: Paper: Paper Studio (kraft) Stickers: American Crafts Thickers (dolce, text), Paper Studio (foil numbers), Basic Grey (chipboard sticker) Embellishments: washi tapes, paint chip

To create the book, I used some mat board that I had laying around to create the covers. I covered the mat board with kraft paper, decorated it, then used my Bind-it-All to create the spiral binding.





I've been having SO much inspiring fun pasting in all my favorite clippings. It's like a real live Pinterest! I love opening the Summer Book because it's like a picture book all about me. :) I have actually been using this idea book process for years. Here's some of the pages from my first idea snippet book I created in 2008:





Just lovely. Oh! And by the way...

I will actually be using a book like this as part of my new upcoming journal class Paper Popsicles!

So stay tuned in the coming weeks for information on the scrappy journal class fun!

<3
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I caught the Scrapbook Bug

It started with watching scrap room tours on youtube. Then it went to organizing my supplies. Then it went to starting a mini book. And now I can't stop. It's been SO long since I scrapped and it feels SO good to get some stuff DONE! I'm here to share a mini book I made for Allie! I started this puppy FOREVER ago and with the wedding and graduation and vacation, there's been no time. But here it is! Allie, I'm sorry this is going to ruin the surprise, but I couldn't wait any longer to post it! :)












I whipped that sucker out in a day! I'm proud of how it turned out and I hope that Allie can use it to put out at a bridal shower or something since it's all about her and her hubby-to-be!

To construct the book, I used these:


I also used the Urban Rhapsody paper pad from K&Co., acrylic paint, washi tapes, paint chips, and a variety of embellishments from Basic Grey, K&Co., and more!

Oh. And this is what comes of a marathon scrap session and you don't stop to regroup:



Guess I'll have to keep scrapping and make use of the mess! :) Comment if you have questions about the construction of the book or products used! Chances are that I'll be back with more scrap stuff tomorrow!
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Mini Book Roundup

To take a break from Outfit Overhaul, I wanted to share something I've been meaning to do for weeks now. As I'm cleaning and reorganizing our apartment for spring, I have compiled all my mini books and put them in a little wire basket for people to look through. I thought it would be fun to do a retrospect review on all the mini books I've done in the past 5 or 6 years. It is quite a sizable collection actually!

This isn't all of them. There are still some wandering around my parents' house that haven't made it here to the apartment yet, including our engagement album, but I will still include links to these albums if I can. So I will list them left to right, top to bottom and link you to the original blog post about each one!

1. allure: just a silly book told in the form of a child's fairy tale. Made with a french writing tablet my aunt brought me from France.

2. Autumn 2008: won in a blog giveaway from Holly. Just filled with Autumn loves from a mixed paper journal made by Holly.

3. Live: The first mixed paper journal I made on my own. All trash items I found on the spot in my home.

4. December Daily 08: My first go at Ali Edward's D.D. project. Turned out cute but not as fun as I'd hoped. lol Made from acrylic covers and mixed holiday papers.

5. Summer: Made for a challenge when I was a DT on Scrap Outside the Box. Made with art journal style.

6. Move Along Planner: from an RVA craft kit. A BLAST to make, but wasn't functional AT ALL for planner purposes. haha i still love it.

7. College: Features different words describing college life. Made from a repainted children's board book. <3

8. REALLY: Mini about our Spring Break trip to the Indy Children's Museum. Made from paper bag and scrapbook paper.

9. Craft Wallet: not exactly a mini, but I think of it as my mini books' cousin. haha Made from paper bag.

10. Confessions of a Suburban Princess: For Kara's Life Story online class. Made from various papers, tule, and a LOT of gesso.

11. Spring Styles: a fashion mini book with pages to paste in magazine pictures. Pre-assembled mini book.

12. i*e: All about Ian! Silver Medal winner for Elise Blaha's crafty Olympics! <3

13. It Book: Interesting magazine pages paired with appropriate quotes. Made from recycled journal.

14. ELaine: Made for me by my dear friend Allie. I need to blog real pix of this! Thank you ALLIE!

15. Magics: for one of Elsie's online classes. Loooooved making it! Made from Starbucks sleeves.

16. Love Notes: for Ian for Valentine's Day a few years ago. Basically it's full of pockets and surprises. :)

17. First Comes Love: engagement album! Made from a 3 Gypsies raw mini.



Well I hope you enjoyed the mini book inspiration! This surprisingly took a lot of time to assemble this post, but I'm glad I finally did it:) Let me know what you thought!

<3
E

Scrap*mania

Well Spring Break has been off to a heated head start! I got my engagement album COMPLETELY done yesterday and it's AWESOME! It feels good to have completed a project! Here are some of my favorite pages:





I entitled it "First Comes Love." Then my wedding album will be "Second Comes Marriage," and my baby book will be something along the lines of "Baby in a baby carriage" like the old elementary school rhyme! cute huh?
You can see the entire album on my flickr set!

Anna's been scrapping with me too. She's gotten about 4 big layouts done in the last few days which is really good for us because we work slow. hahaha

Suffice it to say that my mom's living room is a mess from scrapping. haha


A creative mess is a beautiful mess as I always say. Hope I'll have more to share after today! Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend, especially the girls who went to Springfield! Get those pictures posted, chicas! :)
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