Grace Cards and A Journey of Grace 2021

I. INTRODUCTION TO GRACE CARDS

We're started something new at church this last school year. Pastor asked me to create coloring sheets to coordinate with his sermons. His theme this year was called "A Journey of Grace."  

I felt drawn to use index cards as scripture memory cards. I remember using them when I first began following Documented Faith, but then I branched out into larger sheets for a 3-ring binder notebook because I wanted to add more into the notebook like sermon notes that documented my relationship with Jesus. Now I use a soft-back blank book for just sermon notes as it's more compact, travels easier in my backpack and I am going back to the index cards. Funny, how things seem to rotate in cycles, huh? 😁

So, I created scripture memory and prayer cards on one sheet of paper that was given out each week at church. It's taken me a bit of time to figure out the tech stuff because my computer crashed in June (it died of old age) and with it all my computer files. My husband's brother-in-law rebuilt my computer (Thanks, John!) and I have some new apps that I've had to fiddle with to figure out how to work them.  All fun stuff you know! 🙄

I added links to all the coloring sheets here. Be sure to watch our pastor's sermon that accompanies it (link to his channel below). I have and may have some instructions listed in a comment next to the printable such as printing the sheet on sticker paper or plain paper, then cutting them out and sticking or gluing them down to a 4" x 6"-inch index card or food packaging, etc. I also have a short video that I created to give people ideas on how to display and use them. Click here for that.

I hope and pray that the scripture cards edify the people using them and their prayers will bless the person listed! God knows who the prayer is intended for -- all those of that name we know, and you know! 

As part homework for myself, I'm also reading a book called "What's So Amazing About Grace? By Philip Yancey.  I've had it in my home library for some time, but never had picked it up to read. Now seemed like a good time to do so. The link will take you to Google Books. 

And thank you for reading this post. Your prayers for creative ideas for these cards will be much appreciated! 

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II. CREATIVE IDEAS

Here are some creative ideas I've gleaned from playing, Pinterest, and from YouTube University that I have or may use at some time to create these coloring index cards. 

BOOKS OF THE BIBLE TAB LABELS = I created a printable of Books of the Bible to add to either file folder tabs in your Bible or to divider tabs in a "recipe" index card box.  I had enough room at the bottom of the sheet to also add in Fruit of the Spirit labels. There are some people who like to add tabs to the top of their Bible where they find verses they would like to mark for future reference. You can purchase a tab punch from Amazon or make your own. I have a tutorial for making your own tabs here on this blog. 

CLIPART IMAGES = There are companies like Dover Publishing who sell books and/or CDs of copy-right free images that you can use. In the crafting world, we call them digital stamps or Digi's. Some artists will give away a freebie image that they have created on their website and that's what is up in my freebie tab - websites I've run across with free clipart that's available for download. Sandra Allnock was the newest one I added as she has some freebie Bible Journaling clipart images on her website. 

DIE-CUTS = On my very first Grace & prayer card, I used a scalloped circle die to cut out white cardstock to place over the middle of the striped lines I created with a ruler and pencil/Sharpie marker. When it was photocopied, I liked the appearance of it being elevated or popped up a bit from the background. 

Just saw another idea for die-cuts. Foliage in black paper, like sprays of leaves and branches or floral images. I'm not real fond of coloring sheets that have those teeny-weeny spaces for sharpened coloring pencils only, so a bit of die-cut foliage in the right place would look nice. I learned a couple of weeks back that most of those tiny, spaced coloring images are computer generated from high contrast copyright free photographs from the internet. 

Another idea would be to use black paper and die-cut or stencil small, skinny alphas. Perhaps the word "grace" or to add in the name of the person we're praying for that week. 

DOODLING = I had a request to show how I doodle these cards at YouTube, so here is my video tutorial showing how I did just that: Click Here. 

DOODLING SURFACE = I had been using a clipboard to hold my paper while I drew on it, but decided I needed something a little wider. I liked the clipboard as I could slip it into my backpack along with a pencil box to take with me any place I've had to wait, like for a doctor's appointment or in the car waiting for hubby to come out of that hardware store or when visiting my in-laws. It's a boredom buster!!! It was kind of cramped though, so decided I needed a little wider space to doodle on and when I saw Wendy Vecchi's Magnet Board, I knew I had to get it the next time it went on sale at Hobby Lobby, Joann's or Michael's. I don't have any of the accessories that you can purchase extra for it -- I only have the four magnets and magnetic ruler that came with it at this time. 

GREYSCALE PRINTING = These cards are photocopied or printed on the computer in black and white. I tried water-coloring a shadow across the middle of one weekly card with a water-brush and a grey water-based Marvy marker. It printed looking washed out and I had to reapply the watercolor after cutting our copy of the cards down. So, depending on how good a printer is for grey-scale, grey may be a little iffy to use. 

I tried "water-coloring" a background again on a separate index card back, using a different technique -- a smooched black inkpad on a plastic tile with a spritz of water (a Tim Holtz technique). I had much better results that time. 

INK = I use a thick and thin Sharpie marker to draw with. And occasionally, when they begin to dry out, I need to replace them. And I really don't like it when the nib of the marker decides to split into two lines, cause then I have to go back over it to create a solid line again. 

KISS = Keep it simple, sister! I was reminded of that last week when I was at a loss for a "fancy" image idea. What did I already know? Put that to work, so I did!  

PAPER = I've been using white cardstock to doodle on that I purchased from Walmart. It doesn't rip or fall apart when you erase it. I've been keeping my originals in document sleeves in a 3-ring binder (portfolio). Stephanie had us use mechanical pencils to doodle with, but those tend to leave dents in the paper if you are heavy handed like me. I've switched to using an ordinary sharpened yellow school pencil and a fine-line Sharpie marker. 

Our congregation is composed mostly of senior citizens who live on a fixed income, so computer ink is dear. So, I try to use as little black as I can, however, I created an index card made from leftover strips of decorative black and white scrapbook paper with a white die-cut circle in the center for the scripture. I also collaged over the smooshed inkpad "water-color" on another card.

Another idea is to use torn strips of black paper somehow on the card. Maybe as a frame or as "grass" at the bottom of the card.  

RUBBER STAMPING = I thought about using rubber stamps, but unless you have permission from an angel rubber stamp company to reproduce their images by photocopying your one or two hand-stamped image(s), then that is out. And I looked into obtaining a Stamping Up License one time to make cards to sell, and the license was good for 100 hand-stamped images, period. No, I'm not going to handstamp 40 sheets of paper every week.  However, I could carve my own rubber stamp. I took a class from Stephanie Ackerman that showed us how to doodle a flower image and then carve out the rubber to make our own stamped images. If you have one image that you keep using over and over, this would be a good investment and you wouldn't run into copyright issues then. I purchased a Speedwell Block Printing kit from Michael's to create my own stamp. An outline image would make a good stamp for a coloring sheet. 

Another idea is to use common household items to stamp with such as a straw and ink/paint to make circle bubbles. I also thought about using an embossing or clay ball tool and ink/paint to make dots. To make bigger dots, a new pencil eraser would work.  You could dot the center of flowers or make a dotted doily. 

I could make my own stamps from pre-cut fun foam shapes also and mount them to soda pop bottle lids or pill bottle lids, but they would be pretty small stamps. A hole punch might make for an interesting foam shape stamp. 

SHADING = The shading on my doodles looks dorky to me and I wondered how I could give a little texture to my black and white line doodles. A website I just looked at suggested shading in total black. For instance, on the dark side of a building, color in the whole side black. Don't add in any features to the building on the dark side, just color the whole side in black. Depending on how large the building is, I would have to switch from a fine-line sharpie to a bullet-tip sharpie and maybe mask over the corners and lines of the building, so I don't go out of the lines or glue down a cut out piece of black cardstock paper into the image using a sharp pair of decoupage or embroidery scissors. 

STENCILS = I create the basic 4-inch x 6-inch card by tracing around the inside of a Fiskars cutting square (see video above) and a border using the next smallest size rectangle. I also have traced around the inside of stencils to make backgrounds for my cards. 

I've made my own stencils using a Bigz Die from Sizzix and a piece of plastic packaging, however, one idea I read about, I believe on Pinterest, was die cutting a piece of a plastic notebook divider. The interesting part of that was leaving the holes on the left side so that you could store it flat in a 3-ring binder between two buffer sheets of notebook paper. 

And I'm finding some interesting mask ideas on YouTube by using the cut-out center piece of a stencil. People use the masks to cover over and protect an image they want to keep and pounce over the mask around the edges to create a background with a sponge and ink or paint. 

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III. Pastor's YouTube Channel When you watch any of his videos, please give it a thumbs up/like. YouTube's algorithm catches the likes and spreads the video around to others who might also like to watch it, therefore spreading the Good News about Jesus Christ. 

This is the end of Pastor Eric's sermon series on Grace and he began a new series on Deuteronomy. I've gone back to the full 8.5" x 11" portrait coloring sheet again as everyone seems to prefer it instead. To see more ideas for the full coloring sheets, - click here. 

Blessings and God's grace be with you! 

My Best Tips

Rather than having all my best tips scattered throughout this blog, I thought I would compile them all together into one blog post and when I came up with a new one, then bump it to the top again. I'm doing this as much for myself as for you cause I'm having difficulty keeping track of them to share with others. smile! 😁
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Date: January 27, 2010

I'm into free TV. One of my new favorite digital channels is a PBS channel called Create TV. It has craft, gardening, home improvement, cooking, and travel shows. I also enjoy watching this show on one of the other PBS channels – "Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations." It showcases outsider folk artists and their art, most of which is located along America's roadsides, hence the show's name. The saying about "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" illustrate the thriftiness and creativity of the folk artist.

Update: Now I'm into watching YouTube videos as well. I collected all the bits from past shows that I could find and made a playlist of them to link in above. 
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Date: February 24, 2010

My girlfriends and I share a couple of yards of fibers with each other when we purchase new skeins for card & scrapbook projects. I also have collected several itty-bitty balls of yarn left over from crochet projects. Last fall, my mother, her girlfriends and I visited a country craft fair and in an antique shop at the local town, I saw a large pickle jar full of yarn & ribbon wrapped clothespins. They were also selling unwrapped clothespins for a dollar apiece. I came home, went to the dollar store, and purchased a package of 20 wooden clothespins for $1.00 and have all these lovelies. The wooden salad bowl came from a thrift/junk shop.

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Date: April 27, 2010

If you are going to a crafting session with your friends and need to take several spools of ribbon with you, a clean margarine tub with lid works great. I have a 15 ounce (425g) tub which holds 4 or 5 quarter-inch size spools quite nicely.

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Date: June 30, 2010

I really like those fanny packs, only worn around in front. You know the kind that snaps around your waist and leaves your hands free, but all the essentials are there. As a BBW, it wasn't easy to find one with a belt long enough and when I finally found one, I eventually couldn't wear it because I developed a pinched nerve, caused by a spur, in my back & hip (later diagnosed as arthritis). So I had to resort to other measures. I don't like purses with dinky little handles and with my rolling shoulders, the longer straps would slide off, so I got to wearing them cross-body over my head across my chest with the purse hung up in the armpit area and choking off a boob when I had to have my hands free for shopping. Not a pretty sight mind you, nor very comfortable.
So I went shopping and found a purse with a handle that was adjustable at a garage sale (50 cents). The strap looked like a belt with a buckle which came apart. It only had one hole in the end, so I punched a couple more with my crop-a-dile hole punch. Still it wasn't long enough, so I went up to our local thrift store, found a small girl's belt for 99 cents, tried it to make sure it would slide through the buckle on my purse, cut off the end, added a few more holes and wha-la! I can wear my new purse in comfort on my hip where it belongs. Wow! Can't beat a new purse for $1.50!

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Date: September 22, 2010

I picked up the Mid-Continent library system's community program catalog called "Beyond the Books" for the Fall season at my local branch. There are 30 branch libraries in the whole system. I see, for my local branch, there are several craft classes and clubs offered like a candy-making class for teens, craft classes for preschoolers, an interior design class on decorating for the fall, a KC Chiefs Face Painting class, a scrapbooking club that meets for two hours once a month, pumpkin carving for teens, and a quilting and knitting club.
Across the system, some of the most interesting craft classes are: Art, Illustration & Graphic Design Exhibit, beading, beginning tatting, brad bracelets, candy & cooking classes, cemetery art, crochet classes, a Dear Jane Quilt group, drawing, dry embossing, duct tape creations, face painting, finger painting, friendship bracelets, gingerbread houses, greeting cards & Kirigami greeting cards, making gum paste flowers for cakes, holiday crafts, home design, Japanese calligraphy, jewelry, journaling, Native American crafts, needlework classes, origami, ornaments, paint-by-gum, photo classes & club, plastic models, punch needle, sticky note airplanes, stitched tea towels, snowflake stitchery sampler, and wall decorations. For more information or to register for craft classes, see the website above or your library's website.

If they don't offer classes like these, ask if you can begin a crafting class to start the ball rolling in your community. Set a date at the library, advertise by word of mouth and post signs where people congregate like the grocery store, library, gas station or in your local papers. Give the library a sign-up sheet and a supplies hand-out sheet. Don't be discouraged though if only about half that sign up show up. Just go and have fun and word of mouth will make your classes grow! 

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Date: June 25, 2011

Since I’m frugal, I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money for a Melting Hotpot that I might only use once, so I made my own version. I found this Dazey Beverage Warmer, still in the box like new, and the metal pitcher at the thrift store. My mother gave me a box of paraffin wax that had been in her canning pantry for several years to try first, but I had thought of purchasing old/used off-white or light yellow taper candles from the thrift store or melting down old yellow or tan crayons to get the look of expensive beeswax. I expect a candle warmer would work as well. It took a few minutes for one bar of the canning wax to melt down and when I was done playing, I removed the pitcher from the warmer to let the wax harden right in the pitcher. I didn’t see the need to remove it, so it will be there the next time I want to play again.

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Date: June 29, 2011

Purchase 2 ounce clear cosmetic mister bottles from Walmart for as many colors as you think you will need. Next, fill them with water. Then add 30 drops of re-inker, shake it to mix and spray many backgrounds for your stash. Have fun playing and experiment with various color combinations. Spray through stencils too, for pretty designs!

In addition, make a spray paint “booth” out of a cardboard box (abt. 15 x 15 inches) by cutting off the flaps and lining the very back and bottom of the box with cereal wax paper so there isn't any accidental spray leakage from there to your work surface.

I recently saw a bottle of similar solution at a scrapbook store for $13.00.

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Date: January 9, 2012

The sealing ring on the blender I use for making homemade paper came up missing recently. I looked up the appliance papers to see if I could order another one from the company, but drats, no phone number or address. I remember that the sealing ring was like a piece of flexible rubber, but what could I use to replace it? First, I tried making one from a plastic oatmeal canister lid, but it still leaked like a sieve. Rubber, rubber? What do I have at home that looks like rubber. Ahh! Fun Foam. Trace around the base of the blender jug without the cutting blades attached on both the plastic lid and fun foam and cut out. Stack both together, with the plastic ring next to the blender jug base and screw cutting blades on. Add water to the jug and viola, it should work like a dream. 

I also thought that this might work for those of you who purchased an old blender for making paper from a thrift store or garage sale and found the sealing ring missing too.

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Date: August 17, 2013

When I was in the hospital this summer, I received several small flower arrangements. They were so cute. And they were the ones to survive my husband's care the best when he took them home after I was transferred to another hospital because the flower's feet were still in water. Karen brought me a small flowering plant wrapped in red and blue tissue paper (edges of tissue paper were scalloped) and set into a red, white, and blue decorated box about the size of a cut down milk or juice carton with a ribbon handle. I thought what a handy idea -- easily made and festive for Independence Day! Another idea was a tiny small-necked bottle filled with water, a stargazer lily blossom, roses and baby's breath, wrapped in white tissue paper and inserted into a small gift bag. What a great idea for upcycling all those sample condiment bottles and spice jars I've seemed to have accumulated around my house! The gift sack could be one I craft from a brown lunch bag or one I have saved from a previous gift or failing that, a trip to the dollar store for one.

While convalescing at my mother's after the two week hospital stay, my hubbin surprised me with the newest issue (July 2013) of the now defunct :( Scrap & Stamp Arts magazine. Lo and behold, Karen had a card published in the Simple Stampin' Gallery (p. 34, Congrats! Karen). The article that caught me eye though was Carol Heppner's altered mini vases on page 14. Oh, another thing to collect! The flower I liked best was the folded rosette medallion made of text scrapbook paper just like the ones I made for my Sunday School kids Easter "baskets." Now that pink bathing tub I brought home from the hospital ought to just hold several of those small, skinny bottles like hot sauce bottles, salt & peppers, scented oil stick jars, old perfume bottles, vinegar decanters, and so forth. 

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Date: June 16, 2015

All the ladies at an ATC club that I began attending liked my sponge tool -- a wedge of round yellow clay sponge cut into quarters and "pinched" into a clothespin "handle." I have a hard time with "traveling" ink -- in other words, I would love to be a neat and tidy crafter, but to tell the truth I'm messy, so the clothespin helps keeps the ink off the ole fingers, however, the night before, I had purple ink on the back of my fore-arm, (aaak!) my pink shirt as well as on the table top that I believe had squirted out sideways from a re-inker bottle. I tried to wipe it all up but some of it started hitchhiking on me before I found it all! LOL!

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Date: March 7, 2018

My mother was a ceramic teacher for years and years and one tip she always told me concerning acrylic paint was -- if your paint is beginning to dry up (still gooey on the inside of the bottle under the skin that formed on top), is to remove the skin and toss it away and to add one capful of water to the paint bottle. Stir the water into the paint with a palette knife (or popsicle stick or bamboo skewer), screw the lid back on and store the bottle upside down, so that any air that happens to be inside the bottle will go up to the bottom and begin to dry out the paint there, instead of the paint near the lid which you want to keep in semi-liquid form. 

However, if you find that your paint is completely hard as a rock all the way through the bottle when you try spearing it with a palette knife and it bounces back, then it is a goner and time to toss the bottle, cause you won't be able to resuscitate the paint. It is now a plastic brick! smile!

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Date: March 8, 2018

Once upon a time, I had a bone folder. But it grew legs and ran away, so now I use a brayer I found at a garage sale for a quarter. Not only does it make sharp creases, but also rolls out air bubbles from glued down or double-face taped images and sentiments. 

And in a pinch, it has also doubled as "zoom, zoom car" when my girlfriend and I got together to make cards, as her young grandson enjoyed playing with it. smile! 🚗

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Date: 15 July 2021

Jennifer McGuire has a Tim Holtz sponge applicator for every one of her ink colors. That would be nice if you could afford that. I saw a gal on YouTube who used an empty thread spool as a handle for a Tim Holtz replacement sponge tip. I discovered that a clothesline sponge applicator is hard on my hands (see June 2015 tip above), so have been looking for something as a handle that's easy for my hands to grasp. So, after I saw the thread spool applicator, I made a couple (2). But that's all the empty thread spools I had, so looked around for something else to use about the same size and I spied several empty pill bottles I had saved to store tiny beads, nails, and tacks, etc. in. We have a never ending supply of these little bottles at our house and I glued a circle dot of Velcro hook tape to the lid with E-6000, and since it was the same size as the sponge tip, I had storage for extra's to boot. I found to get one of the extra sponges out of the bottle, I grab one of the sponges with a long forceps/tweezer tool that I picked up at Harbor-Freight. Then I use the "handle" of the bottle to pounce ink from the moist sponge onto a piece of paper.  Makes a handy-dandy tool as well as a storage container! 

 

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