Hi, friends! I’m Monika, and I am honored to share a bit of my art and heart with you as a guest designer this month.

For most of my life I have enjoyed the creative process, but I have never been able to stick to just one art form. Does anyone else have that “problem”? As a kid, I wrote poems and played music. As a young adult, I was into photography and short fiction. Now, I find my creative moments are filled with inspirational writing and painting. I am so grateful that a friend introduced me to Bible journaling. When I finally tried it for the first time at the start of last year, I was hooked! It has been the perfect way to combine writing and color. There are a lot of great ways to worship creatively, but I am partial to stencils as a great option to add color and still keep the text readable. The Bible I journal in is also my study and go to church Bible, so I try to keep the text clear, but feel free to express yourself in your pages in whatever way works for you!

For this page, I ended up with quite a diverse selection of supplies:

I spent much of October working through By the Well 4 God’s devotional kit, Create in Me, which is all about God’s creative side as well as the creative work He can do in our hearts. I loved the theme of having a pure heart in the study, so I selected Psalms 24 to journal in my single column ESV journaling Bible.

I began by adding a thin layer of clear gesso to the page. Gesso is not necessary for painting in your Bible, but I use it to help me slow down and focus on what is important. I also tend to be very heavy-handed when I use inks, so gesso keeps me from stamping or coloring through several of these thin pages (which I have done before)!

Once the gesso dried, I sprayed the page with water and added just two drops of Sunny Day yellow craft paint and one drop  of magenta, each of which I spread around the wet page with my fingers and left to air dry. A paper towel under the page and a strip of washi tape temporarily on the adjacent page helps to protect the pages around it.

After the page dried, I used a makeup sponge to apply Abandoned Coral Distress Ink to the page using the TCW743 Crazy Waves stencil. I wanted to use only the section of the stencil with the spirals, so I had to flip the stencil a few times to get the pattern on the page in several waves. Using the thinnest corner of the makeup sponge helped me to stay in the lines.

Last year, a sweet Instafriend sent me a vintage hymnal from Canada. It has become my go-to source for creating paper pieces. I knew I wanted hearts on this page, so I created a plain heart on my computer and used it as a template to cut out a few hearts out of a hymn called “Cleanse Me.”

I applied a thin coat of white gesso to the hearts before adhering them to the page with matte medium. To give the hearts a little color, I used a Bubble Gum gelato around the edges and then softened the color with a baby wipe. A charcoal pencil was used to outline the hearts, which I smudged with a cotton swab to keep some definition in the line.

For the final touches, I used some of my favorite Illustrated Faith alphabet stickers for the word “Purify” and some Tim Holtz Clippings to round out the message. I went back and added a little more white gesso to the last heart to write a prayer.

I hope this page encourages you to open your heart to Bible journaling! If you would like to see more of how I combine writing and art, please visit me at Mon_creates on Instagram or head over to my blog–Dr. Mon’s Creative Space. Thanks for stopping by!