Isaiah 40:8

Good afternoon! Today I journaled these two pages in my bible. A lot of people have been sharing pages done with pretty paper napkins lately…an old technique that has come around again.  It brought back memories of doing the napkins on cards years ago….and I remember even decoupaging napkins onto wicker baskets! Anyone else do that?

I picked up this pack with a pretty floral design in TJ Maxx a few weeks ago.  Then I decided that Isaiah 40:8 would be a good page to use them on. The verse reads “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” Our earthly things may be beautiful and good, but they can be gone in a moment.  But God will guide us and always be with us. We need to keep Him as our foundation and keep our eyes fixed on what will stand forever.

I used various Sweet ‘n Sassy stamp sets for the words… Rebecca Script, Words of Life- Collection 1 and Common Words 1, God Is Good, Message of Hope. They were stamped with Archival Black.

There’s a bit of a learning curve with the napkin technique in figuring out how much gesso to apply. I just “winged it” as I tend to do, but you may want to practice on something else first if you are unsure. I made sure I had a craft sheet under the page I was working on. I brushed clear gesso on the page with a foam brush but you might like using a regular brush or other applicator tool.  Just apply your gesso, adhere your napkin to it, and dry it with a heat tool. Then apply another coat of gesso on top.

Some TIPS:

1. Be careful not to overwork the second coat of gesso or it will tear the napkin away. If you do have small spots that rip away, you can tear off a small scrap of napkin and fill it in if the pattern on your napkin is forgiving. (I patched two small spots here!)
2. If you are covering the whole page with a piece of napkin as I did here, I found it helpful to adhere the napkin in two sections. I held it in place where I wanted it, then folded the top half down. While holding it with one hand, I applied gesso to the top with the other hand. Then I laid it back down and smoothed it out and pressed it a bit with an old credit card. Then I folded the bottom up and repeated this on the lower part of the page.
3. Keep a paper towel handy to wipe your fingers, brush, or credit card if needed.  (The brush may pick up color from the napkin)
4. Keep scraps of your napkin ready in case you need to patch tears.
5. To highlight the verse: Before I started, I held the napkin in place  and used a pencil to draw a box on the napkin around the verse. Then I used my scissors to cut it out. Line it back up on the page and apply your gesso in sections as described above.

I hope this was helpful! Have a great weekend!