Faith Planner During the Week

I get a lot of questions about my faith planner. My planner/agenda is from Illustrated Faith. 

Here's what the weekly page spread looks like blank.

My spread takes shape over the week as I add prayers, thoughts, scripture, and more that is influenced by my devotions, study time, and whatever prayer requests come up during the week. I don't really plan anything ahead of time, but there are some consistencies. The first thing I always do is create a border to the right for my prayer list.

This week I used word stamps from SRM's new Daily Devotion set.
Usually on Mondays I add some reflection from Sunday's sermon. It's usually similar to what I've journaled in my Bible from my sermon reflections.

As the week progresses, I add a little each day. After journaling in my Bible I often just use the same supplies and thoughts and transfer a bit into my journal. 

As the week progresses, my prayer list continues to grow and sometimes those prayers are driving factors in a bit more art in my planner. This week I was praying for the March for Life and that was a big part of this page.

Finally, by Saturday, my 2 page spread is filled in with scripture, prayers, and reflections. I utilize many artsy bits - stamps, scrapbook paper, stickers, washi tape, paints, and even pieces of devotions or prayers cut out and glued to my pages.

Here are a few more thoughts in video format.

Thanks for visiting today. Do you use a faith planner?

Snow Day Layouts

It's been quite awhile since I spent a day scrapbooking. My life, luckily, is filled with creativity - Bible journaling, fun projects with my daughter (like her recent kitty birthday party I blogged about HERE), and school projects, cards to send out, and other creative projects. 

But I've missed scrapbooking and have fallen almost 2 years behind (I had been keeping it to within a year for a long time). So, I decided to scrapbook Saturday. It was a messy day outside and therefore was perfectly suited to an indoor day at my craft table. 

Here are several layouts I completed from a series of snowfalls we had in February of 2015.

This last was my favorite. I love the pop of color in the title and the paint on that black chevron paper. Do you have a favorite? 

Cute Kitty Birthday Party

My daughter and I planned a super cute kitty-themed birthday party together. It was so much fun to plan and the afternoon was all we hoped it would be. Today I'm sharing lots of photos of the fun things that we created for our party.

She and a few friends had a wonderful time picking out a kitten to adopt.
(We purchased these soft and adorable kittens from HERE.)

Each girl picked up supplies, including a kitty carrier, yarn toy, bag of kitty food (cocoa puffs) and adoption certificate. 

They also were greeted with kitty ear headbands and a little face painting (nose and whiskers).

These girls were 6-9 in ages and crafts were the perfect party activity. They decorated their kitty carrier boxes with stickers, washi, and sparkly gems.

Then it was kitty's turn to get blinged out. We had collars (ribbon with a bit of velcro) and gems and charms to add. It was my daughter's idea to have more accessories, so we gathered some fun pipe cleaners and small ribbon flowers. The girls made their kitties headbands, earrings, and bracelets.

We converted an old bean bag toss game to a kitty theme.

My daughter wanted a sign pointing everyone to the location of the litterbox (aka restroom).

We used yarn and kitty diecuts (made with my Cricut) to create more decorations for our table, a fun banner with yarm pom poms, and added paper cupcake toppers to colorful purchased cupcakes.

We also used whatever coordinating fabrics and felt pieces we already had on hand to cover tables. Hannah's stuffed kitties were the perfect anchors for the kitty balloons, too.

Our little 8 year old was a super happy birthday girl!

New Year, New Bible

This morning I reflected on Sunday's sermon and did some journaling in my Bible. The passage, the Aaronic Blessing in Numbers Chapter 6, had previously been journaled, but I used my watercolor pencils to bring some more colors to the page as I reflected on the words of the Lord's blessing.

The Lord blesses and keeps me, shines His face on me. He does this weekly in a special way as I sit in the pew for Sunday services, alongside my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and hear and receive His very real presence in Word and Sacrament. 

As we were leaving I was struck by the beauty of the window's reflection and the rays of sunlight highlighted by the smoke of the candles. As I was taking a few photos, my daughter ran in and stood in the midst of it all. The Lord's blessing upon her. His very real presence and peace.

He strengthens my faith as I spend time in the Word throughout the week. As I look through this Bible I see and remember how God has walked alongside me these last two years. 

Look how it has expanded past its covers, bursting its bindings with my added notes and journaling.

Yes, this is just paper and paint, but the Word! Oh the Word! Living and active! Accomplishing all the Father has willed for it to do!

I'm sort of sad that I really need to set this one aside and begin in another Bible. But also excited and confident that I do not walk alone. 

I pulled photos of my top 100 journaling entries from 2016 and created a simple slideshow. It includes entries from my journaling Bible as well as the notebooks/journals I used for special seasons and/or studies. Showing 100 photos takes 8 minutes, so play your own soundtrack and grab a cup of something to sip on!