Bible Posters 5: John 3:16

One of the things I love to design are posters of bible verses. I have been working on creating digital copies of some of these lately. As the first series on my blog, I am going to show these, one at a time, on Sundays (yes, today it's late!) on the blog. I hope you like them. At the moment I want all my posters to stay here on my blog, so I have labeled them with my blog address. 

I saw this idea on Pinterest where someone had written out John 3:16 and marked out the letters of the word valentine. This was interesting to me as I thought about how the verse about God's love could be related to valentine's day, which is about our love for others.  God's love is far a greater, deeper, and truer love than any emotion a human can feel. We cannot fully understand his love, but we can see it evidenced in our lives and in all the world around us. In no way is this love better demonstrated than on the cross, where he sacrificed Jesus for us. Our love is often based on selfishness, but God's love is demonstrated in an act of amazing selflessness- he died for us! And as the verse says, this love brings life to us, because it frees us from sin. If Valentine's day is about celebrating love, what better love do we have to celebrate than His?

I made these posters using picmonkey.com free photo editing, adding text to a background found online. I used several effects and couldn't choose which I like best! Which one do you prefer?

1000!

You may have heard of Ann Voskamp and her book, '1000 Gifts: a dare to live fully right where you are' which is wonderfully about waking up to joy all around you through constantly giving thanks. It is an amazing, inspiring, and focus-changing book which I have loved reading. This year I took the Joy Dare and counted 1000 things that God has given me that I am thankful for. I have this little ink-stained book filled with these random gifts which I have written in thanks to God. Today I wanted to encourage you to take the Joy Dare this year. Download the PDF from the blog aholyexperience.com and count three joys each day of the year, for the whole year, to make it up to one thousand gifts! And there's even a camera giveaway waiting for you if you count them all!!

So this year, why don't you slow down and see the beauty of the grace of all you everyday blessings, and count them, keep counting and keep seeing.

(I know this is off the usual topic but I really wanted to share today. And I am sorry for the lack of posts already, and more craft related are coming, promise!)

{Advent Adventure} God's Promise of a Saviour

This year in my advent bible reading plan (which I've named Advent Adventure) I am focusing partly on the Old Testament, and how Jesus’ birth was the fulfilling of many prophecies and promises God had made to His people the Jews. I am going to post up some of my daily readings to the blog, and I hope you find them helpful for you as you think about Jesus, specifically in His birth, and what it means for Christians.

Since when Satan tricked Adam and Eve and man fell, sin entered the world, but God promised his people a Saviour, which would bruise Satan's head, defeating him.

       So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,

And you shall bruise His heel.” Genesis 3:14-15

He made a promise to a man named Abraham that one of his descendants would bless the whole world. That descendant was Jesus.

Now the Lord had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”Genesis 12:1-3

God told this promise to Moses, too, as he led God's people to the land he had had promised to Abraham.

And God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name Lord I was not known to them. I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the children of Israel: ‘I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.’” Exodus 6:2-8

One last promise I will mention here out of the many God made about sending His Son the earth is the one he gave to David.

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you." 2 Samuel 7:12-15

Look out for more Advent Adventure readings coming next week! 

Embroidery {Psalm 106 vs 1}

During November I am trying to write a novel! Crazy, I know, but it was NaNoWriMo young writer's program that inspired me to do it. Because I am now going to be writing like crazy, I will not be able to post so regularly, so I'm starting off with some projects I've completed earlier and saved for a times like now! : )

I finished this embroidery in time for Mother's Day earlier this year as a gift to my mum. I really liked doing the embroidery, but like most of my gifts, it was a bit of a stretch to get it done in time! I worked on this watching a movie, at a friends house, and at any spare moment I got in my room. 

I can't remember why I picked this particular verse, probably just because I liked the words. It mentions the Lord in every line, and also his goodness and mercy. I hope it is reminder to praise the Lord and give Him thanks to everyone who sees it in our living room! My mum chose this nice frame, the glass of it measures 7.5" x 9.5" to fit the  fabric.

I chose a large piece of thick white cotton and used embroidery thread for everything except the tree, merely because I had no green embroidery thread! Using an ordinary (HB) pencil I lightly sketched the design onto the fabric after practicing a few times on paper. I started with the tree outline, then the words, and finished with the flowers at the bottom and the tree trunk detail. It is all done in running stitch, where a would sew around the word or an individual letter once, then go back and fill in the gaps. I used two or three strands of the thread and an embroidery needle. I put the fabric onto an embroidery hoop to make it easier to work with. I filled the tree top with simple (almost) straight lines of running stitch.  I'm sure there are many other stitch techniques that could work, I'm not saying this is definitely the way to do it! 

Here is the back, not very pretty, but I just wanted to show how I folded the edges in (to neaten the front and make it fit in the frame,) and then iron over interfacing to help it keep the right shape. It's really hard not to have a few wrinkles though! 

Bible Posters 4: Grace and Peace

One of the things I love to design are posters of bible verses. I have been working on creating digital copies of some of these lately. As the first series on my blog, I am going to show these, one at a time, on Sundays on the blog. I hope you like them. At the moment I want all my posters to stay here on my blog, so I have labeled them with my blog address. 

Grace and Peace

'Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.' This verse and the many others like it give us a wonderful message about God and his love for his children. God's grace is shown to us through all the gifts he gives us, primarily Jesus and his death for us and the forgiveness of our sins through him. We stand in God's grace {Romans 5:2.} We can have peace in our hearts when we are forgiven of our sins and have peace with God, through Jesus who has made it possible for God to forgive us. 

I had the inspiration for this poster quite a while ago when I was in church and quickly wrote it down. I have heard the greeting 'Grace to you and peace' so many times at the beginning of the New Testament letters to the churches. I wondered if I could find the grace and peace greeting line of every letter and write them down in two columns, thinking of newspaper columns. When I got round to making this poster I wondered what I could do for the papery background I wanted. I considered looking around the web for a papery background or maybe try to create one on illustrator. The paper background you see on the poster was just a photo I took of some crumpled-up paper, and I was surprised how well that worked! Next I sought out the verses to add to the paper, and then the final 'Grace and Peace' text.

Bible Posters 3- I love Jesus

One of the things I love to design are posters of bible verses. I have been working on creating digital copies of some of these lately. As the first series on my blog, I am going to show these, one at a time, on Sundays on the blog. I hope you like them. At the moment I want all my posters to stay here on my blog, so I have labeled them with my blog address. 

I love Jesus because He...

I was inspired to make this poster because I love Jesus! I was thinking of some of the reasons and realised that I will never be able to list them all. This is why I should love him, but more why I do love him. These are some of the things I thank him for. These are not necessarily my 'top 10' or the best reasons for loving him, but what came to mind at the time.

Here are verses from the Bible realted to the things I listed:

{Created Me-Genesis 1:1} {Loves Me-Romans 8:39} {Died for Me-Romans 5:6} {Saved Me-Acts 15:11} {Forgives Me-Ephesians 1:7} {Blesses Me-Ephesians 1:3} {Listens to me-Psalm 66:19} {Prepares a place for me-John 14:3} {Intercedes for Me-Hebrews 7:25} 

Unlike the previous posters shown, this one was deigned only on the computer, using two fonts: 'Handwriting - Dakota' and 'Prestige Elite Std.' I drew the hearts and made the cross out of lines.

Bible Posters 2-1 Timothy 1:15

One of the things I love to design are posters of bible verses. I have been working on creating digital copies of some of these lately. As the first series on my blog, I am going to show these, one at a time, on Sundays on the blog. I hope you like them. At the moment I want all my posters to stay here on my blog, so I have labeled them with my blog address. 

A MESSAGE, a big message! listen up, it is Worthy of all Acceptance.
CHRIST JESUS came into the WORLD to SAVE SINNERS!

A Big Message
I drew this Bible poster while listening to a sermon on 1 Timothy 1:15, which I've got on my sidebar. The verse is about the gospel message, Jesus coming to save sinners. 'This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.'

Paul, who wrote this verse, knows how big the message of the gospel is! It is time to listen up. It is worthy of all acceptance: it deserves your trust. Christ Jesus came into the world to die for the sin of all. 'All have sinned' Romans 3:23. Paul says that he is the 'chief of sinners:' the worst. 

I swapped the colours around to give a chalkboard effect. The text uses a chalkboard effect, but when I drew it the letters were bold and chunky, as in 'sinners,' with a striped background. So it is different from the original (none of mine look that good scanned straight in) but it still emphasises the message. 

Bible Posters 1 - Philippians 4:8

One of the things I love to design are posters of bible verses. I have been working on creating digital copies of some of these lately. As the first series on my blog, I am going to show these, one at a time, on Sundays on the blog. I hope you like them. At the moment I want all my posters to stay here on my blog, so I have labeled them with my blog address. 

'Think on These Things'

I heard a great sermon on Philippians 4:8: 'Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.'

What goes into our minds is important. As Christians we must not be soaking up worldly things but godly things. We are to be actively setting our minds on good things, like Jesus, God, and the Bible, and meditating on them. 

The poster is inspired by the sweetness of studying God's word and delighting ourselves in Him. This is an unusual poster style for me, most of them focusing on the words only. I made it on photoshop from a drawing that I scanned.