Hi friends! I’m really excited to share something that I love with you: Bible Journaling! I know that I have a few posts with pictures and a how-to of how to make a bible verse spread, but today I want to show you the different ways that I personally journal my Bible(+ pictures), and hopefully encourage you to start or find your own unique style!
Since I started bible journaling, I always have people look at my bible and say a number of things:
- “I wish I could do what you do, I’m just not artistic.”
- “I’m so jealous that your notes look better than mine!”
My answer to this is always that I’m also not artistic, and that all of the art I do is for my own personal growth. Some people can’t journal or take notes because it distracts them, which is TOTALLY OKAY! I can sit down in church and not look up from my notebook and bible the entire time, but still pay attention to what is being said. All of my notes in my notebook or the spreads in my bible are to help me remember scripture, and just add color to the black and white pages. I write down prayers, decorate parables and stories, and annotate my favorite passages. This helps me engage in the Word of God and make the gospel feel more personal. Nobody is going to feel at home in a plain room that they’re not able to decorate or have control over! This translates to my Bible. I have my own personal struggles and experiences that are poured out onto my Bible’s pages. Reading my Bible is reading God’s story + Terin’s life. This expression of love and worship towards God looks different for me than it will for anyone else!
First I want to show you Isaiah 40. This chapter is so worshipful and magnifies God’s power over three pages. I have three different spreads that vary in degrees of creativity. I will list my materials and how I created each one!
1. Illustrating with Pictures and Paint
While there are many ways to journal your bible, my first examples focus on one verse. Here is my first Isaiah 40 spread:
This one is definitely imperfect, but still is colorful and interesting. It’s based on Isaiah 40: 5, 8
“The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken”
“The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever”
So while flowers look easy to draw, I had to look on Pinterest to find some patterns to use. I used a regular lead pencil to draw the design first, and the circle for the sun. I chose for this to cover the whole page because it can be difficult to make clean edges with watercolor paint on the bible’s pages. I used rainbow colors on this page but you could definitley mix it up and use greens, yellows, and blues to make it more accurate. I focused the yellow around the sun that I drew, and then blended the colors as I painted up and down. With watercolor, I tend to not use strokes, but stipple the color onto the page to make it look more random. I like the texture this page has; it looks like colored water splashed onto the page. Once the paint dried I used a ballpoint pen to go over my penciled flowers. In retrospect, I should have let the page sit overnight, but I was too excited and the page was still soft and my pen didn’t work as well. It still turned out pretty & aged, but if you were to use an ink pen on a wet page, the designs would look fuzzy and the ink would’ve spread into the paint. Something else I wish I would have done was leave a white halo around my circle to look like a real sun instead of using pen to draw it.
While this page is more involved and spans a whole page it’s easily one of the most fun spreads I’ve done. I spent at least two hours on this spread, but it does NOT have to take that long. I was feeling crafty and decided to make something colorful with a beautiful meaning. The Word of our God stands forever and so does his promises. He used a rainbow to signify a promise to Noah, and we have seen this promise kept, and I used it as a reminder to always have faith in His Word.
2. Calligraphy and ‘Faux-ligraphy’
My second spread is based on Isaiah 40:23
“He brings the princes to nothing; He makes the judges of the earth useless.”
This verse just reminds me of how powerful God is, and that He is superior, and the only one worthy to judge sin. We live in a backwards world where morals no longer originate from God’s law. Our nation is so blessed by God, yet we allow for babies to be killed in the womb everyday, and for sexual immorality to be applauded and fill our television screens. This verse reminds me that God will perfect everything one day, it is not in my hands. My job is to spread His gospel, and to love everyone in hope they will turn from their sin.
There are two parts to this spread. I have some notes and an illustrated verse. For the verse I used a lead pencil, a black ballpoint pen, and a pink ink pen. I tend to stay away from ink pens due to my left-handedness that smears wet ink, but I liked how bright this pen was, and it smells like strawberries. It was a birthday gift from a sweet friend, so if she’s reading this, THANK YOU! So, thankfully I am blessed with good handwriting, but I used the ‘faux-ligraphy’ technique for my black words. I wrote in cursive and then on every downstroke I added an additional line, but didn’t color it in. For my my pink words I wrote in all caps(with pencil first), and colored it in with my pink pen. At the bottom I added a little note and the date that I created this page. As you can see in the second picture, I attached a piece of paper with some washi tape. If you want to recreate this, this part is optional, but when I read these scriptures, I had these words on my heart:
“God, You are so big! I cannot fathom the power of Your name. Let my whole life GLORIFY Your presence and welcome others to partake in Your GRACE.”
3. A Worshipful Spread
This next page is by far one of my favorite spreads because of how fun it was to make. My pastor preached this passage a couple weeks back and it stuck in my heart for a couple days. I created this during the sermon with a neutral-colored Crayola marker(that I’ve lost since then), and a ballpoint pen(how universal is this!) That morning, the praise team streamed the song ‘Everlasting God’ by Lincoln Brewster, and that is they eycatcher of this page. The verse this page is based on also includes those words. Isaiah 40: 28-31 says:
“Have you not know? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youth’s shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall up mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”
WHAT an amazing passage?! I was so moved when I created this, and it features song lyrics as well as characteristics of God from the passage. I first used the faux-ligraphy technique with my ballpoint pen to write out “the Everlasting God”, and used my colored marker to color in the spaces between my new lines. In my regular handwriting I wrote out around this pieces of the passage like “SUSTAINER!” and “NEVER GROWS TIRED”. Once I did this, I still felt like something was missing. I thought about a song I know called “Unstoppable God” by Elevation Worship. It’s an amazing praise song that proclaims God’s indescribable power. I wrote some lyrics from this song with my colored marker in the background. This completed the page, and I love how it turned out. I love these songs and this passage. My motivation in creating this was pure worship. I wanted to praise God for who He is!
4. Sermon Notes / Annotation / Prayers / Personal Studies / Grammatical Notations
Moving away from Isaiah 40 specifically, there are other ways to decorate your pages. The next pictures will show you instances in which I will write sermon notes directly into my Bible, notes from a personal study, prayers, or devotional notes. I have no systematic way of annotating or color-coded highlights, but I use it to embolden words or scriptures that have meant something to me. I am very proud of how my Bible looks, and like me, you don’t need expensive supplies to create something beautiful. Here’s a list of useful supplies I use a lot to create my spreads:
- Black ballpoint pens: You can use this to take notes or make elaborate illustrations!
- Papermate colored pens: This brand is my favorite for colored pens, and they look good for underlining, as well as taking notes in my sermon notebook.
- Washi Tape: I use this to fashionably repair ripped pages, or stick papers in my bible. Hobby Lobby has a large selection of washi tape, but I usually buy mine when it’s on sale.
- Crayola Markers: They’re simple and make pages look colorful and pretty!
- Watercolor paint: I no longer have the package for the exact brand of watercolor I use, but any brand works!
- Construction Paper, Glue sticks, Scissors, Colored Highlighters, stickers: No specific brand, but these tools make it easier to create beautiful journaled pages.
I loved sharing some of my pages and tips on how to journal! Let me know which one is your favorite or attach an image of your own Bible in the comments! Make sure to check some of my other bible journaling posts, biblical poems, and in-depth studies of passages! You can reach me by email or from any of my social media accounts which are linked on the side. My uploading schedule is really inconsistent, but starting with this post, I am going to start uploading every Monday afternoon! If you want hear a blog post about my faith, or about my life in general, make sure to reach out! Thanks for reading this, I really hope you are encouraged in your walk with Christ!
Terin E. Waller
🙂
Set Apart 