The Gift Of Bible Journaling: A DIY Gift Making Tutorial

Do you ever browse the never-ending photographs of beautiful Bible journaling pages on Pinterest or Instagram? Do you sometimes wish you could frame the page and hang it on your wall? Maybe you’ve wanted to gift friends and family your own Bible journaling pages, but (of course) don’t want to rip a page out of your Bible.

Guess what sister?

I have discovered a way you can turn your heartfelt journaling into gifts for your loved ones.

Gifted

Before I explain my process of creating these handmade straight-from-the-heart gifts, try to think of all the different occasions you could present one of your Bible journaling pages as a thoughtful gift. Below, you’ll find a small list of Bible journaling gift ideas to get you started.

1. graduation
2. wedding OR anniversary
3. friendship
4. Christmas
5. Easter
6. birthday
7. love or Valentine’s Day

Another Bible journaling gift idea would be to journal a chosen person’s favorite verse or verses for any gift-giving occasion.

Gifting Your Bible Pages

I’m sure we can all agree that ripping out pages we’ve created in our journaling Bibles is not practical, nor is it the greatest use of our Bibles. With that said, I’ve been pondering the idea of creating Bible pages on other surfaces, so that the surface we’re working with is sturdy and allows possible framing of the finished page.

What you’ll need:

• some sort of medium to create on (ex. store-bought canvas or mixed-media paper)
• a printer and copy paper
• matte gel medium and an applicator
• pens and other art supplies you intend to journal with

First, decide what you will use as your main canvas for this project. For this project I used a thin 8×10 hard canvas that I purchased from a craft store, which can then be framed, or even mounted, once I’ve finished the page.

Next, choose the scripture you would like to use for your page.

You can copy and paste Bible verses (in an array of translations) from biblegateway.com directly into a blank document. Depending on the size of your canvas, you will decrease your margins according to your own preference. So since I’m using an 8×10 canvas, I’ve decreased my document margins, making the scripture in the document three-inches wide. This way it leaves ample room to journal next to the scripture.

TIP: I also include verses before and after the chosen verse, so the canvas looks like a single-column journaling Bible page, with my specific verse somewhere in the middle of the column.

Once your scripture is positioned in a thin single column within your document, simply print on white copy paper. Then neatly cut out the column of scripture, adjusting the height to the height of your canvas. When you lay the cut printed paper onto your canvas, it should look like a page out of your journaling Bible, with the paper lined up to the far left or the far right.

Attaching the Words

The simplest way to attach the printed words to your canvas is to glue it. However, I also decoupage the paper on to the canvas to make it appear as if the canvas and paper are one.

Decoupaging the words to the canvas is not difficult or complicated.

1. apply one layer of matte gel medium to the area of canvas you will be placing the Bible verses
2. carefully position paper on top of wet medium and gently smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles
3. apply a thin second layer of matte gel medium over the paper and canvas to attach and seal them
4. let dry completely

Start Bible Journaling

Whatever Bible journaling looks like to you, do that!

With the example in the pictures, I focused my journaling around Isaiah 40:31. I purchased a printable from a friend on Etsy of a stunning image of a painted eagle.

After attaching the image to the right side of the canvas, I watered down some acrylic paint and splattered paint around the image.

I then took some washi to frame the verse.

YouTube Process Video

Finishing Touch…

Finally, I’ve included a couple more photographs of example gifts I’ve recently made for loved ones. If you have any questions, please reach out to me at kimberly@hispalette.com . For now, push play on the video above for a quick look at how I created another canvas gift with a printable from our Etsy shop. Enjoy, my sisters!

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