One of my very favorite hymns is “It Is Well with My Soul”. besides the amazing traditional song, I love the version Hillsong came out with a few years ago “It is Well”. If you haven’t heard it yet, you can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/T0dIWJ4t4Jg.

Click on the image to find this in my shop

This painting is part of my hymns collection I learned how to do paint on hymns and also mount them on cradled board, through a course taught by an amazing artist and person, Valerie Sjodin. Click here to see her website.

For this hummingbird, I decide to carve the image into a stamp, and stamp the image where I wanted it on the hymn and then add the paint. It turned out to be a great process, and I have used in in the last few paintings in this collection. Here is a video of me carving the stamp that I posted on Instagram.

Now I have this wonderful stamp that I can use in other pieces of art and collage, like my new Art Journals!

Hop on over to The Blessings Shop to see the inside of the journals and other products with hymns and hummingbirds! These make great gifts and Christmas is around the corner!

Click the image to find this in my shop!

When people see my geodes, they often ask me how I make them,

or what are they made of.

Next I add a little paint at the bottom to make the color darkest here.

Then I add the big “crystals”.

So I thought I would explain how I make one.

I always start by priming a 4” disc—in this case it is a papermache disc that is very wood-like.

Then II build up the base by adding some light Golden molding paste. I build the edges up high and taper it down to the center.

The light molding paste helps to keep the weight down—although the end result has some good weight to it from everything that I add to it.

And a lot of gel medium to glue them down! I also add some embossing powder and glaze around the bigger stones and heat-set that in place. Then come tiny beads, and possibly glitter, and Ranger Stickles which is like glitter glue but more awesome :)

Making 4 at a time cuts the time it takes per piece down by about an hour!

Now I add lighter colored crystals and more beads and Sticklers and another are of embossing glaze and powder to build up almost to the edge. At the top of the edge I add clear crystal beads since this is where a natural geode has it’s lightest crystals, and the darker in the center.

And then The Big Finale, which is quite time consuming. The edges and the back. I use a sand medium at first, and then add a mix of glitter, embossing powder and embossing glaze to get the color I want so it looks like a rock. I heat set that until the glazing powder is…well…glazed, and all the other things are set into the geode. The texture is awesome!

A real geode—one of the examples I used for my hand made ones.

And the end results?