A Gift for the International Zenspirations® Community

Hi Everyone,

As most of you know, in honor of my daughter’s graduation, I’m giving a FREE copy of my gift book, With God All Things Are Possible, with every order placed this month of $17 or more (not including shipping). All you have to do is add With God All Things Are Possible to your order along with the coupon code sam2017 and the $10.95 price of the free book will be deducted from the cost. (In case you missed it, here is a link to my blog post– Doodles for My Daughter— about this book).

Although the Zenspirations® webstore only ships orders within the continental United States, I have great news for Zenspirations fans in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Romania, Spain, Taiwan and the rest of the world!* I didn’t want to leave the international community out of the celebration, so John Neal Bookseller (www.johnnealbooks.com) will be sending you a free copy of With God All Things Are Possible with your international order of more than $17 (not including shipping). Use the same coupon code: sam2017.

John carries all my books, including the Complete Guide to Bible Journaling: Creative Techniques to Express Your Faith. He’s just ordered the three new Strathmore pads: Abstract, Nature and Flowers, each of which has eight Zenspirations designs preprinted on watercolor paper. I’m a huge Strathmore fan, and am so excited about this collaboration that I’ll be focusing an upcoming blog post on this cool collection. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at a couple of the designs you’ll find inside each pad.

I’m going to be filming some videos for Strathmore demonstrating different watercolor techniques and styles (pan watercolors, tube watercolors, watercolor pencils, Koi® Coloring Brushes, etc), and would love to showcase different artists’ interpretations of these designs. Please leave a comment letting me know if you’d be interested in having your work featured in one of the videos, and I’ll send you the details.

I’m excited about the Strathmore pads, but I’m also excited about my new line of rubber stamps and dies for Spellbinders, and thought I’d share another of the projects my friend Dawn Winburn created: “Rainbow & Rubber Stamps Bible Journaling”:

Here’s how to create your own version of this page:

After you create the rainbow, apply fixative before stamping your images.

For those of you who are more interested in paper crafts than Bible Journaling, here’s a card design Dawn made featuring some of the same stamps and techniques:

I’d love to see what other people are doing with these stamps… you can post photos of your projects in the Zenspirations Create, Color, Pattern, Play Facebook Group. If you aren’t on Facebook you can e-mail them to me at [email protected].

Before closing tonight I wanted to share that when I was making the alphabetical list of countries (see the second paragraph of tonight’s blog*) I only included countries which are actually represented in the Zenspirations community– and discovered that we have at least 50 countries represented! Let me know if you think there would be interest in having a Zenspirations workshop or get together in your community… I’ll be an empty nester soon, and would love to come visit while I’m on the road.

I also wanted to let you know that while Americans can order from John Neal (which is where I get most of my calligraphy supplies!), only international orders placed in May are eligible for free copies of With God All Things Are Possible. Please order from the Zenspirations shop if you live within the continental United States. If you haven’t shopped at John Neal before, he carries a huge variety of books, tools and materials of interest lettering artists, illuminators, bookbinders, and papercraft enthusiasts. And he’s invited teachers to put together lists of things they like. Click here to see some of the tools I use and recommend. Happy shopping, and happy creating!

Stay Zenspired,

Joanne