Behind the Art with Felecia

The moment I heard the word "Thrive" I couldn't get the song Made to Thrive by Casting Crowns out of my head. It was one of those things where a song gets stuck rattling around in your brain and you find yourself singing it all the time, not being able to escape it.

Honestly, I didn't know all the lyrics to it, though I could easily come up with the chorus.

When I looked it up, I kept thinking, "yes! This is what I was made to do!" To be honest, the rest of my layouts poured out from this one...because I couldn't let go of the idea that I was "made to thrive." But he lyrics seemed like something I want to OWN, to adopt as my own theme. 

The amazing little happy faces in the kit were BEGGING to be used...and this line  - Shine like the sun, make darkness run and hide - I really want to live my life like this! Like a sun shining, like light, like warmth, life-giving. 

This amazing paper is DIRECTIONAL...it says "Go THIS way" I wanted the zig zags to travel across the page, to point forward and show the way.

As I was elevating and placing the strips of paper, it seemed like the layout needed a little sparkle, a little shiney. I broke out some jewels to give me my sparkle...

In retrospect, they are a perfect symbolism for the shining like a sun, for the projecting light into darkness...(though I'll admit it was not so purposeful in the outset).

This is a somewhat serendipitous example, though, of how we can get our creative process into a grove, wholly focused on making the project LOOK like what we FEEL and it really just happens when we are in that place of working out the theme. It ENDS right, fully expressing what we mean and how we feel.