Happy Earth Day

Hope you are having a fabulous weekend enjoying this lovely planet of ours!

XO,

Magic Latte

When I asked my coffee this morning if we were going to make it to the weekend...

Cheers friends!

New Printables!

Happy Tuesday friends!

How is your week going? The weather here in Indiana is GORGEOUS today and I'm soaking in the sunshine and spring blooms.

I have two new printables in my Etsy shop to tell you about today!

I was so excited about creating my bible journaling kit for Illustrated Faith that I dreamed up a few more for my Etsy shop...

These embellishments can be used for bible & art journaling, scrapbooking, or mixed media art. And the long embellishments make perfect bookmarks!

Click on the images above to find them in my shop!

XO,

New Product + Encouragement for YOU!

Happy Wednesday friends!

I have some exciting news to share with you today...a new product launch!

So a little back story...if you can humor me for a minute. And I promise there is a reason for the story that I think will encourage you.

About a month ago I posted a new pattern on my Instagram... 

A new Insta friend, Elaine, commented on the pattern that it would be lovely for bible journaling, and asked if I had a printable of it available. 

How did she know that I've been wanting to start creating scrapbooking illustrations? It was like she read my mind.  

When I saw that she works for Illustrated Faith, I sent her a direct message and asked if she had any tips on what types of items would be popular for bible journaling, since that is a completely new concept to me. 

She replied with a few tips, but also an invitation to be the April guest designer for the Illustrated Faith digital shop!

Talk about an exciting invitation! And one that I didn't need much time to deliberate. 

Umm, YES PLEASE!

Those who have followed me for a long time know that I used to be an obsessed scrapbooker which makes this new adventure all the more exciting. Creating my OWN scrapbooking embellishments?! 

Holy.Cow.

Even though I don't scrapbook anymore, I've always had a huge thing for the patterned paper, the stickers...all of it.

Because Elaine loved my pattern so much, I took it as my starting cue for the collection, and went with a theme of hope and faith in things unseen, because that is a huge mantra for my life these days. 

The kit includes a page of embellishments and another page with four journaling cards. 

There are a few things I really love about it.

It is authentically me. The hand drawn images, the child-like feel, and the message of hope. It is all ME. I'm a ridiculously hopeful person and I also believe in the magic and mystery of what we can't see and how it brings together fantastically wonderful opportunities for us in this life. 

This kit pulls together all of that into a sweet little printable you can buy for $4.50. I tell ya that is quite a deal, right? Right. 

I'm just over the moon about it. 

Right now I'm using one of the bible margin covers (the long skinny pieces) as a bookmark which is just perfect, especially for my new Anne Lamott book (all the heart eyes!)...

You can check out the lovely things Elaine did with the kit over on the Illustrated Faith blog. That girl is good! 

Here is one of her images showing the embellishments close up. Gah they make my heart skip a beat!

And I'm super happy to share that I'll be doing another kit for them in May! I can't wait to see what comes together for the next one. 

So the lesson in all of this?

Keep going. 

Keep sharing. 

Keep doing the things you love and the threads will connect together in the ways they are meant to. 

Those things that you can't not do with your time? The ones that excite you so much that you stay up too late on a work night or wake up first thing in the morning thinking about? 

Keep doing them! Even if you aren't sure where they might take you. 

That's where the magic is.

XO,

Hello April!

Happy April friends! Did you avoid getting fooled today? 😄👊🏻

A post shared by Mandy Ford (@mandyfordart) on Apr 1, 2017 at 8:13pm PDT

Can you all believe it is April already?

I tell you, February was a crazy mess of sickness in our house, but March was full of so many lovely things.

And April? Whew! I have some really exciting new projects I'm working on that I can't wait to share with you!

So let's go April! We're coming for ya!

(I created that fun lettering video up there in the Procreate app on my new iPad pro with the Apple Pencil. Such a fun app!)

XO,