A few months back

I was at a favorite faith-based retreat and had the

pleasure to sit across from Brandi Kincaid.

It was a joy to get to know her, to learn from her,

to share wedding etiquette with her [lol]... etc.

I love how she expresses her hope for this life we live!

One of the [many, many] take-aways I got from her is

The Common Place book

This reminds me so much of some of those my magazines my grandmother got quarterly that had little random bits and pieces in it. Pieces of encouragement and pieces that recognized sadness [or whatever mood you might be feeling...]

So - I decided to begin my own Common Place Journey this year.

And I know it will change as I go along... but let me share my "formula" right now --

I have a couple of spaces for prayer requests...

These are private and I won't be sharing them here..

But I'll say I occasionally had a photo of the person I'm praying for...

At the beginning of the month I have a page for monthly intentions + quote + scripture to meditate on + gratitude...

[Thanks to LaQuisha and her 5-point journaling!]

There's a page for scripture writing...

Usually from whatever I'm studying that month...

And a page for the traveling sisterhood journal page

my 'Kansas Girls' do each month when we get together via zoom...

Other pages [in between the weekly pages]

are pages for other art-journally stuff...

Like this one with words from How Great Thou Art

that were sung at a sweet camper friend's funeral...

[And other January pages at the beginning of this post.]

Of course there are weekly spreads that

reflect what's going on in my life at the time...

[My VERY FIRST Common Place Page, right there -]

I'm adding in memes that I've saved to my phone...

Little bits that I've picked up throughout the week... and a photo or two printed out on my little canon printer... Plus journaling about things happening in my life.

If there's a blank spot or two

I might add some stenciling to fill in the gaps...

Some pages are messier than others as I play around with pens and supplies... and note things happening in my world...

And occasionally I'll add a little sketch ... and journal things I may not want to share with everyone - ha. I was prompted to add in a little "One Thing" note to each week - and you may see some repetitive things in there because sometimes it takes me a minute to really GET what God is trying to show me...