What I make and why I make it — the honest version

I did not set out to make Bible tip-ins.

I set out to make junk journals.

If you know what junk journaling is you already understand the appeal — the layering, the textures, the way you can take something ordinary like a scrap of paper or a piece of packaging or an old book page and turn it into something that feels intentional and beautiful, the feelings you can express without using words. There is something about working with your hands in that way that does something to your nervous system that nothing else quite replicates. The noise gets quieter. The weight gets lighter. For a little while it is just you and the paper and whatever you are making and everything else can wait.

That is why I started making things. Because I needed the quiet.

Where Bible journaling came in

Somewhere in the middle of all the cutting and layering and gluing things together I started bringing my Bible to the table.

It was not a dramatic shift. It was not a decision I made consciously. It was more like the two things that were giving me the most peace just naturally found each other one day and I looked down and thought — oh. This is it. This is the thing.

Bible journaling is not a new concept. People have been decorating the margins of their Bibles for as long as there have been margins to decorate. But for me it became something more than decoration. It became the place where my creative practice and my faith practice stopped being two separate things and became one.

I would open my Bible to a passage that was sitting with me. And then I would make something in response to it. Not to show anyone. Not because it was pretty. Just because creating something with my hands in response to what I was reading made the words go deeper than they would have otherwise. It was like my hands were helping my heart understand what my head was reading.

And then I thought — what if I could make something that other people could put in their Bibles too?

What tip-ins actually are

A tip-in is a printed insert that you place inside your Bible — tucked into the margin, layered over a page, placed alongside a passage that means something to you. They are designed to add beauty and intention to your Bible journaling without requiring you to be an artist. You do not have to be able to draw or paint or letter to have a Bible that feels like yours. You just have to find something that resonates and place it where it belongs.

I make mine by hand in my small studio in Potter County Pennsylvania. Every set starts the same way — with a passage or a theme that I have been sitting with personally. Something that has meant something to me in my own faith journey. I do not make things I would not put in my own Bible first.

The designs go through a process before they become a finished tip-in — printed, cut, finished by hand. Each one is made with the intention that it will eventually land in someone's Bible and stay there. That it will mark a page that matters. That someone will flip to that passage on a hard day and find something beautiful waiting there that reminds them of something true.

That is what I am making when I make a tip-in. Not just a pretty piece of paper. A small act of intention for someone I have not met yet.

Why I chose vellum

When I started offering tip-ins in vellum it was because of something specific that vellum does that no other material can do.

It is translucent.

Which means when you place a vellum tip-in over a page of Scripture you can see the words through the image. The passage is still there. The text is still readable. The art and the Word exist in the same space at the same time — layered over each other, one not replacing the other but both present together.

I thought that was just a design feature when I first started making them. The longer I do this the more I think it is actually a theological statement.

The beauty does not cover the Word. It illuminates it.

That is what I want every tip-in to do — not distract from Scripture but draw you deeper into it. Make you linger on a page you might have turned past. Make a passage feel like it belongs to you in a way it did not before you placed something beautiful alongside it.

What I want you to feel

I think a lot about what I want to happen when someone opens a package from me and holds one of these in their hands for the first time.

I do not want them to only think — oh, that is pretty.

I want them to feel calm. I want something to settle in them. I want them to look at what they are holding and feel a small quiet excitement about opening their Bible — not out of obligation, not because they should, but because they cannot wait to put this inside it and see how it looks on that page they have been sitting with.

I want them to be proud of their Bible journaling journey — wherever they are in it. Whether they are just starting out and their Bible has one highlighted verse and nothing else yet, or whether they have been doing this for years and their margins are full. There is no right way to do this. There is only your way. And whatever your way looks like it is worth making beautiful.

I make tip-ins because creative minds deserve to be inspired. Because the table where you sit with your Bible and your paper and your scissors and your glue is holy ground. Because the quiet you find there is real and it is worth protecting and it is worth building a whole practice around.

And because I know what it feels like to need that quiet and not have anything to bring to the table that feels like yours.

These are yours. Made for your Bible. Made for your journey. Made for the version of faith that shows up at the kitchen table with something in her hands and meets God there.

A note on the vellum tip-ins specifically

Because vellum is a delicate material it can sometimes bend or appear to warp slightly during shipping. This is completely normal and not a defect — it is just the nature of the material. If yours arrive with any curl simply place them on a flat surface with a heavy book on top for a few minutes. They will relax back to flat and be ready for your Bible.

Worth it. I promise.

The tip-in sets are available in the shop in both cardstock and vellum. If you are new to Bible journaling and not sure which to start with — start with cardstock. If you already love the look of layered translucent art over Scripture — you already know you want the vellum.

Browse the current collections here.