A spin off of the Adult Coloring and Bullet Journal trends, Bible Art Journaling has become a new creative outlet for many and is a great way to get into the habit of daily devotions and spending time in God's Word. This beautiful new Bible introduces the idea to younger readers and is a ready to go gift just in time for the holidays. Read on for the full review and download some free coloring pages!
Title: NIV Beautiful Word™ Coloring Bible for Girls Gift Set (Teal)
Edition: NIV Revised 2011
Publisher: 2020 by Zondervan
About the Book:
Created especially for girls ages 8 to 12, this beautiful Bible, sticker sheets and coloring pencil set provides the tools for young artists to express themselves.
Girls will get creative through coloring and journaling in the NIV Beautiful Word™ Coloring Bible for Girls. Included are pencils to color, blend and shade the detailed line art surrounding hundreds of inspiring verses. This Bible gift set is perfect for the special young girl in your life and will become a cherished keepsake full of personalized creative expressions of faith.
Features include:
- Complete text of the accurate, readable and clear New International Version (NIV)
- Over 600 verses illustrated in ready-to-color line art
- Four colored pencils
- Six sheets of stickers designed for girls
- Thick white paper for writing and doodling
- Lined, wide margins for notes and reflections
- Satin ribbon marker
- Beautifully debossed and screen-printed cover
- Exclusive Zondervan NIV Comfort Print® typeface in a readable 8-point print size
After opening the sturdy purple pastel gift box, you'll find the Bible itself with a hardback leather-like cover (my copy was teal with navy and white stylized flowers and there are two other designs to choose from). There is a pocket on the side of the box that contains four twist-up color pencils in red, yellow, blue, and purple. I'd say they are around standard Crayola quality and because the lead twists up and down, you can prevent the tips from breaking when not in use and don't need a pencil sharpener. Perfect for when using on the go, at church, Sunday School, or Awana Club.
There are about 38 black and white stickers contained on 6 sticker sheets. They are mostly encouraging Bible verse-related text and a few doodles (such as flowers) designs. The sticker paper is matte (reminiscent of plain address label paper) that you can customize by coloring and stick in your Bible or wherever you'd like.
The Bible itself measures approximately 8 inches tall by 7 inches wide. This is due to the extra wide margins, so standard Bible covers/cases probably won't fit. The NIV text comes in the standard 8 pt. font and is a no frills affair: no notes or commentary other than NIV footnotes and each individual book of the Bible simply starts with consistent modern hand-lettered style title font. An alphabetized list of the books of the Bible is provided besides the traditional table of contents and a brief Letter from the Editor and Tips for Bible Art Journaling page accompanies the Preface. There are no maps or indexes at the back of the Bible, but a Table of Weights and Measures and 11 lined pages for notes are provided, along with an index of the 10 artists who illustrated the artwork in this Bible.
Where this Bible stands out, of course, are the ready-to-color lineart --over 600 illustrated verses! The majority of the illustrations are printed in the wide margins, and as I flipped through, I rarely went two pages without seeing some art to color. Like the stickers, this is a nice feature because not everyone is confident or comfortable with their drawing skills, though there are lots of blank, lightly lined margins as well to take notes or jot down thoughts.
While aimed at girls 8 to 12, the illustrations are on par with adult coloring books and aren't too "kiddy" at all --just right for tweens but even attractive to older adults as well, if my mother's reaction was any indication. There are also full page art and even a few double page spreads I came across while exploring this Bible! In addition, there is a great variance of designs and illustrations, it's not all flowers and hearts like I assumed it would be and actually, I'd say it's more nature and hand-lettered inspired art, so minus the packaging and cover, it could possibly have been a gender-neutral gift.
I decided to test some of the pages with some of my bullet journal supplies. While they physically feel a bit thicker than my other Bibles, they are still Bible pages, so don't expect 50lb sketchbook paper weight. It is suggested that you utilize pens designed for Bibles or Bible Art Journaling or colored pencils to minimize ghosting (seeing what you colored or wrote on the opposite side of the page). However, you can see in both my coloring and writing samples, the ghosting is moderate with little to no bleed through. With standard pressure, the colored pencils barely have ghosting. My cheap ballpoint pen and a slightly higher quality Pilot G2 both had moderate ghosting. Depending on the type of highlighter you use (and probably the color) they should have little to moderate ghosting. The colored text in the Job 42:2 sample used highlighters, along with the some of the leaves: You can see the only place where the highlighters actually bled through was where I ran my green highlighter over the same area multiple times to color in the leaves and it really is quite minimal.
Overall, I'd say there's no reason why you can't use standard pencils, pens, and highlighters unless you really want to buy specialty items.
This Bible would make a wonderful keepsake for a tween or teen girl to use and look back on over the years and as long as you or the receiver aren't put off by the "for girls" marketing, I'd daresay that it would make a wonderful Art Journal Bible for either gender and anyone 10 and older.
You can learn more about the NIV Beautiful Word™ Coloring Bible for Girls Gift Set here and download a free sample and coloring pages!
[Disclosure: Thank you to Telling Ministries LLC and HCCP for providing a complimentary copy this gift set for review purposes. No monetary compensation was received and a positive review was not required.]
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