A Little Book of Encouragement

Today I'm sharing with you a project I made with the October released Our Daily Bread Designs sets. I love these sets because they are so versatile. They are all coordinated and work beautifully for Sympathy cards, Masculine cards, and even Christmas cards! (Click here To see a Winter Scene I made with this image where I masked out the boat and cat tails and gave it a wintry look.) Anyway...My husband gave me a Zutter Bind It All for our Anniversary in August and this was my first project with it. I started out small, using the 4 X 4" covers. I used the Zutter 1/2" Antique Brass O Wires and the 1/2" Corner Rounder for this project.

I wanted to keep this little booklet masculine, and I decided to use verses and sentiments from the sets that could be encouragement for anyone going through a rough time.

Project Details:

Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs With Deepest Sympathy, Praying for You, With Heartfelt Sympathy
Ink: Archival Sepia, Jet Black, SU! Sahara Sand, THoltz Distress Ink in Tea Dye
Card Stock: Chocolate (Martha Stewart), True Thyme, Very Vanilla
Designer Paper: First Blush (Prima Marketing), K&Co, Brushed Gold - The Paper Studio, The Painted Desert (unknown brand)

Cover - Spellbinders Label #3, Stamped image from With Deepest Sympathy onto The Painted Desert DP (see photo to Rt... it's on the back side of the cover too) I thought this DP already had such interest to it with the waves of color so I stamped in a position where some of the gradations of color formed the horizon line in the background. Then I very lightly added some color with Prisma Pencils & OFMS. This Designer Paper is my theme that runs through the whole book. I covered my Kraft covers with the Chocolate, then added a layer of True Thyme followed by The First Blush DP, both of which were sponged with TH Tea Dye. Added a strip of trees punched with MS Edge Punch, linen twine, Punched greenery, strips of chocolate paper topped with the punch outs from my Fleur de Lis Spellbinder used on page 1. I glued these cut outs to recreate some cat tails outside my scene. Added the Hope brad. The main panel is popped up on dimensionals.

Page 1 - Covered page with Chocolate CS. Sentiment from With Heartfelt Sympathy. SB Label #5 sponged with Tea Dye and Choc. Chip. Mounted sentiment on a Spellbinders Fleu de Lis Pendant cut out of the Painted Desert DP. Added antique bronze brads.

Page 2 - Base of Chocolate, then layer of K&Co DP. Spellbinders Label #7 cut from Vanilla and Chocolate. Stamped verse from With Deepest Sympathy in Archival. Used gold gel pen to draw in some pages and added chocolate ribbon for book mark, and antique brushed gold cut with SB Flourishes.

Page 3- Base of Chocolate, then two different DPs from The First Blush. Stamped cat tail image from With Heartfelt Sympathy lightly in Sahara Sand, then over that stamped verse in Sepia from the same set. Cut and embossed SB Label #5. Added bling from BasicGrey.

Page 4 - K&Co DP, SB Labels 4 for sentime nt and 2 behind that in Chocolate. Stamped the dragonflies from With Heartfelt Sympathy lightly in Sa hara Sand, then the verse from "Praying for You" in Sepia. Added piercing and bling.

Punching all the layers was the last step, and I had no problem punching through them. I added the 1/2" O Wires and did have a little trouble getting that perfectly round... I guess there's a "knack" to it as mine is just slightly off round. However it's close enough that the pages flip freely and you really can't notice that they are not perfectly round. I had a blast with this project. We have so many friends right now who are struggling with life threatening illness, and while it is often difficult to make good cards for men, I think this little book would make a great gift of encouragement for any man. Thank you for stopping by and seeing my project! Have a blessed week!