Country style Guestbook

Hello!
Today, Doodle Pantry is sponsoring Digi Sketch Challenge. Their theme is not a sketch this time, it is a theme of "animals".  I made a little book with the Baby Horse on it.

We had some really great neighbors living right next door to us for awhile and they recently moved away to a more remote "country" area in the next county over.
I made this little guestbook for them, or I suppose it could be a recipe book or something.  We went to visit them at their new place and I brought them this for their entryway table.
I used a Bind-it-all system to bind it, but for the front and back cover bases, I simply used the cardboard backing from my watercolor paper pad and covered them with patterned paper.  I keep those cardboard backings after using up the watercolor paper and they become quite useful when repurposed like this.

For the front image panel, I printed the merged images onto the Canson 90 lb cold press watercolor paper.
I inserted the Old Barn image into my Word document first, and then placed the PNG filetype Wagon Wheel image overtop but underneath the Barn, and then inserted the PNG filetype of the Baby Horse to sit below and in front of the Wagon Wheel/Fence.  Doodle Pantry PNG filetypes are made with white filled inside them specifically to make layering/merging quick and easy.  I personally don't like to have to do the "erase parts" with photoshop just to merge images.
I filled the rest of the Word document page with some sentiments and various other images so that I didn't waste any paper after printing.

I used some awesome woodgrain paper I found at Hobby Lobby for covering the cardboard covers.
See the hardware?  It's so old!  It's the aged copper Stampin' Up Hodgepodge hardware buckle.  Found it buried in my stash of embellishments.The light was shining funny on the picture above, so below is a more frontal and closer look at the image panel.
I had a lot of fun coloring this image!  But man, it took FOR-EH-VAH! I use Tombow markers and a waterbrush for my coloring, since I print on watercolor paper.  It's my favorite medium.

 And the little horsey is super sweet.  I almost always color horses as paint horses. 

 I had a bad day with lighting on this one. I just couldn't get rid of the reflection on that Wagon Wheel.

 4 words:  I love red barns!

 I made some custom inside sheets using the Barbed Wire Accents. I just did them up in Word document.  I measured my covers and then inserted the barbed wire lines into Word on either side (using my guideline ruler as my guide) to be inside the width of the book and then drew straight lines all down the middle and then inserted the horseshoe and texas shapes of the barbed wires on alternating pages. Printed a bunch to make a nice thick book.

 The inside of the back cover had my created by stamped in there.

Sponged in some brown ink around the image panel and then sewed around it twice to make the 2 lines.

  Oh, I used the fence border punch by Martha Stewart to make the "corners" accents. And then some brown twine and brown ribbon in the buckle and matching brads in a few places.

So there's my project I wanted to share.  I hope something about it inspires you to create for a special someone too!