Appreciation Card "Book" for Pastor

Hello
If you are still a follower, well then, I THANK YOU!  I haven't posted in FOREVER.  Although I always have great plans to get back to crafting, which is my favorite thing to do.   I probably mentioned last time that I had been in the middle of preparing a house to sell and purchasing a new one 130 miles away, and with the task of moving everything to a smaller sq. ft. home, it was quite a job for us.
I finally got my craft room unpacked in the beginning of September with the help of a friend of mine whom traveled from our old town just to help me with it.  And I have a cute project in the works for her as part of a thank you for all the help she rendered while we were selling the house and moving and the unpacking/setting up my craft room.  I will be posting that in a couple weeks. And this is certain, as I have to get the item finished by this next weekend. :o)

I have been so busy digitally drawing and digitally coloring many new products for Doodle Pantry, that I haven't made any cards or anything crafty.  I am vowing to change that and force myself to craft at least once a month beginning in January! (One of my resolutions...)

ON TO MY PROJECT:
With Pastor appreciation month having been in October, I was able to spend a day creating for him a special card that looks like a book.  In order to have room for everyone in the church to write him a little note of thanks on the inside, I had to get some "pages" in there, so the "book" theme actually made sense.
So here's what I created and it pretty much took up an entire Saturday, but it was worth it and so much fun to do!
I have included supplies and measurements of the papers at the end, and hopefully enough detail that you could design your own. But really, you can make yours any size.

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First I decided on the size based on an envelope that I happen to have. I can't remember where I got the envelope, but the envelope was about 5-5/8 x 8-5/8.

Above:  I made my card base (after folded) 5-1/4 x 8-1/4 since I knew it was going to be between 1/8" and 3/16" thick, with all the pages and layers. I wanted it to fit snugly but not too tight into the envelope. EXCEPT I cut my base at 10-5/8" x 8-1/4" and scored the first at 5-1/4" and then scored 1/8" away from that. After folding on the scores, you end up with the size mentioned above with a 1/8" "binding".

The chocolate front layer which everything is adhered to is 5-1/8 x 8-1/8.  The blue patterned paper (which is actually from the Deer Trio product), is cut at 5 x 8.  The brown pattern paper triangles (also from the Deer Trio set) are actually two 1-1/4" squares that were cut in half on the diagonal.  Then I placed them in the corners and tacked them down and sewed over them.  You have to cut 4 squares and cut all in half to have enough triangles for front and back covers. (If you want it to look like an old fashioned book)

For the decorative frames:  I used Card Cut 6 SVG cut for the frames around the image and sentiment.  I had to open the SVG in Adobe Illustrator first and widen the frames so that my (already printed!) image would fit in there. LOL.  I didn't check the ratio of the frame before deciding and printing my images.  That's OK, I was able to widen the frames and then cut the widened SVG frames on my ZING cutting machine.  I cut all the pieces on 3 colors of cardstock so that I could hold them over the image until I found a good combo of the layering of the pieces.

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 I made my own sentiment, it was not within a product set (hint: BUT IT WILL BE SOON!).

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For the image, I used Photoshop.  I pulled in the patterned paper from the Pen & Ink product and put it on layer 1.
Then I made a layer 2 and placed the pen & ink image there, centered.
Then I wanted to erase a little around the image but not completely, leaving a hint of the pattern behind it. Here's how I did that.
1. Switch over to layer 1
2. Select the icon to "erase"
3. Set my brush to be the #1 brush (the first one at the top and to the left of the default brushes)
4. Then set the hardness of the brush to the softest setting (the slider all the way to the left).
5. I went to the icons at the top of the Photoshop window, and where it shows the opacity value (defaulted at 100), I set it at 70.
6. I then clicked and held down while I moved the curser over the image, but since I was "on" layer 1, it only erases at 70% opacity, the pattern layer.

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I sewed on the image panel and the sentiment panels and set them aside.  I adhered everything else to the chocolate base (5-1/8" x 8-1/8") except the brads, and sewed around that. Then I used foam dimensionals to stick on the panels and stuck brads in the corners thru the front cover.

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Above: This is the back cover.  I decided the book needed to have a similar back cover as the front cover, just to help keep it looking like a real book.

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I had forgotten to take a picture of the inside of the covers. After all was assembled and sewn, front and back, I adhered to the inside of each cover, a 5-1/8" x 8-1/8" piece of the blue patterned paper from Deer Trio.  This way, I could cover up all the brads poking thru the front, and also cover up the sewn on "bookmark" on the back cover (explained below).

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For the "pages", I used Photoshop to create a rectangle in the ratio of my card, then created the white rectangle in the center so that it was a frame of the pattern. I saved the file as a JPG and inserted these into a Word document to print 2 to a sheet, but a 2 sided sheet so that the frames were on front and back, and folded the sheets in half, and left room around the frames since I knew I was going to trim the sheets to fit inside the card book.

I used my 1/16" hole punch to punch 3 holes evenly through the crease of the pages and the binding on the cover (card base).  I used twine thread thru the top and bottom holes and tied in the center and then used a small piece of twine to go thru the center hole to secure in place the vertical twine.

 Above: I cut a piece of ribbon and sewed it to the inside of the back cover, BEFORE sewing the patterns and triangles on the back.  I made sure it was long enough to go all the way through the card book and then cut the banner points on the end.

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SUPPLIES:

• Photoshop
• Color printer
• Patterned paper from Deer Trio and Pen & Ink
• Image from Pen & Ink
• Sentiment generated in Word document
• PTI cardstocks (Navy, Chocolate, Spring Rain)
• Neenah white cardstock for image/sentiment
• Plain copy paper for pages
• Small hole punch or piercer
• Ribbon (I used PTI satin ribbons)
• Decorative frames derived from Card Cut 6 SVG
• Linen thread
• Aged copper brads
• Foam dimensionals
• Sewing machine

Thank you for visiting me today. I hope you have been inspired to go create too!