Showing some love!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Hey everyone! How are you all doing?

For this year's Valentine's Day post we have a pretty special project to share with you.

Beth, Mom and I joined creative forces to make a bridal shower gift. 

It seemed very fitting for today's post :) 

We put together a prayer journal, specifically praying for and encouraging her husband. 

We used the 30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge from Revive Our Hearts, and Praying For Your Husband from Growing In His Grace.

There is a specific focus for each month of the year. We divided out the topics and each made four title pages for the journal. We didn't have design planned out, each of us just made our pages in whatever style we chose.

Beth went with her favorite gels pens and her calligraphy style borders. 

So fancy! :) 

Mom's pen and colored pencil illustrations where a sweet set. :) 

 Did I mention Beth and Mom worked on theirs while I was away at work one day?

Coming home and seeing how fun theirs turned out, made me question the designs I had planned for mine... plus some one may have accidentally switched a topic with me. 

Either way, I needed to do a little revising and re-planning for my four pages. So, back to the drawing board... err, notebook :) 

I originally wanted to use a different art medium for each page, embroidery, scrapbook paper, watercolor, and stamps.... but maybe sticking with one would be better, and faster. 

So my beloved stamp set was chosen for part of the job. I bought it at a garage sale two summers ago, and has been such a fun way to add a little character to projects!

I currently just have the two colors, teal and silver, which worked beautifully for this project. 

Though I think I should get a few more ink pads soon :) 

The pages still looked a little... unadorned. They needed some decoration. Beth suggested I could go to the Language Of Flowers for inspiration. Thanks Beth! :) 

I've mentioned before how much I love this stuff, the lost art of conveying messages and sentiments through flowers. So sweet! With the book Beth gave me this summer, it makes it easy to find a flower for every occasion! For this, it was nice to look up flowers that complement the title pages.

Pride and Humility was the easiest to find matches. Both were listed in the book specially and, after some drawing practice, the Hundred-Leaved Rose and Field Lilac found harmony on my paper. :) 

The next that was matched was Fennel. The meaning to correlate with this herb was "Worthy All Praise", very fitting for the page on "His Worship Life."

A flower to accompany "His Physical Needs" was a little tricky. The only plant listed in my book under health, was Iceland Moss, which was a very interesting plant to learn about, but didn't quite work with my.... artistic vision :) After an internet search, a online compilation of the language of flowers had a few other plants listed. So Mullein was chosen for the page. 

Last but not least... though a bit of a let down.... 

I couldn't find any flower that meant "heart" or anything that would work... plenty for love, but that didn't quite mean the same in this case. So, just stuck some pretty hearts on it and called it good. 

So here's the final round up! Without planning a color scheme or anything I think they all go pretty well together. :) 

With each month there's a page with a summary from our two sources, and then room for her to journal as she wants. 

For the final touch we added the ribbon bookmark, and the key was from a little growing collection I had nearly forgotten about! It was just right :) 

Wrapped it all up in pretty paper and sent it off in time for the shower.  

It was fun to do such a special collaboration with my sister and mom! :)