A love story

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a friend of the family who received my three cherry blossom journals. She loved the books that I had made for the three little sisters, and wanted me to make a set of custom books for her. She had been leading a church group for several years, and four of the girls in the group were getting ready to graduate (from my alma mater!) The four personalized journals that I made were to be given as gifts to the graduates.



The woman who ordered the books came up with the idea for the personalization. Each book's label read: "God and Emily: A love story" (but customized with each girl's name). She was also going to write a message to each girl inside the book before giving them to the graduates to fill with their thoughts and reflections.



I was given complete freedom to select all of the colors, patterns, and papers. I did e-mail the customer a few "sneak peek" photos throughout the process though. Based on my photos, she selected which of the four patterns she wanted for each girl's book. It was enjoyable to sort through my stash of decorative papers and pick out four of my favorites. And I think I've come up with a few new combos that I might use again in the future.



Since the books were to be given as gifts, I packaged each one in a little colored box. I also made gift tags using extra pieces of decorative paper from the covers and included coordinating ribbons as a finishing touch.