Sparrow Fan Book - Craft Your Heart Challenge 1

Here is the project I created for my very first blog Challenge. It is a little sparrow fan book.
Click on the photos for a larger view.

The Story:

There are some days that my heart wells up with happiness and I have to open my mouth and express it in singing. There are other days, when I miss my mother and am filled with loneliness or my heart is heavy with worry about my little boy - those days have other kinds of songs, songs of sorrow, songs of care. Even on those days of lament, somehow through the singing, I journey through them into comfort and peace.

On these days - days of music, I have always thought to myself... "I know why birds sing. I know they can not help it, that it is just something that comes burbling up from inside them.

On the inside pages of the book are the words to "His Eye is on the Sparrow" a song which means so much to me because it comes so near to expressing those many singing days.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,

when songs give place to sighing; when hope within me dies;

I draw closer to Him, from care He sets me free:

His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.

Why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come?

Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home?

When Jesus is my portion, a constant friend is He:

His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,

His eye is on the sparrow,

and I know he watches me.

‘Let not your heart be troubled’, His tender word I hear,

and resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;

though by the path He leadeth, but one step can I see:

His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me.

Here is the book fanned out so you can see the pages.
The book is assembled with a Bigger Brad threaded through the eye of the bird.
Here are all the pieces the inner pages, front and back covers, and brad and they eye which I applied to the top of the brad using Liquid Glass

Cardstock and Patterned Papers are from the Perfect Day Level 2 Paper Pack by Close To My Heart. The patterned paper on the two birds are cut from the same paper, the reverse bird used for the back cover used the reverse side of the patterned paper.

The words were printed on vellum, which was then run through a xyron machine, trimmed to fit and adhered to the pages. Font: Constantina.

I cut the pieces using Cricut Design Studio Software and my Cricut machine. The bird image is from the Sleeping Beauty section of the Happily Every After Cartridge. Pieces were cut at 5 1/4" - the largest I could cut with my machine.

This was my first project using the Cricut Design Studio Software. I got a bit frustrated with it from time to time, but in the end I prefer the control that I have using it. I have no desire to go back to "cutting blind" and all the paper wasted with mistakes. I am happy with the software investment.

Click Here to see the challenge.