Thinking of You, Teachers

I wanted to have a few cards to send out to my teacher friends for the start of the school year. This one will be on its way to one of them shortly! I made it for this month's first Viva la Verve sketch.  It also fits this week’s back to school theme at Crazy 4 Challenges.

As soon as I saw the sketch, I thought of an old-fashioned chalkboard with a wooden frame. In the schools around here, most of those have been replaced by either white boards or by the even more modern smartboards! I made my frame with kraft cardstock, inked with some distress inks. I filled in the frame with a piece of paper with traditional cursive letters arranged on writing paper-like lines. The panel is covered with one of the sentiments from Verve’s Teachers Count set. The heart in the sentiment is colored with Copic markers. I backed the sentiment panel with a red scalloped panel and added it to the cardfront with foam tape. I slipped a strip of red plaid paper underneath it for contrast and added a pretty red bow to the bottom of the sentiment panel as a cheery accent. To finish the design, I added round bronze embellishments to the corners to look like nailheads.

Materials Used:
Teachers Count stamp set (Verve Stamps); Memento Gray Flannel ink (Tsukineko); Tea Dye and Antique Linen distress inks (Ranger); Smokey Shadow and Kraft cardstock (Papertrey Ink); Real Red and Whisper White cardstock (Stampin’ Up!); School Daze 6x6 paper pad (My Mind’s Eye); pierced circle die (My Favorite Things); scalloped circle die (Spellbinders); red satin ribbon (Target); bronze metal accents (TPC Studios); Bow Easy; foam tape 

And, while I had my Verve stamps out, I worked on week 2's sketch, too.  This one also doubles as my entry for Verve’s August Diva Dare to use lots of layers (this is hard for me!) and a flower cluster.

I tried my hardest to use a bunch of layers on this design—and for me, this card definitely does that. I started out with a blue panel and added one patterned paper on top of that, then topped the papers with the yellow dotted paper that I’d matted with a coordinating solid cardstock. So, that’s 4 layers right there! The layered sentiment panel on top adds another three, bringing me to 7 layers. The “thinking of you” from Verve’s Thankful Words set is stamped on a pair of layered ovals and adhered with foam tape, allowing me to tuck a pair of die cut felt flowers with button centers between the layers. The finished panel is adhered to a light blue card base. It’s a lot of layers, but I still think I managed to keep the design pretty clean.

Materials Used:
Treasured Words stamp set (Verve Stamps); Memento Gray Flannel ink (Tsukineko); Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, So Saffron, and Very Vanilla cardstock (Stampin’ Up!); Stella and Rose-Hattie 6x6 paper pad (My Mind’s Eye); oval and Labels 18 dies (Spellbinders); button flower dies (The Cat’s Pajamas); buttons (Papertrey Ink); white twine (Hemptique); foam tape