Back to School with Bloobel Stamps

Had some fun today with Bloobel Stamps.  Although I don't have kids of my own, I couldn't resist these two digis, which I find particularly hilarious and of course I had to get them both to tell the story.  I'm pretty sure I'd be doin' the "Happy Dance" after a summer full of kids 24/7.  One DAY would probably put me over the edge. LOL  Besides, there are a number of "Back to School" challenges out there and I needed to get my rear in gear or I'd miss the opportunity. 

Bloobel stamps come in either png form that are totally transparent, or jpgs that are totally solid, including the background. On the latest Bloobel store, you can actually choose your option, which I totally missed until linking these images back to the site. DUH!  Most of my images are the transparent pngs, though, so to merge them, I first converted them to jpgs, then removed the background, in a photo editing program, so I could layer them before printing and coloring. The primary math DP is from the Graphic 45 An ABC Primer stack.

After converting Jump for Joy, I resized the image several times and lightened the lines of the smaller images.  I then colored her in ascending strengths of the Warm Grey Copic range in hopes of suggesting the movement I had in mind, but still keeping the image in the background.  Although she's perfect as a thrilled Mom, I can see using her for all sorts of occasions, can't you?

Can't help but giggle at this little dude.  I guess he doesn't share Mom's enthusiasm about the "Big Day".  Back to School is also colored with Copics with a little Prismacolor pencil action.  Too bad.  Summer's over!

I wanted a few embellies and when searching my stash, came across this apple button (sorry, teacher) and thumbs up (in this case down) paper clips.  Perfect, eh? As you can see above, Mama's is pointing up, WAAAY up!

I'm entering this in the Outlawz Festive Fridays Back to School Days challenge, the DL.Art September Linky challenge, Crafty Calendar Back to School, the Alphabet challenge, "N" is for Numbers, the Crafting Musketeers Sept Back to School challenge, Crafty Awesomeness Sept ATG (using sponsor's image), Through the Purple Haze "Some Attitude" and Creative Knockouts For the Boys.

Dilly Beans Inspirational Quotes

This week's challenge at Dilly Beans is a special one.  We're asking for Inspirational Quotes and I think this one by Judith Campbell is pretty special.  The image I've chosen is #566 Jenn's Heart Framed, named after our sweet DT sis.  I cropped her out of her frame and then did the paper lines on my Printmaster Program, cut it out and punched the side as if she'd been printed on notebook paper.  I suppose it would have been easier to just print directly on a small piece of notebook paper, but I was afraid the edge would catch in the printer and rip.  The image is colored with watercolor crayons and sort of looks like a child's artwork, partly by design, and partly because the crayons blend better on heavier card stock.  The pencil DP is from the Cosmo Cricut Boyfriend Mini Deck.  Kinda thought it was perfect.  Being in love does make you feel like a kid again, doesn't it?  Yeah, and taking good notes is important, but remember, if you can't follow them, you flunk the test.

I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Wednesday Back to School challenge.

Tiddly Inks Reading Fun

It's Tiddly Tuesday and rounding out our "Back to School" inspired challenges, our challenge this week is Reading Fun. It can be inspired by a particular book, or just a general reading theme, which is what I chose to do. When I came across Aida-Gonna Miss You I thought of taking a trip in my head. That's what reading is, isn't it? I cut the book and pages from the My Community Cricut cartridge. I wrote a little story about Aida on the left page and the theme of my piece on the right and printed it on the pages.

Aida was printed 3 times, colored with Copics and decoupaged for dimension. The "bookmark" is a Tim Holtz Swivel Clasp with a Philosophy Tag and a key from K&Co to represent "the key to the imagination".

Obviously, it's an easel card and the map DP is from the Tim Holtz Lost and Found paper stack. The small tickets are preprinted Adage Tickets and the large one is a Journaling Ticket (also Tim Holtz) on which I printed "Read" and added a few adhesive beads for emphasis. There are fabulous projects by the rest of the Tiddley Inkers HERE and Christy is previewing some adorable new "Minnie" images that are already available in the "What's New" section HERE and a freebie on her blog HERE. I hope you're inspired to share a reading inspired project with us this week at Tiddly Inks. I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp and Show Some Travel(oops! missed that one), the Sentimental Sunday Back to School and Kaboodles Doodles Easel Does It Challenge.

Oh, and BTW, if you haven't commented on my BBTB2 Home Decor project, please scroll down and do so for a chance to win a $40.00 gift certificate to Custom Crops. They've got a fab sale going on and lots of new products, so check it out HERE.

Happy Monday! If you're looking for the Haunted Design House 100th Challenge Celebration, please scroll down. Trust me, the blog candy at HDH is worth checking out!

With school just around the corner for many, our BBTB2 DT sister Lori, has come up with a school themed challenge using any of the school supplies from Locker Talk (or any other appropriate cartridge). I was inspired by a cute project my friend Margie made for the Stampotique challenge HERE (she was a designer's fave, WooHoo!) and borrowed her sentiment for my card. I was going for a primary school feel so I used Micky Font in all caps. I thought the sentiment captured the excitement a child feels when they rush home with something they've made at school. Obviously my "school supply" was scissors and I made a heart chain, welding the hearts from George.

It's a shaped front card, using Design Studio. The colors were chosen from the Cosmo Cricket background paper that I thought was perfect for this challenge.

Yeah, lots of layers and I've creased the heart chain to look like it was actually cut with the scissors by folding accordion style and cutting half the heart. (YKWIM, don't you?) Anyway, it's only popped in the middle of each heart and was embossed with Swiss Dots. I actually had to dismantle some of the card because I'd forgotten the embossing and couldn't stand how plain it looked without. Couldn't get the original chain off so I cut another one and sort of slid it in under the portions that overlapped. Phew! I worked. Then just a little doodling and it was good to go.

To make sure the inside sentiment didn't show through to the front, I cut another heart chain and glued it directly under the one on the front. I think I craft and blog because I never lost the thrill of creating, especially for those I love. My DT sisters have done just fabulous projects for this challenge, so I hope you stop by, and we invite you to share your love of creating with us at BBTB2. Our challenges run for 2 weeks and we only ask that your project be a new one and that you mention and link us in your post so that others can join in the fun. Hope to see you there.

Back to School with Tiddly Inks

This is my second post of the day, so if you're looking for BBTB2 (a day late) please scroll down.

The Tiddly Inkers are going Back to School this week with fun new projects and some fabby new images from Christy. I had a hard time choosing but SchoolGirl's gorgeous wavy hair won out. My original plan was to just make a card but I was talking to my dear friend Lillie and she had made the sweetest little backpack for her Cricut Cuts and Stamps challenge that I fell in love. Hers was a Cricut .cut file and I was way too lazy to design my own so I sort of put the idea aside until I was on my sweet friend Smita's blog (be sure to vote for her team!) and she had done an adorable backpack as well with a LINK to a tutorial which turned out to be from ANOTHER dear friend DeeDee from way back in 2008 before I even WAS blogging. Thank you to EVERYONE! Okay, so sorry for the long round about story of how this came to be, but isn't it fabulous to have bloggie friends for inspiration and how we all are connected!?

I had already picked out the cute apple paper by Creative Imaginations so my color scheme was set. I colored SchoolGirl to match with my copic and followed DeeDee's tutorial to make my backpack. The cute apple cut is the shadow cut from Create a Critter and I cut a circle out if it with Cricut Design Studio to frame SchoolGirl. My BFF's daughter Hayley is starting high school TODAY so I spelled her name out in Alpha Beads.

Had to have a little card to go with so there you go. It's a simple A2 (which I hardly ever do) but anything bigger looked silly with the little backpack and I wanted SchoolGirl to take center stage. She's cut and matted with Nesties with a matching bow and apple button and LOADS more Alpha Beads. Now pop over to the Tiddly Inks Challenge Blog to check out the adorable projects from the rest of the Tiddly Inkers and while you're at it, why not do a little back to school shopping at the Tiddly Inks Shop? I'm also going to enter this in Lillie's challenge too because it has both a (digital) stamp and a Cricut cut and is certainly a back to school theme (if she doesn't mind that I copied LOL). So now you've got TWO great challenges to play along with. (And there are prizes to be had!) Hope to see you there.