Blogging Friends Blog Hop- Back to School Bash

Back to School Bash-

Wow….I cannot believe it is already August!!  It is Back to School time here in the South and my house is gearing up to send one back to college and my baby is a Senior this year!  Needless to say, there are many emotions swirling around.  As I looked at my stamp sets, it became very clear that I didn’t have anything that screamed “back to school”.  So, I grabbed my A Wish for Everything stamp set….well because it said EVERYTHING!  Sadly, there wasn’t anything for the occasion. But as I studied the dies, I began to see where I could make my own and this is what I came up with:

Have you figured it out??  There is no die that says “First”, so I created my own!!  Here are the dies I used and you can see where I just needed some pieces out of the scrap-

I used the “F” from Father’s, the “r” and “i” from St. Patrick’s, and the “st” from Easter!  My other challenge is always making cards for a 17 year old boy.  He likes a kind of punk rock style and his school colors are red and black.  So, I watercolored some Real Red and Cherry Cobbler on some watercolor paper.  Next, was using the Stitched Nested Labels dies to cut it out and cut the frame out of the Basic Black layer.  It needed more texture, so I used the new Brick and Mortar 3D embossing folder to add some!  I then stamped the sentiment in black and punched it out with the Classic Label punch.

Now it was time to glue on my “Happy First Day”.  I reached for my Precision glue (man, I LOVE this stuff) and got it all placed.  Of course there were spots where it had squished out from behind the letters and it was shiny.  So, I decided to make all the letters shiny!  I coated them with the glue and it turned out so cool and glossy.  The sentiment for the inside of the card was perfect as my son is trying something new this year and we are hoping it will be his passion.  I then cut off a piece of the edge of that watercolor paper and added it for a cool effect.

A second project….of course!

I realized that I couldn’t leave out my college boy who was headed back to UAB soon.  I had been in his room gathering laundry (always the laundry!!) and found his parking hang tag for his car.  That sparked an idea! I went back to the studio and came up with this little piece of encouragement to attach to the back where he will see it every time he drives somewhere.  And it had to be in the UAB Blazer colors of Green and Gold!

This little HaPpY features the Hostess set Believe You Can from the Annual Catalog.  I again used the same embossing folder and the same dies.  The Starburst punched circle was added behind after I cut it in half.  I simply colored with the Stampin’ Write markers.  Just a fun little HaPpY.

I realize my projects aren’t the typical “back to school” ones with apples or geared toward younger children, but this is the stage I am at in my life.  I love that I can create things that are masculine and “cool” with my Stampin’ Up! products.  Now, enjoy all the other projects from our hop today!!  Click on the next name on the list and have fun-

Thanks for looking!