Category Archives: school

Congrats Grad

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I have a nephew graduating this year. Here’s the card I made:

by Karen @ carefree creations - File Folder Graduation

I’m not sure I can even begin to describe how I got here. This card looks NOTHING like the picture in my head!

The card base is a cream color and I stamped a grid on the front. The grid was stamped with Hero Arts shadow ink – Baby Blue. The cube I have is ancient so I don’t know how true to color it is any more, but it was just what I wanted for this.

I used a die to create a file folder edge. Originally my layout was vertical, but the die-cut letters did not look good stacked on top of each other because the M is so much wider than the S and it looked like an inverted pyramid…not what I was going for.

The apple is the school symbol.

I wish I had a “stamp of approval” type image to use, but I don’t, so I created my own. I used the postal cancellation waves and a circle sentiment (stamped with SU Sahara Sand).

The stripe paper is on the inside of the card – just enough to peek out. There is also a thin strip of red card stock to separate the pattern paper from the writing area.

So does anyone else have this problem? I have a really hard time mixing products from different manufacturers. It isn’t that I can’t, it is more like I feel disloyal. I mean, I know if I’m making a card for a challenge by that manufacturer, I should stay with their stamps if I can….but when it is a card just because, then I really shouldn’t care if I mix and match – but dang it is hard for me! But then I know I’m a little weird!

Thanks for taking a peek!

MHS – Congratulations
All supplies Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.
Stamps: Off Beat Backgrounds (Waltzing Mouse); For the Graduate, School Time Additions, Around About Sentiments, Postmarks, Simple Alphabet;
Ink/Card Stock: Vintage Cream, New Leaf, Pure Poppy, Dark Chocolate, Harvest Gold; Sahara Sand (SU); Baby Blue (Hero Arts Shadow); Black (Versafine);
Other: Pure Poppy Patterns paper, Christmas Prints pattern paper, Block Alphabet die, Teacher’s Apple die, Edgers #5 die;

For Social Studies/History Teachers

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by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Teacher

I have another teacher card done. I made two as both my girls have a social studies or history teacher.

The globe image is watercolored. The banner sentiment is popped up with dimensionals.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Thank You
Stamps: Back to School (GinaK); Itty Bitty Banners (SU);
Ink/Card Stock: Marina Mist, Garden Green, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron (SU); Black (Memento); White (PTI);
Other: Itty Bitty Banner die, Woodgrain embossing folder (SU); Stitched Square Mat die (Lil Inkers);
Technique: watercoloring;

Thanks, Teacher

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I’m squeaking in a card for the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge – Anything Goes!

by Karen @ Carefree Creations - Thanks Teacher

To do the chevron strip, I masked off my card base and repeatedly stamped the image. The apple is paper pieced and popped up.

The seeds on the apple are the brush tip from a Copic marker.

This is the last month of school and this week is teacher appreciation. Both my girls have multiple teachers so I need lots of cards this year (at least 10). I won’t get them done in time for this week, but I will have them done by the end of the month.

Thanks for taking a peek!

thanks
Stamps: Falling for You, GeoGraphic, Sentiment Sampler (Paper Smooches);
Ink/Card Stock: Kraft, Rustic White, Black (PTI);
Other: assorted pattern paper; marker (Copic-E59);
Technique: Paper Piecing, Masking;

Thank You cards for Teachers

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These two cards are for the gym & music teachers (I gave the art teacher a generic thank you that I made last month – my brain just couldn’t get artsy, which is sorta ironic, eh?).

All Star
Stamps: All Star Team, Think Big Favorites #1 (PTI);
Colors: Kraft, White, Black, Lemon, Hawaiian Shores (PTI);
Other: Notations DSP (SU); Stars (larger is a punch; smaller is from PTI Merry & Bright die);
You Rock
Stamps: Extreme Guitar, Extreme Elements (SU); So 80s (Wplus9);
Colors: White (PTI), Black (Memento); Pool, Pear, Daffodil, Going Gray (SU);

Gift Ensembles for the Teachers

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The end of school has come and gone. It was quite busy as my oldest “continued” from elementary school. And I was room mom for my other kiddo – so I helped with the end of year party. I’ll just say I’m glad (as always) that May is over! Of course, so much got pushed off until after school – that this week feels like just more of the same!

Enough whining. On to the good stuff – the photos! This year I did acrylic sticky-note pads, favor bags filled with chocolate, a paper clip bookmark, and a Starbuck’s gift card.

I snapped photos of the individual pieces of one of the sets, and the other sets are photographed as a group.

Here’s an “open” shot of the card. I used the Double Slider Tutorial at SplitCoast for creating the cards.

Here is another ensemble. I do believe that PTI’s Wisteria is now my favorite color!

My final ensemble. This teacher has a “wild animal” theme in her classroom, so that is why I decided to do her gifts with animal patterns.

And, because I felt so very clever when I thought of this…here is a closeup of the two sides to the bookmark for the ‘animal’ ensemble:

Below is a quick list of supplies, but if you have any questions, just ask!

Gift Ensemble 1
Stampin’Up! Notations DSP; PTI dies (FavorIt Box, Notched Flowers, TANL);
Gift Ensemble 2
PTI paper, ink, stamps (Sending You), and dies;
Gift Ensemble 3
Unknown animal print paper; PTI stamp (It’s a Jungle); PTI dies ;

Gift Card Gift

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I picked up a gift card for my kiddo’s teacher. I wanted an interactive way to give the card. My kid helped me come up with this idea and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

My kiddo chose the colors – because purple is the teacher’s favorite color and yellow looks good with purple 🙂

You can’t see it in the photo, but the card base is embossed with PTI’s musical impression plate (again, the teacher likes to sing).

This was actually pretty simple to pull off.

The striped paper is popped up with foam tape (placed to just allow the gift card in – so that the top aligns as it should). The gift top is a folded piece of card stock with the gift card adhered to the inside back with repositionable tape.

 
Hopefully the second photo shows how the ribbon works. One piece is attached to the back of the present bottom, and the other piece is attached to the back of the present top.

I finished off the inside of the card with a little row of presents (because you know, kids don’t write a whole lot, lol).

Thanks for stopping by!

Gift Card
Stamps: Tiny Tags 1 & 2 (PTI); Holiday Sampler (SU);
Colors: Lemon Tart, Lavender Moon, Plum Pudding, White (PTI);
Other: Guidelines DSP (PTI); Plum ribbon (PTI); Tags die (PTI);

Star Teacher

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My oldest kiddo has a wonderful teacher this year – someone who really looks out for the kid’s best interests. This past week was the end of a semester and I wanted to do something special for the teacher.

Our school is a PBIS school – where they focus on positive behavior. One of the elements is filling a person’s bucket with positive thoughts. The aforementioned teacher once mentioned to me she’d love for someone to fill her bucket with chocolate 😀 So naturally I needed to give her a chocolate filled bucket!

I found this awesome bucket in the Target dollar spot. Since it tapers, I could not figure out how to wrap paper around the bucket, so I just decorated it with die cut stars. I embossed the large star with the sentiment.

Of course I needed to add a card. I used more die cut stars. I recently purchased some good real sewing pinking shears. I used them to cut the mat. The main panel is old scrapbook paper that I have no idea where it came from. I stitched the two together. The sentiment is stamped on vellum. The final touch was spritzing the card base with Shimmerz.

Thanks for stopping by!

Back to School Gifties

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Today was the first day of school. But a few days ago was “Meet the Teacher” day. I made these gifties for the girls’ new teachers.

I started with a cleaned-up hot chocolate can, covered it with paper and embellished it. I added some decorated pens & pencils. Since I sharpened the pencils (for immediate use), I wanted to protect the points in the can. Thankfully the interior circle of the can was a perfect fit for a Spellbinder die – so a quick die cut of craft foam and the inside is soft.

In addition to pens & pencils, I added a skinny note pad and a card. The card is a wacky size so it would fit in the can.

The final bit in the can is a questionnaire where I ask the teacher stuff like ‘what is your favorite color’, and ‘do you like apples’. I’ll use the information when making other gifts throughout the year. If you are interested, you can download the questionnaire (PDF).

As for supplies, the stamps are all PTI (except the frame on the card – that is MFT). The DSP is all retired SU stuff. If you want to know something specific, don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks to the PE Teacher

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This card is for the physical education teacher at our school.

I don’t have any sports stamps, so when it came time to make a card for the PE teacher, I thought I would have to do quite a bit of improvising. After lots of failed attempts, I went back to looking through my stamp collection for inspiration. I decided to use the Simple Circle die and use punches to create the different sports balls.

I went looking for layout inspiration to use the die and found, of course, an awesome card on Maile’s blog (last card).

I ended up finding a font to make the soccer ball – doing your own is much harder than it looks! I did make the basketball, baseball, tennis ball (yellow paper and white gel pen), hockey puck (in case you didn’t know what the small black circle was for), and a red kick ball (embossed with the canvas impression plate!!).

I didn’t have high hopes when starting this card, but I’m really happy how it finished!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks
Stamps: Background Basics: Text, Fillable Frames Additions 1 (PTI); sentiment (old All Night Media);
Paper: Black, Kraft, White, Harvest Gold (PTI); Pumpkin, Riding Hood (SU);
Ink: Crumb Cake (SU); Black (PTI);
Other: 0.5 Pen (CTMH); Fillable Frame 1 die, Simple Circles die (PTI);

Thanks to the Music Teacher

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I created this card for the music teacher at our school. We have a male teacher, so I stayed away from the frou-frou.

I was very inspired by Maile’s card during the recent PTI countdown (last card). She oriented her cardstock and impression plate so that a piece of the card base at the top and bottom went un-embossed. I did the same thing. The rest of the layout I sorta cased as well, but I used a real die cut instead of an impression for the label.

The instruments were stamped from the wheel, watercolored, and then cut out.

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks
Stamps: Symphony wheel (SU); Fillable Frames 4 (PTI); Trendy Greetings (TAC);
Colors: Not Quite Navy, Crumb Cake, More Mustard, Close to Cocoa (SU); Black, Cream (PTI);
Other: Fillable Frame 4 die, Music impression plate (PTI);
Technique: watercoloring