Tic Tac Toe for Back to School

I love this time of year-- back to school! And no, it's not just that my two older kids have been driving me crazy and I was excited to send them back (though that is a tad bit true.) As a former teacher, there is just something about the smell of a classroom, clean and awaiting new students, that makes me smile! Mostly it's the promise that the new school year holds-- those piles of new notebooks and unsharpened pencils, new school clothes and backpacks all represent the journey that the kids will undertake this school year and makes me wonder where they will be at the end of it next May and how they will have grown and changed.



So my project for this week's round 2 of our Tic Tac Toe challenge is a little teacher gift for the first day of school. This one is actually for my 4 year old's preschool teacher as he doesn't start until next week and her gift is still at my house-- the other two kids already took theirs on back to school night.


This was a really quick and simple gift to make. I used a small legal pad and just covered it by cutting a 5 x 8 piece of paper for the front and gluing it securely to the top of the notebook (not the paper itself). I cut a 5 x 9 piece for the back and folded it over the top to cover where I glued the first piece. The pencil holder is an empty Prima flower bottle that I have been holding onto knowing it was too cute to throw away! It's always great to reuse stuff!

I used some not-so-typical school paper from SEI's Sonoma collection. I really love the colors of these papers and they are perfect for a more vintage look instead of the typical bright primary colors. I thought the sheet of numbers really represented a back to school theme. I also used the Die Cut Labels and Arrows from that collection. These are all a fantastic price right now at the store so make sure you check them out!


For the Tic Tac Toe choices I used distress (dark brown ink around the edges and I used my Zutter Distress-All to roughen up some of the papers), glitter (red Stickles around the apples) and lace. For me lace wasn't an obvious choice for a back-to-school project either but I really loved how it turned out and adds to that vintage look.


YOUR Tic Tac Toe projects so far are phenomenal! Check out everything that has been entered so far by clicking here, it's definitely worth looking! There are still a few more days to enter this challenge for your chance to win a $20.00 voucher to The Beary Scrap so spend some time this weekend getting your creative juices flowing.

Tic-Tac-Toe . . . .and a Tear Bear

At The Beary Scrap this week we have started a brand new challenge-- Tic Tac Toe! I am so excited about it and had lots of fun making my project this week.



For my tic-tac-toe project, I chose paper piecing, pearl and button to make this baby card for my neighbors who just had a new little girl:


To start I paper pieced a Baby Tear Bear-- this is the first time I have made one of these tiny little guys and they are oh so cute! Just as easy as the original Tear Bears to make and the perfect size for a baby card.




I used My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup Girl papers to make my easel card-- I love these colors for a baby girl-- I'm not a big fan of pink so to mix it up with a little blue and even green was perfect!

Then I added my pearls and my buttons are actually stick pins with pastel buttons on the ends.

So, if you haven't done it yet, pick your three squares on our Tic Tac Toe board and enter your project in our current Beary Sweet Challenge and good luck!

Are you a . . . .

BRAVE GIRL?

Well, sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not, just depending on what it is. But I know one thing for sure, I was nowhere near as brave when I was a little girl as my 7 year old daughter is. She'll try anything and shows no fear (and yes, I definitely realize this may not always be a good thing!) She is up for adventure of any kind and I have spent many moments this summer cringing as she rides her bike down hills, does front flips off the high dive at the city pool, being pulled on a tube behind a boat on the lake and her new love-- waterskiing-- which is the subject of my layout this week.


I am pretty sure I was at least 12 years old before I attempted to waterski, but not my daughter-- she outshone her older brother and several cousins by learning this summer and her usual comment was "Go faster." What a girl!


I stuck to the basic sketch for this layout but wanted to mix it up just a little from last week and so I tilted the sketch a different direction and then added three smaller pictures to the side of my main image. I used the fabulous new collection from Echo Park called Splash-- you have got to check it out! Kimm just got it in the store this week and it is perfect for summer activities of many kinds. I just love the bright colors. I did add some hot pink in the mat for my main photo and the letter stickers to make it a little more "girly." I used Element Stickers from the Splash collection pack to accent my page instead of the flowers on the original sketch and added Stickles for a little shine to my wave.



So go on, be a brave girl and do something a little adventurous this weekend! Or just spend a little time crafting and enter your take on our sketch in our current Beary Sweet Challenge.

New Sketch at The Beary Scrap

Happy Friday to everyone out there! I hope you have enjoyed seeing the absolutely FANTASTIC creations the Beary Sweet ladies have offered up this week in conjunction with our new sketch challenge. We can't wait to see how you interpret the sketch!

My take on the sketch is a 12 x 12 layout using My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy True Blue papers. I think these papers include some of my favorite color combinations ever and they were perfect for a picture of my 4 year old celebrating his birthday.



I loved this sketch and pretty much stuck right to it, except for substituting stars for the flowers since this is a boy-ish layout. All the accents are from the same Fine & Dandy collection-- buttons, brad, and trim-- I love it when they all come matched already!

Check out all the details for our current Beary Sweet Challenge featuring this sketch here-- we hope to see your entry soon!