School Kids Retirement Card for CTMH Featured Products Blog Hop

Hello and welcome back to another installment of the Close To My Heart (CTMH) Featured Products Blog Hop.  July is Stampaganza! month which means it's time for our month-long Buy 2-Get 1 Free special on our fabulous My Acrylix stamps, which makes this the perfect time to use STAMPS as the theme for our hop!  It's a short hop this week, just me and Tara Hendrickson from Tara's Treasure Trove, so don't forget to hop on over and see her *adorable* project and FYI, it's her  first time joining our little hop so be sure to leave her a comment to welcome her aboard!

BTW, you'll have to pardon the blurry photos for this project.  It was specially commissioned by just about the dearest, sweetest lady I know: my sister-in-law's mother who also happens to be my neighbor, Erma.  She wanted a unique and humorous retirement card for a lifelong friend who just decided to retire from being a paraeducator in our school district for many years.  As soon as Erma and I talked, I knew what stamps I wanted to use but then time got away from me and I was cutting it really close to the surprise party friends had planned for the retiree, and I nearly forgot to get a photo after my hard work so I had to settle on snapping a hurried pic with my tablet.

 details:  I started by using this lovely watercolor-patterned Crystal Blue paper from the recently retired Whimsy fundamentals pack for the sky.  I used my journaling pen to draw "hills" on this Emerald patterned piece from the Prickly Pear kit.  I needed a lot of words in a little space for this sentiment so I printed it on White Daisy cardstock on my computer, trimmed it to size and rounded the corners, and backed it with this flowered piece that's also from the Prickly Pear kit.  All the stamps the card front are from the School Kids set and were colored with a variety of ShinHan markers

For the inside, I used the ruler image from this set and Black Memento ink on this gray woodgrain patterned paper from the Rustic Home Fundamentals paper pack (isn't it great how CTMH sized that to fit so perfectly on an A2 sized card?!?!).  I used markers and the other two childrens' images from the School Kids set along with these adorable heart-shaped balloons from the Happy For You stamp set, which also provided the sentiment I used here.  I am happy to say Erma was thrilled with this card and I was so glad to help make a little something for two dear friends.

This card was just a little bit "simpler said than done," that's all there is to it but I loved how it turned out.  Don't for get to hop on over to see what Tara has in store for you, and please come back on Wednesday, 8/2/17, when our next theme will be the Jack paper kit and/or the coordinating stamps.

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting! ~~ Annette