August Stamp of the Month Blog Hop: School Years

Our daughter begins her junior year of high school this Friday (and I started back to work yesterday as a teacher in our school system), so the August stamp of the month, School Years, couldn't be more timely.  Now, even if you're thinking that you don't "need" a school-themed stamp set, this blog hop might convince you otherwise!  (If you're already hopping then you've probably arrived from Priscilla's blog.  From here, you'll visit Jean's Stampin Maui blog next.)

Since we do start back this Friday, I went ahead and made a layout to document this special day.  (Usually I scrapbook after the fact, but this time I am working ahead!)  I have so many ALL NEW and EXCITING products to share with you!  First up of course is the School Years stamp of the month.  Next is the cool new patterns in the Enchantment Fundamentals.  Since our school colors are purple and gold, I chose to use Eggplant and Goldrush with the addition of Peacock, Black, and White Daisy.

On this page, I stamped the speech bubble and "first day" directly onto the base page.  The "School is...", arrow, and slate were all stamped, cut out, and then adhered to the layout.  For the arrow, I cut along the inner arrow design rather than the outer for a smaller arrow than the one on the right page. I

For the title, I inked up my "first day" stamp in Goldrush, Eggplant, and Black then stamped onto the White Daisy base.  (I made sure that the eraser of the pencil was Eggplant but that the tip was black.)  I also stamped the pencil on a piece of Goldrush B&T and then paper pieced it onto the stamped base.  For the slate, I stamped it onto the same Goldrush B&T as the pencil, cut it out, and adhered a black rectangle to the center.  (I used the Chalkboard marker for my date.)

For the journaling block, I masked off the "teacher" part since there was no way that I could fit all of my high schooler's teachers in that block.  I had to stamp the image twice, masking off the parts that I didn't want, to create the journaling box.

Also, how do you like this layout sketch?  We have a brand new layout how-to guide, Make It From Your Heart, Volume 3!  This sketch is Pattern 5.

I'll update this layout with photos and repost after Friday.  Please leave a comment before you head off to Jean's blog.

{Click HERE for all the hop participants and their blogs.}