Keeping up with the #100DayProject has been more challenging this week since most of the week we've been at Sarah's. She has accepted a new position which means another move, this time to Wisconsin. We're here helping to get organized, and Tracy is busy painting some walls Sarah and Adam painted when they moved into their rental. We've also been house hunting, and that has been successful. Their purchase offer on a lovely home was accepted on Saturday.
So the only card I have to share this week was made before we left home. It's a card for Caleb's kindergarten teacher who has been simply wonderful. We met her in October, and knew right away that she loved her job and loved kindergarteners. I give her a lot of credit. It's the one elementary grade I never taught in my 37 years of teaching---absolutely by choice! We've been able to watch Caleb grow this year through an app called "Seesaw." Nearly every school day, his teacher (or he) takes a photo and posts it to the app. We can see his work, watch videos, and hear him read his weekend reports each Monday. Tracy and I wanted to tell her how much we've appreciated her hard work.
I started by die cutting a piece of Pure Poppy cardstock with the "Big Apple" die from Papertrey Ink and used New Leaf and a piece of Bitty Big patterned paper to cut the leaves. I found an old piece of Teresa Collin's patterned paper in my scrapbook stash which I cut to fit a top folded white card. The large banner was cut from a piece of striped vellum from Papertrey's Sheer Basics, and embossed with a sentiment from PTI's "Great Teachers" stamp set and attached it to the apple. The pencil was stamped with an old wooden stamp from Judith that I colored with Copic markers and fussy cut. I tied a piece of thin twine around the apple stem and used dimensional tape to add the pencil.
I haven't had this much fun making a card in a long time. Both the die cut and stamp set are "new to me"---borrowed from a friend.
Knowing I'd be away this week, I came prepared to work on colored pencil techniques. Tracy gifted me with an early birthday present, so I have a new set of Polychromos colored pencils to play with. I'm quite happy with them, but they require a different set of coloring skills than I'm accustomed to. Before I came I stamped (and embossed) some practice material.
Thanks to advice on Yana Smakula's blog, I downloaded a color chart from the Faber Castell website, and used one of my #100DayProject times to color in the pencils I own. It's already proven to be very helpful in choosing colors to layer.
I'm hoping I'll be able to use some of this practice material for cards once I get home. Here is last night's practice session. I was pretty happy with the flowers, but not as pleased with the leaves.
Just one more day here before we head home. We had lunch with one of Tracy's high school classmates today and then a wonderful visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. I took lots of photos, so there will likely be a flower post once we get home. I don't think we've ever been there in the early spring before, and I got lots of ideas for planters and our gardens.
