Thanks for a Great First Week!

This is the first year that my daughter wasn't looking forward to the first day of school.  I blame it on an end-of-summer vacation with fabulous, spoil-her-rotten, fun grandparents and a weird teacher experience the previous year.  But... as we all know, anticipation is often the worst part and, sometime during the very first day, she fell in love with her new teacher!  Thank heavens!

My daughter loves everything about Mrs. Wild, from her "no homework on the first day" policy (a first for these kids) to rearranging the seats after the second day so friends could sit side-by-side.  This teacher has even created a Class Handbook-- she's tuned in to the fact that the kids at this very strict school want to do things right and understand how things will operate without having to figure it out as they go.  My daughter read the handbook to me on the way to gymnastics one evening, proudly proclaiming at the end:  This is going to be a great year.  I had no idea a simple handbook could give such confidence and...maybe even comfort.

I wanted to make a thank you card for a great first week of 3rd Grade...this one has monkeys, flowers, and a castle....go figure.  A busy, simple card?

I started with the card from page 65 in the Cricut Artiste Cartridge.  This card opens down and is closed with a paper tab cut at the top.  At Fit-to-Page on my Expression, it cut at 5".  Additionally, I cut the word "thanks" at 1-1/2" and cut apart the letters so that I could have a contrast.  I popped them up 1/8".

I cut a frame from Cricut Art Philosophy at 4-1/2",  to give a little color to my kraft paper card, and taped the picture in behind it.

For the embellishments:

• Using Cricut Mother's Day, I cut tiny pink flowers from key #26 at 1/2".  For my larger flowers, I cut yellow layers from key #8 at 3/4 and pink layers from key #35 at 3/4".  I layered my larger flowers and filled with a micro pompom.  They were inked in pink.
• I also cut and inked tiny monkeys, to match the class theme (apparently a Mrs.Wild favorite), from Noah's ABC Animals at 3/4".  I cut one additional pink flower to use as a mat for one of the monkeys from Mother's Day- key #18 at 3/4.
• I cut a castle from  Wrap It Up at Real Dial Size 2" (page 24 card feature).  "Bravo" was stamped on using an Artiste Collection stamp from "Kudos".  (The school looks like a castle, in case you are wondering about that one!)

Thanks for checking my blog post today!  I seem to be stuck on simple cards....but not for long!  I have a few projects in mind now that I am getting ready to tackle for an upcoming event.  Hoping that what is in my head works out on paper!

To see many of my previous projects, click here to go to My Project Gallery.