Just Saying...Thanks

Hello and TGIF!  Not only is it Friday, but in my world, it's sports break!  Here in Sweden, sports break is our version of spring break, except everyone travels to go downhill skiing.  Except me.  I hole myself up in my flat and try to recuperate from having traveled over the Christmas break.  It's a truly wonderful time of the year.  :P

I've been slowly flexing my crafting muscles again after the winter holidays break and I've made up a few much-needed thank you cards.  Let's take a look, shall we?

First of all, I'd like to say that I'm totally and utterly smitten with Pebbles' From Me to You collection.  If you're a card-maker, this collection is absolutely a must-have!  I've found that I keep turning to it time and time again and it's wonderful for all sorts of cards from birthdays to thank-yous.

I drew a fair bit of colour inspiration from the February 2Peas mood board; specifically the pink and chalkboard elements, plus a bit of freehand doodling.

This first card is for a colleague from work whom is also my wonderful yoga instructor who will soon be moving to Switzerland.  I wanted to make sure she got a card before she left.

 Thanks Card

Despite having photographed it in natural daylight, the colour is a touch off and the chalkboard looks more brown than black but I can assure you it is very black in real life.  This was in fact the design that kept me up most of a night.  Everything is layered with some messy black thread on the bottom to give some added interested, texture and fill some of the white space.  The black enamel dots really helped make everything pop and the doodled line around the edge grounds the design.

I also needed a second thank you card for a friend who helped cat-sit Oskar during the bathroom renovation from Hell and over the winter holidays while I was away.  Rather than re-invent the wheel, I took the same design as above and made a second card.

Just a Note to Say...Thanks Card

Again, all layered with the chalkboard banner and a chipboard tag and some floral stickers.  I also added a chipboard bouquet and some embroidery floss for the fibre element.  Another doodled edge to ground the image.  On the inside of the card I've added a little glassine bag, in which I'll add a personal note and an extra surprise.

I've linked up available supplies for both cards to my 2Peas account - just click through the links below the pictures if you're interested in seeing what I used and the manufacturers.

Picture Day 2008

So you may remember that over the summer my LSS hosted a scrapbook LO contest.  I entered three of my pages but sadly I was the only contestant!  The up-side, of course, was that I also turned out to be the winner, albeit by default.  Anyway, it's taken me about two months - perhaps more - but I finally managed to get down to the shop to pick up my prize pack:

A mini-kit called 'Paris' by a small (unknown to me) manufacturer name Vive Gade (I think).  The black, white and grey-themed kit contained:

• 6 double-sided papers
• 2 washi tapes (one is Christmas-themed)
• 3 designer ribbons
• 3 wooden heart embellishments

While not all of the designs are really my style, I definitely do need more black, white and grey paper in particular so this worked out well.

So as you would expect, I thought I should use some of these new goodies and make something!  I decided that I would continue to scrap my series of class photos.  The darkest black patterned paper caught my eye, as it has that chalkboard blackness to it and in white there are maths equations written all over it.  Seemed like a good choice for a school-themed page.  I also thought the numbered washi tape would work well on a school LO, too.

I wasn't able to find my original photo from my first ever class all on my own.  I think I may have given it to my parents; my step-father finds the whole international schooling concept amazing - he calls it my 'UN class' and every year I have to show the class photo and go through all of the nationalities present.  It's sweet, really.  Luckily, however, a friend had a copy, which she scanned and emailed to me (thanks, Anya!).  My photo developer doesn't print the same size as the school photography company but I enlarged it a little to a 6x8 size, which let me play with a different layout design, which was a nice change of pace.

Picture Day 2008

Here you can see I've layered the black maths paper and a light blue EP paper under the photo and I've run the numbered washi tape like a border across the page.  The background paper is one that my friend Anya gave me a few years ago and I've been saving it for a LO such as this - it even has a very subtle tone-on-tone print of children's game names in the red section at the top; if you look really, really carefully you can just make it out in the photo.

I used the Kensei chipboard Thickers that I've been crushing on lately - it's just such a fun font.  I have, however, taken to gluing them down with a little touch of Crackle Accents by Ranger, since I find chipboard Thickers are notorious for popping off.  As you'll see in the next photo, I'm continuing my trend of including some sort of camera motif on all of these photos and I re-inforced this with a CP slide frame, which I stamped with little potty people to mimic the class photo.  Cute, right?

The journaling card is from Carta Bella's Hello Again collection - the blues just worked really well with the blues already used in the rest of the LO and I thought the 'Let me tell you...' line was a good lead in to the class stats I've been recording.  The little eye glasses and 'looking back' is from the same stamp set as the potty people and the chipboard camera is from CP's The Pier collection.