Angels Landing: Back to School Gift Set

Hello All...it's Wednesday and you all know what that means! Yup, it's time for Angels Landing Wednesday Themed DT Projects. This week is all about Back to School.

Sigh! Summer is shortly coming to an end and the start of school is just around the corner...And as you all know, a couple months back, my son graduated from preschool and will be starting kindergarten in two weeks! He's grown up so fast and I am going to miss my little man! Boo Hoo!

To welcome my son's teacher to the new schoolyear, I created a back to school gift set. The gift set includes a journal (a composition notebook cut in half) with matching beaded pen, a bookmark and card. Doesn't this bring you back to the good ol' days of being in school?

There are so many cute Angels Landing images that I couldn't just one so I've incorporated 3 different adorable bear images on all 3 pieces from the Mini Bears and Birds digi-stamp set.

This bookmark uses Bearly Adequate bear - isn't he just adorable??? I used my classic rectangle nestabilities to frame the little guy and rounded the corners. The edges are inked with Antique Linen distress ink and Stampin' Up Rose Romance inks. The pink scallop border is actually a piece of felt. This is the first time I've cut felt using my nesties and cuttlebug. It was somewhat difficult to cut through one layer of felt but if you run through a couple of times, the felt will be cut enough that you can just cut away the rest with scissors. (Cuttlebug Recipe: Plate A + Plate B + Felt + Nestie + a piece of scrap paper folded in fourths + Plate C). The Big Shot might cut through the felt a little better.

I wanted to somehow incorporate a calendar that the teacher could quickly glance at during the schoolyear so I created an all in one bookmark inspired by a template that a fellow SCS'er is gracious enough to share every year. You can download the 2009 calendar here especially made for a bookmark (here's a link to the 2010 calendar template).

In lieu of the school theme, I used a fun cool font called LA El 2 that you can download from fontspace.com (click on name of the font for a direct link). It is in the category under "elementary" if you want to see more versions to use for school themed projects. Most of the fonts on this site are compressed files (zip files) so you will need to do the following in order to save it to your fonts folder:

- Click on Download button for desired font
- A new menu (File Download) will open up, click on Open

- A new window will open up with the font files, click on Extract Files

- Once the files have completely been extracted, another window of the extracted files will pop up

- Right click your mouse and copy the file with the symbol "TT" that stands for TrueType font (in this case the file was called LA_E_2)

- Go to the Start menu, open up My Computer

- Click on the C: drive, open up the Windows folder

- Scroll down to fonts folder, right click on mouse and paste

** Unfortunately, you have to take these extra steps just to save a font to be able to use it (unless you can find a shorter way, please let me know - LOL!)

I created a little tag that says "Read" at the top of the bookmark. Since we didn't know who my son's teacher is going to be yet, I wasn't able to customize the gift set so I created a little tag that says "This book belongs to _________" for her to put her name on it.

Next up is a mini journal that the teacher can use for notes. I bought a whole bunch of composition notebooks awhile back and went to OfficeMax to have them cut in half. It costs $1 per cut. The half composition notebooks are a lot of fun to decorate as much as the full version. Again, staying with the school theme, I added a border of the font underneath the main image. For the image, I used Chubby Cubby bear. I thought he was the perfect image to use on a notebook. I created the same technique on the main panel as I did with the bookmark. I topped it off with a wide grossgrain ribbon tied with srting on the side, crochet fleurette with button and crochet thread. I also made a matching beaded pen (you can find the tutorial here on SCS).

And, of course, you can't give a gift without a matching card. I used scraps of patterned paper from the notebook and created two panels behind the main image. This time, I used Cubby Cousins bear. Doesn't he look like he is lovingly looking at the teacher? I just love the expression on all of the bears it was hard to use just one main image. Since teachers are a special part of a child growing up, I added a sentiment that says "Inspire" on the card. I used the spiral punch on the background panel to make it look like it was torn out of a notebook. For added effect, I added some piercing on the top and bottom of the panels along with a wide grossgrain ribbon tied with string.

Thanks for stopping by! Make sure to check out the other DTs creations for today at the Angels Landing blog!!!

Digital Stamps: Angels Landing (Mini Bears and Birds)
Paper: Me and My Big Ideas
Cardstock: Georgia Pacific (White), Jo-Anns Value Pack (Brown), Unkown (Kraft)
Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Antique Linen), Stampin Up (Rose Romance)
Die Cut: Spellbinders (Rectangle Nestabilities)
Punches: Stampin Up (Spiral)
Accessories: Pink Felt, String, RSVP Pen, Microbeads, Terrifically Tacky Tape, Scotch Foam Mounting Tape
Coloring: Prismacolor Pencils blended with baby oil