I have a wonderful crafty friend who is an amazing, dedicated teacher. To let her know that I think what she does every day for her students is awe inspiring, I made this card for her to accompany a little surprise happy mail package I am sending to her. I was inspired by the Bing Crosby song, “An Apple For The Teacher” and the adorable Fairest from The Greeting Farm. Although I think Fairest is supposed to be a version of Sleeping Beauty, I thought she could make a cute little student who is offering up an apple for her teacher!
I remembered that I had an apple patterned paper in my stash and found it in an old American Crafts paper stack called, “Night Fall.” I took a cue from the autumnal or earth tone colors of that paper, I stamped Fairest out with MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Dye Ink, and colored her up with the following Copic colors:
Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, and R20
Hair: Y21, E55, 57 and 59
Bows: YE20, 21 and 24
Dress and socks: BG70, 72, 75 and 78
Apple: R35, R37, R39 and G17 (with a top coat of Glossy Accents for shine)
I also found a great smaller patterned polka dot paper from the Lost & Found Two My Mind’s Eye “Sunshine” paper collection that coordinated with the apple paper and made for a nice, complimentary background paper. TIP: the smaller scale of these polka dots as compared to the apples helps the two patterned papers not compete with each other or confuse the eye.
I then cut out the image with a doily die that fit around and framed Fairest perfectly. I was going to just pop up the die cut image on fun foam for a little dimension, but because there wasn’t a lot of color contrast between the white die cut background and the patterned papers, the whole assembly started to look a little visually cluttered. To solve this, I decided to pull the burgundy red color from the apple and repeat that with some card stock matting. I matted the apple paper, the doily die cut (which I hand fussy cut around), and even the sentiment banner (to which I added a hand fussy cut apple from the apple patterned paper for a little extra embellishment).
Speaking of the sentiment, I took a stanza from the Bing Crosby song and printed it out in two parts on my printer with brown ink. The sentiment on the front of the card says, “An apple for the teacher will always do the trick,” and the sentiment continues inside the card to say, “when you don’t know your lesson in arithmetic.” LOL It’s a cheeky little line that Bing Crosby sings about how he should deal with a teacher with whom he is falling in love. Aren’t the innocent lyrics so sweet in old timey songs?
I decorated the inside of the card with another patterned paper from the Night Fall collection that had the same colors as the apple paper but with a star pattern. I matted the white liner paper with some kraft card stock, and I also hand cut fishtail banners from the patterned paper scraps left over from the front of the card. I attached those fishtail banners with two staples in an X formation and topped that with a brushed gold metal heart paperclip to continue with the stationary (office/school supply) theme.
It’s these types of little embellishment details that I think add so much to a handmade card. I think all these touches let the recipients of handmade cards know how much love and thought went into the creations.
The following is a card share video in which I share some of my thought process and card design tips for this card:
This card is being entered into the following challenges:
The Greeting Farm Farm Fresh Office Supplies Challenge
MarkerPOP For the Girls Challenge
Simon Says Stamp Monday Inspired by Music Challenge
Creatalicious Anything Goes with an Optional Inspired by a Tune Challenge
Card Mania Earth Tones Challenge
613 Avenue Create Anything Goes with an Optional Colors of Fall Challenge
Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Addicted to Stamps Make Your Mark Challenge
MFT Card Sketch #299 Challenge
Loved seeing your video on how you design a card! Your coloring of highlights and shadows is spot on – love the pleats you created. Beautifully done, and thank you so much for sharing your project and creativity at 613 Ave C!
~ginny, DT for 613 Ave C: [ATG/ Colors of Fall]
Owner: RubberMAD (GettyCollection.com)
Thank you so much Ginny! I had so much fun creating this card for my teacher friend. Big hugs, Kristina
Super cute card, love the stamp and that you’ve made it into a doily. The pattern papers are lovely. Thank you so much for joining us at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. Hugs, Sandra
Thanks so much Sandra! I had fun crafting this card for my teacher friend. Teachers do so much for our youth and country as a whole. I just wanted to know she is appreciated. 🙂
Positively adorable!!! Love, love, love!!! Thanks for joining us at TGF!
Awww thanks so much Rachel! I had a blast creating this card for my teacher friend. 🙂 TFStopping by and taking the time to leave a sweet comment! Big hugs, Kristina
Such a cute image! You have awesome coloring skills!!! Thank you for playing along with the MarkerPop Challenge!
Awww thanks so much Jessica! TFStopping by and taking the time to leave a sweet comment! Big hugs, Kristina
Super cute!!! Thank you for joining us at ATSM, good luck!!! Amy DT
Thanks so much Amy! TFStopping by and taking the time to leave a sweet comment! Big hugs, Kristina
Adorable! Perfect coloring. Thanks for playing along at ATSM.
Thanks so much Rema! I had fun crafting this card for my teacher friend. 🙂 TFStopping by and taking the time to leave a sweet comment! Big hugs, Kristina
It’s so cute 🙂 great image and colouring 🙂
Thank you for joining our challenge at CardMania Challenges 🙂
Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging comment! Hugs, Kristina
Beautiful creation! I love sketch interpretation and image! Wonderful colouring!
Thanks for playing at Card Mania Challenge.
Ileana
Thanks so much for stopping by Ileana! I had a lot of fun creating this card for my friend who is a teacher. I feel like we owe teachers so much. 🙂
Lovely!
Thank you for joining us at Card Mania Challenge, good luck:)
Marzena DT
Thank you so much Marzena! It was really fun to make this fall teacher card, even though I don’t have any human kids with teachers. 😀 tfstopping by! Hugs, Kristina
You have made marker skills! Love the treatment of this adorable image! Thanks for dropping this into our mailbox at 613 Avenue Create!
Hugz,
Chana, Owner
Awww you are soo sweet, Chana! I had a lot of fun creating this card for my teacher friend. I don’t have children, but I so appreciate the hard work that good teachers do to uplift and inspire our youth. TFStopping by! Hugs, Kristina
So cute.. I love your coloring. Thanks for joining us at MarkerPop!
Thanks bunches Holly! This was a really fun card to craft for my teacher friend. 🙂
A wonderful card!
Thank you soo much for taking part in our “anything goes with optional pick a tune” challenge over at Creatalicious & good luck in the draw.
Hope to see you again in our new challenge as well…
Hugs,
Melanie
(DT-Coordinator Creatalicious Challenges)
(DT Crafty Friends)
(DT The Sketchy Challenges)
PS: Sorry for the late comment, life had been very busy the past couple of weeks…
Thanks oodles Melanie!