One for the Girls and one for the Boys!

It's Sunday and you know what that means: time for a new challenge over at The Paper Players! This week it is the turn of the incredibly talented Sandy and she has a great theme challenge for you:

This is rather timely for me, as both of my Juniors are returning to school to begin a new academic year tomorrow following the long summer break, so it was a great opportunity for me to make a couple of cards to tuck into their schoolbags to wish them a good day. Here's my first card, using this week's Freshly Made Sketches layout:

I made this card for Rebecca - very pink and girly, but hopefully sufficiently grown up for a 10 year old about to embark on her last year of Junior School. This is a big year for her as she will be Head Girl too and whilst she was voted into this role by her peers and I know she will do a great job, she sometimes lacks confidence in herself so a card to remind her that she's amazing (to me at least!) will be just what she needs for day one.

I used a Whisper White notecard and covered the front with a piece of English Garden DSP, then stamped a little panel of flowers with some Old Olive ink and the Cottage Greetings stamp set and coloured them with my Stampin' Write markers. I stamped my sentiment banner in Mossy Meadow onto Pink Pirouette and finished with a baker's twine bow and punched Bitty Butterfly and a few pearls. I also stamped the inside (and remembered to take a photograph of it!):

I couldn't possibly make Rebecca a card without making one for Ben too, so here's my second card which uses the colours over at the Friday Mashup and the sketch over at As You See It:

For this card I used a Crumb Cake notecard base, and stamped the dino footprints from'No Bones About It' in Early Espresso, before adding my sentiment tag complete with an Into The Woods wooden leaf embellishment and a fussy cut Marina Mist triceratops, complete with googly eye. Wondering where the dinosaur's tail went? Well, it continues over the page - look:

Isn't that fun?! The sentiment is from the same set, although I selectively masked it to say 'day' instead of 'birthday' which is more appropriate for my card. The 'No Bones About It' set is just great for boys cards, with so many design possibilities. I love the idea of little surprise notes in the children's school bags and it's definitely something I don't do enough of, so this year I will defintitely be making more of an effort.

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

I look forward to seeing what you create for Sandy's theme challenge in the gallery this week.  

Back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Card One: 

Cottage Greetings Clear-Mount Stamp Set	English Garden Designer Series Paper	Whisper White Note Cards & Envelopes	Bitty Butterfly Punch	Hexagon Punch
Old Olive Classic Stampin' Pad	Old Olive A4 Cardstock	Blushing Bride A4 Cardstock	Rose Red A4 Cardstock	Old Olive Baker's Twine
Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad	Whisper White A4 Cardstock	Many Marvelous Markers	Pearl Basic Jewels

Card two: 

Whisper White A4 Cardstock	Crumb Cake Note Cards & Envelopes	Wild Wasabi Classic Stampin' Pad	Wild Wasabi A4 Cardstock	Marina Mist Classic Stampin' Pad
Early Espresso Classic Stampin' Pad	Early Espresso 1/4" Cotton Ribbon	No Bones About It Photopolymer Stamp Set	Note Tag Punch	Into The Woods Elements