School is Almost Out!

 

Do you have a mess like this?

In case you were wondering, that is my scrap drawer and it is overflowing.  These are just the patterned paper scraps and I hate to hoard my scraps so when the drawer stopped closing nicely for me, I knew I had to do something.  At the same time, I also was trying to come up with a little something to make for my son’s teacher on the last day of school.  I like to give the teacher a gift card to an office supply store so that they can get supplies that they need for the classroom, but I really like to add a little crafty something.  I always try to make it something that is useful to them.  Kill two birds with one stone right?  Well here is what I did.

First off, I cut down some scraps to 4”x6” (this could really be any size you want) and then I went through my stamps and found a bunch of “Take Note” or “Just A Note” stamps.  I also used some of my school themed stamps.  On each sheet, I stamped something so that each sheet was different and unique.  I then cut a piece of medium weight chipboard to the same size and stacked the papers. I ended up having enough sheets that I opted to make 2 sets.  Once I had the papers all stacked, I backed them with the chipboard and then used binder clips on the sides to keep them all together.

I then (using a paintbrush) added 2 layers of Padding Compound sold by Chica & Jo on Amazon and let it dry.  A little bit of this goes a long way.  When it was all dry…I had custom made note pads.  I love these!

Now, of course since this is a gift, I have to package it up!  So using my eCraft, I cut out a couple of shapes from eCraftCentral.com and layerd a circle tag stamped with Papertrey Ink’s Tag-Its #6 mini set.  Then I tied a pretty red ribbon in a bow around the two notepads and using Scor-Tape attached the label that I made right to the ribbon so that it could easily be removed from the notepads.

Well I couldn’t stop there, I had to make a coordinating card (after all I need something to put that gift card in) and using some more scraps, I created a simple patterned paper background and then used some more shapes from eCraftCentral.com to frame my stamped tag.  I think I will put all of this together in a cute little gift bag with some black felt tip pens to go with the notepads.

This project was really easy to do and I think I am going to make up some more of these for me!