Hi Everyone!  I wanted to share a card with you that we did recently.  Quite a few of my stampers are teachers, so when I saw a card Becky R did, I knew I just had to make one myself!  I knew it would be a big hit not only with my teacher friends, but for those of us who are grandparents who want to send a card to their grandchild about their achievements in school, and what better way than to make them an actual chalkboard card using the chalkboard technique?  I just had to create a couple of different versions that I would like to share with you, along with a simple tutorial on how you can make this card yourself.  Here is my first card:

The butterflies were just punched from designer paper.  I used the stamp set You’re Amazing for the saying and just draped some Baker’s Twine across two glue dots at either side at the top and just adhered them with dimensions and a bow on each side.

My next card I thought – how would balloons look like? So I punched out some from our glitter paper using the small oval punch and then just layered them on top of each other and tied a bow using Baker’s twine to look like the strings from the balloons and used the banner greeting from the stamp set Sketched Birthday.

For my last sample, I wanted to send my granddaughter a congratulations card for making the honor roll, so this is what I came up with using the stamp set Patterned Occasions – loved how it turned out.  I love the saying too – “Congratulations, Smarty Pants”

AND, how cute would this be as a thank-you card at the end of the year for a teacher?

One of my friends actually made her card be a retirement card for one of the teachers in her school.

You can also adhere a 3×3 envelope to the back of the card and tuck in a gift card or money as an idea.

Here is a little tutorial for you to follow:

Start by cutting a piece of cardstock and cut it in half the long way at 4-1/4 x 11.

The next step is to make the legs. Insert the 4-1/2 side into the paper cutter at the 3-3/4 mark and with the BLADE AT THE TOP, bring it down to the 1-1/2 inch mark like this:

Then turn your paper over and do it to the other side, so now you have created two legs:

Now you have two “legs” on one side, you need to do this to the other end of your cardstock so you have legs on each end.

The next step is to cut out the center piece between your legs (sounds painful – yes? – trust me – keep reading!). With the 11″ side up against the top of your cutter, insert your paper 1-1/2 inches, placing the blade in between your “legs” like this:

Cut from one leg to the other (but be careful not to cut a “leg” off, like I did the first time I did this – LOL!).  This will leave you with this and it wasn’t that painful at all!

Here is what your base will now look like:

Now you can fold your paper in half and you have created your base card.

FRAME:  For the framed section on the front of your card, using the Woodgrain background stamp and Soft Suede ink, ink up your image and stamp it on two pieces of 4-1/4 x 5-1/2 inch Soft Suede paper, cutting two strips 1/2″ x 4-1/4″ and two strips 1/2″ x 5-1/2″.  Adhere the shorter pieces to the top and the bottom of the front of your card and then the two longer pieces for the sides of your card.

Next, using the Embossing Buddy, rub it over the front area of your black piece.

Next, stamp your image in Versamark and then sprinkle with white embossing powder and heat set, OR if you would like some color, stamp your image in Versamark, then stamp your image on your ink pad to pick up the color, and then stamp that on the front of your card and use clear embossing powder and heat set.

Once you have it heat set, I used a piece of an old T-shirt and using White Craft Ink, tapped the T-shirt onto the craft ink to pick up the white ink and then lightly smeared it around on the black.  You can reapply as you want to intensify the look you want.  Keep moving all over the “chalkboard” section until you like how it looks.  What a fun technique – and there is so much you can do with this!

Here are all three of my cards that I made using this technique:

If you decide to make some of these cards, I’d love to see what YOU do!

~ Gail