Back to School with Briana Johnson

When we moved into our house I had some kind of “nailing stuff to the wall” phobia. I decided I could use a little wall décor and knowing how much scrapbookers love letters, at least most of the ones I know do, I thought this might be a fun project to share. The paper mache letters came from Hobby Lobby. They’re regularly priced $2.47 a piece. I waited until they were half off and bought the entire alphabet and my daughter’s name.

I chose several patterns of Jenni’s papers from various releases. I used cream mist on two of the letters to make the colors a little more muted, the navy and white floral (Trendy Floral) and the green and white Victorian (Victoria – Sitting Room). I laid them out in an order I thought would look nice. I then took the letters, in order, and painted the sides of the letters the same colors as the background color of the coordinating patterned paper making sure to paint a little onto the front of the letter around the edges. After the letters dried I traced the letters onto the back of the paper. You might need a window or a light box to make sure you have your letter placed exactly where you want it like if using a large scale floral paper. Then cut them out. It takes about one bottle of Zip Dry glue to do this. I took the lid off the Zip Dry and holding the bottle next to the letter upside down, I ran a line of glue down the letter. I quickly used a foam brush (because you’ll have to throw it away when done) and spread out the glue then placed the paper on the letter and smoothed it down. Next, I took an Exacto knife and cleaned up the excess paper edges. I used a sanding block and a Basic Grey file set to distress the edges. I considered using a few solid black letters. If you don’t have enough patterned paper you might consider that.

The letters are lightweight and are hung on the wall using poster putty. From this angle you can see the sides of the letters are painted to match the papers. 

I love the way it turned out. It’s so cool to me that Jenni’s papers from the newest release along with some from her oldest releases all still look so current and fabulous together.

So here’s the set I made for Ava’s room. I used a piece of vintage pillowcase edging trim, and after doing the above steps again, I glued the letters to the trim using bottle caps as spacers. I used Aleene’s Platinum Bond 7800 for that. I’m planning to do Zane’s teacher’s last name for teacher appreciation.

So many of these wonderful items from past releases can be found in the JBS Mercantile shop. The Mercantile exclusive paper can also be purchased there. Check it out! And thanks for joining me with my Love of Letters Jenni Bowlin Studio projects! 
(And thanks to you Briana for some amazing alpha inspiration!)

Back to School with Keisha Campbell!

Today's back to school feature is brought to you by Keisha Campbell. We just love Keisha's ability to make classic JBS product so fresh and inspiring.

Keisha writes, "OMG, Amira will be starting high school on Monday. The time just flew by...and it is a blur in my mind right now. We have been telling her that she needs to jazz up her style now that she is going to be a freshman. She shocked me by picking out some cute leopard ballet flats. And she actually likes the green blazer I showed her while school shopping-she won't even put it in her closet. She is excited about her new look, and that is nice!"

Supplies: Bingo Cards - School Days Set, Black Label Stickers, Classic Die Cut Label Paper - Receipt, Die Cut Block Alpha - Red Ledger, Die Cut Mini Paper Pad -Polka Dots, Plastic Ribbons - Classic

Back to School with Becky Novacek

Today we have just the sweetest back to school post to share from Becky Novacek . . .

Since I no longer have children at home, back to school is a little different experience for me. I usually hear bits and pieces of their experiences as they start back, but I'm not that involved- so doing a "back to school" page gave me an excuse to be more involved! I loved it actually. Harper and I spent the day together and if you look at the photos, you'll see that I must have worn her out, since she fell asleep on the way home! I intend to do another page about our lunch conversation. It was hilarious!

For this layout, I used scraps of some of my favorite JBS papers and embellishments. I trimmed the oval silhouette and the floral out and just layered up a few other pieces that were on my desk from a previous project. I like when pages come together simply.

 

I encourage you, no matter what your stage of life, to document simple days spent with the little ones in your life. And don't forget to hand the camera off, so that you are in the photos and not just behind the camera!

Back to School with Shimelle Laine!

Today we have a charming retro page from Shimelle Laine featuring an exceedingly clever and whimsical use of the Be Our Guest "Home Sweet Home" patterned paper.

Shimelle writes, "I love living in a big city and the great London area has a population between 7 and 10 million, depending on where you draw the lines in suburbia. But there was no difficulty drawing the line in the small town where I grew up, and every morning the school bus passed the 'Welcome to...' sign with the population labelled as 2002 for many years... something I remember because we use to debate which two residents would be the 2 in 2002! So in such a small town, I went to a very small school. Everyone there knew everyone else, and although the town has since grown, everyone who lived there during my school years can tell you all about the teachers, the students and the four-page local newspaper. This photo is so very unattractive but it makes me laugh and remember the days in this particular class - 7th grade science. The girl to the right may kill me for scrapbooking this image as she's a scrapbooker too! But we sat at the same table for science and according to my wobbly script on the back of the photo, I was trying to convince my classmates not to use a flash on the camera, lest we get in trouble with Mr. Vopat. Also, I had just *part* of my hair permed. Serious dawn-of-the-nineties-mall-hair. I have to laugh otherwise I'll cry!"

And here is a little background information about her process, "I had been a bit stumped with the house print on this paper from the Be our Guest collection at first until I looked at it as a school house rather than just a country house. My elementary school wasn't much bigger than that! I hoped to scrapbook something about that, but neither my shoebox of old pictures nor the internet was very helpful with that! So this photo was the next best option and I love how you can see the look of a standard classroom from the simple background in the picture.

The blue ledger paper is one of my favourites from JBS ever - I use it all the time and it works so well as a background. I think I have made four layouts with this page as the background and they all look very different, so it's definitely versatile. To dress it up, I added a frame of malted milk paint and three layered embellishments, each with a a label, a punched circle and a star. I had tried to include the years of my middle school (5th to 8th grade) in the punched circles but the 5 ended up off the page. Close enough, I suppose! I love finding funny little ways for numbers or letters to have significance when selectively cut from a patterned paper."

Supplies:

Be Our Guest papers (blue ledger, house scene - it works as a school house, right?)

Haven labels (from the accent sheet)

Red/Black ruler paper

Mini chalkboard letter stickers

Large letter stickers in two colours (red/black and red/white)

Red star stickers

Blue adhesive pearls

JB for Ranger paint dabber (painted on with a brush) in malted milk

Back to School with Doris Sander!

As a teacher myself, I know just how much little treats like this are appreciated. When my son came home from school last week so impressed that his teacher was eating beef jerky at recess, I knew we needed to send her some on Friday. It only took him a couple extra days of sleuthing to find out her drink of choice as well. Now enter mommy and the scrap stash . . .

I made this cute little treat folder out of a spare piece of chipboard and a few other bits from my stash. I'm still shocked by how quickly I made it! The chipboard was already sized to 8.5 x 11, so I trimmed two pieces of patterned paper to that size as well and then lightly scored all three with my paper trimmer so they would fold nicely into a card. I adhered Class Photo to the outside and Nap Time to the inside with a glue stick.

To decorate the front, I covered a large chipboard star with the polka dots from Home Sweet Home. I then misted it with a mixture of Lemon Drops and Chicken Feed Re-inkers. The small chipboard bird is covered with the reverse side of Home Sweet Home plus the clocks from Sewing Room and the ledger side of Game Night. A red pearl button makes a cute birdie eye.

Inside I glue dotted the pack of beef jerky. I punched holes and added hole reinforcers to string my seam binding tape through. A couple red label stickers complete the gift. I then dressed the Diet Coke up with a Red Award Ribbon.

My son is so looking forward to delivering this tomorrow. I think it will brighten his day AND his teacher's day tomorrow. What a great use of my scrappy stash!

 

:) Doris

Back to School With Dina Wakley!

Today's back to school thought is brought to us by Dina Wakley who writes, "Back to School for me means....a quiet house! When all three of my boys are home, it's fun but LOUD. There's always something going on...laughing, computer games, guitar-playing, IPODs blaring. It's great...but I will say I do really enjoy a quiet house when they leave for school. I recharge and work and get ready for the craziness to begin when they get home."

Back to School with Kerry Lynn Yeary

It's August 15th and in some areas across the country children are back in school!  If they are not in school yet where you live, they are surely counting their pens and pencils and getting ready to start soon.  Your children may even be young adults starting the next phase of their life in college.  You could be an auntie or a grandma to a cute little student.  Whatever the situation, we hope our Back to School with Jenni Bowlin Studio feature will be helpful and inspiring!

Today Kerry Lynn Yeary is sharing a great organizational tool for all those school papers.

I've been wanting to have a more organized way of documenting the littles school year experiences ever since the bean started kinder 3 years ago. Up until now I have just been writing notes on our family calendar and putting select bits of memorabilia and schoolwork and art projects into a box, not the best thing to do when you want to remember "when" they got that 100% in spelling or drew that family portrait.

This year I decided I wanted to make binders "Diary of a wimpy kid style" and have everything ready before school started. I got simple plastic window binders at target and then added some printables that I designed to the gorgeous JBS "group photo" paper. I printed the appropriate grade year for each & then cut the papers to size and slide them in the front window.
JBS products used : Group Photo pattern paper, Deco Chain pattern paper, Photographer's Mark chipboard buttons, mini Chalkboard Alpha stickers in black 

Since these binders are going to be sitting on the counter, near our mail basket & other home organization items I wanted to know who's binder was whose so I could select them easily when I wanted to add a layout, memorabilia item or write in the calendar.

To do this I cut a strip of kraft cardstock to size then added a slightly smaller piece of JBS "Deco Chain". Then I stamped the JBS medallion stamp on a tag, cut it out, added each name with the black "Chalkboard Alpha" stickers, and mounted it on a JBS "Photographer's Mark" chipboard circle before mounting it on the paper spine & sliding it under the window sleeve.

The interior pages hold the printable claendar that I created for the school year and I'll be adding memoralbilia, art, as well as layouts documenting pictures that I plan on taking over the year.

I'll have the printable of the outer "Diary of a" pages {preschool through highschool} as well as the interior calendar pages posted on my blog on monday if you'd like to download them to use for a similar binder.

Here's to another fabulous school year! 

x0 

kL

Thank you kL for a wonderful idea!