Teacher Appreciation Chalkboard Card - Maker Forte

Hello everyone! We all have at least one amazing teacher in our life, if not more and many people have stepped up into that role during the past year...so we all know how hard of a job it is. All teachers by profession or those that have had to step into that role over the last year definitely need and deserve a big thank you and to know how appreciated they all are! And part of the new release from Maker Forte has a stamp set that is perfect for just that...to say thank you and show our appreciation.

I am so excited to share this card with you today...I am so in love with how this turned out! When I saw this stamp set from Maker Forte in collaboration with The Hedgehog Hollow called Teach from the Heart, one of the ideas that I knew I wanted to do was make a chalkboard card. I had never made one, so off I went to Pinterest in search of others to get an idea of how it should look.

To start I took the stamp and stamped it out on a piece of chalkboard paper that I still had from years ago...thank goodness I had a few small pieces of it, as it is perfect for this. I did brush my paper first with some anti-static powder so I didn't get the white embossing powder all over it as I still wanted a nice and clean image. I then heat embossed it using the Color Hive Clear Embossing Ink Pad and some fine detail white embossing powder.

For the card part, I started off by cutting a piece of kraft cardstock and scoring it to 4.25 x 5.5" as my base. For the wood part of it, I cut 8 strips of the same cardstock into 1/2x5.5" strips. I then grabbed my Hardwood stamp and inked it up using Gathered Twigs Distress Ink. Distress ink isn't normally a good ink for stamping as you usually won't get a clean and crisp stamped image, but for the wood it was perfect. I inked up the stamp and then laid each strip of cardstock on the stamp and applied a bit of pressure. Now looking back I should have stamped the full image first and then cut it down into the strips, but hey....what's a bit more work 😂

One of the paper packs in this release School Days, is filled with designs perfect for school and in the prettiest pastel colour palette, with the exception of a fabulous pop of bright pink. To make the banner I used a bookmark die set that I have had for a few years now, but have never used. In this set there are 2 small page marker dies that are perfect for the banner and I decided to use the fishtail shaped one. I grabbed a few of the co-ordinating prints from this paper pack and cut out a few more than I needed..always good to have options. I cut them out and picked 3 of the 7 I cut out and then trimmed them down a bit as they were too big for my card. I punched 2 little holes in the top of each and ran some matching twine through the top of them to connect them together.

I wanted to add a little something more to it, so I took another of the stamps from the same stamp set that says Only the Brave Teach and stamped it out 3x mainly concentrating on the pencil using the Color Hive reMARKable Eclipse Black Ink Pad. I added some colour to it with some easy basic colouring using Copic markers and then handcut 2 of them out.

To assemble my card I trimmed down the black chalkboard part to approx. 3.25x3.25" and I cut a bit off the bottom of my cardbase so it was a 4.25x4.25" square. I added 4 of my strips of wood stamped cardstock to the front...2 along the sides of the card base and 1 to the top and 1 to the bottom of the chalkboard and the mirrored them on the back. I trimmed down the strips that went along the top and bottom of the chalkboard so they were flush with the card. I brushed some of the anti-static powder to my chalkboard to give it that chalky look to it. Next I added my banner to the top right corner of it using some foam squares and added a bow to either side of it using the same bakers twine and then added the 2 pencils to the opposite corner and popped one up with some foam squares.

And that's it! I am so happy with how this turned out...it was exactly what I had envisioned! This stamp set is perfect for showing our appreciation to teachers and they need it now more than ever! Definitely check out the full release here...there are so many amazing products! I really hope that you have enjoyed my card for today as much as I enjoyed making it!

Thank you so much for stopping by and spending a bit of your day with me. I wish you all the most wonderful day and I hope you manage to sit down and get a little creative,

Michelle 💗

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