owl always love you

The count down to back to school is on in our house as we begin our second last week of summer holidays. Lists for school supplies and fall clothing have started to appear on the kitchen table and I know that time is starting to run out to get everything ready for the new year.  

With bts in mind, I thought that I share a sweet little project that you can make with the kids ... it's another decorative clipboard. I made some of these one afternoon with the kids on our street and they loved it. They are going to use their clipboards to keep track of school notes and memos on their desks at home.

These are simple to make using scrapbooking papers, some distressed ink, paint and old buttons for the eyes. I use Claudine Hellmuth's studio multi-medium matte as my adhesive of choice for most of my mixed media pieces. We added letter stickers and scrabble tiles to make fun sayings. And of course we had to decorate the silver clip at the top ... mine has a ribbon and bottle cap magnet but some of the girls used ribbon and large flowers.

After I finished the clipboards,  I decided to use my "Emily owl" design to create some wall art and project samples for a mixed media class that I am going to offer this fall.

I ended up making a few variations of the same design because I love to show how you can make a basic project kit your own with just a few simple changes.

This first piece would be adorable in a bedroom ... I love the quote "always kiss me goodnight".  The paper flowers were fun to make and I added some rhinestone bling just because I don't think you can ever have too much bling! (for a boy's room take out the flower details and change the paper for the owl's body to something more graphic)

This next piece was created with a bright blue background which immediately gave the design a totally different look. And instead of a quote I used a large chipboard letter covered in silver glitter to customize this for someone special.  "E" is for Emily owl!

I'm sure that you are getting the idea now. This last picture is of the three samples that I recently put on display at Scrapbook Queens for my fall classes. I have not scheduled dates for my fall classes yet but as soon as I do I will update my class website and let you know. If you are interested in being on my class email list ... send me an email and I will add your name to the list.

I hope that you enjoy the week with your kids if they have not started school yet and find a little bit of time to do something creative with them to get them excited about the new year.