Salute To Art Teachers

    
     Well Hello Friday!!! How ya'll doin'? I have had quite the week. October is a HUGE birthday month for us. Mine was the 4th, my twin daughters' on the 7th and a son-in-law's coming up  next week and a grandson at the end of the month. That spells a lot of cards!!!!
     This week Erica's Design Team was asked to do a project with a teacher theme. Since it's Friday that also means we must make a scrapbook page. I knew exactly which Teachers I wanted to spotlight and I also knew I had the perfect pictures to scrap. I hope you will be as amazed by the talent presented here as I always am when I see the artistic abilities that my daughter has. This talent was greatly encouraged and nurtured by her High School Art teacher: Tura Dudley. They have remained good friends even though my daughter has completed Art College and is currently living in California with her husband and Tura has since retired.

     I am in love with the cartridge Frame Of Mind! This is a very intricate cut and can be found on page 9 and is the Lace cut as well as the Lace Blackout. I cut this @ 7.9" to fit the 4"x6" photo. I really wanted the picture to pop so I added a border cut from All Occasion Cake Art. I used a shiny metallic paper and cut it from the image on page 78 using the mirror droplet lowercase (2"x6"). I did cut 2 of these and lined them up with the edges and placed the framed photo on top. I also strung some twine from The Twinery through the holes. Notice the color is pink. This is because the Design Team is using pink not only in our graphics but also in our projects for Breast Cancer Awareness.

     These flowers are from flower Shoppe and are cut @ 1", 1.25" and 1.50". I used the same sizes to cut the leaves and inked the edges with Peeled Paint distress ink. I wanted to keep the titles simple yet elegant so I used the font from Sophisticated. I used Font 2 plus the shadow and cut all at 1". Lastly I decided to add some flourishes with the gem Stone Flourishes by Inkadinkado with Staz On Forest Green Ink. Of course I had to use some Liquid Pearls and the Hydrangea was perfect!

     You can find any of the products in Ericas' Shop. She always has great prices.

     Are you ready to see one of the projects the "student" created? Here it is:

     I am sure there are projects in your area where they recruit local artists to paint objects that are some what symbolic of your area. We live in the area of the Blackstone River where many people canoe. Local businesses sponsor artists to paint with a certain theme. Unibank sponsored my daughter Christine and the idea was to spotlight the various towns along the Blackstone River Valley which stretches from Massachusetts into Rhode Island.

     I carried the same style font on this page and some of the leftover leaves. The "creating" pencil stamp is by Michael's Recollection Stamps.

     The picture of the sunset is not one of the canoe series but the colors were so perfect I included it in the layout especially since it was showcasing Chris' talent. Here's the 2 page layout:

Letter To My Friends On Sesame Street

Dear Big Bird and my friends on Sesame Street,
     You guys know I love you. My 5 children watched you when they were growing up and my 8 grandchildren have also watched you. I fact, this July, we met you in Williamsburg, VA at Busch Gardens. We even had our pictures taken with you.

     Over the years we have bought so much Sesame Street merchandise from clothing to Big Bird stuffed animals, Count Dracula's counting games, puzzles, plates, Dancing Elmo,Tickle Me Elmo ( that was a hard one to find, lol), Zoe, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster games, Snuffy, VHS (yes I am that old!!!!), Cd's, DVD's  

and the list goes on and on.

     Today I did not watch you guys. No I had something more important to watch. You see I wanted to know just what happened @ our embassy in Benghazi, Libya. In case you missed it we are at war. Our embassy was attacked and 3 security guards and our Ambassador were killed. Ambassador Stevens was a good man by all accounts. He was trying to keep peace in the neighborhood. He had made many friends but felt there was trouble brewing. I wanted to know what happened. So I watched the Senate Hearings on what transpired.

     It was clear that the requests for added help were repeatedly denied. No more police to help them.It was also clear that there was impending trouble but no one was listening. It was very clear that the denial was from the top. It is also clear the initial reports about what occured and why were false and no one believed it.

     So, my question to my friends on Sesame Street is: Are you ready to spread your wings? Do you have enough money from all that merchandise to make it on your own? Don't get me wrong, I am delighted that we helped you get on your feet and grow but isn't it time to leave the nest?

     I know we don't support you fully but perhaps it is time to spend our money on more important things in this time of economic hard times. Perhaps we could use the money we give you to hire a few, oh I don't know, security guards to keep our troops safe. 

     Please don't be offended. We all have to grow up at sometime in our lives. Nothing lasts forever. At this time, safety is more important.