I love the challenge of combining two different stamp sets, and oftentimes using images from two different stamp companies. Today I combined the “Teacher Lady” from Ellen Hutson’s Leading Ladies  series with Simon Says Stamp‘s “School Bus Messages” to create this “Thank you, Teacher” card. If you are a teacher as I am, you know we have all sorts of extra curricula duties in any given day. “Afternoon Bus Duty” is just one of our many “fun” assignments. LOL!

I worked on the school bus background first. I stamped the image using Distress Ink in “Antique Linen” on to Tim Holtz Distress watercolor card stock so I could do no-line watercolor. I purposely wanted the bus to fade into the background so that my “Teacher Lady” could take center stage. I use Daniel Smith watercolors to paint the bus in very soft yellows, grays, blues , and reds. I hand-drew the school driveway and painted it also in soft grays, adding shadows where appropriate.

Next, on to the teacher. I work at a middle school where our school colors are maroon and gold. On Fridays, we always wear jeans combined with what we call our “Spirit Wear” shirts. If you look closely, you can see the logo of our school mascot, a “cougar” on the front of her shirt. I colored her skin, hair, white blouse, and shoes with Copic Markers and then die cut her image out with the “Teacher Lady” coordinating die. For her jeans and shirt, I again stamped the teacher image, but this time on to denim and maroon papers from my 6×6 paper pad stash, fussy cut them out, and then paper pieced them on to the teacher.

For her accessories, I stamped, colored, and die cut out her “Bus Roster” spiral notebook and a pen and adhered them behind her hands. I foam mounted the teacher to the bus background to give some dimension to the scene.

Finishing touches? I adhered the watercolored background to a layer of maroon card stock to frame my scene, added maroon frame glasses, stamped a sentiment from the stamp set in the bottom left corner, and added a coordinating maroon envelope.

I hope you enjoyed today’s card!

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