Back to School card

In my blog browsing the other day, I came across a totally adorable back to school card on here on Craft Room with A View blog. I loved it! As I was reading how she did it and such, I noticed that she had actually seen one here on Hands, Head, and Heart blog (scroll down a bit for the school card). Both of them were so cute that I decided I had to try my hand at one for Isaiah.

I started out searching online for a picture of the backpack that Amy bought him for school and found it here on Target's Website. I saved a picture of it so I'd have a reference to work from:

I wanted to make the backpack as realistic looking as possible but I knew I'd be challenged because of my lack of artistic training. I had some Tim Holtz Idea-ology chipboard so I used that as my base and built up from there. I cut one piece for the body and then cut a piece for the top "flap" and one for the bottom "flap."

I covered all three pieces with cardstock. The bottom piece I covered with red, the body I covered with white and then colored with Martha Stewart Pewter marker, and the top piece I covered with part of a sticker that had the right texture that I wanted.

While those were drying, I worked on the little "badge" that goes on the top flap. This was very, very challenging. Let me reiterate - I am not an artist and have never had any drawing lessons or shading lessons. So, I started out bigger than what I needed and then started making it smaller and smaller until it was as small as I could go and still work with it. The white pieces on the emblem are white cardstock pieces that I cut out and glued on. The Storm Trooper faces are drawn freehand (just don't look too closely at them!).

The bottom flap has my interpretation of Darth Vader and two more Storm Troopers. The lettering and Storm Troopers were done with a white colored pencil and the rest was done with gray - both Martha Stewart colors.

My finished card:

The patterned paper is Show & Tell from We R Memory Keepers and the stickers are some from Big Lots that I've had for awhile.

I wanted to carry the lined paper theme into the inside so I added some more, along with a couple of stickers to also tie the inside to the outside.