Back to school... Back to basics!

Spark some Kreativity Saturday  @ The Kraaft Shaak

It's hard to believe we are in the second month of Kraaft Shaak design team projects. All month long, we will be sharing with you Sparks of Kreativity that embrace learning and all things education related. 

I have to admit when the theme was chosen, I thought I had this in the bag. As a former teacher married to a teacher, how hard can this be...right? Well, it turned out to me a bigger challenge than expected simply because there was so much I wanted to do. Finding a focus and sticking to a project took me awhile. I finally decided to use the dictionary pages from my mixed media kit. I thought it was kind of perfect to repurpose the dictionary pages into a project with a school theme.

So I took these and sketched on them with pencil, then used inktense color pencils to add some color. Since I was making a poster, I knew my image was going to be fairly large so I drew my picture in sections. 

Added color. 

Some darker shades 

The face and hair took the whole page. I then created a body on a second page. 

Once I had my two main elements ready, I  worked on creating a background. The whole time I was working on this project I kept thinking "Back to Basics". I wanted to keep it simple and use just basic materials. So I created a simple background using shades of blue. 

I spread the paint around until I had the coverage I wanted. I also used the basket clear stamp by Finnabair that was part of my kit to add a bit more dimension. 

Once I was happy with my background I added my drawing onto it. 

Deciding on my placement before gluing it down. 

I glued my image down and cut off the areas that went over my background paper. I wanted to add something to ground my image down, so I cut some stars from another text paper from my kit. I added some color with a yellow inktense pencil. 

Once I was happy with my placement, I glued everything down and worked on my wording.  This poster is intended to go in my husband's classroom in their class library area. I wanted something that would invite the kiddos to read. 

I was worried I wouldn't have something for our back to school theme and was pleasantly surprise when this came together.  It's ready for its new home in the 2015-2016 school year. I love all the text pages in the mixed media kit. It's a great variety with endless possibilities. 

Thank you for following the Kreative Sparks from the Kraaft Shaak design team.  You can find all our Sparks at the Kraaft Shaak. Stay tuned as we honor education and learning in our projects all month long. 

Follow the Design Team member's blogs where great things are always happening!

Peg @ Bits N Pieces
Sheri @ Cards and More
Beth @ Lizzie's WorkShop
Sylvia @ Tabororiginal
Dana@ Dapoppins
Shel@ Paper Ocotillo studio