Grab a Pencil: It's Time For Di's Digis Back To School Challenge

Yup, it's time for a new challenge at Di's Digis Challenge blog... we have a "Back To School" theme.  I decided to make something "useful" as my project, so I grabbed one of the pencil tins I got in a sale (2 for $1) some time back and decorate that. 

As it will probably get shoved in and out of a bag or shelf countless times I thought it best to keep the layers and embellishments to a minimum; that's when I came up with the idea (not really that original!) of printing all the elements on one layer, so that's what I have done... with the exception of the twine of course.  

I used Microsoft Word; I made a rectangle by cropping a sheet of digital paper from Nitwit's Live n Learn 2 collection, then I added an oval, filling it with one of Word's inbuilt textures (cork)  adding the bevel edge and dropped shadow (using Format Shape, just in case you're not familiar with the process)  I then added the fabulously cute image, Back To School Bunny -available here for only $2. I had already removed the white background from the image and saved it as a .png - I do this with all my images so that they layer well.    Crafty Little Fairies wants to see Cute and Cuddly, I'm in, and Pile It On wants Primary Colours, I've got the red yellow and blue as my main colours so I'm in there too.   

Next I added "Pencils" using Wordart and printed the whole thing out, voila! I coloured the image with Copics, with a bit of Prismacolor pencil shading, and added gloss to the pencil and to the Wordart - I added a really thick layer to make the letters stand out, it looks much more even in real life, and surprisingly effective.  All that was left to do was add a bit of twine from my stash. Crafts 4 Eternity wants to see Something Old, the tin is at least a year old and the twine is more like three - hopefully old enough! 
Here's my pencil tin doing what pencil tins do :-))

I think it fits the sketch from Seize the Sketch so I'm entering there, and Whimsy Inspirations Challenge has a Back to School challenge so I'm entering there too.
Through the Craftroom Door, Crafty Girls Challenge, Crafty Calendar, Stamping Sensations and Little Miss Muffet all have Anything Goes challenges running so I'm entering them as well.
That's it for today's project, a very simple little thing it was too - but still I had fun making it.  Check out the rest of the team's inspiration, awesome as always.  I hope you get a chance to enter the challenge too, we have a great prize from the Frantic Stamper and as always, if you use one of Di's fab images you go into an extra draw with a prize of it's own.
Until next time, Happy Crafting, Donna