Paper Smooches March release: altered composition book

Happy March! So I think I've found my new love...Paper Smooches stamps. I bought my first set a few weeks back, and it only has sentiments. Well...while I do LOVE the set I had, it just wasn't cuttin' it. Their image stamps are just too cute to not have, so I joined the monthly stamp club. Every month for the next year, I'll be getting 3 brand new releases from Paper Smooches (and club members get them before they're released!). Squeal! March is the first installment I got, and I'm so happy with my decision to join the club. The 3 releases this month are Zoo Crew, Metropolis, and Smarty Pants (below). Today I am showing a project I made using Smarty Pants. This past Tuesday night, I taught a class at Real Deals where we made altered composition books. Some people made them for a teacher, and some made an everyday theme. ALL of them turned out super cute! Here is the one I made. This is the stamp set I used (Smarty Pants):

And now for the paper yummies:

I used a total of 5 stamps from the Smarty Pants set, along with the Ledger stamp from Hero Arts. I've had these patterned papers from Sassafras for.ever. I was so excited to finally use them, and I think they are PERFECT for this project!

I knew I wanted to use the little nerdy guy, and I thought his clothes would be super fun paper-pieced. So I gave him some awesome October Afternoon clothes, with a Sassafras tie. I wanted him to have the "thick disheveled white hair coming out the ears" look (ew), so after I colored his hair gray, I went back in with a white pen and drew some random strands. And he normally has a pointer in his hand, but I wanted him to hold the cute apple from the same set instead. So I stamped,colored, and fussy-cut the apple, then added some Glossy Accents. I also added Glossy Accents to his shoes to make them white patent leather, but you can't really tell in the photo. And I couldn't decide if he was wearing glasses or just had really big eyes, so I colored them in and either gave him glasses or glaucoma, I'm not sure which. I LOVE this guy!!! Here's a close-up:

Here are couple more stamps from the Smarty Pants set. I paper-pieced the pencil using the same paper as the nerd's tie, and colored in the rest with Prismacolor markers. I put the "lead" of the pencil right on the sentiment to make it look as if the pencil wrote it:

And I used the cute little star stamp from the set in a couple of corners on the ledger:

I added some random mini staples using my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, and completed my sentiment with some American Crafts alpha stickers. I think Smarty Pants is my favorite set from the March release...but I haven't used the other two sets yet. That could change!

My lil' nerd is playing along here:

PaperPlay Challenge: Something old, something new (old papers, new stamps)

Paper Pretties: Use your favorite stamp set

Ribbon Carousel: Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Anything Goes

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: composition book: Target; patterned papers: Sassafras (apples, stripes, scalloped strip), October Afternoon (flowers, polka dots); cardstock: Recollections (kraft), The Paper Company (ivory), stamps: Paper Smooches (nerd, apple, pencil, star, thanks teacher), Hero Arts (ledger); inks: Tsukineko (black), Hampton Art (red), Ranger (distress); markers: Prismacolor; notebook edge punch: EK Success; stapler, Glossy Accents: Ranger; alphabet stickers: American Crafts; ribbon: The Ribbon Boutique; white pen: Signo Uniball