Graduation...

Let me preface this card by saying that I am terrible at making graduation themed cards. Honestly. Part of the reason is that I didn't own any stamps in that style (until now), but mostly I guess it's due to the limited (in my opinion) theme. I mean, for a graduation card it's not as if I can stamp cute little animals (unless it's a kindergarten graduation), or flowers, or funky, artsy type images, right? So I have trouble.

A customer ordered a graduation card for her son. I became very nervous. PANIC! I forayed into Joann's looking for some help in the graduation stamp department and came home with one (ONLY ONE!) stamp of a cap. "Where do I go from here?" is all I keep thinking. I decided to focus on the colors of her son's school, red and grey, and to really play up some of my cuttlebug embossing folders. Here's what I came up with. *grimace*

It's lacking, I know, but considering the circumstances, I thought it worked out alright.

I don't have that nifty SU spiral punch, so I used a ribbon lacing punch and then cut slits to make it look like it was ripped out of a notebook. I embossed the congrats on it twice, added some rub-on letters for his name, then matted it with grey and red. I love Bazzill CS because of the yummy textures and this grey CS is one of my favorites. It looks like I used the aida cloth stamp that SU sells, doesn't it?

I stamped the grad cap with versamark on black, embossed it with white and trimmed around it. The little scroll diploma is just some CS curled up and a ribbon tied around it. When I embossed the "you did it!" on the black it didn't show up very well, so I rubbed it lightly with white chalk ink, matted it with white, added an eyelet, a jump ring, a globe charm, and called it done.

The tape measure stamp is from Stampers anonymous...I think. I don't remember who makes the graduation cap.

I'm giving it to the customer today, I hope she likes it.