As You Graduate

Today is the last day of school and now our baby will be an official senior. I am holding on because I already know how fast this ride goes! Summer will fly by in a flurry, admissions essays, SAT & ACT exams will be taken and Kylie will start her college applications and school tours. Next it will be her final season of volleyball, senior night, powder puff, senior project, prom and the final yearbook signing...all leading up to graduation night. It took me a few minutes to summarize in words and I believe this year will fly by equally as quickly when looking back. So seniors...savor every moment! Soak in every great lesson there is to learn and focus on having no regrets when you graduate. Congratulations to Joe, John, Meagan, Kaitlyn, Adrian, Nick and all the other graduates of the Class of 2012!

For this year's grad cards, I found inspiration from a card that I cased on Pinterest, created by Beth Apalooza.

Making it My Own

I modified the design slightly and created these cap & gown cards in assorted colors:

These are perfect to use as cards, announcements or thank you notes!

Here are some close up pictures of the individual cards...

The West Shore Colors (Navy & Silver)

Viera High Colors (Green & Gold)

Standard Black & White with Gold

(this one is for my niece's 8th grade graduation)

The easiest way that I found to mass produce these cards was to cut out templates of the paper piecings.

Here are some of the dimensions that I used:

Large triangle: 4-1/4" tall x 3-5/8" wide

Smaller triangle: 2" tall x 1-1/2" wide

Cap: 2-1/4" square

Striping: Cut 1/4" x 3-1/2" strips to glue and overlap under cap; trim excess from top of card.

Now for the tassel making tips:

1. Cut your template. I used a scrap of card stock 1-7/8"w x 2"h (*Note: the width doesn’t matter).

2. Wrap colored floss (embroidery thread) approx. 8 full loops around the cardstock and cut end.

3. Thread a small piece of thread under the top strands and knot. 

4. Next cut the bottom strands to remove from template. 

5. Cut a small piece of floss long enough to blend the ends in with the tassle.

6. Make another small knot to create the top of the tassle and blend threads in with the rest of the tassle. 7. Punch hole or make a slit with a cutting blade and mat to thread top tie of tassle through the hole. 

8. Insert colored mini brad in hole, knot the floss and trim before gluing onto card. 

**For added dimension, you can use double sided adhesive foam on back side of the cap.

Other ideas:

• Add a personalized mini diploma created on your computer.

• Dress up girl cards with rhinestones, mini pearls or bling, as on the card I cased.

• Use white or metallic alphabet stickers to personalize or add messages.

• Stamp a verse in versamark ink, then heat emboss in white or gold on the front or inside of cards.

(I did this on inside as well as to dress up the outside of the envelope. I used a collage of Good Luck, Congratulations and Graduation stamps and used the writing tip of the Versamarker pen to write in the lucky grad's name before embossing with gold embossing powder.)

How to: Using Embossing and Bleach for surprising effects

I remember my early days of stamping and being wowed by a Christmas card I saw published in a magazine that featured embossing on a red background that had a multi-colored tree. I studied it in amazement thinking to myself, how did they do that? Well, I am going to share with you how you can wow your friends and family, too, by combining heat embossing with common household bleach to create surprising effects.

First I will start by showing you a simple card using embossing and how you can extract color. For this Vintage Lantern Card, start by scoring  2-7/8" from right edge and 1-1/2" from the left of my trimmed 8.5" x 5.5" black cardstock. Next, fold card to create uneven gatefold. As you should always do when embossing, I prepped the surface for embossing by rubbing my embossing buddy on top to cut down on the static. I stamped the In Style Stamps lantern stamp using VersaMark clear pigment ink and drew a line from the top of the lantern to the top of the card with a VersaMarker. I used gold embossing powder , shook off excess onto a scrap sheet and heat embossed the design. To subtract the color from the background paper, use ordinary bleach poured into a small cup and a paint brush. Carefully paint INSIDE the lines of the design to remove the color of the cardstock. This works best on papers that are dyed rather than printed. I used cardstock from The Paper Company which works well for this technique. Bleach tends to be drippy so be careful not to overload your brush and to choose a detail brush with a fine point. Also, you can use your heat tool to speed up the drying process!
I liked the color variations and didn’t try to make it all even white. This gave the lantern an aged feel.

My confession: I was hurrying along with my painting and goofed. See, nobodies perfect! If you know me, I never like to give up on a design. I always feel there is a work around, and you know what...I ended up liking the fix! I got bleach outside the lines [Oh no!!!] so when it dried and I speed heat set it, I added a drop shadow with a black marker to hide the discoloration, and I liked the added dimension it created! [Yeah, I planned that all along...creative genious, right?!!! LOL]


Next, use the small stamp from Circle Circus set from Stampin’ Up!® to add gold patterns around the lantern. Reminder:  I re-prepped with Embossing Buddy to prevent lots of stray gold specs since my hands were touching this while painting. Add two purple rhinestones inside two of the designs for some bling. If they are not self-adhesive, use Glue Arts’ mini adhesive squares on the back to attach.


Cut a strip of Perfect Plum cardstock to 1-3/4" x 5-1/2"and wheel with decorative pattern of choice. I chose the Very Vintage wheel and black ink. Note that I trimmed the cardstock larger than the black right hand fold. Attach to right hand fold using Glue Glider™ Pro and high tac or perma tac adhesive. This creates a strip of plum when opened and also makes sure no gaps show when card is folded in front. To finish, use slot punch to create hole on left panel for threading ribbon. Create adjacent slit down left hand fold using a cutting knife and matt. Make it big enough to feed your ribbon through. Tie bow in front as shown. Pretty easy, but really cool, right?

Now it is time to take it to another level...multi-colored embossed images! The next card uses a combination of stamps from In Style Stamps (lantern), Innovative Stamp Creations (verse and flowers) and decorative patterns from Stampin’ Up!’s Circle Circus set. I call this card Asian Friendship Greeting. Start by trimming out black card to fold to 5.5" x 4.25". Trim red cardstock to 5-3/8" x 3-7/8". Embosss two lanterns using same steps as described above, using VersaMark ink and marker. Paint with bleach and heat set. this may need repeating to get to desired shade of white.

Color in stamps using markers in your choice of colors. I used red, green, black and lt. blue on mine.

Stamp decorative pattern around lanterns in black ink.

Stamp and emboss smaller circle elements in gold in between patterns to bring out gold and deco feel.
Use Glue Arts’ Ribbon adhesive to wrap ribbon around red panel, wrapping ends around back side to hide. Tear strip of textured blue Bazzill Basics cardstock and attach to bottom of card. Layer panels on top of black card front using Glue Glider™ Pro and adhesive cartridge of choice (perma tac or high tac).

Stamp and emboss verse in gold onto scrap of black cardstock. Trim and layer on top of ribbon. Stamp flower design 3 times on Bazzil’s French Vanilla cardstock. I did one extra in case I goofed while cutting it out. This is much faster than going back and having to emboss all over again. Cut around flower contours using knife or scissors. Layer flowers using Glue Arts’ adhesive squares on back side. Finish with mini red rhinestones added to the center of each flower.

I hope that this tutorial has helped you learn a new stamping technique. Some notes about bleach: be sure that you take care to protect the surface(s) and your clothes because it can permanently damage these. If the bleach is not fresh out of the bottle, it will not work as well. I have tried putting in a sealed container overnight to travel to a demo, and it somehow lost its potency. Use immediately for optimum results.
Please share this post with friends and subscribe to my blog to learn more tips, tricks and crafty ideas!