Graduation Cards – Part 2

So after I completed the previous post I whipped up this little graduation cap in my neice Natalie's school colors.  Here is the one I did for her. 

This is what it looks like when closed, I used embroidery thread for the tassel and attached it with a black brad.  I had these graduation stickers so I cut down the strip with the caps and diplomas to fit on the bottom which you can see when you first take the card out of the envelope.  Once you open up the hat you see the following:

I folded it back so you could see the full length of the card.  On the inside of cap I stamped You Rock! and Celebrate.  On the bottom half of the card I added Graduate and Congratulations.  The stickers on the bottom half of the card have pop dots behind them to add dimension.  These graduation caps were actually very easy and quick to do up.

When I started making graduation cards this weekend I had the cap idea in my head for the cards, and found the great idea/tutorial noted in my previous post.  I had also been kicking around how I could make a card that was shaped like a graduation gown.  I had some Jolee’s Stickers graduation embellishments that I could have just thrown together with plain card stock and would have produced a nice little card, but I wanted something more.  I mulled it around for a while and kept looking at the embellishments and decided to do some free-hand drawing.  Now mind you, I have never considered myself to be an artist.  In fact that would be the least likely word I would use to describe myself, but artistic I became.  I freehand drew the likeness of the graduation gown from the Jolee’s package onto card stock.  


 I used that as my pattern and traced it on to the light blue cardstock.  Since my niece will graduate from UCLA I wanted to use their school colors and I also wanted the gown to have that sheen associated with finer materials.  I chose a solid matte finish Bazzil light blue card stock and cut the card out, but I wanted to add dimension to the front of the card so it would look like the folds on an actual gown.  I traced the front of the gown onto copy paper, cut it out, and traced it onto Bazzil’s line of shiny papers.  After cutting it out I proceeded to cut it apart, into the individual pieces for the front of the gown.  I also wanted to add in the UCLA yellow on the gown somewhere, so I cut a V shaped insert to go around the neckline and then layered the shiny blue bodice part over it.  To achieve the dimension for the flow of the gown on the front I set the outside folds directly onto the solid blue card stock and then the next two folds on each side I used pop dots to bring them up off the card stock background.  For the middle fold I used fatter pop dots to make it stand up just a bit higher than the sides. 

When you open up the gown I have mirrored the yellow from the collar for the inside of the card. 

Then to add a nice finish I used my Cricut machine to cut the UCLA letters in yellow and ran through my Xyron to apply adhesive and put on the bottom of the front of the gown.  I think my niece will enjoy it! 



Thanks for coming by…hope to see you again soon!  If you’d like to let me know what you think of my creation, feel free to leave a comment!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!