Two Graduation Cards

The son & daughter of a friend of ours are graduating this weekend; he from high school, and she from junior college. Since we are giving them each a gift card, I decided to create cards to go with those.

The inspiration for my first card came from a tutorial on Splitcoaststampers.com for a "Free-standing Pop-up Card." I had seen a similar card recently on Dawn Olchefske's blog, and substituted her measurements for a landscape-oriented card for the measurements in the tutorial from Splitcoaststampers.

I used 2 patterned papers from BasicGrey's "Hey Girl!" 6x6" pad for the box part of my card. After cutting & scoring the green cardstock piece per the instructions, I glued the patterned paper strips in place. For the tag, I cut a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper to size. I pressed Distress ink pads in Picked Raspberry, Seedless Preserves, and Mermaid Lagoon onto my non-stick craft mat, the spritzed the ink with my homemade Perfect Pearls mist. I dipped and smooshed the watercolor paper into the puddles, until I had the look I was after. Finally, I dried that with my heat tool. I stamped & white heat embossed the greeting onto a piece of vellum cut slightly smaller than the background piece, and stitched that to the watercolored panel. I matted that with a piece of pink cardstock.

The card fully opened

As a finishing touch, I created an envelope out of vellum with my We R Memory Keepers Envelope Punch Board, to house the gift card. I adhered it to the bottom of the tag, and then finished assembling the card.

I created my second card based on a tutorial on Debbie Henderson's blog. She had done hers from an 8x8" piece of cardstock for the base. I had a larger image for the center panel, so I went with a 12x12" sheet, scaling her measurements up for the panels.

After scoring & cutting the base according to her instructions, I cut 4 patterned paper pieces using one of the patterns from Fancy Pants Designs' "Burlap & Bouquets" 6x6" pad. I adhered them in place, and did likewise with the green cardstock mats for the other panels. I cut 4 small squares of white cardstock & one large one for my focal panel. I used Hero Arts Navy Mid-tone Shadow ink to stamp the lighthouse (by Inkadinkado), loons (source unknown), and anchor (by Our Daily Bread Designs) on their respective squares. I then inked all the white squares with Antique Linen Distress ink, to help them tie in color-wise with the arrow patterned paper a little better.

For the inside sentiment, I scanned the focal panel into my computer, then opened that image in Photoshop. I used the quote, "Go in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined!" for my sentiment. (Although attributed to Henry David Thoreau, it's actually misquoted from "Walden." He wrote something similar, but not those exact words. Oh well--it works anyway!) I typed it onto the image layer, and arranged the words above the lighthouse. Finally, I printed the sentiment directly on the panel.

I die cut a tag from white cardstock using one of Pretty Pink Posh's "Stitched Tags" dies. I inked it with Antique Linen, punched a hole in the top, and printed the greeting I created in Photoshop onto it. I punched holes in the corners of the card front panels, and threaded some jute twine from The Paper Studio through. After stringing on the tag, I tied the card shut.

I'm entering both cards in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.