My first graduation card

I had the idea that for the May 7 fair, I should probably have some cards for the other occasions that are coming up and not just Mother's Day - Father's Day, graduations, and weddings. I'd never made a graduation card before today. This one is quite different from my usual style, I think!

For the layout I went hunting and chose a sketch from the Page Maps September 2007 card map page. No time to come up with my own layout today, unfortunately! The colors are today's SCS color challenge, which is to use real red, night of navy, and glorious green. Well, glorious green is one of those colors that I don't even own because I'm not too fond of it! I subbed in wild wasabi, which is still a challenge for me because I'm not a huge fan.

I knew that I wanted to try a super-cool technique I saw on Laura's scrapnextras blog - she calls it Roll with the Punches. She gives complete directions on her blog, but basically you punch out shapes on a template, then roll a wheel over the template so it inks inside the punched-out parts. I used my large and small star punches (guess none of the small ones are actually visible, LOL!) then rolled my Spunky Spots wheel with night of navy ink. To make the stars stand out I sponged navy ink over the template.

I wanted to mix stripes and dots on my card, so I used the polka dot background in navy on a red card base, then stamped the stripe from the Happiness stamp repeatedly with navy on wasabi and punched out a large star. I adhered it to navy cardstock and cut out, then did the same with red. I distressed the edges with my fingernail and sponged navy ink over the whole star. To add another stripe pattern I put a small piece of striped wasabi ribbon behind the star and attached with a vintage brad.

The sentiment is by Inkadinkado and is stamped on real red. I layered it with navy and wasabi, layered the star panel with wasabi, and distressed and inked all edges, including the card base. I added two more brads on the sentiment panel, adhered the strips, and then attached the star with foam tape.

Tell me what you think - I definitely feel more comfortable in my usual elegant style, but it was kind of fun to venture in another direction today.