Married to the Empire

Friday, June 4, 2010

Graduation Cards

When you work with the youth group, you have a lot of graduation cards and gifts to give. I like to make the grad cards, as it saves us a little money, but I was stumped for ideas until I saw this post. I figured with some black cards and my Martha Stewart number/letter stamps, I could do something similar.

I started with black cards. I bought them on clearance at Joann's last weekend. Ten cards for $1.97. I used a pencil to mark the center point and 2 points on the edges, then drew lines to make a V-shape.



I cut those off and was left with a nice point.



Next I used my Martha stamps to create 2010, which I stamped on the cards. I also ran the edges of the V along my stamp pad. Then I sprinkled on embossing powder and heated it.




Next I needed a tassel. I'm sure they can be bought somewhere inexpensively, but I don't know where that place is. I bought the only tassels I could find at Joann's. They were too short, and they came out to $1 per tassel! Yikes! Then I got the bright idea to go to Half-Price Books and buy some of their cheapy bookmarks. They were only 48 cents each and had the appropriate-length tassels. Even better, they were having a 20%-off everything sale! So, I bought a bunch of bookmarks and just removed the tassels for use on my cards.



I measured to find the center, then poked a hole in the card, stuck a brad through it, and attached the tassel. Then I was left with this ugliness on the inside of the card:



So, I took all those corners I cut off the cards and used them to cut out little rectangles to glue over the ugly backs of the brads.




All done!



I opted not to stamp anything on the inside, as I like to write a nice personal note to each kid. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of room to do that without it being seen from the front. But I think it would be nice to stamp a Congratulations or something inside if you don't want to say much beyond a signature.

5 comments:

ashley said...

I really love this! So classy!

Christa said...

Wow, great job!! The tassels are always a stumper for me, too. (Mine came with one for each card.) You can make your own with DMC floss, but I can't remember where I saw a tutorial for that. I wouldn't have thought of the bookmarkers, but it was a stroke of genius. You still came out way ahead in the price of the cards, and they're a lot nicer than most of the graduation cards you can buy at the store anyway! :)

godessunseen101 said...

Love the invites ! Your blog is so cute and adorable "living life as a stormtroopers wife" is so clever !! Love the blog !!
Im a new follower - care to follow me back ? (Or check out my blog ?)

Alice H
xoxo
vintagepoppa.blogspot.com

Amy Warden said...

Very crafty!! Love the tassel idea from the bookmarks!!

Katherine said...

Super cute, Anne Marie! Hey, by the way, we're headed home this weekend, so I'll get in touch soon to hopefully catch up sometime this summer. My bloggy giveaway arrived already - I can't wait to see it! :)