Graduation card

This week I made a card for my nephew's High School Graduation.  There were three challenges that my card would work with:
Mod Squad Challenge Blog: Charmed, I'm Sure!!
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: I ought to use this more

The thing I ought to use more is different card layouts and shapes. I was inspired by the Congrats! Grad card in the latest issue of CardMaker magazine. I was giving a gift card to my nephew and this card is made to hold a gift card. I used blue and white for the school colours. 

I started with a white piece of Colorbok textured cardstock and made the cuts where indicated in the magazine.  I then used some blue American Crafts cardstock and embossed it with a Cuttlebug embossing folder from the Wedding Suite set. I cut it up and adhered it to the card. I used my Silhouette Cameo and cut out the 2014 and the grad hats. I inked up the 2014 with some VersaMark ink and used Clear Recollections Detail embossing powder to heat emboss the numbers. I wanted to give them a bit of shine which I think you can see in the first picture.

I used a sentiment from the Art Gone Wild Inspirations set and stamped it with Stampin' Up Brilliant Blue ink onto a piece of white cardstock.  These stamps have a border around them so I used Spectrum Noir marker TB5 to colour in the outside border. I think it matches the blue cardstock quite well.

I used my Cameo again with a white Sketch pen and drew Congratulations onto a blue piece of cardstock and mounted that onto a white piece. I tied a piece of gold cord around the white piece and tied another piece of cord onto it. For the charm challenge, I took two of the grad hats, inked the tassle with Tsukineko Brilliance Galaxy Gold and joined them together with the gold cord in between. I frayed the end so it looked like a tassle. I mounted that onto a blue piece and adhered it onto the left hand side of the inside of the card.

I used a 1 1/2 " circle punch from EB tools to cut out 2 blue circles. I scored them, folded them in half and glued one half onto the back of the middle section. I folded the other half onto the front of the card and glued just the top edge so that the gift card can go in the middle.