Go Graduate!

Hello! Hello!

If you are on the inaugural VC Rocks Blog Hop and just arrived here from Tina Taves blog, WELCOME to my acre of blog-land.  If you are a regular reader, you already know you are welcome (and thank you and please, and all those other magic words your mama taught you)

As you read this, I am on my way to see my college girl GRADUATE!  Yes!!!!  She is walking the stage after four years of hard labor with a double major.  Anyone need to hire a smart, beautiful English/Communications Major?

With my mind on graduation, I decided to focus today's post on the Go Graduate stampset in the Stampin' Up! Summer Mini catalog.

The feet are actually on one long stamp - 10 feet long! 

 (Ten feet - as in 5 pair of shoes or 50 toes - NOT 120 inches, heh heh heh) 

• I colored the shoes with black marker and water-colored the robes with an aqua painter and black ink.  Then I punched them using the 1.25 inch square punch. 
• Stamped the hat on white and punched with the 1.25 inch square punch 
• I used the Medallion background stamp for the "pattern" squares - stamped in black on whisper white then punched in various spots with the 1.25 inch square punch.
• I ran black cardstock through the Big Shot with the new Square Lattice embossing folder (also from the summer mini) for the darkest squares.      helpful hint: EMBOSS then PUNCH with the 1.25 square punch - the embossing draws up the paper just a tiny bit so those squares will be just a tiny bit smaller if you punch then emboss.  You wouldn't notice the size difference except on a card like this with all the other squares.
•  Added a bit of black grosgrain ribbon to one of the 2 basic gray squares
• The sentiment from Go Graduate was stamped in a strip 4.25 x 5/8 inch.  Mounted on 4.25 x .75 inch strip of black.
• Making the mortar board is simple - I used the 1.25 inch circle punch.  Punched in twice with the 3/4 inch circle.  The flat top is a 3/4 inch strip of cardstock - hold it on an angle (45 degree) and snip twice to make your rhombus shape.
• The "button" on the top is a brad.  Don't have a black brad?  No problem.  This is actually a silver brad that I rubbed on my Stazon ink pad (LUV that stuff)  I punched a hole before I inserted the brad - keeps the cardstock from 'bending' when you poke the brad through.

• The tassel is a piece of white grosgrain - raveled and tied in a knot.  To ravel your ribbon, make a straight cut (NOT a pretty diagonal one) then pull just a little bit at the cut and you should be able to get one long strand to come loose.  Just hold on to the rest with your fingers (don't drop it!) and you can tie it in a knot.  You will punch a tiny hole in your mortar board for your brad - so thread one end of the grosgrain through that hole and adhere on the back.  I trimmed off about half of the "above the knot" ravels off  - leaving an amount I could get through the hole.

I am personalizing the graduation cards I send out this year by using the school colors as the card base. This one is Real Red but I also will be making a green, a purple, 2 maroon and 2 blue. I was expecting more announcements - oh graduates.... where are you?

I hope you will take time to check out the rest of the stops on the VC Rocks Blog Hop.

VC Rocks is a fun fun fun high volume of email yahoo group (that I have mentioned several times before). 

VC stands for virtual celebration (or virtual convention) and the group was started for demos who were not attending the "real" Stampin' Up! Convention in the summer.  This summer marks the 10th anniversary of the group - and we have many ladies who go to convention AND celebrate virtually.  We also have many SU fans who are not demonstrators who join us as we swap, have classes, challenges, games and general merriment.  VC Rocks is accepting new members through May 30 then we lock the doors and PARTY through the summer. I started this blog last summer primarily because of the encouragement of the VC Rocks ladies and I'd have missed out on all THIS fun is it wasn't for them!  We'd love to have you join us.  There is still time!

The next stop on the blog hop is Barbara Furlong's blog   Please stop by and see what she has created.  If you get lost along the hop you can find all the blogs here.