Laura Vegas

I'm back. I totally disappeared there, didn't I? There's always SO much happening in the last few weeks of the school year, and having a senior this year makes it even crazier. Blogging has just been the last thing on my mind. Not that I had much of anything to blog about, even if I did want to post. I have been working on two seperate, yet related, album projects that I will share later on. I did take a few minutes to whip up a few simple cards though.

Graduation has been on my mind. Big time. Alyssa graduates from high school tomorrow evening, and I still can't believe it's happening. I got a message from my talented friend, Laina Lamb, a while back, asking if I would want to work with a few of the dies and stamps that she designs thru My Favorite Things (her dies can be seen HERE, her stamps can be seen HERE). She knew that I had a senior in high school, which meant that I would definitely be needing some graduation themed products to put to good use.

Because I've had so much going on, and the album projects were taking up most of my creativity, I ended up keeping these two cards pretty simple. It wasn't my intention starting out, but just sort of how they worked out. Not that creating these two little cards didn't involve me making a huge mess of my scraproom. Lol.

I loved the Graduation Accents die, and knew right away that I would use the "congratulations" die for a few cards. It fits perfectly across the front of a standard card. I got the wild idea to die cut these out of white textured cardstock, and then heat emboss them. I can't remember the last time I heat embossed anything. And once I started, I quickly remembered how messy it can get. I shouldn't say "messy". It just required me taking out a lot more "stuff" than I normally use when making cards. But I love the look of it, once it's done.

I rarely ever buy cards anymore, since I have everything I need to create my own, which saves a ton of money. But the one thing I miss about store-bought cards is having the words written for you. When I create my own cards, I have the short and sweet sentiment on the front, but then I'm left with that empty white space inside the card. And while I consider myself a pretty good writer, I am always at a loss for what to say inside cards. I decided I would use the Happy Graduation stamps to add a little extra sentiment inside the cards.

I stuck to a black, green, grey, and white color scheme for these cards, since those are our school colors. I have a hard time finding the right shade of green patterned papers, when it comes to matching our school colors. I found this paper which was a perfect match, and it was actually a soccer field patterned paper. I ran it thru my Cuttlebug in a dotted embossing folder.

I used silver embossing powder on the first card, and black embossing powder on the second card. I had another card in the works, using green, but quickly realized that none of my green embossing powders were anywhere close to the right shade. I also spritzed on a little white and black misting spray to my patterned papers, so they weren't so flat looking.

Please ignore my messy embossing on the stamped sentiments inside the cards. I did them at the kitchen island, while the daycare kids ate lunch. I knew I had little flecks of black embossing powder when I didn't want it. But I also knew that things were happening in front of me (dropped forks, sippy cup thrown on the floor resulting in a huge puddle of spilled milk, and kids begging for more of this and that food), and I just had to get it done. Sometimes multi-tasking doesn't work out as well as it should.

I had already die cut some numbers using Laina's Bright Lights Numbers & Symbols dies, so I thought I would use them on the backside of a few envelopes. And of course, a #SENIOR stamp, as hashtags are all the rage with the teens.