Graduation Shaker Card

I created this shaker card for my grand/daughter's middle school graduation. She is now finishing her sophomore year of high school. I'm a bit behind.

(I just realized that could be misconstrued. I'm not two years behind in making the card, just in posting.)

The cute little graduate and sentiment are from the Cricut cartridge Create a Friend. I added a cardinal from the cartridge 50 States to represent the school mascot.  I added lots of gold and red sequins to the shaker along with sky-themed paper for the background.

Now it's time to start working on her high school graduation card if I hope to have it finished by 2020. Look for the post around 2022.

Thanks for visiting!

Graduation Box Card

***Apologies upfront for the poor lighting. I'm still working on my papercrafting skills; once I've mastered those I'll work on my photography. You might want to take a seat while you wait.***

This graduation box card was made for a special girl using my Cricut Explore. (I did hand cut the box base using a template I found on the internet.)

The beauty of using the Cricut Explore machine along with the Design Space software is that I can easily search for the perfect images and utilize several cartridges with ease (which I did with this card). Here's the list of images and phrases I used:

Girl graduate - Paper Dolls Teen Scene

Owl - Recess

Graduation cap - Recess

Diploma - Recess

Congratulations - Lyrical Letters

Way to Go! - 3 Birds on Parade

You Did It! - Cake Basics

2016 - ? (Sorry, I added that last minute and didn't save the info, nor did my aging brain retain it for an entire year)

The other details I added were googly eyes for the owl, a tassel braided from thread and attached to the cap with a brad, and a few thin wires I coiled and added as festive filler.

Thanks for visiting!

Graduation Pop-Up Card

This was my first attempt at a pop-up card.  I could pretend all went well and turned out exactly as I had planned, but it didn't and I won't.

When Cricut released the cartridge Everyday Pop-Up Cards a few years ago, I told myself I had enough images from which to choose.  Another untruth.  One can never have enough cartridges.  Ask me how I know.  Ask me about the retired cartridges that are no longer available, and how suddenly I have grandchildren who adore those licensed characters.

Oh, well.  Life would be boring if it were perfect.

Eventually I found this cartridge at a great price and decided the cute images would come in handy sooner or later (even if I never made an actual pop-up card).

But then I needed to make a graduation card and I had a little extra time to get it done, so I decided to jazz up my card with some pop-up action inside.  It looked easy enough.

It wasn't. 

My first try ended badly even though I was following the instructions provided by Cricut.  (I could only find one example of a phrase pop-up at the end of the PDF file, so we'll use that as my excuse for why I found it so difficult to piece this particular one together.)  Was mine assembled correctly? Who knows?  But I could find no evidence to the contrary and that's good enough for me.

Have you ever made a pop-up card?  If so, did you find it difficult or did it make perfect sense to you at first glance?

Thanks for stopping by!

Milestones

First graduation, May 2003

Ten days ago my oldest granddaughter graduated from middle school.  What a glorious day.

I never wanted a second set of kids to raise, but God sometimes blesses us in mysterious ways.  The past 13 1/2 years have tried my patience, my faith, my marriage, and my sanity.  But here I stand.  Hunched over & weak, yes, but still standing.

As I watched her walk across the stage, I couldn't have been more proud.  Her life has been filled with challenges (one of them being me), but she has surprised me with her resilience.  It can't be fun being raised by old people.  Parents, one generation removed, are bad enough.  Senior citizens (or those of us nearing that stage) are from another planet.  Or galaxy.  But she's a wonderful girl-- sweet, caring, smart, funny, and free-spirited.  As much as I grumble about raising her and her sister, I wouldn't change it for anything.  It has been my pleasure (most of the time), and my privilege. 

Seven more years and both girls will be out of the house.  I'm sure it will be bittersweet.  I just hope God doesn't decide to bless me again.  I can't do it a third time.