Hats Off To You!

Today's card is a celebration of a nephew who is graduating - and a celebration of a new stamp and die set!  The colors in this card are more orange than they appear - the color didn't come through very true to life. Also, though it looks like a gradation of orange to yellow, it is all one hue, one shade, one color!  I thought to use the school colors, but they were orange and black - not my favorite.  So, I decided to look up the color of tassel he would be wearing since I knew he'd be graduating with a degree in Nursing.  That color was "apricot".  So, I decided I couldn't really get away from the orange/black theme. :)

Here's how I made this one:

Background: I started by cutting out a piece of black paper using my new die set - Spellbinders 5x7 Elegant Label Four.  Love it!!!!  In fact, I like it so much the next two posts (at least) will be showcasing it.  I glued this black to a piece of orange vellum, and then to my card.

Focal: The stamp set I mentioned earlier is one from JustRite, Celebrations Labels One and Bracket Borders One - designed to coordinate with Spellbinders die sets of the same names. Looking through the stamp set, I chose the frame that said "congrats" and added the "Hats off to you" greeting.  Then I die-cut a piece of vellum using the Labels One die.that was just larger than the stamp. Working carefully to line things up, I stamped it in StazOn ink (since I was stamping on non-porous vellum) and left it to dry. I love the way it turned out! However, it didn't show very well against the black, so I cut a piece of white paper that was identical to the vellum piece and glued it to the back, lining the edges up carefully.  Then I glued both directly to the background.  It looks quite striking if I do say so myself. :)

Greeting: The greeting is done in a similar way to the focal.  I cut the vellum and matching piece of white paper using a die from Spellbinders Resplendent Rectangles set.  The stamp was from the same JustRite stamp set and once again I stamped with black StazOn ink.  When it was dry, I attached it to the card with foam tape.

Inside: I didn't get a picture of the inside, but I decorated it with orange vellum borders top and bottom.  The one at the top was stamped (black StazeOn) with the celebrate border stamp from the JustRite set.  The bottom one used a border stamp from Edges and Borders stamp set (HOTP).