Dreams Do Come True!

O Happy Day! Today goes down in my book as one of the most joyous days in my life. Dd graduated and received her Pharm.D. degree today and dh and I are so proud and happy for her! All her years of hard work and dedication has long last paid off...today she reached up and finally grabbed that elusive star!
Here's the card I made for her in celebration of this very special day. It didn't turn out quite as I had imagined, but I think she'll get the point. The photo I used for my card was one that I had taken of dd when she was about 5 years old, she's wearing my smock from work and her dad's dress shirt & tie. If you look closely, you'll see she's pouring some blue colored "medicine" into a bottle, pretending to be a pharmacist. Yup, "dreams really do come true"!

On the inside of the card, I added a quote from Walt Disney..."All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them"
Spellbinders nestabilities labels 4 dies were used for the greeting, and the flourish border as well as the frane on the front of the card are from the Home Accents cartridge. Tinkerbell is from Tinkerbell and Friends cartridge. "Dreams do come true" sentiment is LD Charming font rendered into a cut file using MTC.
This last photo shows the card folded into its easel card position. Thought it might be kind of  a neat thing for dd to keep displayed on her desk as an inspiration to continue making and reaching her future goals in life.

 For the graduation lunch after the ceremony, I made up mini take-out boxes embellished with the same photo and theme. But first take a look at these handmade leis dd received from friends.The  pretty orange & black one was crocheted out of  yarns and rattail cords, and the beautiful pikake lei was created out of paper clay by my super talented and good friend Kris. I can't get over how realistic the flowers on this lei look! Kris did an amazing job painstakingly shaping and creating each delicate blossom (must be over 400 of them!), then meticulously strung them into lei strands. She even added the sweet scent of pikake...so much attention to detail...this lei is truly a work of art from the heart! Thank you so much Kris!

Here's a closeup of the front & back of the favor boxes. I used MTC to trace the template of a takeout box found over at Mirkwood Designs and had my Cricut cut them out. Design for the front and back of the boxes were done using Printshop, printed onto gold ice text weight paper, cut with my Cricut to fit onto the box panels, then glued onto the boxes.

Then finally, these were the leis I made for dd to pass out to her fellow graduating classmates. I wanted to do something different so I used empty Rx stock bottles collected at work and strung them together with prescription vials filled with dollar bills in cellophane tubes to look like candy leis. They didn't look very pretty, but they were kind of fun and the kids got a kick out of them.

Dd also received several other beautiful handmade leis and cards from friends and family, of which I was unable to get photos today, but hope to post later, as soon as I can get dd to send me photos. We send our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of you for helping to make this such a special and memorable day for our family. Mahalo from the heart!