All Star Graduate

We had three graduates this summer in our family, and since all three were ball players while at school, I thought it might be fun to use that as a theme for their graduation cards. For the first one, I used my girl portrait paper piecing to do kind of a "before and after" trifold card.

For the "before" portrait, I searched the internet for photos of the graduate's high school softball team and tried to recreate a paper pieced uniform similar to what their uniform looked like.  And for the "after" portrait, I dressed her in the attire similar to what she graduated in, a gold cap and gown with a brown stole and tassel. And of course, I had to give her the traditional Hawaiian style maile lei, which was created by layering die cut leaves from Stampin' Up's Little Leaves die. Diploma is a piece of vellum rolled and tied with gold ribbon and tassel was made using embroidery floss.

Our sentiment was added to the center panel. "All Star Graduate" word art was created by combining Sebastiana and Brisk fonts in Make the Cut, both are freebies you can download from DaFont. I especially liked how the fun swashes included with Sebastiana font really gives that look of a baseball team logo.

As a final personal touch, I added a belly band with the graduate's class year and school mascot to keep the card closed. I think it's fun to make personalized graduation cards so the recipient knows you made their card just especially for them.