Rockin' Rectangle Graduation Card

 Restrictions on graduations seem to have eased slightly this year, although many large universities chose to remain cautiously safe with virtual ceremonies for their graduates. We are so proud and happy for our niece who graduated with her Doctorate in Nursing Practice, but a little sad that we weren't able to be there with her to celebrate as we had hoped.

I like to personalize graduation cards I make, so I started my niece's graduation card by first printing her school seal onto cardstock, used a circle punch to cut it out, and adhered it onto a glittery border in Seattle University's colors. This was then attached to an clear acrylic panel to give my card a see through front.

Next, I created a cutting file of the caduceus (nursing symbol) with the letters "NP" using Make the Cut design program and cut a stencil of the image onto a page copied from an old medical dictionary. I then glued a piece of red glitter cardstock behind the stencil to give the caduceus some fun glitz.

I decided to use Karen Burniston's Rockin' Rectangle Pop Up mechanism to animate my graduation card. This has become one of my favorite pop up mechanisms to use because it's so versatile and easy to install.

As the card is opened, the panel with the caduceus stencil pops forward and to slides the right to reveal another panel with our sentiment underneath. I used the word "congrats" (Ballerina ttf) together with a cute digital image of a heart shaped stethoscope to decorate the second panel, leaving room for our personal message.

Here's a view of the two pop up panels from above. Really had fun putting this graduation card together for my niece. I got a late start on making graduation cards this year so unfortunately only had time to make two. Will share the second one, very similar to this in my next post.