Diplomabella

Happy Friday folks! Today I'm super psyched to head back home to celebrate my niece's Graduation from High School. It should be a mini reunion of sorts since I'll also get to visit with lots of family both who live in Rochester and those that are coming in to celebrate as well. And wouldn't you know - this week's Bellariffic Friday challenge was bring on the girls...a perfect opportunity to bring out Diplomabella from Stamping Bella.

Last time I stamped this image was for my other niece's Graduation...same school, so same colors. I had to switch this up a bit so I decided to play along with Karen Giron and the Sweet Sunday Sketch challenge (SSSC#161). With my sketch decided I went on the hunt for papers. I had to use royal blue and reds (the school colors) and found Making Memories Large Floral Rouge Paperie, Confetti Parade "Celebrate" flowers and Bazzil cardstock.

To start, I stamped the image onto Bella's Bestest paper using Memento Tuxedo black ink and colored with copics. Shading was added using prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol. I liked the idea of this graduate being outside so I added the background cloud shading with Prismacolor Non-Photo Blue and sprinkled glitter over Quickie Glue. I then cut the panel out with a Nestie Rectangle die and the mat with the Scalloped Rectangle. I wanted to highlight the school emblem from the Graduation announcement so I cut that too with a Nestie Circle die and matted it and then hand made the folded medallian behind it. Pretty easy...cut a 12x1 inch strip of dp and score every 1/4 inch then fold back and forth and gather together to make a circle. Then you push the center together and hot glue onto a small paper circle. It makes it easier to adhere the medallian to the card later on. But before I did all that I added Quickie Glue to the edges and ran it through glitter so that too had some sparkle. To apply the school emblem to the medallian I used Scrap Dots from Helmar. They are perfect since it's a very liquid adhesive that will hold to imperfections like you'll find on the medallian surface. And it dries hard but you have to let it sit for a bit.

I pulled out my Nesties one more time to add the red and blue banner flags. They're perfect every time and Karen's sketch called for them today. Machine stitching finishes this off. I'll be linking this up to Karen's blog too.

Phew - I hope you're still with me - that was a long one. Next week we have another sketch challenge so pick any Stamping Bella image and give it a whirl.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by!
Cath