Quick and Easy ConGRADulations

Good Saturday morning, friends! I hope you and yours are doing well this fine May day. I'm writing a little drive-by blog post before I hit the shower and then face the laundry. *sigh* Perhaps I should hit the laundry first, though, because I think I may be out of clean underware. TMI? Yeah, sorry about that...

Anywho - Claremore High School had it's graduation this week, and as Truman gets older, we seem to know more and more graduating seniors. I've got a stack of announcements I need to respond, so I thought I'd better get cracking on an easily mass-produced card. Fortunately, this month's Sketch For You to Try is perfect for the image and paper I wanted to use. Yay!

Here's another look at this month's SFYTT...

I think I've mentioned once or a hundred times that our school system's mascot is the Zebra. You can't imagine the squeal I made when I saw this ADORABLE zebra from Paper Smooches' Zoo Crew set:

Hee - aren't his/her eyes so expressive? Kim Hughes is just the best (as an illustrator AND a person - love her!). The sentiment is from Paper Smooches' Smarty Pants set. I first stamped it out under the zebra in Marvy Matchables Black (my FAVORITE black ink for coverage when you don't need to color the image in with Copics. It smears with Copics, but it's fabulous in all other respects - rich and deep). Then, I stamped it once more with SU! Real Red, cut out 'grad,' and popped it up on top of the background sentiment with one of Jody's Foam Boosters. See...

Now that I look at it, you can see one of the pink liners from the foam boosters on the patterned paper to the left of the image panel. I could reshoot the photos, but I think I'm just going to chalk it up to wabi sabi.

Even though it's pretty clean and simple, I did add a few things for texture and visual interest: the black cardstock is embossed with a Cuttlebug dots embossing folder, I Corner Chomped several of the corners, and I added a bit of red and white twine from The Twinery (gifted to me by Cammie Camster). Easy but sweet, and I should be able to create a half-dozen or so within an hour now that I have the prototype.

Ready to see more second-takes on this month's SFYTT? Then be sure to visit my SFYTT Sisters who are also making new cards with the May sketch today: