Handmade Graduation Card: Remarkable You

My niece is graduating high school today and I wanted to make her more of a nontraditional handmade graduation card.  Of course, this card design would work for any special occasion — or just because — but I did have her graduation in mind when designing it.

The lotus flower comes from the new Remarkable You stamp set.  It's got large, bold, beautiful images, perfect for coloring in.  I used my retired Blendabilities markers — a blend of Daffodil Delight, Pink Pirouette, and Calypso Coral on the flower, and Wild Wasabi on the leaves — and then fussy cut them out using my Paper Snips.

The patterned paper behind the flower came from the Cherry on Top Designer Paper Stack.  I thought it mimicked water wonderfully!  The background pattern came from Everyday Chic.  You know how much I love the look of black and white! 🙂

In the picture to the right you can catch just a peek of the inside where I layered the black and white pattern again over Basic Black, and then topped it with some Whisper White so I'll have a place to write my well wishes.

The Banner Triple Punch was used on the end of the greeting, and then  I popped up the greeting and the flower with some Stampin' Dimensionals.   A sprinkling of a few rhinestones on top of the “water” adds some sparkle and shimmer.

This is the third card idea I've come up with using this week's 400th sketch over at Mojo Monday in my quest to be selected as a designer there.  You can see my first submission here and my second idea here.

How did I do?

Please leave your comments below, I'd love to hear what you think.