Graduation Cards

Since my children are of the high school graduation age, I knew there might be a need in the past couple of weeks for graduation cards.I had not used this set of hot air balloon stamps in a while - they are probably 5 years old!  I decided to get them out and use them on some watercoloring.

The balloons were stamped using Simon Says Stamp's Intense Black ink.  I am somewhat disappointed in this ink as it doesn't always stamp cleanly.  I find myself having to double stamp and so used my MISTI.

Part of the problem is the texture associated with watercolor paper.  Still, being "intense" suggests that it might work slightly better than my plain old Archival black ink pad.  Not so.

I simply colored wet to dry, in this instance, within the stamp lines.  I think there is still a charm to the finished result.  The soaring birds come from a new to me Just Rite stamp set, Mutli-step Seasonal Trees.  The perfect addition, don't you think?  The grey diagonal stripes were stamped on the card base as a perfect background accent.

On the inside a e.e. cummings quote and the sentiment.  Perfect for both men and women - just what I needed!  I repeated the theme with different arrangements:

I really like how each of these turned out - different and unique, but they took little time to snap together.  My watercolor technique is still developing, you can see mistakes here and there.  Additionally, I'm still working on being aware of opaque vs. semi-opaque vs. transparent colors.  This shortcoming is the "feeble" in me that I have committed to working out through using my supplies.  Plus, I'm sure the grads won't notice as they will be flipping inside looking for the moo-la!

Any grads in your circle of influence?  What did you make?  I'll be stopping by to see.  Hope your weekend is fabulous.