Fun Fold Graduation Cap

  Well I think summer is officially here in Richmond.  I woke up this morning and the temperature was already at 73 degrees and the sun wasn't even up yet.  It is supposed to be about 100 today so the dog and got our walk in and now I'm enjoying the relative cool on my front porch before the rest of the house gets moving.  I hope everyone else out there is staying cool today!

  I finally had a chance to take photos of the projects that we did at my May stamp club.  I decided to have one project be a graduation themed since it's that time of year.  And since I don't have any current graduation sets I decided to do a fun fold card.  I had seen a really cool card that Dawn Olchefske showed on her blog last year and thought it would be perfect.  She has a great video tutorial here showing how to do the scoring and make the tassel.  I wrote out instructions for my ladies to follow and they did an awesome job...I think they were intimidated at first but once they saw how easy it was (really just a few score marks!) they jumped right in and made fantastic graduation caps. 

 

  Start with a 9 3/4" x 4 1/4" sheet of black cardstock.

1)   Score the black cardstock at 5 ½”

2)   Fold at the score mark

3)    Put the folded edge in to the 2 1/8” mark and just make a tick mark at the top and bottom of the cardstock – DO NOT SCORE ALL THE WAY DOWN

4)   Flip the cardstock over so the fold still goes in to the 2 1/8” mark and do the same tick marks at the top and bottom – DO NOT SCORE ALL THE WAY DOWN

5)   Unfold.  Line up tick marks along the scoring bed - right hand top tick mark with left hand bottom tick mark – SCORE

6)    Line up tick marks along the scoring bed - left hand top tick mark with right hand bottom tick mark – SCORE (This makes an X across the center of your cardstock).  Fold along the score marks)

7)   Turn cardstock long ways and make a mark at the top at 2 1/8”

8)   Using the CUTTING blade, line up the top mark with the previous score and cut off the corner.  Repeat on the opposite side.  This makes the square part of the hat

9)   Embellish!

  Hope that all makes sense when you sit down to make this card.  Definitely check out Dawn's video for more of a visual. 

  I gave my ladies 4 or 5 different choices of colors for their stamping, numbers and tassel.  I figured one would match the school colors of whichever graduate they were making it for.  For my sample I used Real Red.  We made the tassel by tying an 8 inch piece of 1/4" grosgrain ribbon in half.  Keep the knot way up close to the fold so you don't end up with a short stumpy tassel.  Then taking really sharp scissors, cut off just one edge of the ribbon.  Do it again with the other ribbon piece.  Now you can begin to fray the ribbon making the long silky strands.  Once you have all the the ribbon frayed, cut off up close to the knot the two little comb-like piece of ribbon.  Now add your tassel to the top of your hat with a brad.  We used either gold or silver.

  Here is what it looks like when you open the the hat.  For the class year on the inside of the card we just chose our cardstock color and ran the numbers through the Big Shot with the Simple Numbers die.  Of course we needed a sentiment so I went with Happy Greetings from the Summer Mini catalog. 

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Happy Greetings (Summer Mini)

Ink: Real Red


Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Real Red


Accessories: scoring/cutting blade, grosgrain ribbon, brad, Simple Numbers Big Shot die