Happy Graduation Darrien!

My soon to be 14 year old cousin, Darrien, graduated from Grade 8 this school year. She is very appreciative of all my homemade cards. So I thought instead of making her a card for graduation, I would make her a chipboard album to highlight her graduation.

The last day of school was not only tough for Darrien, but for me as well. My cousins used to live in my rental suite here and I was out on the front step with her when she got on the bus for her first day of JK.

After my cousins moved into their first home, their daughters still came here after school until they were finished work. This was Darrien's last time getting off the bus here after school.

Luckily, both of my cousins & my daughter are always emotional on the last day of school. As my sobbing girls got off the bus today, I met them out front with open arms and joined them in a cry. Then we went out for ice cream.

Darrien loved her album. I love her album.

The chipboard album is from an old line of BoBunny's. It actually spelled out "GRADE", I just didn't use the "E".

The patterned papers used throughout this album were all from Reminisce's Graduation Celebration two-sided patterned papers. The Black & Silver Glitter papers are from Best Creations.

I painted all the edges white. After gluing on the papers, I spent 2 hours sanding all the edges down so that none of the paper edges could get caught on anything and rip. Then I painted all the edges with white paint again.

I used the Varsity Cricut Cartridge for my lettering and the Tim Holtz Film Strip die cut with my Cuttlebug for the film strips.

All the Graduation photo mats are from a package of Me & My Big Ideas Graduation Photo Sleeves. The large white flower is from Prima Marketing and the flower in the middle of it was cut out from one of my nestabilities.

All the ribbon, rhinestones, the glitter brad & the "buds" plastic mini tag are from my stash from various companies.

The 6 black flowers in the album were white Prima Marketing flowers died with a CTMH Spray Pen & Black Re-inker and then glitzed with Tattered Angels Slate Glimmer Mist.

The grad cap die cuts were punched out with a small EK Success punch.

If you are wondering about the skull & cross bone ribbon, Darrien loves things with skulls & cross bones on it. So, I just had to incorporate it somewhere to make it more like her.