No Time To Stamp?

Grads, Monograms and Tassel Tutorial

This post comes a day late, but at least it’s here now!!!  And 10 Minute Tuesday will be about a 1/2 day late as well, but it’s coming!!!  Trying real hard to get caught up!!!

This is a fairly quick and easy grad card for a guy, featuring a *somewhat personalized* monogram made with the JustRite Monogram Stamper (C-45) and the Harlequin stamp set by Flourishes.  When I say *somewhat personalized* what I mean is, rather than having the graduates name on each card I make (I had 8 cards to do for grads from this school), I found it much quicker to put on the year and a simple *Congrats BHS Grad*.  This way they get their year and their school name on the card, though not their own name = somewhat personalized!!!  Using the C-45 I can kick out 8 of these in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the time it would take to change the grads name on each, so — it works for me!!!  Oh, and I loved the colors to work with — our school colors are purple and gold and the class colors were black and white — a great combo!!!

I used the Small Letters and the Medium/Large Numbers on the Monogram Stamper (C-45) to make this monogram.  However, since all the letters and numbers are interchangeable from the C-45 to the smaller wooden stampers, and vice versa, I could have just as easily done this with one of the smaller wooden stampers.  Personally, I just prefer the ease of being able to stamp out many of the same monogram super quickly with the C-45.

The grid pattern is done with Harlequin by Flourishes, stamped tone on tone on the Eggplant Paper, with the diamond centers being gold embossed.  The gold matting layers on the grid image and the monogrammed image are made with gold metallic cardstock.  The monogrammed image and all layers are cut and embossed using the Circle Nestabilities.

• Stamps:  Harlequin by Flourishes and the JustRite Monogram Stamper C-45 by JustRite.
• Paper:  White, Black Textured, Elegant Eggplant, Gold Metallic.
• Ink:  Black, Elegant Eggplant, Versa Mark.
• Accessories:  Gold Embossing Powder, Tassel (tutorial below), Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders, Mini Glue Dots, Mounting Squares.

The tassel on this card is home made and a tutorial follows.  I have received a lot of questions from readers as to where I get these — well, it is getting to be a problem.  I have picked up the bookmark sized tassles with the longer strings at craft stores often times.  The short ones that I’ve been using for graduation tassels have become hard to find.  They used to always be in the sewing section of Wal-Mart, but I haven’t been able to find them in black for months, though the last time I checked they did have the gold.  Here’s a picture of what I’ve been buying, and what I just made and used on the card above:

The tutorial that follows will all be done in thumbnails, so just click the photos if you’d like to see larger views.

The first thing we need to do is make our little template.  I used a lightweight chipboard coaster, but I think a heavy one would have worked better.  I cut it to 1 3/4″ wide and then  measured 1/4″ down from the top and drew a line with a ruler and pen.  Then I  used my Word Window Punch and punched just under that line, and off the end of the chipboard, as shown.  The black string I am using is Crochet Cotton from Wal-mart with all the other crochet threads, near the yarns.  I think DMC Embroidery Floss would work as well, but I didn’t have the right color and our Wal-Mart doesn’t carry that anymore either.  But this Crochet Cotton worked just great!

Start by wrapping the Crochet Cotton around your template as shown, over the opening.  I wrapped mine about 15 complete rounds.  Let long tails hanging  down when done.

Now take a nice big darning needle with a large eye and run a length of Crochet Cotton through the eye and just tie the thread on at the eye so it doesn’t keep falling off as you wrap a band around the threads — see photo — you are wrapping this band in the open area.  I wrapped it around about 10 times.  Then tie it tightly in the back.  When I was done tying it, I put a Mini Glue Dot over my knot, just so I can see that tiny black knot again and to make sure the knot holds.  Let your leftover strings hang down.

Thread your needle with another length of thread.  Run it under the top portion of the loop, as shown in the photo, keeping your thread doubled. Cut the end so you can get the needle off, and then tie it into a knot that you can slide down close to the base.  I don’t know what knots are called.  I just loop it around my finger and pull it through itself, then slide it down and tug to make it tight — if that makes any sense.

Now you can take your scissors, insert them under the threads right at the bottom and cut them.  Now you can slide the entire tassell off the framing and give it a little haircut to take care of those long ends that were left hanging, and it should be done!!!  When I attach it to the card, I make sure the Mini Glue Dot is on the back, and use that to help adhere it to the card.

I hope this helps some with the tassel dilemna!!!  10 Minute Tuesday will be late, but hope to get it up sometime on Tuesday!!! Sorry, but I’m trying to get back on track!!!  Thanks so much for stopping in!!!