Graduation is just the beginning...

This week at Digi Doodle Shop Challenges the new challenge is a sketch. Don't forget to check out the cards by the rest of this talented team.  They are awesome ladies with fantastic cards! 

Mine is a graduation card for a dear friend.  We've pretty much known her since she was a very young little girl.  She is very intelligent and as sweet as anyone you can ever know.  So of course, I had to do a special graduation card for her. I didn't want to do a traditional card with caps and gowns, so I selected this beautiful image from the Shop.  I thought it would depict the fact that even though a person graduates, it's not an end to learning.  Don't you love easel cards?  Well I hope you like this one.

You can't really see it, but the butterfly paper under the image is sparkly and I've added stickles to the roses. 

I know her favorite color used to be lavender and purple, so that's what I used.  Again I've colored with my Prismacolors. However, I got busy with the larger areas and forgot to allow for shading, so I made up my own technique (I'm sure others have done it, but it was new for me).  I took a tiny floral stamp, and I made a mask of the girl and the books, then I stamped a darker yellow over the light yellow, etc.  I was real pleased with the technique.  I know the sketch doesn't call for the second set of flowers, but I liked them on this card.

The supplies I've used are:

roses (used stickles on them), paper & gems by Recollections
butterfly paper by DCWV
lace, charm, butterfly and white flowers from Michaels and Hobby Lobby
die cuts - by Spellbinders;

I did some "real" sewing (go figure - last week for stitching I used faux stitches) LOL
You can't see them all, but I've put gems in the centers of the flowers on the background paper

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Delicious Doodles Challenges - fluttering
Crafts 4 Eternity - embellishment starting with an "r" - rose
Crafty Catz Weekly Challenge - fancy folds
The Stamp Man Challenges - butterfly
One Stitch at a Time - wings
CES Challenges - sparkly and flowers
Hooked on Craft Challenges - anything
A Gem of a Challenge - flowers and charms