Well, another school year is in the books and I’m sitting here on the first day of summer in my jogging gear ready to start my summer exercise regime. Being the typical inattentive A.D.D.er though, I have strayed to writing on my blog instead of a jog. Oh well, I’m still dressed for a jog so I’ll get out there eventually. Ha!
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This Teacher is Ready for Summer
I’ve got to admit, I’m pretty spent from this school year. We had a lot of challenges as a school this year, and I had some personal struggles as well. I had some trying moments in the discipline area with some students (discipline has always been my weakest skill as a teacher). We also lost a student this year to suicide and we had a community shooting that left our school on lockdown for a day and resulted in the loss of a popular police officer in town. In short, it was a very emotional year.
Emotions will continue tonight for me as I attend our high school graduation ceremony and watch some of my favorite artsy kids accept their diplomas and venture out on their new life paths. Luckily these emotions are much happier. I’m excited for them but will miss seeing their faces next year.
Graduation Cards for High School Students
From a practical standpoint though, graduation time always poses a problem for me because I want to give my students a card or memento, but I have so many students graduating that the cost can quickly sky-rocket. I’ve purchased little journals from the dollar store as gifts before but I don’t like the dollar store cards. They seem incredibly generic and lack any charm. Luckily, I’m an art teacher so I can make my own.
I like to leave my graduating students with some words of wisdom and, thankfully, there are many wiser people than I who have left quotes behind to help. I found this great one by Abraham Lincoln that fits the graduation theme so well. I also like how it encourages the students to take agency in their lives and be creators rather than mindless doers. I created a design of the quote with fun fonts and hand-drawn elements. I then laid it out so that two cards could be printed per page.
Customizing Graduation Cards
These cards can be printed on good old white cardstock and will work just fine, but there are many ways that you can customize them as well.
To start with, you can use a variety of colored cardstock to add some pop to each card. You could also use Kraft cardstock if you wanted to create a more rustic look. If you want to make them even more unique, try what I did: Create a wash using watercolor paint.
I cut watercolor paper to match the size of a standard piece of printer paper (8.5 x 11) but you can also order printable watercolor paper that will work even better. I then used watercolor paint to create a variety of simple washes on the paper. You can do this just by wetting the paper and then lightly laying in color with your brush. Be careful of mixing too many colors in this process because you might end up with a muddy mix. Let the pages dry completely and then press them using a heated press or an iron on low heat (put the painted paper between two plain pieces of paper so that the watercolor doesn’t stick to your iron).
Once the watercolor paper has been dried and prepped, you can then feed it through your printer. After it’s printed, cut the paper in half and fold to create your cards. The inside is blank so you have plenty of space to write a meaningful message to the graduate. The finished results are one-of-a-kind cards that can be created relatively quickly (We all know teachers have no extra time).
I hope you enjoy these graduation cards. I also hope all of you teachers out there have had a good school year and will have a wonderful and well-deserved summer. Enjoy!
You can download the .pdf for the card at the link below.
Free Downloadable Graduation Card