Getting Crafty: my graduation cap

I didn't have any intentions of decorating my cap for graduation up until a week before when I drew inspiration from my dear friend, Sallie May. That sweet email sitting in my inbox reminding me that I had just entered by short six month grace period and had years of payments ahead of me. Thank you, education. I don't know where the fun tradition of decorating graduation caps came from, however I do love the entertaining spin that they provide on an otherwise long and boring ceremony. There were a handful of creative ones at my ceremony, some of which were completely covered in keys (heavy!), and others that looked like a piece of art created by Van Gogh himself!

 I used my beloved silhouette portrait to cut out the words "MY $75,000 DOLLAR HAT" onto a metallic card stock that shimmered. Unfortunately, it doesn't look very shimmery here. Obviously, this hat is very customizable and you can put whatever outrageous number that you spent on your education on it. Let me explain myself by saying that $75,000 was an estimate of my expenses over the past 5 years. It includes what I paid in cash for my tuition, any loans, books, etc. Thankfully, the loans I have yet to pay off are a little less that 1/4 of this number. PUT MONEY TOWARDS YOUR LOANS WHILE YOU'RE STILL IN SCHOOL, KIDS. If I were to include my cost of living expenses, the number would be a little lot higher. I didn't want to get too crazy.

I used a sticky note from a mortgage company that I found in my desk and rolled it up to resemble a diploma. Tied it with a ribbon and wrote my major on there... ya know, in case I forgot?

I wanted to glitz it out a little bit since it WAS my $75,000 hat, so I glued a few multicolored swarovski crystal rhinestones on to make it look a little more "expensive". There's only so much you can do to a cardboard hat.

VOILA! My $75,000 hat!