Graduation cards

Many of students are graduating on Wednesday, so I wanted to make them cards.  Conveniently, in my Michael's aisle wanderings the other day, I found a stamp of a Mason jar - oooooooo!!!  

Here's the process of making cards and trying to figure out how to paint lightening bugs (which may have been a dumb idea, because they don't exist here).

[the beginning of mass production - or I LOVE this stamp and want to make as many cards as possible]

[trying to perfect how I want to paint the lightening bugs]

[Quotes from "Oh! The Places You'll Go!"]

[I also got a Micron brush-tipped pen, so it was a fun excuse to use it on the envelopes]

Feliz cumpleanos a mi

Today was my 26th birthday.  It's hard to believe! And as friends were busy, I watched one of my all-time favorite movies, Jane Austen's Persuasion (thanks Gilchrist's for the bday DVD!), and practiced my calligraphy re-writing one of the most epic and beautiful fake letters ever written - Captain Wentworth's letter to Miss Anne Eliot at the end of the novel.  I didn't have a pen or brush I actually liked, but ended up using my old sumi ink (for Japanese/Chinese calligraphy painting) and brushes.  It kind of worked, but was very exhausting for my hand to control...you guys have any other ideas?  I want to write fairly big...maybe just paint?