CFC #95 - No Stamps

Yep, you read right, NO STAMPS on your project for the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge this week! What a great opportunity to use some of the pre-made embellies you may have, stickers, die cuts, patterned paper, embossing, etc.  This week's sponsor is SRM stickers, who generously provided the design team with a sample of stickers to use for this challenge.

Here's a Happy Graduation set with a money holder card and a pillow box filled with candy. The nice thing about this set is the opportunity to customize it for the graduate. For High School graduates you can either use their high school colors, or college colors if you know where they're going. The orange and blue is in honor of University of Illinois (Go Illini ... good luck in the tournament today!!) I used orange Reese's Pieces to fill the SRM pillow box. Do you know M&Ms sells packets of green M&Ms (mint) and red M&Ms (raspberry)? I found them at the grocery story yesterday. Custom colors without having to pick through a mix of candy!

Using acetate for the card front (actually packaging from a Cricut cartridge) lets you take advantage of the clear SRM stickers. I thought it would be fun to dress up George and get him in the graduation party mood by putting the graduation cap sticker on the acetate. The sentiment is on the front too. Now, please don't think I'm the cheapest gift-giver around. But the scale of President heads on the $1 bill are better than the ones on the "new" currency. When it's time to actually use this, I'll get an old $20 or $50 from the bank.

 
See? Not the best.

 Here's a side view.

The pillow box is decorated with a Memory Box Beautiful Bows die cut. SRM stickers on the bow, and on the ribbon ends. "Graduation" wouldn't fit on the right side of the bow, so I just cut off  "uation" and then added the exclamation back. The clear stickers also work out well as a border for the top of the box.

This would be great when you want to give something a little extra along with your typical card and money. You can coordinate it with the envelope.

Here's another version with red school colors. These are "sour cherries" I found for less than a dollar, and still had most of the package left over.

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope to see you in the gallery! Check out the other design team inspiration there too : )
-Kelly

PS. A clue on the wooden molds that I'm using for card stands ...

Upon closer inspection, I found an inscription on one of them. Here it is:

I tried playing with the brightness and contrast to make it more readable, but my guess is that it says "??? Spray Equipment Co." and then perhaps that's a town on the next line? From Ohio or Oklahoma with that big "O" at the end? Or maybe it's a name. 

Eureka!!! I just googled "spray equipment company ohio" and guess what popped up?

 Plummer Spray Equipment Co Napoleon, OH

That's exactly what it says!! Looks like the company was established in 1912. They don't have a web site, but maybe I'll give them a call one day. Still have no idea what it was used for, but happy another piece to the puzzle is found.