Temple is holding their big graduation ceremony this week (05/05/22, to be exact) which my peers and I were invited to attend as recent graduates. As far as I know, none of us are going, but I figured I’d use this inspiration and reminder to revisit something I did for our small commencement: the decorating of caps.
I graduated from the University of the Arts on May 19, 2011 with my BFA in Graphic Design. Interestingly, it was the same day my mom graduated from Camden County College with her associates in Accounting, only ten years later. During the ceremony, I looked around and noticed a lot of my peers had decorated their caps. I did not. I felt kind of odd possibly “ruining” a piece of my wardrobe I will 100% never wear again. So at home, in a Ziplock, I have my plain black cap and tassel, just existing and taking up space. My mom also did not decorate her cap for her ceremony, nor was it something she kept, so it’s not like I was urged to do such a thing, nor did I have direct inspiration. In fact, I don’t remember anyone in my family having their caps decorated for their ceremonies.
This time around for my graduation from Temple with my MS in Strategic Advertising and Marketing, I decided what the hell? I’m never going to wear this cap again, and who only knows where it’s going to end up (I’m hoping a shadow box—I’m getting there)?
My good gal pal, Jojo, also from STAM, asked me if I would decorate her cap for her and she’d pay me. I told her absolutely, and we’d talk about what she wanted.
A couple weeks before graduation, I remembered I was supposed to decorate her cap and at this point, I wanted mine done, too. I texted her in a slight panic and that night we both decided what we wanted by sending pictures of inspo back and forth from what we gathered on good ol’ Google.
$100 worth of supplies and a whole Saturday and part of a Sunday later, Jojo and I had our custom caps.
I made sure to measure the caps and lay out everything in Illustrator first, sending screen shots for approval to Jojo every so often.
For hers, I used white, gold, and red heat transfer vinyl, I glued a fake rose and gems (originally going to be half pearl pieces, but they didn’t have the look I thought it would have and I didn’t have enough sizes) procured from Hobby Lobby.
My cap was slightly more involved when it came to the vinyl, as I had to use my Illustrator Pathfinder tool to separate the flame colors and apply them properly so it matched what I laid out. While not a difficult challenge, I found myself being interrupted/distracted often, so it took longer to layer the pieces since I kept realizing part of one flame was mistakenly overlapping the other. Of course, these were all pre-layered to make sure I got the order correct. I used metallic yellow, red, and orange heat transfer vinyl for the “HOTTER” and the flames and white for the rest of the copy.
The vinyl was cut using the Cricut Maker 3 my fiancé got us (me) for Christmas and various brands of the heat transfer vinyl. I carefully used backer as an ironing sheet (remembering fondly how we used to press tees at the shirt shop where I once worked), and learned by trial what setting would work best for the iron, trying not to melt the fabric. I had recurring flashbacks of the time I tried to iron my tennis uniform so it would be nicely pleated without wrinkles and melted a part of the skirt. I panicked so much, I went as far as looking up the skirts online to try and buy one prior to having to return the uniform the next day. Realizing I wouldn’t get a skirt in time, I wrote a note to my coach, stuffed it into the skirt, and shoved the bag of clothing items at him before homeroom and ran away. I got called to his classroom via student courier (It was just a kid from his first period class he sent to my class with a hall pass to summon me to his room) and he told me it wasn’t a huge deal, it was a mistake, and now I know I can’t iron nylon or rayon, or whatever those things were made of.
Anywhoo, I was sweating bullets putting together Jojo’s hat because we had little time for mistakes. The biggest issue I ran into was surprisingly not the ironing part, but rather the gluing part. The fabric glue I used was fine, but I was either applying not enough or too much, causing it to squish out the sides. Trying to clean it up became a disaster. I had to convince myself to let it go, no one will notice. Jojo might not notice either. The whole Saturday evening I was like, “leave it, leave it, leave it, MICHELLE LEAVE IT.”
My cap was a whole PIA with the ironing. If I didn’t iron/press/heat the vinyl enough, it lifted If I ironed too much, the color started separating from the metallic/rubbing off the cap. It was my cap, so I didn’t mind so much, I was just happy to finish.
As you can see, for Jojo’s cap, we ended up using two roses to balance it a little better and broke up the bottom “STAM 2021” part to go in the bottom corner of the cap. I also show the pearl pieces I wanted to use, but besides the lack of different sizes (not enough between the largest to smallest and beyond), the gems worked out well and actually added a more appropriate elegance to the composition. I also added whimsical lines created by the smaller gems to sort of fill it in a bit more.
Mine turned out exactly as designed. LOL
We got plenty of comments on our caps, so mission accomplished, I’d say!
Congrats Class of 2021 (?) & 2022!