Sympathy Card

Hello!  A friend asked me to make a sympathy card, and this is the result.  The main panel is sponged with Distress Inks (Scattered Straw,Victorian Velvet, Seedless Preserves, Chipped Sapphire and a tiny bit of Black Soot) on very smooth cream cardstock.  Next, I misted a pretty damask background stamp (Hero Arts) with with water and "stamped" it on the distress ink.  It gives a very pretty, subtle effect, and the more ink you have applied, the more striking the effect is.  I heat set the panel before embossing, and stamped the flower (Penny Black) in black pigment ink and embossed it in black.  Where possible, I like to use the same colour of ink to stamp as emboss in case there are any gaps in the embossing powder.  Of course with semi-opaque and translucent powders you can use other colours for interesting effects too...but that will be a project for another day!  I added a few impressions of the same flower in Chipped Sapphire as well as a border stamp (Stampers Anonymous - Tim Holtz) on the bottom in Wild Honey.  The card base is Naturals Ivory (Stampin' Up) and the accent strips are two shades of purple (an eggplant, and Stampin' Up's Rich Razzleberry).  The eggplant strip has the same damask print stamp used with Hero Arts shadow ink in Raspberry Jam.  I like these inks for stamping on dark cardstock because they are semi-opaque, like chalk inks, and you see the colour interactions.  A pinkish dye ink would get lost on the dark purple, but the Shadow inks sit on top and add a luminosity to the paper that appeals to me.  To finish it off, I added three dots of Adirondack Liquid Pearls in Eggplant.  They went disastrously wrong so the whole effort had to be peeled off the card base and applied to a new card base and more care and attention applied to the squeezing and placing of the dots.

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Sympathy Card

Sadly, from time to time a sympathy card is needed. I made this one this afternoon, using bits and pieces from my stash of Japanese paper and embellishments.  The card base is kraft, stamped with a sprig (Memory Box) in Soft Sand (Hero Arts Shadow Ink) and Brushed Corduroy (Distress ink). The sympathy sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farms.

On a different note, I'd like to say a big thank you to the ladies who came out to my class at Heather's yesterday.  I had a great time and it was a lot of fun to see all your projects - beautiful work!

Sympathy Card Revised

My bold move paid off! I like this revised version better than the original here. A minor tweak, but one of the big things we learned in the Intermediate Copic class on the weekend was how to give yourself constructive criticism. Basically, you pretend (a) it's not your card and (b) the person who made it is immune to criticism, in fact revels in it, begs for it, and always wants more. (A and B are usually mutually exclusive, so this is a hard lesson to learn.) My first round of constructive help was to gussy up the card, since I just had the seniment panel and gold bits. No leaves or frame. It just needed a little something else. This is for the church bazaar so I wanted to keep it easy to mail, so that ruled out adding a raspberry bough or similar embellishment (as if! ha!) and of course I couldn't add ribbon to a card to save my life. So fussy little vellum leaves remained an option. Not too bad. The only problem with being your own critic is you don't have all those great ideas for fixing things that other people do. The up side is you're never so mean you can't take it.

Botanical Sympathy Card

Hello!

I stole a bit of stamping time tonight after a long day and it was nice, very nice. I tried out some Fred B. Mullett stamps to make a sympathy card. They are a great background, and conveyed the sort of restful background I was looking for. I used two stamps, Wild Raspberry (the one with multiple leaves) and Lil Salal Leaf, using an old Adirondack multicolour inkpad (Winter Sky). The colours seem to have mostly run together in it, but it does date back to my early days of stamping, so I don't really mind. The colours are still beautiful and a little varied so it doesn't look like just one colour. I embossed the Lil Salal leaf a couple of times on vellum for an accent using Peridot embossing powder. This was the same e.p. I used for the sentiment (by Quietfire Designs). I sponged around the edges with Weathered Wood and Pine Needles. I felt it needed more, so I added a frame and the strip of metallic paper. I have just now ripped off more of the gold paper so it will fit in the frame (do I live on the edge or what!) and it does look better, though I will have to join the frame lines, which will be a risky manoeuvre at best. Wish me luck! (If you hear an anguished groan, you'll know it didn't work.)

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Sympathy cards

Hi! A friend of mine unfortunately needed some sympathy cards made, so that's what I've been stamping the last couple of days, even though I was going to try for a more upbeat post after the last one :-)

These were fun cards to make - I really like that set but it doesn't get pulled out that often. It's so pretty though, and I will make an effort to use it more often. It seemed to go with the hues in the Periphery paper pack, so I used a few sheets of that for these cards. For the berry card, I accented the berries with my aquapainter and added a cuttlebugged panel behind. (This was the third or fourth piece I tried. This layout wasn't very cooperative.) The Soft Sky panel is stamped with a Sunshine Designs berry-and-leaf stamp, but is very subtle. DH doesn't like the vertical word positioning, but I do, so too bad, so sad! It just goes better with the layout. On the inside is a good, old-fashioned horizontal sentiment. I love the velvet ribbon on here - it suits. I think it's only the second time I've used the velvet ribbon (tsk tsk).

The twiggy card needed to be flatter to go in the mail, so no embellies here, just lots of texture from stamps and paper. I added some framing lines with my choc chip marker (deliberately crooked, since there was no vertical message to annoy DH - hehehe).

Tonight's stamping therapy will be one more sympathy card for her and hopefully a chance to play with some borrowed stamps from Heather's to work up a class sample. I got some Versamark dazzle too to play with and some fantasy film. Now that will be a cheerier card! Anything called "dazzle" and "fantasy film" must be cheery! We have a great Family Fun Friday planned for tomorrow - over to friends' for pizza and skating in their backyard. Can't wait!

My demo group had a shoebox swap this week, and was that ever fun. It was Sale-a-bration sets (coming 1 Feb!!!) and new sets from the Spring/Summer IBC. It was a blast and so good to see old friends. I hope to post some of the things I made that night, but I will have to finish them first. I'm really bad for not finishing make-and-takes because I want to add something from home, or fix something, or leave the cutting, etc. This wouldn't be so bad except I am really bad at finishing them once I get home. They tend to never get finished... This time will be different

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Supplies: Stamps: So Lovely (SU), berry-leaf (Sunshine Designs), with sympathy (Anna Griffin); Ink: Basic Brown, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Always Artichoke; Paper: mellow moss, blue bayou, soft sky, Periphery (BasicGrey); Other: River Rock velvet (SU ribbon originals), oval punch (SU), choc chip marker, espresso acrylic paint, cuttlebug embossing folder

Agapanthus sympathy card

I needed a sympathy card, and this agapanthus panel seemed like a good choice. Its soft, muted colours suited the tone. I had done it up for something else, but it didn't suit that application so it has been waiting on my desk to be used. I really like this image - it's fresh and modern, but is still quite botanical. I also like the positive and negative images built into the same stamp.

I inked the agapanthus stamp (Stampendous) with a pale blue chalk ink and stamped on dove grey paper that has a shimmery fleck in it. I stamped the image again in brown pigment ink and embossed it with Espresso embossing powder. The edges of the panel are inked with that same pale blue. It was either Aspen Mist (Versamagic chalk ink) or Ice Blue (Colorbox) - I don't remember which. I added a border with a grey Tombow marker (N79) to frame the image. The panel is mounted on Close to Cocoa (Stampin' Up), finished off with a knot of Periphery ribbon (BasicGrey) and pewter brads. The whole thing is mounted on a very pale blue Memory Box duplex card. There is a sympathy sentiment inside (Heather's Stamping Haven).

Thanks for looking!