Sunday, July 21, 2013

Words of Comfort

Last weekend, one of my crop sisters had to lay her mother to rest.  Even when it's expected and necessary to ease suffering (as it was in this case), it's still devastating to those left behind.

I went to my stash to get a card to send her to let her know I was thinking about her.  (Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to the visitation.)  Several years ago, the group of girls I started scrapbooking with, created a card swap dinner.  We'd get together on a regular basis and pick different themes for each swap.  I just hoarded the cards, so I was certain I had something perfect in my stash to send to her.  (We haven't done this in a while and I REALLY miss it!)


I mean, look at all those cards!  Every one of them is handmade with love and - nothing.  Not a single condolence card in the bunch - not even a "Thinking of you".  What's a girl to do??  Make one!   So I went into my other stash and pulled out all my stamps!  Luckily, I'm a card maker and I have dozens of sentiments.

Here's what an uninterrupted hour of baby-free time looks like:


I just love how this card turned out!!  

These days, whenever I'm making a card, the first thing I do is pull out our Make It From Your Heart how-to program. It's a 40-ish page booklet CHOCK FULL of patterns - complete with cutting instructions!  From a design aspect, I love having pre-determined patterns when I'm crunched for time.  It really helps me make the most of my creative time.  And I love that it's small enough to slide into my bag when it's time to get together with my girls and crop!

I used the B&T papers from our retired Moonlight paper pack.  It's Halloween-themed, but I think the muted Slate and Smokey Plum colors were just perfect for this card.  I wanted to keep the card simple so I pulled a few techniques out of my bag of tricks.

One of my all-time favorite stamps is Treasure Life.  It's a long-retired stamp set, but between the floral images and the sentiments, it is one of the most useful stamps that I own.  I used it to stamp the background image on the card.  For the stamped background image, I used Second-Generation Stamping.  If you've never done it before, Second-Generation Stamping is where you load up your stamp with ink - get it good and juicy - and you stamp the image on the paper.  Then, you reposition it and stamp it again on a different spot.  This gives you a lighter stamped image and I think it also adds some interesting dimension to the card.  (You can see above, it looks like there are floral stalks behind the darker stamped image.)  I also embossed the three floral stalks in the front.  For the sentiment on the front of the card, I used our Words of Comfort stamp set, which I corner-rounded on opposite corners.  Before I embellished the card, I edged the two B&T pieces and the sentiment with Slate ink and edged the two Smokey Plum cardstock pieces with Smokey Plum ink.  Then I finished off the card by embellishing it with our retired Colonial White Grosgrain Ribbon, Licorice Opaques and a Filigree Charm.  I used Liquid Glass to glue the Opaque and the Charm to the Ribbon and then the Ribbon to the card.  My regular ATG usually doesn't fail me, but I wanted to make sure it all stuck well.  The only thing about Liquid Glass is that you have to let it dry for a long time before touching or moving it.  I usually let my projects set for 24 hours to be on the safe side. 

I hope you like the card as much as I do. 

9 comments:

  1. Beautiful card and sentiment. Thank you for joining us at Aud Sentiments challenge good luck Ginny ♥

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  2. Beautiful card! Your layers are just perfectly aligned and your use of a Halloween paper for a sympathy card! Wow! Very elegant.

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  3. Thank you, Ginny! It's my first time joining you at Aud Sentiments!
    Thank you, Melinda! I was trying for elegant. I'm so glad it turned out the way I wanted to and I didn't have to scrap it!

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  4. This is a beautiful card. I love how you stamped off and created the soft and subtle background. Beautiful colors and beautiful sentiment. Thank you for joining us this week at Aud Sentiments "Sympathy or Thinking of You" challenge!
    Hugs,
    Jo-DT
    ♥ Jo's Scrap Shack ♥

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    1. Thank you, Jo. I'm so glad you all have opened your challenge for us all to participate

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  5. Your card is lovely and I am sure your friend appreciates it. Thanks for joining us at Aud Sentiments
    Hugs,
    Julie T

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    1. Thank you, Julie. I'm planning on checking back often to participate in your future challenges.

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  6. This is lovely..Thank you for sharing with us at Aud Sentiments..And good luck.

    Caz x

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  7. Gorgeous card. The colours are perfect.
    Thanks for joining in at Aud Sentiments
    xxx

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