Two More Sympathy Cards

As I posted yesterday, some friends of ours recently lost a family member. So, sadly, sympathy cards were in order for them. These are the other two I made.

I found the inspiration for my first card through Pinterest. I thought the butterfly and flourish stamp were perfect, and loved the embossing around the border.

I die cut the butterfly from white cardstock using a My Favorite Things die, and inked it with Dusty Concord Distress ink. I blended that same ink on white cardstock for the mat for the focal point panel and the card front.

I struggled most with the stamping for this card. I just couldn't seem to get the flourish to look right. Finally, I inked up half the stamp with Memento Bamboo Leaves dye ink and stamped it at an angle in the lower left corner. Then I wiped the ink off, inked up the other half, and stamped it at a slightly different angle in the upper right. Finally, I covered the "seam" with the butterfly die cut, adding 3 pearls from The Paper Studio to the butterfly's body.

For the greeting, I used one from this free digital stamp set from Doodle Pantry, which I printed directly on the focal point panel. I used Eggplant alcohol ink to color 6 silver brads, then positioned three in the upper left corner, and the rest in the lower right.

For the embossed detail around the outer edges, since I didn't have an appropriate embossing folder, I actually did die cutting. I used the border die from this Spellbinders die set to cut from white cardstock. I mitered the ends of each strip, then glued them down to another piece of white cardstock on which I had mounted the focal panel. Finally, I mounted that to the inked card base.

The inspiration for this second card also came via Pinterest. The original posting is on Etsy at PineappleSoupDesign's store. Amazingly, I apparently have this same Spellbinders die set, so I did use that for the focal greeting panel on my card as well. Other than that and keeping pretty close to the composition, I basically went my own way with it.

I die cut the greeting panel from light beige cardstock, and printed a greeting from the same Doodle Pantry digital stamp set I used in the first card. I die cut the next-larger label out of navy cardstock, and matted the greeting onto that.

For the background panel, I embossed more of that beige cardstock with this embossing folder by Anna Griffin. I also used the "Doily" 2-way punch by We R Memory Keepers for the bottom edge. I did have some difficulty with this part of the process. The first time, I dry-embossed the cardstock after spraying it lightly with water. Because I'd cut the cardstock to the final size I wanted first, it ended up being too small, since the process of embossing shrank it somewhat. So I embossed another piece, cut larger than I needed, and then tried punching the edge. To say the least, it didn't work! So I ended up cutting yet another piece of cardstock, punched the edge first, dampened the piece to get a better impression, and then embossed above the punched edge. Success! Finally I mounted that panel onto another piece cut from the navy cardstock, leaving an 1/8" border all around. I also added a strip of navy under the greeting panel, and adhered 3 clear acrylic gems I'd colored with Sailboat Blue alcohol ink around the greeting.

I tried this panel against a white cardbase, but didn't like the starkness of the navy against the white. It also didn't seem to go with the beige cardstock too well. So I cut a piece of beige cardstock to mat the panel with, but it still didn't look right. Finally, I inked the beige mat with Antique Linen Distress ink, just to try & give it a little more depth. It ended up looking like light brown parchment paper! So I matted the main panel onto it, and adhered that to a white card base.