Sending Hugs and Prayers

Now that I have finished(!) all of our Christmas cards for this year, I can turn my attention to other cards. I recently learned that the brother of a friend of mine passed away, so I decided to make this card for her as a sympathy card. Our Daily Bread Designs is having a sketch challenge this week, which I used as inspiration for my design, so I'm also entering it in that.

I first die cut the bird with the coordinating "Chickadee" die (by ODBD) from white cardstock. I used my MISTI and quite a bit of fiddling to get the stamp lined up. (It's a rubber stamp, so not all that easy. It does come with registration points on the stamp, to help line it up with the die, but I cut them off so I could also use it without the die.) Finally, when I got my die cut in place, I stamped the "Chickadee" image, also by ODBD, using Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I then colored in the berries, branch, and a bit on the bird with colored pencils. (I used a photo I found online for color reference on the chickadee itself.) Then I set that aside.

Because of the space my bird & greeting were going to take up, I decided to rotate the background of the sketch 90 degrees, keeping the other elements oriented the same as in the sketch. I cut a piece of pale blue cardstock to 2x5", and matted that with a darker blue, leaving a 1/16" border on 3 sides. I also die cut the "prayers" from the "Prayers" stamp/die set by Simon Says Stamp & Hero Arts from white cardstock. I lined up the stamp with the die cut, again using my MISTI, and stamped it 3 times in Tuxedo Black, just to get a good dark impression. For my background, I chose one of the patterned papers from Authentique's "Seasons Essentials" 6x6" pad, and cut it to 4-1/8x5-3/8".

I glued a white doily to the right side of my background panel, and adhered the blue strip over that, lining it up with the right edge as well. After working out the placement, I glued down my chickadee, and then the greeting, overlapping the bird slightly with the "prayers." At this point, I realized I'd forgotten to glue down my ribbon piece, so I carefully peeled up the focal/greeting panel, and stuck a short piece of white satin ribbon underneath. I wrapped the other end around the background panel, and adhered it to the back. Finally, I stamped "Sending hugs and," also from the "Prayers" set, on the blue panel. I matted the whole piece with a pale blue cardstock, added 3 silver heart-shaped brads to the upper left corner, and mounted it to a white A2 card base.

I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday "Die Crazy"
Through the Craft Room Door "Anything Goes"