Prayers and Sympathy

I've been needing an unusual number of sympathy cards the past few months. Recently, the mother of some friends of our passed away after a long illness, so I made 2 cards to send to them (one to each of her children).

I took the inspiration for my first card from this one that Laura Bassen did. I especially liked the stamped plaid background that she did. I used some of the stamps from Simon Says Stamp's "Jumbo Stripes" set to create my background. I wanted it to be kind of subdued, so I used Hero Arts inks in Soft Granite, Cornflower, Soft Leaf, & Soft Lilac; and Memento Sweet Plum and Paris Dusk for a bit of contrast. Once I'd finished stamping, I blended Stormy Sky Distress ink around the edges, just to soften things a bit.

Laura had stamped the first & second parts of her greeting directly on her background. I thought mine was a bit too dark & busy for that, so I decided to add some vellum. I die cut the "prayers," from the Hero Arts/Simon Says Stamp "Prayers" set, from white cardstock, and stamped the coordinating stamp on that in Versafine Onyx Black ink. Then I positioned that on a strip of vellum I'd cut, using the die cut to determine placement of my other stamps. I used my MISTI to stamp the rest of the greeting on the vellum, in Staz-On Jet Black ink. Finally, I adhered the "prayers" to the vellum, placed tiny drops of glue to the back of the vellum, hiding them behind the die cut word, and adhered it to my background panel. I wrapped the ends of the vellum around the panel, and added tape runner to adhere them to the back side for even more stability. I created a mat by inking the 2 long edges of a piece of white cardstock with Paris Dusk, and adhered my main panel to that. Finally, I mounted the card front to a white A2 card base.

This CAS card that I found on Pinterest inspired my second creation. I've had the Cuttlebug "Birds & Swirls" embossing folder for a long time now, and I don't think I've used it that much. But I recognized it from the inspiration card, and decided to go ahead and use it. First, I had to foil the greeting, from Doodle Pantry (discontinued). I printed it on printer paper, and then took it to a copy center to make a toner-based copy. I used Heidi Swapp's Silver foil, and, after I cut the panel to size, ran it through my Minc Mini machine. That fused the foil to the printed greeting. Once that had cooled, I inserted the panel into the embossing folder, so the design stopped right above the greeting, and ran that through my die cutting machine. To finish it off, I scored a line at the bottom of the embossing, just so the pattern didn't look like it stopped in mid-air.

I inked 2 sides of a piece of white cardstock with Tsukineko Brilliance Starlite Silver pigment ink. After heat setting it, I adhered my main panel to that, then mounted the finished card front to a white A2 card base. Hopefully these cards will bring some measure of comfort to our friends.