A Pair of Sympathy Cards

I needed two sympathy cards - one feminine and one masculine. I used this week's Color Throwdown #162 colors (Pool Party, Barely Banana, Creamy Caramel and Early Espresso) for my palette and made both cards using My Mind's Eye's Stella and Rose - Hattie collection.

The Tulip stamp on the first card is from The Angel Company and the Many Tears (SD021) sentiment on the second card is from Stamp Camp - this is one of my all time favorite sympathy sentiments (you can click on the photo to see it larger).

The layout I used for both cards is based on this month's Sketch for you to Try.

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Better late than never...

Sunday was our 24th wedding anniversary and this is the card I made for Tim. Unfortunately, Saturday morning I discovered that my hard drive on my computer had crashed, so I was pretty preoccupied with that all weekend and didn't get to post this on Sunday when I wanted to.

This underwater scene is a single stamp from Sarasota Stamps that I colored with Copic markers while it was still in the Curved Rectangles die, to get the white border. I added some sparkle to most of the elements in the scene using Spica pens. The turquoise card stock was folded in half and cut using the largest Curved Rectangles die to create the card base.

For the inside of the card, I used the smaller curved rectangles dies to cut the sentiment panel and its mat. The mat paper was made using a background stamp from Stamp Camp and the sentiment is from Coronado Island Stamps.

Not a lot to it, but he liked it and the sentiment is perfect - after all these years, he's still the one I want for me! Happy Anniversary, honey! Love you!

Thanks for looking!

For You

I made this card a while back to showcase this gorgeous Italian paper that I received from Krafty Kat friend, Barb. I'd link you to Barb's gallery or blog so you can see her wonderful creations, but she doesn't have either....Come on, Barb, you should share your talent! ;-)

Anyway, I just loved this paper, especially the beautiful bird, so I cut out this portion of it using my Labels One Nestabilities. Then I created each of the mat layers using the next larger sizes.

The only stamping on this card is the sentiment, which I stamped with Versamark and embossed with detail gold embossing powder.

I wrapped some ribbon around the black card base, adhered all my label layers on top, tied a big bow and it's done! Not much to it, but I think it turned out nicely.

You can also see that I put a little strip of the Italian paper on the inside to tie it all together. This is one of those cards that I will have a difficult time parting with, although I did just find some more of this beautiful paper, so maybe I'll make a few more like it.

Hope you're having a good week. I've got a sick spouse - he started coming down with a bad cold on Sunday and spent most of yesterday in bed. Poor baby had to go to work for a meeting this morning, but will probably be back in bed as soon after as possible. I'm doing what I can to take care of him, but stay away from him at the same time! I cannot afford to get sick now...

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Card Details:
Paper: Rossi Florentine Print - Phoenix; red handmade paper, gold and vanilla card stock
Stamp: Stamp Camp
Ink: Versamark
Misc.: Ribbon - Offray; gold detail embossing powder, Spellbinders Label One Nestabilities

Happy Anniversary

Several months ago, a friend asked me to make a card that she could buy to give to a couple she knows for their 25th wedding anniversary at the end of January. Did I jump right on it? Of course not! So here it is January and amidst all the other cards I'm obligated to make right now, I also had to come up with a special anniversary card for her. One of these days I'm going to learn to stop procrastinating....

So, here it is. I struggled with this one and ended up having to re-do almost all of it, but overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. The heart image is one I bought from Stamp Camp at last year's Heirloom Pro show, and since it's almost time for this year's show, I figured that stamp ought to see some ink. I stamped it with the new Versamark Dazzle ink, then heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. The happy anniversary stamp is from Cornish Heritage Farms' Script Essential Expressions set. After I cut the heart out (oooh, that sounds bad...), I decided it needed a black border, so I stamped the image again on black paper and cut it out, leaving about 1/8th of an inch all around to create the mat layer.

I embossed part of the silver paper with my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and then scored several lines across the middle, 1/8th inch apart. I used my ticket corner punch for all four corners and added some black Heidi Swapp bling in the corners and through the middle.

Now my question - what do you think would be a fair price to charge for a card like this? I struggle with this as I will never be able to charge enough to actually make any money on my cards, but I don't want to just give them away either. So, let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by!

Card details:

Patterned paper: from my stash (no name on it)

Card stock: Papertrey Ink Silver Shimmer card stock; Cryogen White

Stamps: Stamp Camp; Cornish Heritage Farms

Ink: Versamark Dazzle

Misc.: Ribbon - Michael's or Hobby Lobby, not sure which; Silver embossing powder - JoAnn's; Bling - Heidi Swapp