Blogging Hiatus and Sympathy Cards

In returning to my blog, it seems that I have been on a blogging hiatus for a little while. Believe me, it is not because I was away on holiday! I have been busy crafting and preparing projects for a new stamping group and just haven't been able to keep up with the picture taking, photo editing, and blogging for each project I have created. I don't know how some of these other bloggers do it–they must never sleep!

The next little while will be dedicated to the blogging of those projects but first I must post two sympathy cards that were necessary to create over this time period as well.

Both cards involve feathers because somehow, my mind associates sympathy cards with feathers. In both cases, the feathers used were from the Feather Finery stamp set from Papertrey Ink.

For the first card, I stamped the largest feather from the set using Early Espresso ink on Early Espresso card stock and then die cut the feather using the coordinating die. The feather images in this set are ethereal in nature (probably why I chose them for sympathy cards) and stamp beautifully. The coordinating dies make sure that these images can be cut out for even more versatility. The sentiments in the set are also lovely!

On an Island Indigo matte I stamped the sentiment from the now retired Love & Sympathy stamp set in Versamark and heat embossed with White Stampin' Emboss Powder.

The matte was adhered to the Thick Whisper White card front and then the feather was adhered using Dimensionals. A small feather was stamped inside the card in Early Espresso.

A few Rain Stones were added to the card front to complete the card.

For my second sympathy card, I chose to use the Feather Finery set again but in a slightly different way. I knew that I wanted to use a vellum overlay but didn't know what I wanted to put behind it. Luckily, the Serene Scenery DSP came to mind.

I chose a piece of the DSP which had a kind of beach scene on it and cut it to completely cover my 4.25 x 5.5" card front. I cut a piece of vellum to the same size.

Prior to embossing a small feather on the bottom of the vellum I tore a strip off the bottom to allow me to stamp a sentiment on the DSP as well as to add a little textural interest. I used the now retired An Open Heart stamp set and stamped with Crumb Cake on the bottom right of the DSP.

Versamark was used to stamp the feather on the bottom of the vellum and then it was heat embossed using Pearlustre Pearl White embossing powder from Stampendous. I chose to use this rather than Stampin' Up's White embossing powder because I wanted a warm tone to the embossing. Unfortunately, the embossing doesn't show well in any of my photos :(

Next, I used liquid adhesive to run a line of glue near the top of the DSP and adhered the vellum to it. I then wrapped a piece of the Pool Party Stitched Ribbon around the vellum and DSP to hide the glue line. I also wrapped two pieces of Linen Thread over the ribbon and knotted them. These mattes were then adhered to a Sahara Sand card front using Fast Fuse.

For the inside of the card, I chose to use a leftover strip of the DSP down the side of the card. I stamped another sentiment using Crumb Cake and then used Sahara Sand to stamp the same small feather inside the card. In addition, I stamped a feather in Pool Party on the envelope.

In retrospect, I wish I had stamped the feather on the vellum using White Stazon rather than embossing it because the detail of the feather was lost when the embossing powder melted.

For the most part, I am pleased with how both cards turned out but I hope that I don't need anymore sympathy cards for awhile.

Sympathy Card Using Zig Markers

More and more, it seems, I am in need of sympathy cards. I don't keep a surplus of them because I prefer to personalize the card for the recipient.

This time, the passing was of a former stamper in our stamp group and the mother of one of our stampers. She had been ill for some time and she hadn't attended a stamping class in at least a year. She was a special, one-of-a-kind lady and will definitely be missed.

The card I designed uses images from the Open Heart Stamp Set.

The stamping of this card gave me some difficulty! Because I wanted the leaves to appear to be behind the bird, it was necessary to mask the bird after stamping it with Basic Black Archival ink on Watercolor paper.

I didn't want to have to fussy cut so instead I chose to use my Molotow 2mm Masking Pen. Unfortunately, it was dry and I had to use my 4mm one. I colored in the area of the bird that needed to be masked and then waited for it to dry. I then stamped the leaves.

It was when I tried to remove the masking that it was apparent that I hadn't fully dried the masking fluid and it ripped off part of my bird!

So I re-stamped the bird on another piece of Watercolor paper. This time I decided to use Miskit Masking Fluid. I had it in a bottle with a fine precision tip but I still had trouble applying it to the area I needed to mask. After applying I again waited for it to dry and then stamped my leaves again.

Disappointment again as my bird ripped when I tried to remove the masking. :(

Now my only option left was to fussy cut a mask. I re-stamped the bird on Watercolor paper and then on ordinary copy paper. I fussy cut the bird on the copy paper, just cutting enough for where the masking needed to be. I then used my Scotch Restickable Glue Stick to apply to the back of the bird. After allowing it to dry for about 30 seconds, I stuck it over my bird on the Watercolor paper and stamped the leaves.

Then came the critical moment–removing the mask. It was no problem this time! This is the first time that masking has worked well for me in getting my image stamped the way I need it to be!

I used my heat tool to zap the stamps to make sure they were completely dry and then proceeded to color the images with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. When I was finished coloring, I stamped the sentiment.

Next, I knotted a piece of Ruffled Pool Party ribbon around the right side of the colored panel and then adhered the panel to the Pool Party card base using Dimensionals.

I'm hoping I won't need any more sympathy cards for awhile.

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