sympathy – ConstantlyCreating.Me

Petal Pink Laser-Cut Paper (OCC 2019) and Upcycled Peach Rose Sympathy Card

While it seems like all I am making right now, when I have time to get into my craft room, is wedding, baby, bee, and lemon cards (for the gift shop and a custom order), I’ve been needing to do up another sympathy card as well. I rarely have a chance to make anything for my friends and family besides birthday and sympathy, to be honest, and those never stop coming. And although it was in the back of my mind to make a sympathy sooner rather than later, this card sort of fell together by accident.

The gorgeous sage green/peach/vanilla/white matted rose piece was in the last RAK I received from a crafty friend. I think it is a piece that came from a mass-produced card and was upcycled, because the leaves are even made of gold embossed foil. It really is beautiful. I had laid it aside because the mat was coming up and looked a tad larger on one side. One night I fixed it and absentmindedly put adhesive on the back before I realized I hadn’t prepared anything for it to go on…so I kept shuffling it around my desk for a few days, upside down so it wouldn’t stick to things. 🙂

I was actually searching for papers for another wedding card when I spotted my new pack of Petal Pink and white Beautifully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper” (148812, $14) that is in the new 2019 Occasions catalog (orderable as of January 3)–and it matched perfectly with the rose piece I had just moved…again. (The specialty paper pack includes eight sheets, four each of two design types. One type is a full 12×12 sheet that looks like filigree swirls, and the other type is full of elegant sections that can be cut into card fronts, borders, or accents.)

Once I confirmed that the pieces matched, I carefully cut away one of the card front pieces that looked the best when I placed the rose on top of them to test them (on top of the plastic bag holding the specialty paper, since I already had adhesive in my way). Then I found a piece of Thick Very Vanilla cardstock, cut it in half, and scored both, using one as my card base. And then I laid more adhesive on the back of the rose piece, just in case, before adhering it first to the laser-cut paper and then to the card base. The laser-cut paper I chose has a large opening in the middle, which the edges of the green mat just barely covered on the sides, so the adhesive went right through to the base.

I almost left the borders of the specialty paper free without gluing them, but I was afraid they would get creased since they’re so delicate, even though they’re a good weight. So I did take a bit of my Art Glitter fine-tip glue to tack down the corners in the thickest part and occasionally on the sides just to keep it from catching on something.

I kept the inside simple with a stamp from the retired Thoughts and Prayers stamp set from SU, and I used Grapefruit Grove ink because I thought the paper was the same color until I checked it tonight (oops!). I may go back and add one of the border pieces of the specialty paper on the bottom, but I haven’t decided how much room we will need for the handwritten message of the card.

Be sure and pick up a pack of this laser-cut specialty paper when the Occasions catalog goes live on January 3. There are so many options for creating with it, and it’s simply lovely. Here are other current items I used for this card:

I’m happy to help you order if you need a Stampin’ Up demonstrator. 🙂 You can use the code PNWVCZEU to order through my store (http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/default.aspx?dbwsdemoid=2202334) through January 5. (If it is after January 5, feel free to contact me for a new code!)

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Yes, Another Sympathy (a Decoupage One This Time)

A dry decoupage sympathy card using Stampin’ Up for everything but the main image (at last!).

The hits keep coming. Two more sympathies on my to-do list, along with a celebration theme for a blog hop. For these two, at least it’s a celebration of sorts, though sad now. Still, I feel muddled. My heart aches for them, so I went looking for something that spoke to me and seemed to reflect the people I’m thinking of. My “card toppers” bin bailed me out for the one I’m blogging about today. (The other, yet unmade, will focus on Stampin’ Up’s Graceful Glass vellum DSP and alcohol markers, so stay tuned for that.)

My mother used to say that I was “an accident waiting to happen.” She’d probably still say that, given the chance. That phrase came to me as I wrestled with this card. I began to feel like it was one accident after another. I love how it turned out in the end, but my goodness, the process! (This means there’s hope for me, right?) Another case of “when things don’t go well.” Please tell me you’d never know. 😉

One of my husband’s coworkers lost her dear husband last week, and it’s been such a sad thing. I wanted to make a beautiful card – part masculine in remembrance and part feminine for her – but had no idea where to start. Since I often clean or organize when I have a problem to mull over, that’s what I ended up doing, which led me to the main cross piece seen on the front of the card today.

Finding a brown card base to match the topper was easy; Stampin’ Up’s Baked Brown Sugar, a retired color, matched the foiled copper/silver/gold/burgundy/blue cross the best. I only have so many browns, and I usually use SU for my card bases since I like how the 80-lb weight cardstock stands. (I grab premade bases only if I start with the base first rather than the main image. It’s just easier to match it that way rather than working in reverse.)

During my cleaning spree, I was also looking at and putting away some new SU Designer Series Paper. So when I tried to find paper the cross could match, the blue piece was fresh in my mind and looked prettier than any other neutrals I put next to it. The blue paper is from the Tranquil Textures DSP pack in the current Annual Catalog from Stampin’ Up. It’s not a solid blue, but it it hard to tell that with the dry embossing I put on top of it to give the card some texture. I used the “Oxford” Cuttlebug folder for the textured design. I wanted something light and barely textured like Stampin’ Up’s Subtle embossing folder, but I don’t own that particular one yet.

Here’s where things got tricky. The card is a 5×7 because the cross is so tall. But because it’s narrow, there was a lot of “white space” around it. I don’t like white space (even if it’s blue). So I started to wonder what I could do or put next to the cross to take up the width. A sentiment would only be so big, as well as being awkward to work with around the 3D leaf layers toward the bottom, so I wasn’t sure that was the answer. I thought maybe I could make a decorative edge to the card front at the right instead. I could see it in my mind but wasn’t sure how to achieve it (story of my crafting life, btw). That seemed to be the best thing to try…but all my dies were too small to stretch across 7 inches. Nothing felt right. So that night I went to bed frustrated, having made only the card base and embossing the paper.

The next night I attempted to keep going on the card while I was on the phone. I should have known better. I spotted a long Spellbinders die on my die wall and got all excited because it would fit lengthwise. I didn’t think about the fact that ALL of the edges of the die does indeed cut…until I wrapped a card base around a Cuttlebug plate (so that I didn’t cut through the second layer), positioned the die, and wondered why an inch of the card base separated from itself after I ran it through the machine. (*insert facepalm here*) To my defense, I was still on the phone. LOL

So suddenly I had a card base with one side shorter than the other. That was not what was supposed to happen. Not to mention, the magnetic plate dinged up the middle of the card base, and the B plate left marks on the back side of the base, making it warped and weak. Sigh. Time to rethink. Maybe I needed to make a new card base.

I tried to process where to go next. The decorative edge thing hadn’t worked and I couldn’t think how to make it work other than an edge punch – if I made a new base. I’ve never tried the popsicle sticks I’ve heard about, to keep part of it from cutting, so I wasn’t sure how to do that either (again, on a new base). But I hated to destroy the one I’d just cut. What I did manage to do after thinking was flip the card base around (even though I’d folded it correctly after scoring the first time). That would give me a chance to add paper atop the marked-up part to hide it and also add some stability with the extra paper layers. I hoped. I also took my bone folder and tried to work out the middle bumps and crease it sharply.

Once the base was salvaged, I decided to play with the pieces and arrange them just to see what I could do. I ended up liking a little bit of breathing room between the die cut and the now-shorter edge of the card base, rather than placing the die cut right up against the piece it had just been cut from. And obviously if there’s a peekaboo die, something needed to peek through it underneath. I grabbed more blue DSP and left it as is on the inside of the card rather than embossing it for texture like the front.

I also realized that I needed to run the textured piece through the Cuttlebug again, as one side has trouble with a piece of paper I got stuck in the roller years ago. Part of the paper was hardly embossed, so I realigned it in the folder, flipped it around to the other side that impresses better, and ran it through again. Came out perfectly that time.

The trouble was that when I left that breathing room space between the die cut and the base, it was not centered once the card was opened. I didn’t like that. But it looked like I had enough room to add 1/8″ of ribbon or something else. I chose SU’s gold and white ribbon to match the cross and the browns and loved how it looked.

But then I couldn’t get it adhered. The ribbon is thin enough that the line of Art Glitter liquid glue I laid down soaked right into the ribbon. I wasn’t confident it wouldn’t end up slightly sticking to the inside of the card once it had been closed for a while. But as I told a friend last night, when a person has too much product in her house, she will find a way. I decided to use my Cosmo Cricket Glubers Adhesive Strips. I rarely use them, but sometimes they’re just the best option. They are 1/4″ strips, though, so I took my nonstick microscissors from CutterBee and cut right down one of the strips, eyeballing it to just under 1/8″. And then I placed it with my tweezers and stuck a new piece of ribbon to it. I was much happier with the inside then.

I decided not to stamp a sentiment on the inside yet. I needed to finish up and get to bed and I wanted to really look through my stamps to figure out what I wanted to say on the card. I will probably go back and add one later, but right now it’s blank.

I’ve spoken about dry decoupage in past blog posts. A reader had asked me to do a tutorial on how to do it, and I am working on that currently. I hope to post one soon. For now, here are a couple of closeups to be able to see the decoupage layers that make up the cross. I should have trimmed off the little perforation bumps more as I was making the topper, but it’s probably too late to fix it now.

The cross has several layers of dimension to it in the squares as well as the leaves, which made it interesting to put together. And the leaves are the top layer.

Thanks again for coming to visit my blog! I appreciate your readership!

Cream-and-Green Sympathy with Delightfully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper

Thank you for joining me once again on my blog! I have another sympathy card to share today, but I do have other themes coming up soon. I just couldn’t wait to use Stampin’ Up’s Delightfully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper, and it was one of the first things I ordered from the annual catalog. I kept this sympathy card simple partially because it was for a masculine friend and also because I didn’t want to cover up the beautiful paper.

The Delightfully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper from Stampin’ Up has eight sheets in the pack, four each of two designs. One design is a full 12×12 of gorgeous delicate flowers, and the other design has several borders and six card fronts that can easily be cut apart. Some of the latter are backgrounds, like the one I used here, and others are shaped pieces like circles or an oval or borders. As a bonus, the papers are vanilla on one side and white on the other–perfect for any color scheme! I’m looking forward to playing with the rest of the patterns as well.

I first took a cream card base and covered the front with some retired Mellow Moss cardstock from Stampin’ Up. I love vintage, muted colors like this in general, and they are appropriate for a lot of what I create, like sympathy cards.

Then I simply cut apart one of the card front sections of the laser-cut paper and adhered it to the Mellow Moss cardstock with touches of Tombow Multi Glue, displaying the vanilla side. I chose the vines background on purpose because it was my friend’s grandfather who had passed and vines and trees always remind me of genealogy, another favorite hobby of mine.

While wrestling with what I wanted to create for this card, I saw a filigree Spellbinders tree on my die wall and thought it just might do the trick and bring the theme together. Plus the size worked well.

Because both the paper and the tree are delicate-looking, I needed a divider between the two so the tree didn’t visually disappear. The square 3×3 piece I used was from a scrap pack I bought years ago, but it was perfect. It’s slightly textured as well, which just adds to the look. And the tree fits just right on top. It’s not quite the same color as the specialty paper, but I deliberately used both cream and white throughout the card so it wouldn’t look odd.

We all get into little habits with what and how we craft, and I’m just now remembering that I had intended to put brads vertically in the corners of my cream diagonal piece. That idea left once I saw how far the tree extended – but now I see that I could have put them horizontally instead. However, it’s probably just as well that I didn’t fall into my same rut anyway. 🙂

Instead, to keep it simple, since it was a masculine card and all, I merely tied a knot in a piece of Very Vanilla/Copper 1/8″ ribbon from the Tea Room Ribbon Combo Pack from SU and stuck it onto the tree trunk with a tiny Bling Zot.

The scripture piece underneath the tree was cut from a storebought card that was sent through the mail–I reuse things like that sometimes if they seem appropriate and unique. And if I can cut them straight, it’s kind of like using a sticker anyway. 🙂 This one I popped up with foam dots and used as a bottom border.

I confess, I made this card over several weeks around other things calling my name, so by the time I got to the inside, it was easiest to scrounge around in my drawer of sentiments that I keep full for when I’m short on time or ideas. A generous crafty friend once die-cut a few of the “Thinking of You” pieces for me and I’d not yet used any. The green-and-white piece matched well enough to fit this card, so I was happy to finally use one. On the inside left I placed a scripture sticker written in silver. The inside overall is simpler than I like, but it was better to have it done and mailed than lingering. It left me space to write a heartfelt message anyway, and that’s really more important.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my little offering today and that it’s inspired you to create something lovely too. If I can help you order something from Stampin’ Up, feel free to contact me or look me up on the Stampin’ Up Demonstrator Directory. You can also search for my name and state (Ohio) under Find a Demonstrator. Thanks for being here!

With Deepest Sympathy, Yellow Flowers and Butterflies

Thanks for visiting my blog today. Unfortunately (of sorts), I’m back with another sympathy card today. They just are not ending! It’s a good thing cards are beautiful. There has to be something redeeming about this season.

I consider this card to have two recipients. It was first intended to go to a dear friend who lost her grandmother – but in my hit-and-miss-mostly-miss craft room time as of late, I’d managed to lay it out but not glue it together before seeing her at an event. So I showed her a picture. She seemed to love it and then told me to mark sending it off my to-do list. Best news ever! …And then a couple of days later I heard about the passing of a longtime church member. 😦 I sadly trudged back up to the craft room and glued it together (being very thankful I was that far along considering my utter lack of time), and I mailed it off this week to his widow. Sigh. So many people to lose lately. I don’t like it one bit. But I hope I can bring some comfort and a bit of beauty by remembering and praying for those left behind.

The card mechanics are pretty simple. White A2 card base with scraps of Stampin’ Up’s Always Artichoke (dark green) behind some leftover SU Designer Series Paper (DSP). I don’t remember the name of the pack it came out of; I just saw this decently sized piece and thought it was pretty enough to use as a focal point. Initially it was a complete rectangle, but I had thought to echo the cut-out corners in the sentiment. Alas, I grabbed the wrong punch…and then forgot to “highlight” the corner with a pearl or gem, though I did sprinkle a few pearls elsewhere. Oh well. You wouldn’t have known, right?

The two butterflies came from generous RAKs (Random Acts of Kindness) from crafty acquaintances I’ve never actually met (but I love how Facebook brings us together…), so I can’t tell you what designers or machines they are from. They are stunning, though. The big yellow one came already assembled, and I have two more like it in other colors to use at a later date. I topped the littlest butterfly with two tiny pearls as well.

The “With Deepest Sympathy” tag came from a pack of sentiments that I’ve now used the last of. (*cheer*) I got it years ago at JoAnn Fabrics in one of those premade card sections like David Tutera or somebody. Pretty easy.

The inside was stamped in Stampin’ Up’s Mellow Moss ink (retired). There are a few favorite colors that I just love and continue to use. This one matches a lot of things I create with and has a good muted, vintage vibe to it.

The stamp on the left came from a retired Stampin’ Up set called Words of Wisdom. It has a lot of great Bible verses and sayings.

The stamps on the right are both from a favorite polyclear Hero Arts sympathy stamp set. I go to it often, but it was my first time using that flower. It stamped beautifully and I will be returning to it in future cards.

So that’s it for this one, a classic, beautiful card made with randomness that pulled together well in the end – despite my missing corner. 🙂 I hope it brings some comfort to the recipient to be thought of since I couldn’t make it to the services. ❤️

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In Stampin’ Up news, we’re gearing up for the November 1 release of the suite called Snowflake Showcase. These products will all be sold separately – no bundle – and will be available for sale for ONE MONTH ONLY in November. There are two stamp sets, a gorgeous die set, little metal snowflake trinkets that are a little flatter than ones they’ve had in the past (which makes them perfect for mailing on a card or including in a scrapbook), and flocked white “velvet” paper. I personally can’t wait to use that paper. 🙂 A similar treatment is used in the Santa’s Workshop DSP and Memories and More Card Pack for highlighted little bits like candy canes and Santa’s hat, and it feels amazing! Just so pretty and a fun detail to touchable cards. Below are pictures of the upcoming release. Once items sell out, that’s it! So be sure you get them sooner rather later if you’re interested.

If I can help you order, you can find my Stampin’ Up shop link in my sidebar or at https://www.stampinup.com/ecweb/default.aspx. I’m happy to be your demonstrator and get you awesome products so you can create special things. 🙂 Thanks for considering me!

Cornflower-Blue/Cream/Tan Anna Griffin Sympathy Card with Gold Foil

Another sympathy card to share.

Although I do have other themes than just sympathy coming up (I promise!), it’s sort of where I’m stuck for a few more days. Just so many of them to make lately 😦 , and I’ve hardly had any time in the craft room because of editing projects. I have a feeling it’s going to be a busy fall too. But. I do have this simple offering tonight (that I have to post before I start “hopping” around elsewhere), mailed a few weeks ago now.

This card was for a dear friend/former roommate who lost her young husband recently. I wanted something reminiscent of a masculine idea but also to incorporate blue, as that was always her favorite color. And I wanted something that hearkened to their relationship, something beautiful and giving an idea of romance. And I didn’t have a lot of time to create it. (I actually worked on it in at least two snatches of time.) Tall order, I guess.

I started off by going to my “cheat box”: a photo box I’ve filled with premade or prescored card bases, so that when I’m short on time, I can simply pluck one out of there. I’ve either already done the work on it or bought it usable. Although I prefer to use Stampin’ Up cardstock (80-lb. weight) for my card bases, I do also have a stash of printed American Crafts and DCWV bases (thank you, Marijane). So I found one that was flowery (romantic), tan (somber/masculine), and blue (the whole point) and hoped I could make it work.

I find printed bases harder to create with. There’s not much difference between a plain base that I top with patterned paper or a printed base, but I always find the latter harder to pull together into a card. But they are lovely and useful, so I keep trying.

I had a random scrap of blue flowered paper hanging around that seemed to match the color on the base fairly well, so I wanted to use it somehow. (I think it might be very retired SU DSP.) And I had sorted through my set of Anna Griffin sentiment tags and toppers beforehand to pull out ones that could work with sympathy cards, since it seems to be the “season” for that. This one spoke to me the most for her because of what she means to me and how the news affected me. Plus I liked how the gold foil in the sentiment matched the tan in the base.

So I found some SU cardstock that coordinated, used an EK Success edge punch on one side of a long strip for the middle, and matted the sentiment with the same. (I think it’s either Crumb Cake or Tip Top Taupe cardstock.) And as I look at the pictures here, I’m wondering if I didn’t match the top and bottom bronze pearls after all (both in size and color). I meant to…. I remember thinking that the smaller size of pearl looked better next to the flowers; it didn’t take up as much room. And I already had the big one stuck at that point. Must have been more in a hurry than I thought and forgot to switch it out. (Or maybe it’s the angle of the pictures?) Erg. Well, I can’t ask for it back now. I never claimed to be perfect anyway. It’s handmade, right?

I did have some fun rummaging through my random flower canister for ones I could use on the front of the card so it wouldn’t be so plain. I nested a tiny cream one inside a couple of layers of white ones to bring in the cream-colored background of the sentiment and topped it off with a champagne-colored pearl. And of course I had to use blue flowers. This arrangement and color scheme seemed to work best. The dark blue flower is fabric ribbon with a gem in the middle of it, and the light blue rose is a rougher blend.

I chose the same SU cardstock from the front for the inside, since the inside of the card base was white. I matted the left-hand sentiment with cream for contrast. Both stamps were inked with an Encore Gold Metallic pad and heated with a heat gun afterward. The left-hand sentiment is from a retired SU set called “Words of Wisdom,” and the one on the right is from the retired SU set “Thoughts and Prayers.” I used a gold border strip from the retired SU “Painted Love Gold Vinyl Stickers” from the last catalog down one side and edge-punched the other with the EK punch from the front.

So that’s it for this one. I’m glad I’ve actually managed to mail it. Still working on that for some of the others. 😛 More to come later. Back to my edit for now. The juggling continues!

Lemon Lime Twist Green and Marvelous Magenta Lilies Sympathy

A simple but stunning sympathy to share with you today.

I’ve had a rash of sympathy cards to make lately, so I’ll be talking about those in several posts to come. They are all very different and more of a clean-and-simple idea than ones that are overly complicated.

The one I want to show today was created with a base of 80-lb. weight retired Stampin’ Up Marvelous Magenta cardstock, which matched the main lily design perfectly. It is an A2 size (so 4.25″ x 5.5″).

I cut a piece of retired SU Fabulous Foil Acetate to fit the size of the card front and then glued it with Tombow Multi-Glue (green-and-white bottle) under where the lily block would be attached. The acetate is freestanding otherwise. It is accented with silver on one side and gold on the other. The gold happened to match the warmth of my green better (and my sentiment was also in gold).

I “cheated” a little bit on this card by using a some preprinted materials. (Isn’t that what patterned paper is, though?) Specifically, I can confess that the magenta/lime/white lily piece is the front of a pocket calendar, cut down. I never would have guessed, myself, if I looked at this card for the first time. The block was just too pretty to toss, so I cut off the wording, squared it up, and found things that matched. Luckily for me, one of Stampin’ Up’s current In-Colors, Lemon Lime Twist, also matches perfectly, so I matted the calendar piece with LLT cardstock.

Then, because I was once again short on time (chronic problem), I dug through some Anna Griffin sentiment pieces I’d acquired secondhand. The lime green oval mat is a separate piece from the gold-foil sentiment, but they coordinate perfectly. And using them was faster than stamping my own. I popped up the top oval with Stampin’ Dimensionals and remembered that I had some matching In-Color felt bows from the last catalog. Raising up the top layer allowed me to nestle that bow knot right beneath it rather than stick up in its own layer.

For the inside, I used a leftover strip of the Fabulous Foil Acetate and a Hero Arts set of sympathy stamps that is one of my favorites. I turn to it often. “Sending caring thoughts your way” was stamped in SU Lemon Lime Twist ink, and the flower stamp from the same stamp set was colored with Marvelous Magenta and Lucky Limeade markers on a piece of white paper that I cut to fit the inside.

Clean and simple but elegantly stunning at the same time. It’s prettier in person, even though I did some “recycling” by using the calendar piece. Anything is fair game to go on a card!

Thank you for stopping by and reading! Leave a comment if something I did inspired you!