Creating a simple, yet beautiful Sympathy Card.
Today I created with a beautiful Gina K stamp set to create this gorgeous Sympathy card.
As a card designer, a sympathy card is my least favorite of all card occasions to create for… it means sadness.
It means someone is suffering a heart wrenching loss…and people’s lives have changed forever… there is no joy to be had from creating under these pretenses.
The only thing you can hope for when creating a Sympathy card is that the design will bring some type of peace and comfort to the recipient if only for a few moments…
I like my sympathy cards to come off relatively “blah”, yet still beautiful.
I think this one is just that…
So every now and again I splurge on a stamp set or 2, and by splurge I mean under the $20 buck range.
I started creating card many years ago due to the prices of a card in a card shop. That and that living in a rural area I would always have cards available to me when an occasion arose.
Being that card prices were the main factor in my choice to create hand made cards, I don’t like to break the bank when purchasing items to create with.
Call me thrifty or… just plain cheap!
Splurge time!!!
- An email offering 15% off at Scrapbook.com landed in my daily dose of crafting newsletters in my inbox, so I took the bait and clicked on over to the website to see what the discount applied to.
The sale occasion has escaped me, however the discount applied to many products site wide so that was a plus!
I always keep a “wish list” so to speak of products in my cart - things I see that I might purchase on a “splurging day”.
Yes indeed, I had a 2 stamp sets in the cart each priced at $10.99 before discount, and a small sentiment stamp set priced at $4.99.
Next… I checked to see what “coupons” were being offered besides the current discount.
3 Coupons applied to my cart - a cute panda bear with balloon stamp “free”, an ink pad “free”, and an adorable pack of pattern paper “free”, as well as a Scrapbook and Cards Today magazine.
This was my kind of sale!!!
I hit the checkout thrilled with all of the bonus products simply for purchasing the stamp sets from my wish list.
So when I say “splurge” - exactly above is how my shopping sprees go!!
The 2 stamp sets I purchased were Gina K - Kindness Silhouettes & Gina K - Find Peace, I’ve link those for you.
Now everyone knows that Gina K puts out gorgeous stamp sets & dies and it’s always a pleasure to purchase one.
The quality is amazing and the designs simply inspiring.
When I am choosing a Gina K stamp set I tend to stick with silhouette stamps, or something that can be used similarly.
I don’t know why I just find if you want to do silhouette stamping she has great stamps for that purpose.
I used the Find Peace stamp set for the card today.
Ok… finally I am done blithering away and we can get to the creation of this card.
This card design is so simple and affordable to create. It’s just card panels, a circle, ink and the beautiful images.
A few moons ago when I first started creating these layouts, I didn’t even have a circle die I used a glass from the cupboard and traced it onto my paper and carefully cut out the circle.
I obviously have circle dies now… but would love a set with larger circles - so if you know of a great set let me know in the comments below.
The card starts with 2 layers of white cardstock cut a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2.
A piece of copy paper cut at 4 x 5 1/4.
Using one layer of white cardstock paper I place the circle die in the desired placement and cut.
Next I place the die cut layer over the copy paper and repeat the pencil marks to mark out the circle opening on it. I place the die over the pencil marks on the copy paper and die cut it. This will serve as my mask for ink blending.
I apply some repositionable tape to the back of the mask and attach it to the uncut white cardstock layer.
This is where that “free” ink pad came into the picture. It was a beautiful Hero Arts Ombre Ink Pad - Serengeti Sunset, and was going to be perfect for blending this background.
I started with the yellow shade and blended into the bottom section of the circle. Then moved on to the orange shade and blended it in the mid section of the circle. Then onto the reddish orange color for the top section of the circle, and just varied back and forth with the 3 inks until I had a nice blend.
Without removing the mask I stamped the deer and trees in a Versafine black ink.
** I do use a stamp positioner (still dreaming of a Misti) to stamp the silhouette images so that I can get a nice dark impression.
Before putting away the stamp positioner tool I stamped the Sympathy sentiment onto the white cardstock section with the circle cut in it.
I take the mask paper off of the ink blended layer and carefully just rub off any remaining glue from the repositionable tape. It comes off super easy.
I applied foam tape to the back of cardstock layer with circle and adhered it over the layer with the ink blending.
I dug around in my stash to find something very subtle to add into that sunset sky and settled with a few sequins of a similar color. 2 worked just fine since I didn’t want the card to be all blinged out since it was a Sympathy card.
I adhered the finished panel to a card base cut at 4 1/4 x 11, Scored at 5 1/2.
End result… this beautiful card!
***Quick Note about the sentiment - the sentiment came from Altenew - Elegant Sayings, a stamp set I acquired for just a few dollars the last time I “splurged”.
This was the adorable paper that was a free snag with my order. I absolutely love it! The back sides are all beautiful vibrant designs perfect for any occasion - I’ve used a few pages already!
I hope you give this card design a try - I know you will love it!
And don’t forget to check those online crafting sales for great deals that will have you card making on a dime!
Let me know in the comments below if you like the card!
Happy Crafting!!!
