Monday, July 17, 2017

Sympathy Sell-Outs

Wow. Karen's Card Shop at our church routinely sells out of sympathy cards. Last week, the church secretary emailed me that she'd bought the last one.

Many thanks to those of you who've sent us sympathy cards! Know that they are very much appreciated.

Anyway, I sat down to crank out a bunch of sympathy cards, and in the process, I pulled all the sympathy sentiments I could find from all my stamp sets and put them into one CD case. That helped, and should serve nicely in the future when we run out of sympathy cards again. Because it's going to happen.

Anyway, I really enjoy making sympathy cards of wildflowers, so I tried out several different flower silhouette stamp sets to see what I could make. First up, a one-layer card with a cool color scheme of greens, purples, and blues.



Next, a two-layer card with a simpler color scheme of blues and gray.



Both cards use some watercolor paper I bought on sale at Marco's last week. It doesn't work well with watercolors, but it took the inks nicely on these cards, so way to repurpose, Susan! It's got a lovely, soft feel to it, as well as a bit of texture.

Sympathy cards are easier to make when I don't have to make them. What about for you?

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Life and Mega Mixed Messages; Tim Holtz Mini Bouquet; Gina K sentiment
ink: various dye inks
paper: watercolor 
accessories: craft foam, corner rounder, glue

10 comments:

  1. I agree. I always try to make extra because it's SO hard when I get caught up in making it somehow "good enough" to honor someone I've known.

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  2. not sure I even have a sympathy sentiment. I tend to just use store bought ones as I feel like my stuff looks amateurish. but your cards here are lovely. I need a good sympathy set!!

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    1. Joan, I have a fabulous small sympathy sentiment set from Avery Elle, called "With Sympathy" (of course). It's got a lovely font for "with sympathy" and then a whole bunch of sentiments to go with it. The best part is that some of the sentiments are doubled: one version with the word I or My and the other with We and Our.

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  3. I have found I need to know who the card is for before I make it. I like thinking of the person and their family as the card goes together. I have tried to 'make ahead' and what I have in my stash never seems to match the need at hand. Just my quirk, I guess. Your cards are grand! Love the colors of the second one.
    Lu C

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  4. Susan, I love when you use this Papertrey wildflower set -- I always get such good inspiration from you! I am in need of sympathy cards myself and so now I know where to start. Thanks!

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  5. These are beautiful. Really beautiful.

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  6. Your cards are beautiful just as they are. Please don't take this as a criticism of these cards, but I often wonder why card manufacturers and we cardmakers feel we have to use black for sympathy cards. Could one of the other colors in the illustration work just as well? That would seem less "harsh" to me.

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    1. Alice, I've never really thought about this as most of the time, I use black or brown for sentiments on cards, often for contrast. The top card above has brown for the sentiment because I thought black would be too harsh with the lighter pastel colors, and the black seemed to complement the darker gray in the foliage on the second. Thanks for giving me something to think about!

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  7. love these...so pure and pretty mf.
    xx Karen

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!