Sympathy

I find sympathy cards TERRIBLY hard to make. I don't want to over do them (doesn't seem to be appropriate) yet, I want them to be meaningful. I don't own any sympathy sets. I think in my own mind I've convinced myself that if I don't own any sympathy sets, I won't have to use them (wacked, I know....it's a denial thing!!).

But reality is, that in this world, sympathy cards are needed. Last weekend a friend lost 9 immediate members of her family along with 5 close friends in a private plane crash. They were all meeting in Montana for a ski trip for the kiddos. Seven of those lost were children under the age of 10. My heart just hurts thinking of this. I struggled with this card all day Friday and finally came up with this

This card is a 5x5 square card. I did the faux "bleach" technique (because I'm the only person on this planet who cannot get paper to bleach (but will ruin another shirt in trying!!). I stamped the grass then the flowers in versamark on Gina K's 120# luxury paper. Then I used clear embossing powder to emboss the images. *helpful hint: make sure your powder pal tray is REALLY clean before dumping in a new ep/glitter, etc. My clear ep now has little flecks of whoknowswhat in it and it kinda ruins the CLEAN look that this technique is suppose to have! I then used LARGE stipple brush to put on my colors, starting with the lightest at the bottom and working my way to the darker colors (that way, I use just one brush!! Lazy stamper!!). I then covered my image with a scrap piece of paper, put it on my craft sheet and then ironed it on high until the ep melted onto the paper.

Now of course I had other problems with this image. This is actually the SECOND one. The first is layered underneath. The first one had no black layer. Felt it was missing something and I tried messing with some ribbon (of course, the image was already taped down, so I was going to have to come up with a different ribbon treatment). Welllll, the sentiment SMEARED over the embossed area when I was messing around. I don't know if it just hadn't dried over the now slightly glossy area or what! So when I stamped this sentiment, I HEAT set it (and of course, got it too far to the right, but I was NOT going to do this a third time!). Matted with the black, added the ribbon and matted that to Gina's 120# luxury paper.

Please keep my friend and her family in your thoughts (and if you pray, in your prayers). This was a very close knit family and they will need all the comfort from here and above that they can get to deal with this.

Supplies: Stamps: SU's Inspired by Nature, Warmest Regards. Paper: Gina K's 120# Pure luxury, Basic Black. Inks: SU's Apricot Appeal, Tangerine Tango, Really Rust, Ruby Red. Accessories: Clear EP, heat gun, iron, ribbon, stampamajig.