A few tips for making Sympathy Cards

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you are all having a brilliant week and have lots of crafty plans for the weekend.

As a crafter, I love to create cards and other projects and I made a very conscious choice about 12 years ago not to buy any manufactured cards but to make my own. It hasn't always been easy, some cards are easier to make than others but the one card style I've always found difficult to make is sympathy cards. No-one likes to be reminded that we all have a limited time on this planet and I'm no exception so like many crafters, sympathy cards are the one card I don't pre-make and I'm actually wondering if that's a bit of a mistake. I found out last weekend that a friend from my old church passed away just after Christmas, I wanted to send her husband a sympathy card to let him know how sorry I was to hear about his loss. I thought it be helpful to come up with a few dos and don'ts for anyone needing to make a similar card themselves.

Here is the card I came up with.

I used a stamp from a stamp set that came free with Creative Stamping a couple of months ago. The With sympathy sentiment came from a stamp set in my stash. I diecut a stitched rectangle from smooth stamping card and stamped the snowdrop image using Memento Tuxedo Black ink as it's suitable to use with alcohol markers. I used a Cool Shadow Copic marker to colour the inside of the flower petals and a couple of green Flex Markers to colour the leaves and stems. I added some dots of black glaze pen to the flower stamen as shown. I mounted this die cut piece onto a rectangle of silver mirror card and then diecut a stitched oval out of the same smooth stamping card I used earlier. I stamped the sentiment onto the oval using Memento ink. I made the card blank by cutting an A4 piece of card down to A5 and folding it in half, I added a black mat leaving a 1/4 " border of the white card showing beneath. I added the topper and sentiment as shown.

One of the main things I learnt from making this card is to keep it simple, both in colouring and with the layers. Avoid the bling if you can or try to make it simple and classy (avoid the glitter but a few pearls or clear gems can be a classy touch). Unless you are sure of both the recipient and the person they've lost's faith, try to avoid religious icons and imagery even if you are a believer yourself (you can write that the person receiving the card is in your thoughts and prayers). Take clues from the death notice in the paper if there is one - for example it may state that they want the funeral to be colourful so you may decide not to use black at all but keep the colours in  neutral tones (greys, kraft, browns etc) if you can.

I hope this has been useful, I will be making a few sympathy cards to put to one side because another useful thing I learnt making this card is it's a lot easier to make a card if you are not grieving as you make it. I shall add them to this post (without a tutorial) as and when I make them.

I should be making a few birthday cards over the next couple of days as I've some birthdays coming up. If you have any questions or comments then please feel free to leave them in the usual places and I'll try to respond to them as soon as I can. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx

Cards for Sad Occasions

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! It's nearly the weekend again, do you have anything exciting planned? I wasn't going to share these cards but I was really pleased with how the Sympathy Card came out and I did my first (I think!) watercolour image for the get well card. I looked on YouTube for some inspiration and to be totally honest I found most of the sympathy cards to be unsuitable - not helped by one person who kept saying "this is a fun card/technique" which seemed a tad inappropriate for sympathy cards, after all it's not like most people would be looking out of boredom or anything I imagine most viewers would be in the same shoes that I was in - looking for some inspiration to make their own sympathy card because someone close had suffered a loss (not exactly a 'fun' occasion!). Others were too fancy or floral for a man so I decided to just work with what I had. I looked through my stash and found some Art Nouveau stamps that came free with Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine in the last couple of months (not sure when exactly as I don't label which issue they come free with - something I'll try and do in future). Even though I was put off by all the floral sympathy cards I saw on YouTube, I was drawn to these stamps especially the one I ended up using.

Thinking of you Sympathy Card (for a man)

Art Nouveau themed card

As strange as it may seem, I think this design would make a great wedding invitation if you added a touch of silver and changed the sentiment. I personally think white, black and silver wedding invites to be very stylish (kind of wish I'd gone for this colour scheme for my own wedding instead of white, silver and summer sky blue) and the Art Nouveau stamped images are very elegant. I think sympathy cards, especially those for men should be quietly understated and I'm sure you'd agree that this certainly is that.

My second card features a Fizzy Moon stamp which I like but I wasn't too thrilled to discover that half the image shown on the front of the stamp set is actually absent from the stamp! It gives the stamped image a real 'sketchy' feel which I personally dislike and I ended up drawing the missing lines in using a black pen (luckily the one I used was waterproof!). I stamped the image onto watercolour paper and filled in the image before colouring it in using Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolour Paints which I am fortunate enough to own. I got mine from Amazon ages ago and this is the first time I've really used them as I'm more likely to use watercolour pencils. I was a bit disappointed that the seller removed the protective plastic cover from the paints prior to posting it as it makes a brilliant palette (I used an acrylic block to mix my colours). I've discovered why my water coloured images don't usually look exactly watercoloured - I don't use enough water! It's amazing what a difference adding plenty of water to your colours makes. 

Watercolour Get Well Card featuring Fizzy Moon

Very pleased with how this came out apart from that pink for the plasters!

 By using more water I was able to layer my colours to add shading and texture, it isn't perfect but I don't think it's bad for my first attempt, I just wish I'd been able to mix a less vile shade of pink for the plasters lol. The background colour was actually done by a wash of plain water then adding Persian Blue Zig Real Color Marker using the wet on wet technique (first time doing that too!). I die cut the shape and layered it onto a black square of card before adding it to the card blank. Again this is another simple card even if it did take a while to make. I really enjoyed experimenting with my Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolour Paints, the pigment in them is really good so you can add lots of water to them (I did that on an acrylic block rather than in the pans so they don't get waterlogged.)  Although there are lots of variations to the colours on this picture I only used a red, black, white and caramel but got different shades by adding more or less of the white and water to each mix. I hardly used any water on the black noses which is why they are so black and shiny (hard to see in the photo but very apparent in real life).

I've been fortunate enough to have got some new goodies online including some Letraset Aqua Markers from Cowling and Wilcox www.cowlingandwilcox.com  who have got a fantastic sale on at the moment! The Aqua Markers are only 50p each!!! And Tria Markers are only 95p each (RRP is £4.75 each!!!!). I got 9 colours and a blender which was also 50p, I'm really looking forward to trying them out. I hope you'll excuse the overuse of exclamation marks but at these prices who can blame me for being astounded - I saved £2.00 per pen on the RRP which is amazing value. 

As always if you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places. I have a couple of cards to make this weekend so hopefully I'll have something new to share on Monday, if not sooner. Until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xxx