Soft and Shabby for a friend....

Before I get to the project - just a reminder that I'm running a HUGE Blog Candy Grab Bag offering (17 stamp sets in EACH of the two goodie bags I'm giving away) see the original post here.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This week I had to make one of those cards that is just hard. A sympathy card. Something quiet. Not loud. Something sweet, but not cutesy. You know the card right? I leafed through my (enormous) collection of stamps, and selected Inspired by Spring. I'm loving with the new lines at My Favorite Things that I have a stamp for so many different "styles" of stamping...


I stamped the image to watercolor paper with Brilliance ink. and heat set it. I can't underscore the importance of heat setting that ink if you're going to watercolor with it. No matter how long you have tucked it aside... it isn't dry yet....trust me. So, do yourself a favor, grab the gun and use it. You'll be glad you listened on that one.

I used SU reinkers to color with - Pink Pirouette for the blossoms, and Soft Sky for the background. I die-cut the panel with square nesties, and cut a mat one size larger and then stitched all around. My Distress inks and my new blending tool are my new best friends. Generous inking all around the panel.

The card base is the new Girls Paperie - Vintage Whimsy. When I saw this linen colored one I wasn't sure. Yikes! What would I use these quiet colors for? But now, man am I glad I picked them up because they were just the neutral that I needed. I added a bit of color with the light blue paper (also from Vintage Whimsy), and squeezed in a bit of text paper (Girls Paperie: Kitsch)with the Simply Scallops Medium Die-namic with lots of stitching and distress inking too.

**just a quick tip: if you're using text paper, be sure to take a look at the words you'll be adding to your project. - sometimes, the words are um... not exactly appropriate for the project at hand - however you can get around that with some clever die placement. this paper actually had the word death - yikes - not what I wanted on the front of my sympathy card - I just moved my Die-namic to a different portion of the paper and it was all good **


Finishing touches include a seam binding bow, and a tiny bit of glitter to each of the centers of the flowers.

You might see that I'm still stuck on that shabby chic style that we used for the MFT Guest Designer contest last month. That bottom panel is stitched, ripped, rolled and inked. If you read here with regularity - you'll know that I get stuck on "a thing" for a bit, and I'll warn you, the new thing seems to be stitch it, rip it, roll it ink it. And, I'm liking stitching right on beyond the borders of a panel, stitching straight into the next pattern of paper.

So, I hope this soft and shabby card brought a smile to my friend's face even for must a minute....Thanks for stopping by today.