Tag Archives: Thoughts and Prayers

Fabulous Flora for Gail

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I’ve mentioned before that I am a member of an online walking forum. Gail is one of the organisers of the site and a wonderful lady. She’s shared a lot over the last 15 or so years that I’ve “known” her including a lot about her family. It was shocking last year to hear that she needed brain surgery and that she had a tumour. She’d truly give the shirt off her back to anyone if it would help and it hurts immensely to have to report that she died recently. So of course I made a card. I don’t know that it helps at all. When Mum died, reading the cards just made me cry. But I guess it’s good to hear the memories. Eventually. So Gail, Fabulous Flora is for you. It fits, you were so passionate about your garden.

Stampin' Up! Fabulous Flora

I took the image from Fabulous Flora, stamped it on scrap paper and then snipped it out. Then I stamped it onto my watercolour paper and then masked off that stamping and stamped again. I used my aquapainter to colour in the figs in the archival basic black but that wasn’t quite right so I added some elegant eggplant. I think that the combination of the two colours works. I used garden green for the leaves and I tried not to be too precise since the image is sketched rather than precisely drawn. I then added the sentiment from the Thoughts and Prayers set and glued this to an elegant eggplant cardbase with a skinny basic black mat. I really find that a black frame pulls everything together when I’m watercolouring – and thus using archival basic black to stamp the images.

Rest in Peace Gail. I’m glad that you’re no longer in pain, that you no longer have to lug around heavy equipment to live. But we’re going to miss you.

Liz

Remarkable You for CASology

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I seem to plan a lot of my challenge cards at the weekend and so I’m always sliding in under the wire if I enter the CASology challenges since they end on Mondays.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Thoughts and Prayers

The week’s challenge cue card is rather fun because it can be interpreted in a number of ways. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a mathematician and although I’ve managed to fight my need for symmetry quite successfully, I can’t go as far as torn edges! Not so far anyway. So since I haven’t embraced torn edges on my cards, I decided to go with a sympathy card. Sadly, I think that I’ll be needing one soon.

I started by stamping the leaves from the Remarkable You set in the archival basic black ink onto watercolour paper. It’s actually the first time I’ve inked this up – I’ve used all three of the flowers though. I really love this set, it’s great for watercolouring. I then stamped the sentiment using the same ink, it’s from Thoughts and Prayers in case you were wondering. I left the watercolouring for last because it would be irritating to mess up the sentiment after finishing the rest of the card and it gave the archival black a little more time to dry.

Stampin' Up! Remarkable You and Thoughts and Prayers

For the watercolouring I went back to mossy meadow again. I adore this colour. I tried to put a fairly pale wash of colour all over the leaves and then make it slightly darker where there was shading. My first attempt was too harsh with not much success at blending, but this one worked out better. I really like watercolouring even though I’m not great at it and since it’s a fairly casual medium (sometimes) it doesn’t seem to matter. I’d encourage you to grab an aquapainter and have a go. It’s very rewarding. And if you don’t have it yet, Remarkable You is a great set to start playing with watercolour.

I put a very skinny mat of basic black around the watercolour paper – it really makes it pop. And then onto a mossy meadow cardbase.

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Too kind

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I didn’t mean to share this card today, I was going to make a card for a challenge but I had news that my amazing physical therapist died yesterday. He was in his forties and leaves behind a wife, two children and an unborn child. He was an incredible person – always happy and joking and absolutely miraculous at his job. I once sprained my ankle nine days before a marathon and called Matt almost in tears the next day. He said to give it a couple of days and then come to see him. I ran that marathon after a couple of treatments. As I said, Matthew Loughlin was miraculous. He will be greatly missed. So a “sending good thoughts your way” card seems apt today.

Stampin' Up! Thoughts and Prayers, Too kind

I used a template that I’d made using a plastic sheet from photopolymer stamp packaging and square framelits and sponged crushed curry and elegant eggplant onto it. I was trying to make a card using these colours and garden green for a challenge but it didn’t work. But introducing gold made me happy. I stamped the tree from the Thoughts and Prayers set in versamark and then covered it in gold embossing powder. The sentiment is from the Too Kind stamp set and is in elegant eggplant. I mounted the piece of whisper white onto an elegant eggplant base. The envelope flap was embossed with the spring flowers embossing folder.

Rest in Peace, Matt.

 

 

Lovely Amazing You

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It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut and the same is true of making cards. I haven’t used hello honey in ages and I have no idea why, I really like it. I’m sure that I “ought” to focus on using up the in colours that are about to retire along with the retiring DSP but what do you know. Those rebellious tendencies are at work again.

Stampin' Up! Thoughts and Prayers & Lovely Amazing You

This was made at the end of the crop weekend when I challenged myself to make a card without DSP (that’s a novel twist seeing as I rarely use it), without watercolouring and to use my new set, Lovely Amazing You. I’m really fond of this tree from Thoughts and Prayers and it seems to create just the right space to put a sentiment.

I stamped the tree on very vanilla in hello honey and then toyed with using the “love you more than chocolate” sentiment but although it’s a great sentiment, I’m not sure that I’m going to need it very often… How many people do you love more than chocolate? Anyway, I decided to use the good wishes one and since blackberry bliss was already out, I used that, stamping it off once first. I matted the very vanilla with blackberry bliss and mounted that on a base of hello honey. The envelope is lined with the backgrounds DSP in hello honey.

Happily neither of these stamp sets is on the retired list that Stampin’ Up! announced today. The backgrounds DSP in all families IS there though which is rather disappointing – hopefully there are new ones coming out with different patterns. They are so useful for lining envelopes. Once they are sold out, they are gone, so go shopping asap if you want them or other items, many of which are discounted.

 

See you tomorrow,

Liz

Perpetual Birthday Calendar reused

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I was using the tree image from the Stampin’ Up! Thoughts and Prayers set last month to make a sympathy card – the set has a lot of sympathy and get better type sentiments. I really like the tree image and decided to use it for other cards too. I’ve made a number of cards with it lately in addition to the aforementioned sympathy card –  a thinking of you and another birthday card. It’s amazing what a change in colour can do to the feel of a card.

Stampin' Up! Perpetual Birthday Calendar, Wetlands, Thoughts & Prayers

This time I decided to use the big April image from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar, a splodge for want of a better description. I first stamped it as the sky in pool party on very vanilla and then the ground in pear pizzazz. I stamped the tree image over this in early espresso. Originally I was very against brown on cards, especially birthday cards (I wore brown in primary school; my school uniform colours appear to have had a long lasting effect!) but I am getting rather fond of a touch of early espresso here and there.

I also used early espresso for the sentiment. You don’t recognise where it comes from? It’s from the Wetlands set. I mounted this on a piece of early espresso that is just 1/8 inch larger than the very vanilla. I really like the skinny early espresso mat. This went on a pear pizzazz base and the envelope is lined in the pear pizzazz backgrounds DSP. I may have to challenge myself to have a week of card making without using pear pizzazz!

See you tomorrow,

Liz