Sympathy Cards

Unfortunately, I have needed several Sympathy cards this year.

A masculine card for a friend that lost a son.

Another masculine one with a beautiful saying.

Several...the one in the lower right has embossing that doesn't show up very well, so below is a close up photo.

I'm Nuts About Johnny

I made a card for Johnny last week (my last week before I started my new job).  The main image is a squirrel with nuts.  I received it in a SCS swap several years ago but hadn't used it until now.  I colored it with my Copics, but lost the list, other than the red heart is LipStick Red.  The card base is brown, the mat is white paper embossed with the Fiskar's tree bark texture plate.  I then used a rainbow pad of browns to give the texture some color. I used one of the Nestie Labels to cut out the image. I think if I were to do this card again, I would fussy cut around the squirrel/nuts to leave more of the "tree" showing.  To highlight the red heart, I used 3 red brads on the top/right corner of the card.

The inside has handwritten "I'm nuts about you!"

Paper:           DCWV card base, generic white
Stamps:        Whipper Snapper's Nutty Squirrel
Inks:             Dee Gruenig's Brown Blending Box ink pad, Copics, colors unknown except for the          
                     LipStick red (R29)
Accessories: Fiskar's Texture plate, Nesties Labels 15, brads

Ocean Cards

I wanted to make an ocean birthday card for my aunt, but didn't like the first attempt, or the second attempt, or...

I finally came up with 3 variations...which do you like best and why?

The first card has a turtle. In the first, failed, attempts the grass didn't look very good when it was embossed with the bubbles. So with the turtle card, I only embossed part way down, but I'm not sure I like the abrupt stop of the bubbles.

The second card has a seahorse and different grass. The grass held up better to the embossing, so I think I like this one best.

The third card doesn't have the bubbles embossed on it. I will put it on the same orange background as the others once I've decided if I am going to emboss it or not.














Here is the inside.

For all cards:

Paper: SU Bordering Blue, DCWV orange

Ink: Adarondack's Lettuce

Embossing folder: Cuttlebug bubbles

Animals: Spellbinders Shapabilities From the Sea

Chalk: SU Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, Olive Green

Stamp: Inspired by Nature by SU for the second and third cards and Potted Grasses from Stamp A Mania.

Travel Inspired Cards, Take 2

Here are a couple more travel inspired cards I created last week. They both use pictures from the Fodor's Page-a-day calendar I have.

This one is of London at night, with Big Ben, Parliament and the Millennium Bridge. I used a variety of postmark stamps; one from Stampabilities, Seaside Stampin Ink, Inkadinkado, SU's World Traveler and Office Ephemera and the London Cube from Judikins. The paper is from Big Lots, I used my Deckle nesties and Adirondack "Denium" ink.

This one features a picture of Ponte Vecchio over the Arno river in Florence, Italy. I used paper from DCWV and my deckle nesties. The stamps I used are from Seaside Stampin Ink, Inkadinkado, SU's World Traveler and Office Ephemera and a little (ATC sized) background stamp from either Lost Coast Designs or Stamp Camp. The "Journey of the Heart" stamp is from a PSX Pixie set.