Our Treasured Memories

Some of the hardest cards to make are sympathy cards.  It is something that I really do not care to make but life hands us unexpected results that we do not all like and yet must accept.  Therefore, I try to make my cards as pretty and cheery as possible including as personal as possible.  It just so happens that it is my one of my twin cousins who passed away recently.  Her favorite color, like mine, happens to be any shade of purple.
I cut out the circle and layered additional oval piece of my background paper, then placed a smaller oval piece dry embossed with the sentiment in the center.  It was fun having the different layers that gives you an added dimensional and textured card.

I used only two stamp sets for these three different cards:
Gina K. Design, A Beautiful Life
Stampin' Up, A Wish For You
Spellbinders Nestabilities Ovals and Shapeabilities Fancy Tags
Card stock, homemade design background on glossy and a variety of solid card stock, purples, gold, white glossy.
Several Copic pens and a few ink pads
Ultra Fine Detail Clear and Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powders 
Ribbons, 3-dimensionals, adhesives and heat gun.

I found a trick by making a mistake!   This card below is on gold card stock which is really smooth but not glossy.

I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink for the stamp image, covered it with iridescent sparkle embossing powder and finished it off with the heat gun.
Then I colored it with my copic pens.

The sentiment I used memento tuxedo black ink again and tried to place it in the center.  Well, it took me three times.  Now I'm hoping you are thinking "three times!"  How?

I wiped it off with a kirkland "costco" baby wipe then took a clean paper towel to dry it.  I was thinking, heck I did all this work and coloring I have to figure out a way to fix my smeared words!  Yep, I smeared my words three times until I finally got it right.  Once I slapped myself a few times and yelled at myself to calm down and do it right - I did!  Then I immediately place clear embossing powder on it and heated it to melt.  I'm sure you all know you don't always need embossing inks for embossing; right?  You can use almost any ink, just try it and see what happens.  You might have to be quick with the powder but it works well and sticks just fine.

So don't ever give up when you make a mistake.  You can always cover your mistakes up with a layer, cutting in the middle or 3D layering; yet having a surprise fix can make your original design the way you intended it to be, like mine.  Let me repeat, it was BLACK ink and it came off with no remnants left.  Amazing and happy!

 In this card, you can see just how all of the patterns with my homemade background on glossy paper is different.  I only layered on the diagonal papers.  Direct stamping onto glossy card stock for the flowers and leaves.  The ribbons are placed under the layered card stock on the bottom and then I placed the top edge of the ribbons under the fancy tag.  I used a lot of adhesive to make sure none of the ribbons will pop out on the top fancy tag. 

Have a lovely day and please place a smile on someone's face by sending them one of your handmade cards.

Sincerely,