Sweet Stampin' ~ Sympathy/Thinking of You

Another big block of time seems to have whizzed by since I last posted. My kiddos had a great break from school, though weather was pretty rubbish, so we just did lots of 'staycation' stuff around Auckland. They went back to school for Term 3 on Monday and we had a visit to one of the local high-schools we are considering sending Georgie to on Wednesday. It's all on now, my first babe will be a teenager in only a few months!!! They just grow SO fast!! I so wish I could slow time, just a teeny bit.

It's new challenge time at Sweet Stampin' and it's a rather sad post today, as I genuinely needed to create a card for our current theme. My lovely cousin's husband just lost his mummy, so I created a card to post to them, to send our love and support. It was a very sad time and the anniversary of my own daddy's passing was in Mid July, so I was feeling the grief quite keenly. It takes my breath away to think my daddy's been gone 17 years. He was just so young.

I had planned to watercolour the background for this card, but I happened to have a magazine paper set sitting on my desk from a recent Making Cards issue, so I decided to use this paper to create the card. Inspired by the fact that my lovely cousin loves all things lilac. So it just felt really appropriate to use this pretty paper. I used it on the inside of the card too, but turned it, so that it wasn't immediately apparent that the pattern was identical. Cool trick of the eye and actually really works! Faux watercolouring, boom!

I used two beautiful Unity Stamps sets to create this Sympathy card, called Butterflies & Sunbeams and Beautiful Life, Blessed Memories. I love the imagery of butterflies when creating a Sympathy Card, but I wanted the image to be subtle and for the words to have the foreground. So I used a very pretty sparkly embossing powder just over Versamark Ink, so it was a watermark effect stamp with sparkle. The sentiment I heat embossed in white. Lighting below was a little cold, the above pic is a truer colour representation.

The detail in the stamp is hard to see in the photos, so here is a shot that shows the detail of the image better. The first photo in this post shows the lovely sparkle when it catches the light but the following photo shows the detail of this pretty stamp. You can always click on the image to pop up my photos for a closer look.

I hope you'll come and have a play along with our challenge at Sweet Stampin' this week. If you don't have a sad occasion to craft for (and I hope you don't!) then you can choose to create a 'Thinking of You' card. I look forward to seeing what you're inspired to do. Sending love and hugs to those of you who have had recent loss, thinking especially of my lovely Kiwi crafty friend Maxine. There is never enough time people, so treasure every day. I'll be back soon with another crafty adventure. Big hugs to you all and love and healing sent your way if you're nursing a broken heart, Wends xoxo

(Sad that the pics don't do this card justice, but if you pop them up full size, you can see a little more of the detail and the pretty stamp details.)

Challenge Entries:
Crafty Catz: #381 ~ Anything Goes
Crafty Gals Corner: #133 ~ Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday: #488 ~ Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Challenge: #30 ~ Anything Goes
Lil' Patch of Crafty Friends: #62 ~ Anything Goes
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash: #313 ~ Butterflies, Bees & Bugs
Sparkles Monthly Challenge: #94 ~ Thinking of You or A Sympathy Card
Little Red Wagon: #404 ~ Sing, Sing A Song (Angel by Sarah McLachlan)

City Crafter Challenge: #372 ~ Something Beginning with 'S' = Sympathy & Sparkle