Whimsy Stamps ~ Love & Loss

Hey crafty pals, it's September, can you believe it?!! The start of September is always a little bittersweet for me. My daddy would have been 77 today and it's 20 years this year since my beautiful papa passed. A wound still so raw it takes my breath away how the emotion can envelope me suddenly on such days. Hard to believe we have been without him so long. A beloved and beautiful man, gone too soon. I have been grieving anew with friends this past month who lost their parents. Three in one month, so it has brought home that loss again so poignantly. But gives me great empathy for their loss too. 

I created a series of cards that I hoped not to have to use, that ended up being well timed with these sad losses. One I prepared for, but two were heartbreakingly unexpected, much like my own papa. So it was good I had a couple of these cards in my stash. 

I really love this stamp set Sympathy So Deeply Sorry by Deb Davis for Whimsy Stamps, it's oh so perfect for Sympathy cards and it is so obvious this was created from a place of knowing and understanding grief and heartbreak. The sentiments speak volumes! I created four different but very similar cards in this 'batch make'. 

I had the card bases in my stash for quite some time and had been waiting for the 'right' reason to use them. I think they add a simple elegance to these creations with their plain black and white designs. There was a spotty card in the pack too, but it was too 'fun' to be the base for a sympathy card, but I loved the stripe and hounds-tooth designs for this purpose.

Taking my lead from the rounded corners of the card bases, I used a lovely Whimsy Stamps Rounded Rectangles Die Set to diecut the images and finished the cards with a simple wrap of sparkly twine. 

I'm exploring new colouring mediums at the moment, I've been experimenting with Prismacolour pencils and coloured two of the four images with pencils and the other two were coloured with Karin Brushmarkers on watercolour paper. I am brand new to these mediums and have a lot to learn, but thought these images, as they are a relatively small canvas, would be a good place to start. So happy with how they came out.

Though I hope you should never need them the reality of loss is unavoidable, and Whimsy has a beautiful range for Sympathy stamp sets and elements, including sweet Rainbow Bridge options too for the loss of beloved pets. For those of you who know loss, my heart reaches out to you and I send you extra love and hugs right now xoxo