Whimsy Stamps ~ Black on Black

Hey crafty friends, I'm sharing a slightly sombre couple of creations today. But despite the sad theme, I really love these elegant creations. I happily don't 'need' these right now, but was inspired to 'be prepared' when caught short a while back for a sympathy card. I made a black on black sympathy card a few years back when one of my besties lost her sister. It was heart breaking but I created that card, because one of the things that was special about her, was her love for sourcing elegant understated cards for friends birthdays, so I knew I had to make something pretty special to honour her. The resulting card can be found here and my creations today are very much inspired by this creation, which I still really love.

So I've created two black on black designs, inspired by that previous sympathy card, but with two quite different looks. I think they both look very elegant and though they wouldn't be appropriate for everybody, I think they'll find the right homes when the time comes. 

This first creation, I did something a little fun and different with the design. Rather than have the beautiful magnolia diecut panel flat or raised evenly from the base, I created a slightly domed effect on the front, but adding adhesive only down the two sides and attaching it to a base panel slightly narrower than the magnolia panel itself. This was a happy accident, as the base panel was slightly too narrow, but it sparked the idea for this interesting card front. So I brought the sides in and created the bowed front, which sits so nicely in reality, but is very hard to capture on film. I used black foam for the dimension on these creations, as white would have shown on the sides. A clever trick if you don't have black foam, is to run a black sharpie or similar along the white edges after they're in place to disguise the white edge. I've done this before and it works a treat! I added a little golden sparkle on the Magnolia centres with a Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen and gold heat embossed the sentiment on a little tag. I added a pretty triple bow in organza ribbon, it's otherwise very simple and understated.

My second design, uses that same beautiful sketchy flowers stamp that I've shown in a couple of previous creations, but this time heat embossed, black on black. I've used black cardstocks of different textures for added  interest and a pretty frame to cut the panel out, but I kept the 'waste' and just popped the panel up from the base, so it sits a little proud of this. I love the look of panels layered up where the design continues across the base layers. It's a favourite technique of mine and I think it's really lovely on this creation. I chose to heat emboss the sentiment in black also, which is much easier to read in person than it is to capture in a photo, but a good alternative would have been to gold emboss it. I added another organza ribbon to this creation and did a triple bow again, this time I used a wider ribbon, so it's very full, which I think finishes this card nicely.

I'm curious to know what you think of these black on black designs as sympathy cards. I personally love them, but it's interesting to know others thoughts too. I hope you've enjoyed my crafty adventures this month. I'm crazy prepping for our May creations now, but do have another cute creation to share with you in a couple of days, which will be part of a blog hop with some great prizes, so watch this space! Hugs and happy crafting xoxo