Whimsy Stamps ~ Mixed Media Sympathy Card

Hey crafty friends, I'm popping in to share a card I made commissioned by my lovely mumma, who needed a couple of Sympathy themed cards a little while back. I love using butterflies for Sympathy cards, there's just something beautiful about the imagery and brings to mind the concept of transformation. So I used a mix of gorgeous butterflies in different forms from my Whimsy stash. 

The card base I used is actually quite large, 7x7 if I recall correctly and it's a beautiful pearlescent white cardstock that shimmers so beautifully in the light. I bought it years ago at an Ally Pally Craft Fair, I believe it was from Anna Marie Designs. But I cannot find a link for this exact pretty metallic sheen cardstock any longer. It made such a gorgeous backdrop for this card. The image panel I started with was one I had ink smooshed with Victorian Velvet Oxide Ink and Milled Lavender Oxide Ink. I did this on a craft mat, just smooshing down the ink pads and then spritzing with water and breaking up the square shape into a more random pattern before smooshing the paper down into the inks. I did several layers of ink but also left some quite open spaces. I wanted an airy feeling to the background.

I used a stencil with gold ink to add some butterflies, I first used the gold ink to stamp a background script stamp randomly over the background just to add interest and some additional visual texture. I heat embossed a beautiful butterfly from a favourite Whimsy Clear Stamp set on Vellum and diecut it with the matching dies. I finished this lovely butterfly with some gold flat back gold pearls from a Honeybee set and adhered the butterfly to the card with liquid glue only along the body of the buttterfly, so the wings stayed free. 

I distressed the edges of the image panel with scissors and then popped the panel up on thick foam to add to the card base. But before adding it, wrapped the panel several times with a thin pearlescent elastic cord that I've had in my stash since my earliest days of crafting! Love being able to use older stash and this just matched the pretty pearlescent card base so well, it was a great fit. I just tied a simple bow to finish and added the panel to the card base. I forgot to say, but I did heat emboss the sentiment before adding the foam backing and cording, which helped me know where to line up the cord when wrapping it around.

I was hunting through my pics to find my reference photo from when I did the ink smooshing and I only remembered two of the inks I used. I actually used four on this panel. Which you can see above, I used the two previously mentioned, Milled Lavender and Victorian Velvet, but also Tattered Rose and a touch of Lost Shadow. I made this ink smooshed background as part of a batch of swatching I was doing, so you can see the little strips of colour I created to add to the sides of the ink pads, I also did the little tags to add to my swatch ring which I began a while ago and add to as I add new colours to my stash. If you'd like to see the swatch ring, you can visit that post here.

I decorated the inside of this card with a white page which I had stamped the sentiment 'There are some who bring a light so great to the world that even after they are gone the light remains.' I think this is such a beautiful sentiment for a Sympathy card and completed this creation meaningfully.

If you missed my previous posts, Whimsy is having the most amazing 'LAST CHANCE' sale right now. There are oodles of fantastic stamp and die sets in this sale, paper sets too! Well worth a look if you're a Whimsy fan like me! You can click through on the banner above, the discounts are really incredible and there are some truly wonderful stamp and die sets in this sale! Let me know if you score something lovely! I've gone back three times now for a stock up! Hugs and happy crafting, Wends xoxo

(I've added thumbnails to make your shopping easier if you like any of the elements I've created with. I do use affiliate links where possible, which gives me a tiny commission but costs you no extra whatsoever, though more importantly it helps the companies I design for to improve their marketing practice and track my contributions. I am deeply grateful if you use them for these reasons. I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own.)

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Creative Inspirations Challenges: March ~ Anything Goes