ColourQ Sympathy Card

One of my best friends since age 12 just lost her husband to a long battle with cancer. I know that she's one of the most cheerful and encouraging people I know. But more than that I know she's been trusting God through this long ordeal. I made this card for her with the message from Verve. The entire verse is stamped inside (God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble), hopefully to giver her strength for the days ahead.

When I stamped the sentiment, I put tape over the bottom portion of the verse and only inked the first few lines. If you try this, be sure to pull off the tape after inking, before stamping.

I used the ColourQ palette for this week and the February Week 1 sketch from Viva La Verve. The challenge from Little Red Wagon this week gave me the idea of using the chipboard oval frame and butterfly, which really added dimension.

5" x 6.5" Card:
Paper - Basic Grey "Periphery" (and the orange); Close To My Heart Crystal Blue, White Daisy; Bazzill gray
Stamps - Verve scripture
Ink - Close to my Heart Black
Other - Close to my heart Cricut Art Philosophy (scalloped circle), gray Licorice Opaques pearls, gray flower, white grosgrain ribbon; Basic Grey chipboard butterfly and frame

ColourQ and Praying for You

I chose to use a turquoise color with black and white for a sympathy card. ColorQ Challenge #117 is to use Black, White and one other color. I used Lagoon and an older paper from Scenic Route. The design is from Clean and Simple Stamping. This truly was a simple card with clean lines and lots of "white space."

The card is 5" x 5." Black mat is 4" x 4" and the two rectangles are 3 7/8" x 1 7/8." The sentiment circle is 1 3/4" and it's mat is 2." The leaf stamp is 3rd generation lagoon ink. The black flower has a tiny pearl in the center.

Materials:
Paper - CTMH Colonial White and Black, Scenic Route "Sumner Parker Road"
Stamps - CTMH "Treasure Life" (leaves), sentiment retired
Ink - CTMH Lagoon, Black
Accessories - CTMH black ribbon collection, opaque pearl, Sizzix embossing folder

Loving Memories

My best friend's mother-in-law just died unexpectedly. My daughter-in-law's dad died of a heart attack yesterday before paramedics could get there. It's a festive time of year for most people, which makes sudden tragedy so much more difficult. I suddenly need five sympathy cards. It seems like a contradiction to use the sketch from Cute Card Thursday to make such a card. "Cute" and "Sympathy" don't go together, but the design was right, so here it is.

To me there's something comforting about the papers from Basic Grey's Nook and Pantry. It reminds me of "things from my grandma." So these papers were my choice for a comforting card and I'm entering them in the Basic Grey Challenge #59.

Materials:

Paper - Basic Grey (Nook and Pantry, Indian Summer); CTMH Colonial White and Vineyard Berry CS

Stamps - CTMH (Comforting Thoughts, Dream Wishes-both retired)

Ink - CTMH Vineyard Berry, Staz-on Brown

Accessories - CTMH flowers (pink), pearls, Unknown larger flower and ribbon