Recently, one of our cats, Barney, passed away after a long battle with renal failure. I wanted to create a thank you card to send to the doctor & staff at the vet's office where he was treated. I came across the "Cat with Butterfly" stamp in my stash, which I have had for some years now. Since butterflies symbolize (among other things in different cultures) hope & bravery, I just thought this image was perfect. I paired it with one of the "Many Thanks" dies. For the design, I adapted an old Operation Write Home sketch.
Because the cat on the stamp is a tabby, & Barney was a grey & white cat, I couldn't see stamping the image in a dark ink. So I pulled out my Fade-Out ink. The stamp was a wood-mount red rubber stamp, which I had converted to cling mount. I didn't trust that I could use my MISTI & position the stamp correctly on the panel, so I used my Stamp-a-Ma-Jig instead. Usually with Fade-Out ink, I like to double-stamp the image to be able to see the lines better. But, due to the size of this stamp, I wasn't confident that I could re-stamp the image, even holding the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig handle in place when I lifted my block. Thankfully, I got a good enough impression on the first try!
Using my Prismacolor pencils, I colored the butterfly yellow (because, why not?), and colored the kitty to look like Barney. The white parts of his body were the most difficult, since I needed to add shading so they stood out against the background, but still make them look white. So I colored those parts just barely with a very light cool grey pencil. There is grass in the stamp, but I added more with a couple of green pencils, just to fill it out. I toyed with the idea of coloring the sky area, but thought it wouldn't look good in the end, so I just left it alone.
Since Barney has gone on to the Rainbow Bridge, where all pets go to await their (human) parents when they die, I decided to make the greeting in rainbow colors. I adhered strips of colored cardstocks to a scrap piece of white cardstock, then cut it with the thanks die. I glued that to a light grey panel, to echo the grey colors in the kitty. I added a black strip to separate the greeting & image panels, & used a teal blue cardstock to mat the panels.
Date: Sunday, August 22, 2021 GMT Views: 213
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This is a lovely card. I appreciate your words about the choices you made for the card. So much meaning! I'm sorry about your cat Barney. Loses hurt for a long time.