I found out that Korin Sutherland's dachshund, Daisy, passed away last week. (Korin owns & designs for Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps.) I decided to make a sympathy card to send to her & her family. I got my inspiration from this card I found on Pinterest.
Admittedly, despite the card inspiration, I didn't think my design through very well. For the paw print stencil, I used the (discontinued) "Furry Friends (Paw)" large squeeze punch from Fiskars. I punched initially from just 2 full-sticky Post it notes, and adhered those to my cream panel. I mixed silver acrylic paint into the molding paste, and used a palette knife to spread the paste over my stencils. I had to be extra careful, since the paper stencil was so thin, I almost couldn't get a thick enough layer of paste to make any sort of impact. Design "mistake" #1.
Once my paste had dried, I tried different ideas for where to put my greeting; with all of them being around the bottom of the panel. (That was really the only place I had room left!) I ended up with 2 possible scenarios: either the greeting was running into the paw prints, or there was too much unbalanced white space above the paw prints. Design "mistake" #2. At any rate, I finally gave up on putting my greeting at the bottom of the panel. I also couldn't find good places for my die cut hearts.
My solution to the greeting & hearts placement dilemma was to punch more masks and stencil 3 more paw prints, so they went roughly in a line up the middle of the panel. Even that went a bit awry, when I put my hand squarely in one of the still-wet prints when I was trying to stencil another! :P Thankfully, I was able to fix it pretty well. After the paste had dried, I rounded all 4 corners of my panel with the 1/4" side of my Corner Chomper. I also added faux stitching with a black pen around the perimeter of the panel, just to give it a more finished look.
I next turned to stamping my greeting. I had decided to put the greeting on a strip of vellum across the middle of my panel. I stamped the main (with sympathy) part on the vellum, but really wanted to use the supporting greeting from the stamp set as well. However, in trying to get the 2 parts (after cutting the narrower stamp apart) between the descenders of the y's and p in sympathy, I stamped the smaller greeting too low. Design "mistake" #3. I had to cut a new strip of vellum, and restamp. But I figured I could at least use my original strip to line up the larger words. Which worked, except that I'd cut the second strip a little narrower than the first. So when I lined up the "with" using the first strip, I didn't take into account the 1/8" I'd taken off the top edge (relative to the first strip) to cut the new strip. So when I stamped on the second strip, the "with" ran into the "sympathy"! Design "mistake" #4. (Was this card actually meant to be???) So I cut a third strip, & stamped the with & sympathy; then stamped the supporting greeting, a little closer to "sympathy." Finally--it looked good! I had cut my vellum strip longer than the 4" width of my panel, so I scored about 1/2" from each end of the strip, and wrapped & adhered the ends to the back of my panel. That was probably the one thing I thought through & did right the first time! LOL
I played a bit with placing the hearts, finally settling on 2 basic visual triangles. I glued the die cuts in place with Perfect Paper Adhesive. I adhered a dark red panel to a white card base, rounded the corners with my Corner Chomper, and adhered my main panel to that. I'll admit--it was a rough go with this card, but I'm glad I persevered, and I like the final look!
Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 GMT Views: 384
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Registered: January 16, 2006 Location: Wait! Let me check my barcode..... Posts: 14123
Wed, Sep 26, 2018 @ 9:03 PM
I think it turned out lovely! I was sad to hear she lost her little fur baby. We have three little ones and I dread the day we lose any of them. I truly love them more than most people....that is the truth.