Eight Sympathy cards using one image stamp

More sympathy cards...well kind of.     

For these  eight cards I used one stamp from the retired set 

" Hopeful Thoughts". Now this set is a wood mounted stamp set.  I don't like to butcher stamp sets  but Stamping with this image can be a little hit and miss, so I bit the bullet and popped the stamp in the microwave for ten seconds  to loosen the glue and peeled the stamp with the foam layer off the block. Then I stuck the very sticky stamp on to a piece of cling mount foam So now I can use the stamp in my Stampartus. 

Which means when the stamp misbehaves, I can stamp over the dodgy image to correct it. 

The card above I have CASE'd from another demo, although I have actually changed a couple of things.  I saw her version and thought I'd CASE it. So off I went to the craft room and began to make the card as I remembered it.  When it was finished I compared it to the original and found I had made a few changes without realizing it.

For my second card, I decided to play with the layout a little, I  changed the colours, the DSP , the shape, ribbon and the sentiment, which is pretty much everything. Apart from the image stamp. But even that,  I changed. On the first card I used markers to apply the inks to the stamp. On the second card I stamped the whole image in blue. 

The third version is more of a thank you card. I used the sentiment on this card on a card I sent to the undertakers along with the final payment for my dad's funeral. This time I chose to make it in colour Blackberry Bliss. I omitted the ribbon on this one.

My fourth card I kept very simple and stamped the image in purple, as purple is also a colour of mourning in certain parts of the world. It is also accepted as a colour of mourning for widows.

My fifth card  was stamped using "Marina Mist ink, I combined it with some Marina Mist seam binding ribbon and card layers. I also added a layer of white embossed card stock.

For my sixth card, I used the markers again to apply the ink colours to the stamp.  This time

I've  added a small black bow to the stem of the branch and torn away one corner for a little more interest.  I had intended to distress all the edges of the top panel, but in my eagerness to complete the card ...I forgot.

My seventh card  is a remake of the first, but this time I changed the colour of the ribbon, the DSP and the sentiment.

My eighth card is a 6 x 6 card using the same image inked up with markers. I added a strip of navy card either side of the stamped panel. The Navy looked a little bit too heavy, so I added  two strips of lace, which I punched out using Martha Stewarts doily border punch.

 My ninth and final card uses the second image in the Hopeful Thoughts stamp set. To create the blue panel, I die cut a square aperture in a piece of scrap paper and placed it so that the aperture lay over the centre of my white card. Using a blending brush, I brushed ink over the edges of the aperture. drawing it into the centre of the square.   Once I was happy with the  intensity of the ink I stamped the tree over the blue inked square. Then stamped the sentiment.