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.

Sympathy card.

  Sadly I needed another Sympathy card this week. So I used the " Hopeful Thoughts" set for this one.

I used Stamp and write markers to ink up the stamp to get multiple colours  on the stamp. If you are not familiar with this technique, I'll explain.  You will need dye based markers for this technique.  Alcohol markers will not work as they dry too fast and the ink cannot be reactivated with a huff.  

To create this image, I placed the stamp on a flat surface, rubber side up. Using a green dye based marker,  I applied ink to the stem and leaves. 

 With a light blue marker I applied ink to the flowers on the stamp, using a darker blue marker I added just a touch of dark blue to the tips of some of the petals.  Once you have applied ink to all the parts of the stamp  you'll notice the ink you applied first has dried, so you will need to breathe/huff on the stamp to reactivate the ink with the moisture in your breath.  If you're using a large stamp you'll probably need to huff on the stamp a couple of times to make sure you have moistened the whole stamp.  Now you can stamp the image.

I  double mounted the image on this card. I used the perfect layers rules to get the perfect 1/8th of an inch border. Then I added a wider 1/2 inch navy border before mouting the panel onto my white base card.