Attempting a little Sympathy... card that is...

I tackled one of my swaps today for www.splitcoaststampers.com. The swap is for 5 + 1 thinking of you or Sympathy cards. I decided to get the sympathy cards out of the way because they are not my favorite kind of card to make. These were a challenge to say the least.

The measurements of this card are 4 ¼ tall by 5 ½ wide. This type of card is called an easel card. Although they look difficult they are really easy. The base card is 8 ½ by 5 ½, scored at the half way point, 4 ½ . Then the front panel is scored again at 2 and 1/8. The reason this card stands open is the stopper on the inside panel. The card folds flat for shipping but opens for display.

I started by picking my papers out of a Martha Stewart (MS) stack, this is where the white and gold printed designer paper (dp) and the gold embossed dp came from. The solid cream color is also from this stack. The card stock (cs) on the inside under the sentiment is from a DCWV stack.

The Front:

The first step was the embossing, I used a glue pad to stamp the image, the tree branch and the sentiment, and then they were heat embossed using Ranger gold embossing powder (ep). I inked the edges of the panel.

I used a MS edge punch to punch the two edges of the gold embossed dp behind the sentiment panel. I inked the edge along the punch to highlight it.

The background (bg) panel was also inked on the edges. I layered the card and punched the holes for the square brads. (Hint: I used a piece of masking tape on my hole-punch so the depth of the punch was identical on each corner)

The Inside:

The sentiment is stamped with vintage sepia versafine ink. I used a border punch on the bottom edge and inked the edge. I layered the panel over the bg cs and punched the holes for the brads. I added the brads.

To make those pretty little roses, I punched circles out of the same dp as the bg on the front panel, after I added a bit of ink. I kissed the finished roses to the glue pad and dipped the rose into the gold ep. I heat embossed the rose to add a bit of glitz to the rose. To create the foliage, I heat embossed a piece of cs with the gold and punched with a MS punch.



Stamps used:

Hampton Arts- branch

Victorine Originals- Sentiments

Ink used:

Versafine Vintage Sepia

Martha Stewart glue pad

Embossing Powder:

Ranger ultra fine gold embossing powder

Paper:

Martha Stewart

DCWV

Embellishment:

Square gold brad- unknown vendor