Stamping Platform - third card

Ok, after this week I will stop calling them first, second, third etc LOL.
I was having a look through my card box and finding that they are mostly birthdays, so I have decided to try and build up a stock of 'other' cards too.  The cards I find most difficult to make are sympathy cards, so I thought I would see what I could come up with.

The lotus is a multi-step stamp set from SU, the sentiment is from my collection, possibly Woodware?  I kept to purple, black and white, with a touch of silver on the first one - that whole frame was to cover up a little mark which mysteriously appeared on the card after I had assembled it!!  It looks quite effective and I'm not sure which one I prefer. Purple for sympathy cards always seems appropriate to me, it was the Victorian colour of mourning.
Having set up the lotus on the stamp platform, I thought I would do a batch, but getting back to birthday cards!

It's fun playing around with colours to see what works :-)  Yellow and two shades of orange for the first, then pale pink and two purples.  The sentiment is from Stamping all Day.
The mats and stamping background are all die-cut, using Rare Earth dies, which fit an A6 card perfectly.

Sympathy card

I have made sympathy cards before, but I do find them hard to make, in fact they are the only card I will go out and buy from a shop.  So I thought I had better try my hand at one.

The poppy die is from Memory Box, cut in both a lavender-lilac colour and black.  The sentiment tag is from MFT, I think, also cut in the two colours.  I used a Bazzill Swiss Dot cardstock for the background and matted it onto silver mirri.
The lavender die-cuts are offset onto the black for a shadow effect.

Buy it - Try it Monday: sympathy card

I find it hard to make sympathy cards, in fact they are the only card I will go into a shop and buy.  But I was asked a couple of times last year if I did bereavement cards, so I thought I ought to try it.



This card was inspired by the use of negative die cutting at this Pin.  I used two new items, the Prim Poppy die (Memory Box) and the sympathy sentiment (Crafters Companion).
I cut the poppy out of white cardstock and placed it over some purple, remembering not to throw away the inner part of the cut which was then stuck back into place!  Then I matted it onto black.  The paler shade of purple was embossed with a spotty embossing folder and cut to size.  I used the same shade to stamp the sentiment onto, then cut into a banner shape.  After assembling everything, I wrapped a black velvet ribbon down the side of the card .... I usually use satin ribbon, but could only find velvet which does have a tendency to shed fibres..... After removing all the stray bits of fibre, it was done.
It does feel a bit odd to be making such a card when there is no actual requirement.... it will go into the box with the hope that neither I nor anyone else will need it.