With heartfelt Sympathy,

Hi Ladies,

I come to you today after a long break. Susan and I have been completely swamped with our other jobs, and unfortunately our love of crafting and card making is sometimes put on the back burner. Although we were working on things, blogging was definitely not included in our ridiculous schedules. Now that the injured knees are better, and the children's church musical is over, Susan and I are able to it down and actually tell you about our wonderful products! So, now that the disclaimer is over, please enjoy this card we made on our first day back. Again, like my signature style this CAS card incorporates even more butterflies than previous ones, and allows us to use some of our new stamps. I just love getting new stamps inked up and this was a great way. With some larger butterflies, we were able to come up with this design. I like the idea of a popped up panel that matches the card base . I distressed the edges to give it a little more dimension and I love the subtleness it has especially with the color scheme being so similar.

Okay ladies, please forgive us for this minor hiatus, but we are back in action and will be back more this week with some GREAT NEW PRODUCTS!! YAYY!!!

Good Morning fellow crafters!

Just thought I would come to you this morning with a sweet sympathy card that I whipped up. I have been putting around the craft room and working slowly on cards as I house sit for Susan. She is enjoying a few days away at the moment, and I am holding down the fort while she is gone. So this morning, after a few cups of coffee and some relaxing, I made it down the hallway and into the abyss of the craft room. Since I am in no rush and I am temporarily stalled because I am out of white cards, I decided to make an cream card to pass the time. 

We have used this stamp before in a different post here, but I think it is such a sweet stamp, and can be used for so many different occasions. So, this with heartfelt sympathy" card came to be. We have had some requests for a second Simply Sympathy pack of cards because so many people are having to send them. Some of our customers are almost out of their first pack and it has been less than 2 months since we introduced the pack. 10 cards in 2 months is ridiculous! But it is our job to make saying "with heartfelt sympathy, thinking of you, you are in our prayers and so many others" as easy as possible. So we do our best to produce calm and sweet sympathy cards to send to that friend of co-worker who has recently lost someone. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful day. It is beautiful here in North Texas. The sun is shining and the birds are chirping! Hope you are experiencing the same!

Thinking of You

Okay, we're back in action over here in the craft room, and whipping cards out is what we were meant to do! It must be that we have two brains working instead of just one! It also helps to have the brains of all the fabulous ladies who give great sketches and color schemes to focus our often times overwhelmed minds!

So, as we begin to think of new card designs for a sequel to our Simply Sympathy pack, we have found that subtle and subdued tones work well, and the challenge at 365 Cards for subtle and muted color themes was perfect for this. A few of the ladies at our church have mentioned that masculine sympathy cards are often times to come by, and I know we have posted about that once before on a previous post, I thought we should share this card with you today. The color scheme was inspired by Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger (Decadently Yours) which again caters to a more masculine feel. Although our Simply Sympathy pack is of Sympathy cards (go figure!), we thought throwing in the Thinking of You card allowed the sender to give it to someone who needs a little encouragement or support, not only for the unfortunate loss of a loved one. We found a great sketch for Mojo Monday 177 that was a great way to incorporate a new sentiment technique that we pulled from Papertrey Ink Make It Monday. The sketch allowed for the sentiment panel to take precedent over the rest of the card, but it did not limit us. We were able to add some more elements to the card, such as the buttons, that were all similar in color so that it gave a pop but was not overwhelming.

I really am loving this card and I have completely fallen in love with this layout! I will definitely be using this one again!!!

New Line: Simply Sympathy

Hi, everyone! Life in the church can come with many ups and downs - from weddings to funerals to baptisms. With these events come many card-worthy occasions. Our colleagues have recently expressed how difficult it is to find the right sympathy card. It needs to be gentle, soothing, meaningful, heartfelt, and encouraging without being overly sappy or a total Debbie Downer. We have not found very many of these cards on the mass market, and so we developed this line of cards - Simply Sympathy - to fulfill this need. Below is our first design in the Simply Sympathy line.

The color scheme for this card was inspired by the Pretty Pastels Color Challenge for Color Inspiration for Card Makers Week in the Moxie Fab World. We thought the pastel pallet worked well for a more feminine sympathy card one might send to a friend or relative. We used a simple-one layer design using dimension only in the butterfly to draw attention to the comforting sentiment.

Simply Sympathy comes in a standard pack of five cards. Each card is an individual design with a coordinating envelope. The cards are designed to be universal, though some have a more feminine or masculine feel.

Check back soon for more of our new products.

And now off to bed to catch my beauty sleep so I can get up and do this again tomorrow!

Used on this card:

Stamp: Upsy Daisy (SU!)

Ink: Pale Plum, Rose Red, Lavender Lace (SU!)

Paper: Lavender Lace (SU!), Blossom