Crafty As L

Making sympathy cards is invariably our least favourite task but they’re arguably the most appreciated of all the cards we send.   My card this week was made for my sister and brother-in-law who had to say goodbye to one of their cats last week.   This post is dedicated to the memory of Merlin. Merlin was such a lovely natured, friendly cat and loved nothing more that getting a lot of fuss - from anyone, he wasn’t picky!   His nickname was Merlie-Moos but was also affectionately known as the Fuss Sponge.   He was fortunate enough to live to almost 18 years old with very few ailments until about 18 months ago when he developed kidney troubles, a common problem in elderly cats. He had a great life in a loving home and will be dearly missed. For the card, I wanted the theme to be the rainbow bridge.   After drawing out a rainbow shape on scrap paper, I cut it out to create masks which were taped in place on a square panel.   I then used the Newton’s Nook Paw Prints stencil, red, yell

My cards this week were inspired by a card I received from Sue in our Facebook Birthdays group.   I just loved the giant bee and found the stamp set, following a quick bit of googling!   It’s called Bee Happy by Visible Image and I also got the Honeycomb Hex stencil to go with it. First, I stamped and coloured the bees using a tiny blending brush and ink pad.   The wings were made sparkly with Stickles Stardust - I squirted a small amount onto my craft mat and painted the glitter glue onto the wings. These were to be slimline cards so I cut the panels and blended Distress Oxide Mustard Seed ink onto the card then added more through the stencil.   I also stamped the smaller background elements using grey and orange inks using second-generation stamping. The big bees were fussy cut and smaller bees and the sentiment were stamped onto the panel. The panels were mounted on a black mat then onto a white DL size card bsae.  To finish, the bees were mounted on foam tape and a few gem