Unfortunately, There Seems to be a Rush on Sympathy Cards

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

For some reason, I’ve had several friends ask me for sympathy cards recently. They are the hardest cards for me to make. A lot depends on who’s receiving it, who passed away and the card giver’s relationship to them. I don’t want to make a floral card if the recipient is male. I also don’t want to make an overly personal card if the recipient is more of an acquaintance to the card giver. As most things, I know I’m totally overthinking it, but it still matters to me.

With that said, I was able to create a few different cards for them to see. Here is one from the group…

My Empty Nest Creations Ink Blended Silver Embossed Sympathy Card

Unfortunately, my photo doesn’t do this card justice. The silver embossing is very shiny (not dark like the bottom portion looks in the picture 😦

I started by creating a circle mask and ink blended with Broken China, Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet Distress Oxides. Because patience is NOT one of my virtues, I used my heat tool to speed up the drying process. After dusting with my powder tool, I stamped the floral image from Unity Stamp Company’s Steps of Courage stamp set at the bottom edge using Versamark ink. I heat embossed it with Zing’s Metallic Silver Embossing Powder. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Everyday Sayings stamp set and is embossed with the same embossing powder. The card front is matted with a blue/green card stock to match the ink blending.

Thanks for stopping by!

Computer Signature

1Jun2017

Simon Says Stamp Star Flower Stamp

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

My Mother’s Day Gift

This year my children gave me a Simon Says Stamp gift card for Mother’s Day. I have to admit, I was like a kid in a candy store. My Simon Says Stamp wishlist is incredibly long (I’m talking hundreds of dollars long), so I it didn’t take me very long to blow through that gift card 🙂 The Star Flower stamp was my first choice. I have wanted this stamp since they introduced it months ago.

The design is so intricate that I knew that the rest of my card design had to be very simple. I decided to gold heat emboss it onto watercolor paper. Using my MISTI tool made it easy to get multiple stamps onto the rough paper. Rather than use traditional gold embossing powder, I came across a jar of Zing Brown Sugar powder that I’ve had forever. While it looks like gold, it actually seems just a little less brilliant. I LOVE IT and will definitely be using it a lot more.

Using my waterbrush, I painted small areas of the flower image with Distress Inks (fossilized amber, crushed olive, blueprint sketch, wilted violet, abandoned coral and tumbled glass). To enhance the card, I added a small strip of metallic gold card stock along the left edge. I struggled whether or not to add some sequins or Nuvo drops, but decided that I wanted the flower image to be the star (pun intended).

I hope you like it. I’ve added this set of note cards to my Etsy shop.

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19Apr2017

My Apprehension with Large Floral Background Stamps

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely love all of the large floral background stamps out there. I really do. I am in awe of the beautiful cards that card makers create with these large stamps. That said, I’m also a little bit nervous to try and make a card using them myself.

It was The Ton’s Peony Crush Cling Background stamp that got me to give it a try. It is probably one of the most beautiful floral background stamps that I’ve seen. This is the card that I made…

My Empty Nest Creations Purple Peony Card using The Ton's Peony Crush cling background stamp

I started off by stamping the stamp onto Bristol paper with Versamark ink. I heat embossed it with Zing Silver Metallic embossing powder. For coloring, I decided to use some Zig Clean Color Brush Markers—Deep Violet for the flowers, Olive Green for the leaves and Light Blue for the empty spaces. I have to say that I’m still learning how to use these markers. It’s definitely going to take some more practice until I’m completely happy with my results.

For my greeting, I cut a strip of velum and chose some sentiments from Technique Tuesday’s Fringed Dahlia stamp set. I heat embossed it with the same silver embossing powder.

I trimmed the floral piece down to allow for some matting. I adhered the velum strip to the floral piece by attaching it on the back side. Using fun foam for dimension, I attached the floral piece to a piece of white card stock. For the final mat, I used a piece of Swiss Dot card stock in a light purple. All of this was attached to a white, top folding card base.

Once it was all put together, I realized that it needed just a little something more. I found a few light purple sequins, and attached them to the velum strip. That was exactly what it needed.

I hope you like it!

2Apr2017

Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #281

Posted in Cards by My Empty Nest Creations

I have been wanting to use my latest Simon Says Stamp Watercolor Friendly Flowers for a while now, and the latest Freshly Made Sketches sketch seemed like a good place to start.

Here is the latest sketch…

This is the card that I made…

I started by white heat embossing the outlined flowers in the set. I pulled out my Zig clean color markers and selected a few softer colors that worked well together. I used a water brush to disperse the color on each petal. Once they were dry, I heat embossed the center portions of the flowers with Zing Metallic Silver embossing powder using my embossing pen. They still needed a little something more, so out came my Wink of Stella clear glitter pen.

On to my card design…I knew that I wanted a little color on the white background where my flowers were going to go, so I lightly ink blended an area in the center with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink. I liked the 3 horizontal stripes on the sketch, but I really wanted my flowers to be the highlight. I found a very old stamp set from TPC Studio called Dots and Stripes. (I’m so glad that I dug into my stamp collection because these stamps are fantastic!) I chose one of the dot border stamps and stamped it 3 times with Versamark ink and used the same silver metallic embossing powder as before.

I fiddled around with my flower placement until I liked what I saw. I glued 4 of the flowers on to the white base and adhered 2 with some fun foam to give the grouping some dimension. For my greeting, I chose the “just for you” stamp from a 3×3 set from Lia Griffith (Hero Arts) and stamped it in black.

I knew that the card base needed to be something other than white, so I went with my next favorite, light gray. I think it coordinates well with the silver embossing.

I hope you like it!

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