Verve Sympathy / Thinking of You

A dear friend has had a rough time recently, losing a close family member, and I wanted to send her a special card to let her know I was thinking of her and her family. I have to admit that I find this type of card the most difficult of all to make and often struggle to find the right balance of too little / too much when it comes to papers, embellishments, etc. I decided to keep things pretty simple with this one without too many layers or patterned paper - my goal was to design a simple and elegant card using a layout that draws the eye towards the Thinking of You sentiment. I was also inspired by a similar card I saw several months ago designed by Lisa Johnson (sorry I don't have a direct link, it was awhile ago and I didn't save the link, it just stuck in my head)...


I used several of my favorite Verve sets on this one. I started by stamping some of the leafy sprigs from Great Friend in Old Olive ink (SU) directly onto my main card front layer. The layered label was created by stamping the label from Love Notes onto Soft Stone CS (PTI), then cutting around the inner outline with a hobby blade, then using the Classy Label Die to cut out a 2nd label from Kraft and layering the two. The sentiment, stamped in Early Espresso ink (SU) on Kraft, is from the Accent Notes stamp set. The flowers, from One Person, were stamped in Crumb Cake ink (SU), on Lavender Moon bitty box DP (PTI) and shaded with Copics (V12, E44, and O) then cut out with a hobby blade. Finally, I added a few adhesive rhinestones around the leaves as well as some Crystal Stickles around the edge of the label as my only real embellishments. And that's it. Hopefully this will let my friend know she is in my thoughts during this difficult time.