A very dear friend of mine lost her husband recently, so I needed to make a sympathy card.

I try to keep sympathy cards fairly basic, as I have a philosophy that these types of cards shouldn’t be flashy or overly decorative. To me, keeping them simple is showing respect.  That’s not to say everyone should be that way.  It’s just how I feel.

Anyway, here’s the card, and how I made it.

I used Prima Marketing papers for this card.  The papers came as a freebie in an Australian cardmaking magazine, and frankly, I love them.  A lot. (I also used them on another card showcased on this site.)

The papers came as a 6 x 6 paper pack, so I cut the chosen sheet into three fairly equal pieces. (I’m going to show you two other cards using the same papers.)

In this instance I’m making a one-layer card.

To start the card, glue one of those strips to the left hand side of the cardbase.  Now cut a shape using a constrasting colour.  For this card I used Labels Twenty from Spellbinders.  I then stamped it with my greeting “With Sympathy” then glued it across the cardbase as shown.

Next, I lightly sponged a white flower I had in my stash.  I used Victorian Velvet Distress Ink, which was a close match to the flowers on the DP. Using a Zot (glue dot), I stuck the flower to the label, and added three matching pearls down the right hand side (see photograph).

That’s it. Done.

Now for those other cards.

I used exactly the same layout, but altered the other parts of the cards. Here’s the basic layout I used:

(Ignore the stamped greeting – I forgot to photograph before stamping.)

By using this same layout, I was able to use different greetings, and different embellishments to get totally unique cards.

Here I’ve used some Kaisercraft flowers, and a cheap flower I had in my stash. The greeting is from Gina K Designs.

The greeting for this card is from Stampin’ Up! and is from the Punch Bunch stamp set. The flower is from a bouquet I bought cheaply, but broke up to use the flowers individually:

I hope this has given you some ideas, and shown you ways to use your favourite layouts to create totally unique cards.

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