24 Hospice Cards

 I tried to post this last night and my computer had a temper tantrum and then a meltdown. Hopefully, all the clean-up programs I ran last night and today have cleared away all the nonsense.

 It was too nice to stay home today! We bought new bikes a couple of weeks ago and spent the day at Rondeau. The bikes are called ‘step-through’ so they do not have the bar across like a man’s bike. No more lifting our legs over the bar! We should have bought them years ago!

 Now for the cards.

I made 24 cards for our local hospice, 12 of two different designs. These are the only cards I do in assembly line. I just don’t have the time to make 24 different cards as often as I donate them to the hospice.

Card one - this one I thought would be suitable to be sent to either a man or woman.

 

The stamp is from Stampin' Up. It’s old and retired but any tree stamp would work.  The backgrounds were all made with the same colours but all turned out a little different, depending on how much of each ink I added.

The inks used were a combination of Distress Inks and some old Stampin’ Up reinkers. I bought a package of things at the thrift store over a year ago and in the package were reinkers, but not the ink pads. Interesting. I just use the reinkers for things like this.

Okay, the technique - I have a solid rubber stamp that was designed to be used to make a reverse image. I bought it like 15 years ago and it never did work the way it was supposed to and its just sitting in the drawer. I pulled it out and smeared the blue Distress ink pad across the top (on a couple I used blue reinker). I dropped a couple drops of red reinker ink onto an acrylic block, spritzed it with water, and used a sponge dauber to add it to the rubber stamp block; did the same for the yellow; and then used a green Distress Ink pad to swipe across the bottom. Then it was spritzed again with water and (as I was holding my breath and hoping this would work) I stamped it onto a piece of cardstock I had pre-cut to 2.5 x 3.5. Whew! It worked. Each one was different but basically the same. After they were dry I lined them up and splattered some water over the top and then dried them with a cloth. This leaves lovely whitish areas that add so much to the background…. some more visible than others, depending on how much ink transferred.

After they were dry again, I used my Tim Holtz stamp positioner to stamp all the trees.

While they were drying, I ran some cardstock through the Big Shot using a stitched piercing die - they do not cut, they just make a pieced design. I have three of them now and I love them.

Then I die cut the tags and stamped the sentiment. If you add a tag that is part way on an image and part way on the background, it will dip at the background because of course, they are not even. To avoid this, I die cut extra tags, cut them in half and added them to the back of the sentiment tag that will be off the image. That way they lay flat.

 Next card…. using another stamp from the same stamp set.

 

This time I decided to use an old Spellbinder’s die and die cut 12 of those fancy ovals. I left the die cut piece in the die and used the same method as above to add colour to the background. By leaving it in the die, it left a nice white border. To keep it in place while stamping on the colours, I use my magnetic platform meant for the Big Shot to hold the dies in place. I seldom use it for that but for things like this, it works great.

This pierced background is tiny rainbows. The sentiment was done the same way but using an oval punch and a different sentiment. To keep it flat, this time I just added a bit of cardstock under the part that sits on the background. It needed something else so I added some sequins.

 That’s all for a hot but beautiful day here in Ontario - with thunderstorms once again predicted for tonight and tomorrow.

Cheers

Violet

Ps: To save a card to your Pinterest account, simply over over the image until the “Pin It” symbol appears and then click …. be patient, it sometimes takes a few seconds. This will take you to your own Pinterest account to save the card.