Over ambitious...

 While hubby was at church, in between my coughing and sniffling, I mass-produced a batch of sympathy cards.  We've had three deaths in the last 4 months...and I am always scrambling to make cards at the last minute. So I took the time to make a bunch of these to have on hand.  Sympathy cards are always hard-you don't want a lot of "fro-fro" but you don't want it to look like a store-bought card, either.  My "go-to" image is the bird in the marsh grass...it's simple, clean, and he looks like he's thinking...so it ties in the "thinking of you" (CTMH) sentiment.  I layered some dp that I have had in my stash for at least 5 years and it matched the CTMH juniper ink perfectly (it has a mix of blues, the teal green and brown).  The thinking of you is a flap that attached to the back of the card. It opens to the right, then you open the inside (card front) to the left as normal. And...NO POP DOTS! Gasp!

Then I felt ambitious enough that I thought I would do my "nephew's" belated birthday card as well...and why not do a bunch of those, too?  So I printed the backside and started playing with that design.  It was a little more challenging for whatever reason--even though I LOVE the Stampin' Up sentiments and spinner hands!  A trick to putting the spinner on and leaving enough room for it to move...I slipped a toothpick between the spinner and the card base and then folded back the prongs on the brad.  I did pop up that part of the card to be sure the brad would have room to move.  Instead of trimming off that extra little bit on the card front, I simply scored it and folded it back to make a pocket.  I usually tuck some money in for them and this worked great! I ended up rotating his card (the second one--and those brads are orange-not yellow?!) so its at the top instead of along the side. oh well. And, I didn't see it until I went to post the pics...can you see my goof? Or hmm, maybe it was meant to be that way...

I accidentally switched my layer colors around! Oops. Oh well. It's the thought that counts!

I'm a bit worn out now so I think I will go fix a hot cup of spice tea with honey and lemon and take a nap.  I can clean up later and finish the class kits. The cards I will do another day.  I've found that the boxes the CTMH orders come in (much like pizza boxes!) are GREAT for storing projects in progress in!  I simply tape a label to the outside and its good to go.

Oh-another tip...the older style SU stamps are really really sticky and leave a tough to remove residue on my clear blocks. The newer style stamps...if you put the label on (which I like to do) don't stick as well.  I found a small piece of tape from my Scotch tape gun put on the block itself-then attach the stamp-works great! It holds the stamp secure and then just rolls off when I am done! Easy peasy.

Time to rest.  Until next time, happy stamping and scrapping. Blessings, Sharon