Sympathy Card

I needed to make a card for a co-worker who lost a family member.  This is what I came up, I love how it turned out. 



The card was made by using an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper folded in half.  I needed to make it large enough for several people to sign on the inside.  The flowers were made by using a method I learned from watching two different videos.  One video was at Penny Duncan Creations, just follow this link   http://pennyduncancreations.blogspot.com/2010/12/merry-christmasand-hydrangia.html.  She is truly amazing, while you are there spend some time looking at all of her other wonderful creations, you will  just be blown away at her talent.  The other video was from Paper Wishes Weekly Webisode at this link http://www.paperwishes.com/webisodes/index.php?page=high&id=368.  You can get a free cut file from Penny Duncan or Paper Wishes will sell you punches to make the flowers.  I happened to find a punch on clearance and was able to us it to create my flowers.  For the base of my flowers, I just used a 1 inch styrofoam ball that I cut in half with a sharp knife.



For the flower petals, I used purple paper.  What ever color you choose, make sure to use paper that is colored on both sides as you will see the bottom side of the paper when the flowers are attached to the styrofoam ball.  I also edged each petal with purple ink.  In the center of each little flower I used purple stickles to give it a little bling.  The little bit of bling from the stickles really makes a big difference.  The leaves were made using the cut file from Penny Duncan at the link above.  I did use some brown chalk to draw the veins in each leaf.  The flower stems were just some I purchased at Michals just as the purple ribbon that I tied around the stems.  I also purchased a cross charm to tie to the flowers with the ribbon.

The background paper is just white paper that I ran through my embosser using my polka dots folder, then I inked over the page with more purple ink to make the dots show up.  It was cut at 5 X 6 1/2.  I added a small piece of paper cut at 5 X 1 1/2 inch to the bottom and stamped "With Sympathy" on the lower right hand corner.   You can also print your sentiment onto archival paper and cut it to fit the size card that you decide to make, that is how I did the sentiment on the inside of the card.  I also inked around the edge of that paper after triming it to fit the card.

Because this card will not fit into an envelope, I made a box to put it in.  To make the box I cut a piece of sturdy cardstock the size of 11 X 8 and scored it 1 inch, then kept rotating the cardstock on the scorer and scoring at 1 inch on all four sides of the paper.  At each corner you will need to make a cut from the edge along one score line and in as far as the first score line you are cutting towards, make sure to only cut once at each corner.  You don't want to remove the little square piece that is 1 in. X 1 in, you will need to fold this little piece in, add some tape to the back side and adhere it to the opposing section of the card stock forming one corner.  Do this at each corner and  you will have created the bottom of the box.  The top is created the same way but you will need a smaller piece of cardstock cut at 10 X 7, scoring at 1/2 inch in on each side, follow the same instructions as you did to create the bottom of the box and you will have a top that fits the bottom.  I hope this isn't to confusing, if you need additional instructions, please let me know.   I added some ribbon to the top of the box for decorations and inked the inside of the bottom half of the box so it wouldn't look so plain. 

I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know if you have any questions.  I would love to hear your comments.