A blog devoted to the cards I make in my tiny upstairs space. When my sister stays there, she calls it an "artist's garret". I'm not an artist, but am an enthusiastic cardmaker - hence the title "Cardmaker's Garret".
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Friday, 3 October 2025

A Birthday Card and a Sympathy Card

Amazingly for me, I don't have a Christmas card today.  But I will have one tomorrow!!

For a friend who is an avid bird watcher.  I will be seeing her on her birthday so I could make something I can hand deliver.  It's for two challenges - Can You Handle the Pressure "Trees / Leaves" and The Sisterhood of Crafters "Birthdays".

I dry embossed the background and had a perfect vertical sentiment that would just fit in a section of the panel that had no embossing on it.  I added a die cut leafy wreath, a die cut bird that I smooshed in various Distress inks, and a piece of moss I found in my garden that was perfectly nest-shaped.

Shopping our Stash wants Sympathy cards - a good challenge to get me to make one for my stash as, at my age, sadly I seem to have need of sympathy cards fairly often.

I masked off a rectangle on my focal panel and sponged from three corners first with the lighter ink, then the darker. I stamped the leaves and text with second generation grey ink, and then stamped the sentiment with full strength grey ink. On top of it all, I stamped the cream leaves with white pigment ink and then heat embossed with cream embossing powder. It's popped up on fun foam on a dry embossed background.

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Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Rosie's Roadshow vertical sentiment
Ink - various green, yellow, orange Distress inks
Paper - white and grey-green cs
Size - A2
Accessories - moss from my garden, leafy wreath die, bird die, leafy branches embossing folder

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - SU Very Versailles, unknown sentiment
Ink - various aqua / turquoise Distress inks, Archival Watering Can, ColorBox white
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - textured embossing folder, cream embossing powder, fun foam