Stampin’ Up! Avant Garden Serene Scenery Sympathy

Good morning, y’all!  Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Finny is still recovering from his play date – so’s Scout.  She apparently took advantage of the chance to eat…well…”Stuff”.  The kind of stuff Finn eats on a too-regular basis.  But she’s not used to it – so, she discharged said stuff….on my friend’s Oriental Rug. 🙁  Oops.  We may have to do play dates at their house for a while!

Finn’s not sympathetic.  He thinks she needs to toughen up.

You can tell just by looking at him what he’s thinking.

Girls. 😉

My card today is for a friend of my mom’s – who recently had to put her horse down.  He wasn’t terribly old and they didn’t expect it.  So…quite sad.  I had a hard time with this one – I wanted a good quote to put on the card, so I had to read thru a bunch of them.  Which made me think of the horses and dogs and cats that have already left me.  It’s the plight of every animal owner – we outlive them all.

But – I finally found what I wanted to use and called on my Labeler Alphabet again.  I paired it up with some rustic Serene Scenery, and added some vintage feeling touches.  The Sale-A-Bration stamp set called Avant Garden played a supporting role, too.  Take a look-see:

My layout is from the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week.

I started with a piece of Serene Scenery DSP and stamped the pretty flower image from Avant Garden all around the panel in Crumb Cake ink.  Then I matted it on Crumb Cake card stock for the card front.

Next up is a second design from Serene Scenery – the cloud filled sky – also matted on Crumb Cake.  I used Liquid Glue to adhere a new Lace Doily (Very Vanilla side up) and a length of Very Vanilla 1/2″ Lace Trim to the back of the matted panel.

Then I wound some large loops of Linen Thread around – again using Liquid Glue to secure it.  I cut a couple of pieces of 5/8″ Burlap Ribbon and adhered them directly to the card front with Liquid Glue.  I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to pop the small panel onto the card front.

Using my Labeler Alphabet, I stamped the individual words in Island Indigo on more of the rustic board design paper from Serene Scenery, and then cut them all out.  I adhered them to the card with Liquid Glue.  I know I just did a card the other day with this technique to make a custom sentiment – so, I hope you’ll bear with me!!

Finally, I used my Island Indigo Stampin’ Write Marker to add the source of the quote under my sentiment.

To give it just a little bling, I added a few small Rhinestone Basic Jewels and then nestled a single Falling In Love Embellishment under the other decorations with a Glue Dot and the card was done!

On the inside, I stamped the Avant Garden flower in the middle of a Very Vanilla panel, using stamped-off-once Crumb Cake ink.  Over that is a sentiment from Flourishing Phrases in Island Indigo.  I wanted it muted a little, so I stamped it off once, too.  Then I flicked the edges of the panel with a Pool Party sponge.

I SNAILd the panel to a Crumb Cake mat and into my Island Indigo card base.  Well, actually, I SNAILd it into a Marina Mist card base.  And then realized the error of my ways!  Fortunately, my friend Beth had told me about using a Heat Tool to loosen up adhesive – so I pried it back off and put it into the Island Indigo card where it belonged! 🙂  Then I popped the card front on with Stampin’ Dimensionals and the card was done!

My Very Vanilla Medium Envelope got another Crumb Cake Avant Garden flower on the front.  I used my Pool Party and Pear Pizzazz Stampin’ Write Markers to give the flower just a touch of color…

…and I added more barn wood Serene Scenery DSP to the envelope flap.

Et Voila!  This isn’t the card I started out to make – I had a completely different direction in mind when I started.  But, I think it turned out well – I like the sort of shabby-westerny-chic vibe.  Hope you like!

Scroll on down for the card cuts and all the products you’ll need to make this one for yourself!

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