Just when things appear to be sorting themselves out, life throws you a curve ball to make sure you’re paying attention.  Yesterday my 7 year old granddaughter spend a good part of the afternoon in her local paediatric emergency room.  She acquired a number of bites on a recent field trip and one was particularly nasty.  Having just completed a course of antibiotics and antihisthamines the redness around this one bite flared up again, and her doctor decided this warranted further investigation.

The hospital were very good and Alyssa has cellulitis in her arm.  They believe the bite on her elbow might have been caused by a tick, so have immediately put her onto a much stronger regimen of antibiotics while they wait for the result of blood tests for Lyme Disease.  Alyssa hates having blood taken (well who doesn’t), and as she didn’t actually feel unwell found the succession of doctors and other medical staff who wanted to look at her arm a little tedious.  Apparently the local hospital doesn’t get many cases like Alyssa’s and they asked if they could use her as a case study, so she was quite the attraction.

Alyssa started her new antibiotics yesterday and today her arm is already much improved, the redness has noticeably reduced and she’s gone off to perform in her drama school end of year show.  She wasn’t going to let yesterday’s problems spoil her day today.

With all that going on you won’t be surprised to find that this morning I was inspired to create a get well card.

To me, get well and sympathy cards are all about the sentiment and so I wanted to keep this project fairly simple, but still interesting.

I began by using my Stampin’ Trimmer to cut and score a piece of Thick Very Vanilla Card, then I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder.

On a layer of Very Vanilla Card I used Pear Pizzazz ink to stamp the large floral image from the Flourishing Phrases Stamp Set across the bottom right corner after first stamping it off twice on scrap paper.  This gave me a much more subtle image that stamping the ink at full strength.  In the centre towards the top of the layer I used Pear Pizzazz ink to stamp the sentiment ‘with warmth & caring from me’.  Once that was done I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to fix the layer to the inside of the card base.

Next I took another layer of Very Vanilla Card and wiped it with an Embossing Buddy to remove any oils and static before using VersaMark Ink to stamp the ‘Comfort & Healing to you…’ sentiment in the bottom right corner.  I sprinkled the sticky ink with Copper Stampin’ Emboss Powder, tapped off the excess and removed a few stray specks before melting the rest with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).  Liquid glue was then used to fix the layer to the front of the card base.

To decorate the front of the card I decided to use a die-cut piece and with my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform I cut out a piece of Pear Pizzazz Card using the large floral die from the Flourish Thinlits.

As nice as the die-cut piece was I thought I’d continue the copper theme by carefully pressing each of the ‘berries’ onto the corner of my Versamark ink pad.  I sprinkled each of the berries with Copper Stampin’ Emboss Powder, tapped off the excess and melted the rest with the Heat Tool set on 2 (high). Then I fixed the piece to the front of the card using a Fine-Tip Glue Pen so that the bottom of the die-cut sat nicely around the edge of the embossed sentiment.

All that was left was to use Pear Pizzazz ink (stamped off twice onto scrap paper) to stamp the large foliage image across the bottom right corner of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope to match the stamping on the inside of the card.

Multipurpose Liquid Glue vs Fine Tip Glue Pen

Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) is the one that I almost always reach for in my papercrafting, however as my die-cut piece was very intricate I opted to use the Fine Tip Glue Pen.  This alternate glue has a really fine applicator which is perfect for detailed work and if any glue should seep out it dries clear and non-sticky.  Liquid glue tends to be more noticeable if it seeps out and also it becomes a semi-permanent glue so not always a great option for detailed pieces.

There’s a reason Stampin’ Up! have the wide range of adhesives, every one has pros and cons, and is suitable for different purposes.  They’ve even provided a reference guide at the bottom of page 213 in the 2018/2019 Annual Catalogue to help you

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