Pampered Pets For A Customer Order

I love doing craft fairs, especially at this time of year. It’s so good to reconnect with old friends and customers, and meet new ones. At one of the craft fairs I attended recently I was asked for pet sympathy cards. This lady actually wanted six different ones and I agreed to make them specially for her. So among all the Christmas and other projects, this has been on my to do list. Here’s one of the cards, featuring a cat image and sentiment from the Pampered Pets Stamp Set.

PAMPERED PETS

I began by choosing my colour scheme; Balmy Blue and Crumb Cake, with Very Vanilla as my neutral. Rather than using black ink for the stamping I decided to use something a little softer, Basic Gray.

With the colours chosen I cut two 3-7/8″ x 5-1/8″ pieces of Very Vanilla Card. One piece would become the front of the finished card and the other would line the inside.

From the Pampered Pets Stamp Set I first took the sentiment “Always in your heart… so sorry for your loss”. Using Basic Gray ink I stamped this in the bottom right corner on one of the Very Vanilla layers.

Now I was ready to add the image of the curled up cat. First I stamped it above the sentiment, then in the bottom right corner on the other Very Vanilla layer. I also stamped it in the bottom left corner on the front of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope.

But I wasn’t quite finished with Pampered Pets just yet. I needed a couple more of those cat images, so I stamped one on the top of a stack of Full-Adhesive Post-It® Notes. Then I took the top Post-It together with the two underneath and using my Paper Snips cut around the cat. Now I had three cat-shaped masks but only had to cut out one!

After separating the three cats I placed one over each image on the card layers and envelope. This would protect that part of the design while I worked on the background.

COLOURING TWO WAYS

I was ready to start adding colour to my project starting with the Balmy Blue ink pad and a Blending Brush. So around the top of each cat I added a thin layer of blue ink. Once all three were done I changed to a second brush and Crumb Cake ink pad to add colour around the bottom of the cat. Then I removed the Post-It Note masks to reveal the stamped cats beneath.

To colour the cats I used dark and light Smoky Slate Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. This created a nice contrast against the softer ink around them.

Now all I had to do was put the card together. I began by using my Paper Trimmer to cut and score some Crumb Cake Card. Then I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I fixed the Very Vanilla layer with just the cat image inside the card base.

Next I cut a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Balmy Blue Card. Still using liquid glue I mounted the main Very Vanilla layer onto this. Before going any further I wrapped some Linen Thread around the layers and tied it in a simple bow. Finally I added the assembled piece to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals and my card was complete.

I’m really pleased with how this card turned out and I hope my customer is too. Now just four more pet sympathy cards to design and make to fulfill this custom order.

For some more projects featuring the Pampered Pets Stamp Set (and the coordinating Pets Dies) see these earlier blog posts: