Sympathy Doves

Mornin' y'all!  Ryan was over here trying to convince me that he was late for school this morning, as if I didn't check the school calendar three times to make sure his first day back is TOMORROW.  I'm going to let him enjoy his last day of break and maybe I can get him to watch Hook with me this afternoon.  We discovered over the weekend that Ryan has no idea what that is so of course we need to fix that oversight.

Anyway.  When it comes to making cards, there are a few things that I just don't like to make:  white on white (ugh!), all neutrals (again, give me color!!!), "fun" folds (stressful and frequently use up a lot of paper), slimline cards (again, you can't get two cards out of a sheet of cardstock so it feels wasteful to me and also I don't have envelopes for that).  But my least favorite?  Sympathy cards.  I much prefer to make them when I *don't* need them, but the hubs asked for one and I didn't have anything he thought would be appropriate in my stash, so I had to make one.  Here's my card:

I frequently gravitate towards blues and greens for sympathy cards (on the rare occasion that I make them) because I find those colors soothing and tranquil, which I think is good for a sympathy card.  Usually I try to make them pretty CAS but for some reason I was feeling the layers this time, so I finally cut into several patterns from the beautiful Peaceful Garden DSP, added a whole lot of skinny Secret Sea mats and a simple stamped and die cut greeting.  I put it all on a Soft Succulent card base before I wondered why I didn't use Cloud Cover, but that watercolor wash pattern does lean a bit green rather than blue so I think it works.

So this card is going to a former coworker of my husband's who recently lost his wife to complications from breast cancer.  Ladies, get your annual mammograms!  One of my favorite people in the world fought stage 4 breast cancer tooth and nail for four years and I miss her every day.  Another friend successfully completed treatment for breast cancer after her mother passed away from it.  My mom had it a few years ago, not the hereditary kind but I still get my checks every year.  It's everywhere and early detection is key.

Okay, enough of that.  I promise to have a more cheery card tomorrow because it's the first challenge of the new year for SUO Challenges, so stay tuned for that!  For right now, I'm going to get myself a second cuppa because I can, and leave a few comments on some blogs before I take Daphne for her daily tour of the neighborhood.  Cheers!

Supplies, all SU!
Stamps:  Simply Sketched
Ink:  Secret Sea
Paper:  Soft Succulent, Cloud Cover, Secret Sea, Peaceful Garden dsp
Accessories:  Layering Ovals Framelits, Dimensionals