Twofer

Well, AGAIN Long Time No See :-)  Today I thought I'd add the oldest cards from my Draft Folder - they are both sympathy cards for our friends on the loss of OUR friend their mother, Thelma... the second one I was too embarrassed to dedicate a post to so I've snuck it on the end of this post, hence the "Twofer" title.  I did make a nice card for Thelma's hubby, that can come another day - today we have the "runners-up", lol

Here's the first one

To be honest, this card does look SO much nicer in real life, I was happy with it.  The gorgeous embossed card is pearlised, the embossing is very heavy, I got it from my favourite "speciality" paper store Starfish Lane with my birthday voucher from Son #2 :-)  

The lace ribbon with glittery bits came from there too, the pearl and rhinestone embellishment was from eBay.  I added a very fibrous dark brown ribbon on the top edge of the lace ribbon - the whole card is very tactile and using good quality papers and embellies was essential to the finished effect

I used a sentiment I have used before for Sympathy cards, just typed out on the computer.  The small flourish at the bottom is a Memory Box die (Ivy Tendril I think).  That's it!  

The inside is finished along the same lines as the outside, as per usual

Now, the feeling of quality the first card had just didn't happen with my second card; it should have, I used great quality paper from Starfish Lane again, but to be honest I'd spent so much time on the Widower's card I was pushing it to do anything too elaborate for the other two cards - I wanted them to be different and ended up with one just looking second-rate.  In the interest of warts and all crafting, here it is...

 I used a Portacraft embossing folder (which I obviously like because I've bought it twice, lol) sponged with burgundy ink on the one half and added the floral paper, which is really very nice in real life, with a subtle glittery sheen to it, matted onto burgundy card to the other half.  The burgundy trim covering the join is also from SFL.  The sentiment is available on my freebies page, here; the matt was cut with Nestabilities and ink added to the edge to tie it all together.  A couple of burgundy pearls from my stash and that was that.  Again, as usual, I finished the inside with elements from the front.
I'd like to enter one or other of these cards to the following challenges:

Moving Along With The Times Sentiment Only

Creatalicious Challenges Anything Goes, add a Sentiment

Cute Card Thursday Flowers, embossed on the first card, printed on the second

Die Cut Divas Flowers, embossed on the first card, printed on the second

Crafty Cardmakers  No Patterned Paper (First card)

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge Patterned Paper (Second card)

Pixies Snippets Playground Use snippets (the patterned paper on the second card, why there's only half on each layer! though my lovely son bought me more for my latest birthday)

Little Miss Muffet, Cardz 4 Galz, Catch The Bug, Through the Craftroom Door, Digi Choosday, Crafty  Creations, 4 Crafty Chicks, Crafting With Friends Challenge # 67, Creative Fingers, Li'l Patch of Crafty Friends, Polkadoodles, A Perfect Time to Craft, Create and Inspire, Simply Papercrafts and Corrosive Challenge all have Anything Goes themes

That's it for today... at least I've got all my cards from 2015 out of my Drafts Folder at last... except for that one sympathy card!!  I'll be back - "soon", maybe with something new (I've been adding to my dies collection like a crazy woman, lol, organizing all my stash is what's been taking up my crafting time!) until then Happy Crafting, Donna