One of my friends told me today that she is hitting the reset button. She doesn’t like her job or where she moved for that job. \u00a0Now just a couple weeks before her 40th birthday, she has started divorce proceedings. I am so sad for her. We had a long chat today, and\u00a0while I think (hope) it was helpful, I wanted to make her a card to let her know that she is in my thoughts and prayers.<\/p>\n

<\/a>I started with some beautiful patterned papers from the My Mind’s Eye Lost & Found Sunshine collection. I picked a chocolate brown trellis pattern for all the\u00a0matting. \u00a0Then I chose a golden yellow stripe for the background that I stamped with sweet acorns from The Greeting Farm Wood Friends stamp set in Walnut Stain Tim Holtz Distress Ink. A soft plaid that I die cut into a tag with the Diemond Dies Nesting Tag Die Set seemed to create a nice backdrop for the main focal point of the card. Initially I thought it would be difficult to incorporate a stripe and a plaid together on one card, but keeping everything in the same family of fall colors made this easier than expected.<\/p>\n

The main images for this card are the fawn and squirrel of The Greeting Farm Wood Friends. I also stamped out and colored a little bird from The Greeting Farm Your Wings stamp set that I had originally thought about adding to the duo on the card\u00a0front, but I ended up adding it to the inside of the card instead (that tag was getting a little crowded). \u00a0Because the squirrel was so much smaller than the fawn, I also put him on top of a mushroom from The Greeting Farm Little Fairies stamp set.<\/p>\n

<\/a>I used the following Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers with a water brush to watercolor all the images:
\nFawn: Brown (060), Dark Brown (062), Pale Pink (028), Light Gray (091) and Light Pink (026)
\nSquirrel: Beige (072), Brown (060),\u00a0Pale Pink (028), Light Gray (091) and Light Pink (026)
\nBird: Light Blue (035)
\nMushroom: Scarlett (023), Geranium Red (029), Beige (072), Dark Grown (062)
\nI also used a Sakura Black Glaze Pen to add a little shine to the eyes, noses, and spots on the mushroom as well as a Sakura White Gelly Roll Pen to add some highlights to the mushroom. The tag and the critters on the card front are all popped up on double sided foam adhesive for added dimension.<\/p>\n

For the inside liner of the card, I used the reverse side of the plaid paper which was a beautiful golden damask. I used the “thinking of you” from the Sizzix Script Celebration Words die set with more of the chocolate brown trellis paper for the sentiment. I inked all the edges of each paper\u00a0to finish off each edge (I like to camouflage the white edges of cut paper when I remember to do this step, which is about 50% of the time–LOL).<\/p>\n

For finishing touches, I added a hand dyed seam binding bow to the top of the tag, and some hand cut fishtail banners from more of the chocolate trellis paper and a scrap of cream card stock from my scrap box. I stamped with Momento Luxe Tuxedo Black Ink the “for someone special” sentiment from the Wood Friends stamp set and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder for a subtle shine and dimension.<\/p>\n

The following is a watercoloring process video of the critters on this card:<\/p>\n