Altenew Washi Sympathy Cards

Recently we lost my Auntie Pat to Cancer so I found myself in need of several sympathy cards. These are never easy to make when you need them, so I decided to design three cards and make a few multiples of them so that I'd have some spare cards to hand when I require them in future.

Altenew have a range of really beautiful, wide washi tapes and I thought that the stunning Botanical Rhapsody (which is simply printed black on white) would be ideal for making Sympathy cards.

I started by covering three large (A3) sheets of white card with the washi tape, smoothing it down with a bone folder as I stuck it down. Then I cut several card fronts with my paper trimmer - I managed to get four 5" x 7" panels, four 6" square panels and had just enough left for three strips to add to DL cards. I stuck these to the card blanks using double sided tape, before adding various sentiments.

For the four 5' x 7" cards I used Altenew's Thinking of You die to cut several sentiments from black card. I stacked and glued three sentiments together for each card, to add some extra dimension. The "with deepest sympathy" sentiment is from Altenew's Wildflower Garden stamp set and I chose to stamp it with Versamark ink and heat emboss with detail white embossing powder onto black card. I cut the card into flag shapes and used foam tape to mount them onto my card fronts.

The 6" square cards were made in a similar way, but I used black card blanks and trimmed the panels down a little so that a narrow border was showing.

The Sympathy die that I used for these is by Sugar Pea Designs. Again I glued three of the words together before gluing them to my card. Lawn Fawn's fundamentals glue tube is perfect for this as it has a really fine applicator tip and the glue dries clear too. 

The "Thinking of You" sentiment is from Altenew's Beautiful Inside stamp set. I also used one of the longer messages from the set for the inside of each card. 

On the remaining three panels I decided to colour in the washi tape background using my new Faber Castell Polychromos pencils. I don't have many of these yet as I've just started my collection by buying a few individual pencils, but they are so lovely to use that I'm sure I'll be adding some more colours as soon as I'm able to. The coloured panels were then matted onto purple card and then added to black DL card blanks. The "with sympathy" sentiment is one of Altenew's Painted Greetings stamps and again I used white embossing powder on black card. I used My Favourite Things Stitched Fishtail Sentiment Strip dies to cut out the sentiments and added them with foam tape for dimension.

I was really pleased that I'd managed to make eleven cards in total and that I won't be caught short next time I need to send a sympathy card. 

The Altenew washi tape roll is a generous ten metres long (x 175mm) so I have plenty left to make some more cards in future. The lovely botanical design would lend itself well to lots of occasions and I'm looking forward to colouring in some more card panels in brighter colours to make some happier cards next.