Unfortunately, I have needed sympathy cards lately.  I was able to use a few of the new Sale-A-Bration stamp sets and the Stitched So Sweetly Dies to make some very simple, yet thoughtful, cards.  I hope you enjoy the design and also that you use the layout to make all types of cards.

Here are the basic steps –

• Get a few pieces of your favorite colors of card stock that work well together.  I chose several shades of greens that I thought would be pretty in layered die cuts.
• Grab the Stitched So Sweetly Dies and use some washi tape to attach the five larger rectangle dies together.
• Each piece of your card stock will go through your die cutting machine with all rectangle dies held together.  This will allow you to die cut multiple pieces with one pass.  When you have die cut all your pieces, you will have several die cut pieces in multiple sizes and multiple pieces.
• Use the largest die to cut a few pieces of either Basic White or Very Vanilla card stock.  Choose the color depending on the color of the card base that you’ll have.
• Figure out which color combinations from the die cut rectangles that you would like to have on one card front.  Adhere them to the Basic White or Very Vanilla die cut piece.
• To add some texture to the layers, I embossed the final piece with the Tasteful Textile 3D embossing folder.  This embossing folder has become one of my go-to products lately.
• I used the beautiful Corner Bouquet SAB Stamp Set to decorate the adhered die cut pieces.  I did use my Stamparatus to stamp the image since I had to stamp a few times.  Memento tuxedo black ink worked well for me.
• I cut a piece of Basic White card stock to about 4″ x 5 1/4″ and stamped “sorry for your loss” on the bottom middle of this piece.  This stamp is from the very elegant Heal Your Heart SAB Stamp Set.  I used Memento tuxedo black ink on this as well.

• The final frame is a piece of Basic Black card stock cut to 4 1/8″ x 5 3/8″ to give a nice border around the sentiment piece.
• All layers were adhered directly to one another over a Basic White card stock base.
• For the inside sentiment, I used the “wishing I could heal your heart” stamp.  It was stamped with Memento tuxedo black ink.
• To finish the card, I added a few of the absolutely gorgeous Blue Adhesive Backed Gems!

Let your creative juices flow with this layout.  You can make your layered dies any shapes with nested die sets or with dies that will fit inside each other.  Choose fun colors that will work together well.  What about rainbow colors, ombre shades, and your favorite color combinations.  The sky is the limit on this.  I would love to see what you create!

Below are a few of the items that I used to create my cards.  Some of the items are current Sale-A-Bration products.  You will need to place an order of $50 (before shipping and tax) to earn one of these products.  If you click on any picture below, you’ll go directly to my online store.

Happy stamping!
Laurie