Hope Whispers

About 10 years ago I was a member of an online stamping community where we all had a gallery and posted cards. I made it routine to comment on people's cards every day to encourage them. I commented on this one woman's card and she did the unthinkable, she sent me the stamp sets she used to create the beautiful card.

The stamp company is out of business now but it was Paper, Makeup, Stamps... and these two sets together (one has images the other just a single sentiment) make an amazing card of hope and encouragement. I wanted to create something for a very special friend and reached for these old trusty sets.


I made this last night and wasn't sold on how it looked, but I let it sit over night and now I'm liking it more. I wanted the panel to look like the sun breaking in early dawn.

I used some papers from the American Crafts True Stories 6x6 pad, my Zig clean color brush markers and Jet black ink from Lawn Fawn. The dies were MFTs stitched rounded rectangles, Spellbinders oval and Lawn Fawn scalloped border.

How to make me Happy:

I've had this Simon Says Stamp set for a while now called Choose Happy and I'd yet to ink any of the stamps up. Once I got this True Stories paper pad by American Crafts in the mail I knew I had to make a coffee themed card and I had to do it right away!

 It really came together pretty quickly once I decided on a sketch to work off of for the card. I made the sketch my own instead of following it directly, but I loved the results.

Using the MFT Pierced Rectangle dies, I die cut two pieces patterned paper panels and then with a smaller Pierced Rectangle I die cut a white panel from some MFT Smooth White Cardstock.

The largest patterned paper was cut using the MFT Blueprints 2 Large Rectangle die.

After my papers were cut this card came together in a matter of minutes.

I stamped the focal panel with this adorable sentiment and coffee cup image, quick colored the cup and heart and coffee with some Copic markers (W00, R24, E57), added a little glossy accents and a few Stampin' Up enamel dots to finish the card front.

I attached it to a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" MFT Blueberry Cardstock panel and attached to an A2 top fold card base.

I stamped one more sentiment on the inside with the same coffee cup image. I used the same three Copic markers to color it quickly and the card was complete.