Sympathy Cards – We Always Have A Need.

I’ve been missing in action for the past couple of days because life at the Rist household has been more of a zoo then normal. In the past two days we’ve had one car not start, the second have a frozen door, therapy and exercise, meetings at church, a Christmas tag class, baby sat not once but twice, spent windshield time driving to Ottumwa and back, and today we are adding to the windshield time of making our way to Kansas City via both our hometowns. Something had to give and that something was my blog unfortunately. But all of those items listed above are a drop in the bucket when someone has an unexpected death for a young father/son/nephew/brother such as a friend experienced on Thursday.

My sympathy cards are pretty much depleted since we’ve been focusing on holiday crafting, and I needed to design for an upcoming card class (winter sympathy and birthday cards), so I went to my stamp sets and grabbed out anything that would be appropriate while turning to my holiday DSP packages to see patterns that would be appropriate for those cards as well.

I was simply churning out card possibilities, with no idea if this card would be used. But when you hear of a friend’s nephew passing away from a tragic accident at this time of year, you grab a card and begin writing your condolences.

Wooded Acres is a stamp set that has been retired recently (and I’m behind getting those pulled from my shelves) that I paired with greeting/verse from the Peaceful Pier bundle. The DSP is from the Peaceful Garden DSP package, with the dies coming from a new bundle – Beautifully Celebrated – in the spring mini catalog.

Using Early Espresso and Crumb Cake inks as well as card stocks I pulled this card together quickly. For finishing touches I used the Early Espresso baker’s twine and Earthy matte dots.

Life has been hectic with unplanned and planned activities and it’s easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated, but you realize how insignificant these aggravations are when someone has an unexpected, devastating loss.

Unfortunately, we always need a stash of sympathy cards on hand. That’s one card that won’t go out of style.

God Bless friends.