"There are times when mere words cannot bring the comfort that comes with holding a cat."

Hi, Friends...

I am here with a sympathy card for this week's Unity - Friends with Flair link up.  This was one of those cards that was particularly difficult to make.  Some neighbors lost their college-age daughter to cancer recently.  So very, very sad.  Because she was so young and in the prime of life, I decided to go with brighter colors instead of pale or somber ones. I used another of my Brusho backgrounds from this project and applied some Picked Raspberry Distress Ink to the Darice - With Sympathy embossing folder and misted it before running it all through my machine.  I trimmed off the sentiment part and sponged the words with additional DI for more definition.

For my background, I chose a piece of lavender colored cardstock and a Unity lace background stamp (discontinued, apparently) that I've had for quite some time.  I stamped with Versamark Ink and heat embossed it with WOW! Embossing Powder - Opaque Bright White Regular.  Then I sponged over the lacy embossing with more DI in the Picked Raspberry and Salty Ocean, removing the excess with a baby wipe.

That's it for this simple, but pretty, sympathy card.  Do you think it is too bright for this kind of occasion?  I hope it isn't.

Today I am introducing two new followers with the same name!
(Different spellings, although very close.....but it still isn't really the same name...I know this from having a less-common spelling for my own name.  Janice and Janis are NOT the same name!!  lol...)

By the way.....do you notice how close I am to 100 followers????  A giveaway is just around the corner........

Mandi Mance of Faith, Hope and Crafts is the enabler that introduced me to Brusho!!!  LOL...  She lives in NY, but is originally from Scotland and continues to bring that lovely Scottish charm to her blog entries and awesome projects!  I was the very lucky winner of her blog prize recently that included the turquoise Brusho that I can't keep my crafty fingers away from now.  Ha.  So, you can call Mandi an "enabler excellence"!!!  Thank you so much, Mandi, for becoming a follower....and for introducing so many of us to Brusho!!  This ginormous new-follower smile is all yours!!!

Next up is Mandy Dodd of A Teacup of Scrapisms from down under in Tasmania, Australia!!!  WooHoo...I think this is my first follower from Australia.  I was first introduced to Mandy's AMAZING artwork in Jennifer Grace's recent blog event, where Mandy's mojo went totally nutso and she pumped out zillions of inspired and inspiring paper and 3D projects in the course of a week!!!  WOW!!  Such beautiful and fun pieces that went with the camera and focus theme.

Here's a fun little story about Mandy and me: I was so inspired by Mandy's spectacular creativity and number of projects for Jennifer's event that I spontaneously decided to send her a little prize myself!! Since Jennifer Grace is in the UK, I figured Mandy was, also. Imagine my surprise and delight to find she is from Tasmania!! I told her it was exciting for me to send something all the way to Australia and she wrote back and said it was exciting for her to receive something clear from the UK!!! Hahahaha..... She figured I was in UK because of Jennifer's event, too! LOL!! We had a great laugh over all of that when I told her I actually live in the USA!!! Hooray for the world wide web!!! :)

Mandy, thank you so much for becoming a follower of my blog.  I am so glad to get acquainted with you!!!  This is the smile that spreads over my face seeing a new photo on my sidebar!!

NOTE TO SELF: Check spellings of new followers before posting. Then check them again!!! I had Mandy spelled Mandie....and Mandi spelled Mandy!!!!  ARRRGGGHH!! I am not totally sure I have it straight, yet!!!  I hereby declare that anyone who has ever misspelled my name is officially pardoned.  :)

Thank you, everyone, for stopping by today.  I appreciate your visit and each and every comment.  Have a good weekend.
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