I wanted a calming, respectful tone so I chose a grey cardstock to be a neutral base and then I chose to work with greens; I think green speaks of two things to me, calm & nature both of which are perfect for a sympathy card.

I embossed the Diamond background stamp on my grey cardstock, using WOW Clear Matte Dull embossing powder. Using a clear embossing powder of any type on coloured cardstock will give a darker look, so you get a pleasing tone on tone background, but because I used the matte EP it is without the high shine normally left by embossing.

I then moved onto my focal image; I stamped the leafy branch from ????, one of Altenew’s mini sets, onto some watercolour paper using Versamark. I chose to use this because it would leave a slightly darker/shiny outline of the stamp that I could then paint over without the lines showing. This type of stamping & colouring is often referred to as no-line colouring.

I decided to use my Altenew Metallic watercolours for my branch and leaves; you will get the best results from these paints if you add some water to the pans and let them sit for a few minutes before agitating the surface with a paintbrush. This just helps to reconstitute the pigments and gives the most metallic results.

I painted each leaf, using two of the greens from the set, which allowed me to get some differentiation between them, and then I used a bronze colour to add some very thin branches.

I also painted an area roughly 2inch² with the two greens and added some of the white pearl, and once that was thoroughly dry I embossed my sentiment onto it with opaque bright white EP from WOW.

I fussy cut the branch and die cut my sentiment into a circle. I used a die from an A2 layers set to cut my background, giving me an inner piece and an outer frame, then I trimmed a small amount from each side of the frame to allow for a small white border once attached to my card base.

I glued the frame piece directly onto my card base with some Nuvo Deluxe liquid adhesive, then I popped the inner piece up on some foam tape before adhering that to the card base. This just gives a little added interest which I enjoyed.

I adhered my branch and sentiment to the background using foam squares and added some clear raindrop embellishments in a random way around the focal image.