Murder and Salutations (Book 3 in the Cardmaking Mysteries) by Tim Myers

that’s way too
much trouble.”
    “ For you or for me?” I
asked. “Because if you’re worried about my time, I’d like nothing
better than to help you make something special. After all, that’s
why I opened the shop.”
    She looked at me with uncertainty. “Really?
You’d really help me make my own card?”
    “ Absolutely,” I said as I
joined her and held out my hand. “By the way, I’m
Jennifer.”
    “ I’m Krystal,” she
said.
    “ It’s nice to meet you,
Krystal. Now, exactly what kind of card are you looking
for?”
    “ I’d like a get-well card
for my mom. She’s in the hospital.”
    “ Okay,” I said as I led her
to our supplies. “First off, what’s your mother’s favorite
color?”
    “ She’s a nut for anything
blue,” the girl admitted.
    I led her to the card stock and fancy papers
we carried. “Pick out a shade you think she’d like.”
    She did as I asked, opting for a midnight
blue. I grabbed a sheet of lighter blue, and a few other sheets,
too. “We’ll use these as complementary colors. Now what’s her
favorite thing in the world?”
    Krystal didn’t even have to think about it.
“She loves her flower garden passionately.”
    “ Perfect,” I said, and led
her to the selection of pressed, dried flowers we had. “Would you
like to choose some, or should I?”
    “ I like these,” she said as
she selected a small, flat bouquet of blue flowers. I took them
from her, grabbed a sheet of rub-on letters and a few scraps of
paper, and led her to our worktable by the window.
    “ Let’s see, I know I’ve got
just the right punch here somewhere.” I searched through the box of
large paper punches, and found the one I wanted. I punched out a
vase shape from the dark blue paper, then laid Krystal’s flowers on
a sheet of the lighter blue stock. “Just put the vase over the
stems and see what you think.”
    She did as I asked, then said, “It’s
beautiful.”
    “ And easy, too,” I said. “We
have sheets of scripted sentiments made up if you’d like to just
say ‘Get Well,’ but if you’d like to personalize your card more,
you can use these letters. You just rub the letter you want onto
the paper with this burnisher and you’re all set.”
    She took the stylus from me and said, “It’s
just a chunk of wood.”
    “ Actually, it’s a carefully
sculpted piece of hard maple with a polyurethane finish, but you
can call it a chunk if you want to.”
    She studied the layout of her card, then
asked, “Should I glue all this down before I do the lettering?”
    “ The best way to approach it
is to figure out where you want everything to go first, then letter
on the flat paper before you start assembling your
card.”
    She rubbed a message to her mother on the
paper, then I helped her arrange the vase and flowers with
doubled-sided tape. Then we matted three different pieces of paper
together, one just a little bigger than the next, to form a perfect
border. After that, we attached the front to another piece of
folded card stock and we were finished.
    “ Now pick out an envelope,
and we’re set.”
    She chose a blue one—surprise, surprise—and
I rang up her purchase. Krystal looked puzzled when she saw the
amount. “Is there something wrong?” I asked.
    “ You charged me the same as
one of your regular cards,” she said. “It should be
more.”
    “ I’d say you could leave me
a tip, but as the store owner I’d just have to turn it down.
Krystal, why on earth should I charge you more for something I had
fun helping with?”
    “ I don’t know,” she said.
“It just doesn’t seem right.”
    “ If you’d like, I could
always overcharge you next time you come in,” I said with a
smile.
    “ No thanks, that’s all
right, but I’ll be back. That was fun.”
    “ I’m glad
you enjoyed yourself.” After she was gone, I started to clean up
our mess, then I remembered that I needed to make a card for Addie
Mason at Heaven Scent. I’d liked the way Krystal’s