Inspired By Friends

Hello friends.  A while ago, my sweet friend Bonnie used a retired stamp set from SU! called Painted Harvest where the 2 step stamps were meant to be used as a sunflower, but Bonnie made hers into Christmas Wreaths and WOW'd me!  Those sunflower wreaths also WOW'd another one of my sweet friends Michele, and we were both SO impressed with how Bonnie had used this stamp set!  Well of course I had to go digging through my SU! sets to find it and Michele asked if I could bring it along with me a couple weeks ago when we got together to play so she could try it out too.  We asked Bonnie if she'd like to play along with Michele and I and of course she said yes, so today's post was inspired by friends and the Painted Harvest set!

I have 3 cards to share with you today.  Two are Christmas and one is Fall, so let's get started!  A few weeks ago, I did a post using heavy weight vellum as my card base (HERE) and I liked it so much that I used that technique again for my 1st card.

I started by embossing my vellum card base with a Spellbinders embossing folder called Scattered Christmas...it's a new one this year and I'm really loving it!  Next I stamped my wreath with SU!'s Pear Pizazz and Old Olive inks.  I stamped the berries in Real Red ink, but they didn't show up that well, so I used some red Stickles.

Hopefully you can see the sparkle from this close up a bit better!  Once the berries were dry, I die cut my image using a square stitched die from SU! and layered it with a piece of a deep red shimmery cardstock that was in my stash before attaching it to my embossed vellum base.  I used that same deep red cardstock to die cut my bow (The Greetery) and my sentiment (Special Merry Christmas from Memory Box), and this card was done!  

My 2nd card is my favorite I think!  I stamped the wreath first in Soft Succulent and Evening Evergreen inks (SU!) and then ran my panel through SSS's Forest Border embossing folder.  I bought this folder last year and then never used it...WHY??!!  I love, LOVE the way it looks in the white on white!!  

I used SSS's Big Joy die to cut out the "J" and "Y" several times (to stack for dimension) and then attached on either side of the wreath.  I matted this layer with a piece of Evening Evergreen cs and attached both layers to a white card base.  To finish I added a pop of color with the red birds using PTI's In The Meadow dies and then added a few Iridescent Clear Drops from PFS.  

My last card uses this sunflower stamp in a completely different way, and I wish I could tell you I thought it up on my own, but some creative stamper back when this set was first released thought to make the sweet hedgehog using just half of the stamps.  Isn't he a cutie?!!  I used Crumb Cake and Soft Suede inks (SU!) for my hedgie, and for his eyes and nose I used a black glaze pen.  I stamped a few of the greenery pieces around him using Old Olive, Terracotta Tile, & Mango Melody inks, and then used an old Lil Inker Stitched Rectangle die to cut my panel out.  

I framed my little guy out with a piece of kraft cs that I embossed with SSS's Fall Foliage embossing folder, and then used a brayer and HA's Unicorn White Pigment ink to lightly ink up the leaves so they'd show up better.  I finished with a sentiment from Gina K and a few Sparkling Champagne Metallic Pearls from PFS.

So there you have my 3 cards using a stamp set that was originally intended for a sunflower...all to show you there are so many different ways to use stamps than what they were originally intended for!  I can't wait to see what my sweet friends did with this same stamp set, so check them out here...Michele and Bonnie.  They always knock my socks off with their creativity, so come along and check it all out with me!  And as always, thanks for the sweet inspiration my friends!!

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!