After seeing many beautiful cards designed with the Painted Harvest Stamp set, I was excited to receive it yesterday. This morning, I saw the new challenges at Freshly Made Sketches and Tic Tac Toe, and dove right in. The angled sketch and the middle row across (flower-thank you-angled) could work well together.

I was anxious to try stamping the sunflower, and used Daffodil Delight for the first layer, Pumpkin Pie for the second (now I’m getting hungry) and Cajun Craze for the center. I fussy cut my sunflower, because I wanted to pop it up on dimensionals, and it didn’t come with a die for cutting. It was fairly easy, because it was meant to be irregular, or so I told myself.

CONFESSION: I actually made two of these flowers, because I didn’t like the center on my first one. So, my layered sunflower is really a “cover-up.”

Once I had my flower, I decided the pattern I wanted to use from the Painted Autumn Designer Series Paper, which I layered on a Very Vanilla card base. I wasn’t sure how to create the angled piece, and I’m curious how others solved this challenge. I ended up making a template from a piece of scratch paper, which I placed with the “real thing” on the Stampin’ Trimmer. 

Two hours later………

After stamping the sentiment, “gather together & give thanks,” in Early Espresso ink, I added a little texture to this angled piece with the Softly Falling embossing folder. Then, I used Tear Tape to adhere lace ribbon along the bottom edge, and glued the piece on top of the DSP.

My sunflowers (plural) needed some foliage, and I chose the two-step fern from the same Painted Harvest stamp set. Using the colors, Pear Pizzazz, Lemon Lime Twist, and Early Espresso, I had fun experimenting with different combinations. What time is it now? I began fussy cutting, stopped after three (because it’s the magic number), and tucked them beneath the flowers.

This can be known as the project that took an entire morning. Sometimes you work on something for such a long time, you lose perspective. I sent a pic to my husband to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind, and he said it was “beautiful.” He’s a nice guy. I think I’ll give him this card for Thanksgiving.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Relax, have fun, enjoy your day!

P.S. I just discovered a new challenge, The Sisterhood of Crafters. Their theme this week is Harvest Hoe-down, and sunflowers fit that perfectly. What a great name and graphic they have. I think I’ll have to join!