Love Sunflowers!

Hello, my stamping friends.  Have you missed me?  It's been a super crazy month with first my husband having thyroid surgery because of a spot of cancer on his thyroid.  He's doing well and prognosis looks great.  Then my daughter scratched a cornea and was out of commission for several days because she couldn't see well enough to drive, etc.  Then on Sunday she went to ER with awful pain.  There was discussion for over 36 hours about whether her gall bladder needed to come out now or later.  The doctors opted for now and she had surgery yesterday.  All is well with her too.  Just needs to go through the healing process now.  Thank God for his goodness and grace in getting us through it all.  

Needless to say, I've spent little time in my stamping room getting anything made.  In fits and starts, I was able to do a little playing around with the awesome Sunflower 3D Embossing Folder.  I've got three projects to share with you today, but there's so much more that can be done with this embossing folder.  So far, I've just scratched the surface, but it's a start.

This is the second card I made and the absolutely easiest one.  I couldn't believe this card was designed and made in about 15 minutes.  How's that for quick?

The main ingredient here is the two-tone cardstock.  I used Crushed Curry Two-Tone cardstock for this.  When embossing, the darker side was placed up in the folder before running it through the Big Shot.

Using a sanding block that I purchased years ago from SU!, I lightly sanded over the raised areas on the cardstock.  I found using a swirly circular stroke over the cardstock worked well.  You don't need much pressure at all.  If there are any areas that didn't get sanded, I went back with a corner of the block and lightly sanded the tiny areas.  The piece looks good here, but I wish you could see it in person.  The sanded detail is so prominent.  I just love it!

Because I was working on these cards on the fly, I didn't write down the info on what stamps I used.  So, let's see how my memory is working today.  The ribbon used is a length of Black and Vanilla Checked ribbon that we used to carry.  I'm sorry I didn't use anything current, but I love the look of a black accent with this design.

After adding the ribbon, the layer was attached to a Basic Black card base.  The sentiment used is from the You Are Remarkable stamp set.  It's stamped on Very Vanilla with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  The punch used is the Labeled With Love Punch.  The small black die-cut pieces are from the Gallery Blooms Die set.  These are attached to the label and then attached to the card with Dimensionals.

The last touch here are the Muted Palette Dots.  I colored three of the darkest ones with the Dark Basic Black Blends, because I wanted black accents for the card.

This is the first card I did with the embossing folder.  I was trying for an autumn look to the card.  I'm still kind of ambivalent about this card.  I like it but it's not the best card I've ever done.  I need to play with the colors a bit more.  The finished look reminds me of tooled leather and looks rather masculine.

This time I started with Daffodil Delight cardstock for the embossing.  On the raised embossed side, I started by swiping the Crumb Cake ink pad over it using just the edge of the pad with almost no pressure.  Next Timid Tiger was swiped over the design leaving more color.  Then a layer of Pecan Pie was added.  As you can see, I kept going darker with less pressure and coverage with the color applications so you can see the different colors.  The final swipe of Early Expresso ink kind of pulled it all together and really made the design pop.  

The cardstock layer was trimmed smaller and layered onto Early Espresso cardstock.  This was layered onto a card base of Pecan Pie using Dimensionals.

For the sentiment, I was looking for something small but bold looking to really stand out from the design.  Not sure where this comes from, but I think it was a retired stamp that I decided to use.  It's stamped with Early Expresso ink onto a Daffodil Delight skinny strip.  It's then punched out with a retired punch and layered onto a 2 1/4" x 3/4" strip of Early Espresso cardstock and popped up with Dimensionals.

The last step was adding the bling.  For this card, three of the Low-Profile Dots in the gold tone were added to perk it up.

Now for the last design, and my absolute favorite...

This design shows off the reverse side of the embossing folder or what would be called the "DEbossed" side.  For this card, I started with Basic Beige cardstock to emboss.  On the back side, I used Basic Beige ink to swipe across the cardstock piece.  As you can see, this puts the ink on all the background areas and the details of the sunflowers and leaves.  It just took my breath away with the very first swipe across the design.  I absolutely love this soft neutral look.  It definitely needed to be paired with black to really stand out.

First, I layered it onto a piece of Basic Blask cardstock with just a thin edge showing all around.  I went back to a retired Basic Black and White Checked Ribbon.  It was perfect with this color and design.  It's wrapped around and a large bow is tied to the left side.  

I liked the idea of a die-cut sentiment for this card.  The Delightful Wishes Die set would be perfect.  I added some of the Adhesive Sheets to the back of both Basic White and Basic Black cardstock pieces.  They were both die-cut.  Then the backing was peeled from the black detailed word first and layered onto the white background for the word.  Next the back was taken off the white layer and the word was attached to the card front.  Using the Adhesive Sheets to add adhesive to the back of these detailed pieces makes it so easy to attach them to your design!

The rest of the sentiment is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto a strip of Basic White.  The ends were trimmed before adding it to the card with Dimensionals.

The card layers were attached to an Old Olive card base to play up the greenish tones of the Basic Beige ink.  I used Dimensionals to attach it.

Last up is the bling on this card.  After trying a few ideas, the Holographic Resin Dots were added to the design to finish.  So elegant!  

Did I say this was my favorite?  Absolutely.  But there is more I want to try with this embossing folder.  If you like to play around and be creative, I think you're going to love designing with this embossing folder.  It's so versatile and simply down-right fun.

Last look at the three cards together.  I find it amazing what you can do with one little embossing folder.  So many techniques and so many looks.  This one item could keep you busy for a good long while all by itself.  Just get yourself a good sentiment set that's versatile, and you really like, and then the sky is the limit!

Thank you for bearing with me this month while I've been too scattered to create much.  Hopefully this spate of craziness is finished, and we can all get back to normal around here.

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon