Inspired By So Many Things

They have some great photographic inspiration this week over at Inspired By All The Little Things #27 and Sugar Pea Designs Mix It Up Challenge #18. I always enjoy photo inspiration challenges because they can be interpreted in so many different ways. In my case I was inspired by the repeating patterns of the umbrellas as well as the colors in the first photo and again the repeating pattern of the pumpkins in the second photo.

Sugar Pea Designs had a special release for the start of the Caring Hearts Card Drive which runs from October 1st through November 25th. The Caring Hearts Collection consists of three stamp sets and three die collections. You can see and read about them here. Sugar Pea is also donating 20% of the proceeds from the sale of these items from September 30th to November 30th to the Alzheimer's Association.

You can find the whole Caring Hearts Collection in the Sugar Pea Designs Store and they will soon be arriving at Simon Says Stamp as well.  The items are currently on reserve at both locations. I was super happy to get mine already as they sold out in a matter of hours.

The purpose of the card drive is to collect holiday cards for the elderly that live in nursing homes. Last year, they received over 22,000 cards and distributed them to over 100 nursing homes throughout the US, Canada and Australia.  It's a fantastic cause involving lots of your favorite cardmakers and designers like Jennifer McGuire, Laura Bassen, Debby Hughes and many others.

I started my card for these two challenges by stamping the envelopes from the Sugar Pea Designs Caring Hearts Stamp Set in Versamark and repeating a few times to create a vertical band of the images to watercolor for a border on my card. I heat embossed using Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  Once I had it watercolored with my Zig Markers and some Wink of Stella Shimmer Pen, I cut it first with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die and then cut lengthwise with one of the Simon Says Stamp Wavy Scalloped Stitches Die.  I also cut the patterned paper with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle.  The patterned paper is from Lawn Fawn's Perfectly Plaid Collection.  I also stamped and colored a couple of the single envelopes to fussy cut and use on my sentiment banner.  The banner is from Papertrey Inks Paper Clippings: Birthday Details Die.  I love it and keep it on my table all the time.  There are many great sentiments in the Caring Hearts Stamp Set but I keep this small set from Create a Smile called "Happy Mail" on my desk and I wanted to use that on my banner.  Everything is adhered to a top folding card base made from Simon Says Stamp Surf Blue Cardstock using my ATG gun. 

This was another quick and easy card to make.  It took me a lot longer to write and link up this post than it did to make the card.  We have a gorgeous, sunny Autumn day on tap here in Oklahoma so happy Saturday, everyone!