Happy Birthday - Hand Delivered

As a display board stamper for our recent OnStage event in London, I had the task of making samples of cards with brand new, never before seen stamp sets. I have to say, this was a new challenge for me, and one that taught me a lot. One of the stamp sets I received was very different from anything I would normally purchase or use. I spent a lot of time looking at it, stamping the individual images and letting it roll around in my brain. I hadn't realized how influenced we can be by all the samples we see every day using stamp sets we are familiar with. But this set was brand new. There were no card samples on the internet, no catalogue pages with inspiration, it was just me and the stamp set. Here is the set I was working with.

This is a Stampin' Rewards set, so you may only purchase it with Host credits, on an order of $200 or more. When I first looked at this set, I didn't understand the name of it - Hand Delivered. On closer look, I noticed the hands holding the various items, so I understood that. But where was the rest of the girl? Was there a second stamp case that they didn't send me? Nope! This is it. If you know me, you know this is not the structured symmetrical type of set I am most drawn to. 
I did make a couple of cards with this set for my display board, and I am really pleased with how they turned out. Here is the first one. 

I used my Stampin' Blends to colour this image, and although these fantastic alcohol markers are great for shading and highlight images like balloons, I wanted to try something different. I coloured in small circles, leaving white space to add interest and texture.
I really love the font used for the sentiments in this set, I will use these a lot.
As I finished my card I decided that I liked the cute and quirky side to this stamp set, showing me that I could create outside my usual box, and make great cards along the way!