Sometimes you just need to stamp and do some coloring! I needed some relaxation and stamping images randomly on a card and then coloring them with markers was just the perfect thing! I think we all need a hobby of some kind to turn to for a little stress relief and enjoyment! Stamping certainly is mine!
These pumpkins are images in the Gather Together Stamp Set which was in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog last year. You can click on that link to view the PDF of the catalog from last year and get more ideas for samples for that stamp set and dies, but of course most things in that catalog have retired. It was a favorite and I was happy to see it return this year!
There is also a set of dies that go with the Gather Together set, the Gathered Leaves Dies. You can purchase the stamps and dies in the Gather Together Bundle and save 10%! The leaves are also very pretty in this stamp set.
To make this card, stamped the pumpkins randomly on a piece of Whisper White Cardstock. I used Memento Ink since I was going to color in with our alcohol markers, Stampin’ Blends. Mainly I used the Light and Dark Pumpkin Pie with a touch of Light Daffodil or Light Granny Apple Green. I also had out Cajun Craze and used that on a few for a slightly darker shade. The stems are all Light and Dark Granny Apple Green.
After I had the pumpkins stamped and colored it, I was tempted to stamp in the empty spaces with that dotted image in the stamp set. I wasn’t sure I should and perhaps ruin my card after all that coloring. But I was daring and I did it! I chose Granny Apple Green Ink and stamped off on my Grid Paper first to make it a little lighter. Since it is a photopolymer stamp and I could see through it, I could see if the stamp was going to fit in a space so I wasn’t stamping on the pumpkins. I think it added a little something to the card!
I have to admit I was a little sloppy in my coloring on a couple of the pumpkins. I used the Color Lifter but in my opinion it doesn’t always work as well as I would like. Maybe it depends on the color. And it wasn’t that bad, but I was able to cover it with my greeting! Remember, there almost always is a way to fix a mistake…..in fact, there are no mistakes in stamping!
I stamped the greeting in the stamp set in Pumpkin Pie ink and die-cut it with the Stitched So Sweetly Dies. There isn’t something that layers perfectly underneath it, so I chose the flagged banner die in the Tasteful Labels Die Set. It barely stuck out on the sides of the greeting, so I cut it in half and was going to make each end longer sticking out from the sides. It was a little tricky to fit on the card the way I wanted it, so I got the idea to put the two pieces off on the left side almost like two tail ends of ribbon. That’s something different and it made the greeting stand out a little. The greeting is popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals.
That’s really all these is to the card. The stamped layer was adhered to a card base of Pumpkin Pie. I tried an extra layer either in Granny Apple Green or Basic Black but I like it fine just on the Pumpkin Pie card base.
Here’s another card with stamped pumpkins from the Gather Together Stamp Set that I cut out and arranged in a group on a card.
Sometimes it is good to get back to some basic stamping and whatever coloring technique you like for a simpler card. Pick this stamp set or another one you like and stamp the image randomly for the background of the card. If you don’t want to color in, just stamp in a color. See what you can make using my Gather Together Fall Pumpkin Card as inspiration!