This leaf stamp on this Thinking of You card comes as a single stamp called Magnificent Maple in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Catalog. I thought it was a beautiful leaf stamp, even though I have other leaf stamps.

I thought about calling this my Backache Card because I have done something terrible to my back, maybe putting it into perpetual spasm. I’m beginning to think that it is actually slowly getting better.  I couldn’t exist without ice packs right now! But Saturday night, after a miserable day, I was feeling mostly better, like magic! The first thing I wanted to do for my mental health was play with something from my new Holiday Catalog order.

This Magnificent Maple stamp seemed like the perfect stamp to make a simple card. Since the right colors of ink pads weren’t already on my kitchen table, rather than reach down to where the ink pad caddy is on the floor because of my back pain, I decided to just ink up the stamp with Stampin’ Write Markers. If you start with the lightest color and progress to the darkest you won’t mess up your markers. I believe I used Crushed Curry (or Daffodil Delight) for the yellow, Gumball Green, Pumpkin Pie, and a bit of Cherry Cobbler, just coloring in various areas of the stamp. When you use markers, you should “huff” or breathe on the stamp to remoisten the ink before stamping.  Obviously I stamped the center leaf full strength, inked up the stamp again but stamped off VERY lightly on scrap paper before stamping on my card for that lighter image. Maybe I stamped the lightest leaf on the left with what was left of the ink on the stamp.  It’s very light.

The card still needed something so I decided to sponge some color around the leaves. See those big sponged areas of Baked Brown Sugar? I wasn’t happy that I was sloppy and got the first big brown area when all I was trying to do was sponge a little soft subtle color around.  But since “there are no mistakes in stamping”, I decided to just add another big blob!  Make it look like I intended it to be that way! There’s almost always some way to fix a stamping boo-boo.

The greeting is from A Dozen Thoughts.  I put it at the top since I happened to stamp the leaves a little too low. And for a little extra interest I tied some Linen Thread around the panel and added a Natural Designer Button. I also stamped a few leaves in green on the Gumball Green card stock to add a little something around the edges.

So if you have back pain and it stops for awhile, go celebrate by stamping something!