Autumn Leaves

It’s definitely fall here in the Shenandoah Valley – at least in the mornings and evenings. I love wearing my sweaters and sweatshirts. This is my favorite season!

I pulled out an “old” Stampin’ Up!® stamp set – Sheltering Tree – for today’s card. This set is still one of my favorites, because it’s so versatile. Sadly, I have so many new sets, that I forget about my old favorites, so I decided to show this one a little love today.

This image makes me feel happy. My favorite thing to do when I was young was to jump in piles of leaves. Most of the time, though, hardworking parents and grandparents rarely wanted to rake leaves more than one time, so we didn’t get to jump in them a lot until we were doing the raking. Amelia gets to, though, and, of course, I have to jump with her. She is totally enjoying fall this year. Jumping in leaves, jumping on her trampoline, swinging, and collecting caterpillars are her favorite things. At least, they’re her favorites today. Tomorrow? Who knows? She found two caterpillars today that we relocated to our house. She named them Bob and Ed, and “planted” them on some of our bushes. She’s looking forward to seeing them in the spring as butterflies (or, more likely, Tiger Moths).

For my card, I stamped the tree in Early Espresso Classic Ink, then stamped the leaves in Pumpkin Pie. I moved the leaves stamp just a touch, then stamped again in Crushed Curry. If I do more of this card, I’m going to use either Cajun Craze or Poppy Parade. I think that will make more of a contrast.

The swing is also stamped in Early Espresso, but I used Stampin’ Write Markers to add a little thickness to the rope (Crumb Cake) and the swing seat (Soft Suede). Then I added the rake. I stamped it in Soft Suede, then added a little more “oomph” to the handle with a Soft Suede Stampin’ Write Marker, and some “metal” to the rake-y parts with a Basic Gray Stampin’ Write Marker. (All I can think of is “tines,” but that’s a fork. Is that what the grabby parts of a rake are called too? Ok, I just looked it up on a farm site. Yes, they are tines, or teeth. So now you know.)

I wanted to add a little ground under the tree. I stamped the swoosh in Old Olive, then added some Crumb Cake Classic Ink to the stamp. Our grass is still a little green, but it’s turning brown, and I wanted to show that in the image. It still looks pretty green to me on the card. Next time, I’ll ink in Crumb Cake then add a green to that. I think that would look a little more realistic.

Finally, I added the leaf pile. Again, I need some darker reds in there, but I used the same colors are the leaves still on the tree (Crushed Curry and Pumpkin Pie). I did not add a sentiment, because I’m not sure how I’m going to use this. It will probably be a “thinking of you” or “thank you” card. I always need those.

I added the Whisper White layer to a layer of Early Espresso and then to a Sahara Sand card base. In retrospect, I think Very Vanilla for the stamped layer would work better, but I had some leftover Whisper White cut to size, and I couldn’t resist using it.

Thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy! Hope you’re enjoying fall as much as I am.

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