Inking Royalty Blog Hop October 2021 Harvest and Hope

Welcome to InKing Royalty’s October Blog Hop! During this year’s blog hops, we are having fun with our stamping favorites – our favorite themes for seasonal cards and projects. This month’s projects center around Harvest & Hope, so prepare yourself for gratitude and love in Fall-themed projects. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

Harvest and Hope. What a fun theme. When I think of harvest my mind flashes to warm days and cool nights which brings the color to the leaves on the trees. And that takes me to falling leaves and raking. Is raking a harvest. Well anyway, this is the season of color, cool nights, warm days, apple and pumpkin picking, savory soups, and raking autumn leaves.


FACTIOD: There is something wasteful, in my mind, about putting leaves in bags and hauling them away. Leaves contain lots of carbon which is great for gardens and lawns. The key to using them is to shred them first. We just run them over with the lawnmower a couple of times a week and leave them on the lawn. If you bag the mulched leaves you can

  • Add them to your compost pile and layer them with grass clippings and food scraps. Aerate ocassionaly and you should have finished compost in 6-7 months.
  • Make leaf mold by creating a pile and turning and aerating it with a pitch fork weekly and you will have a fantastic soil conditioner for vegetable and flower gardens in about a year. The typical garden soil can hold about 60% of its weight in water, but leaf mold can hold 300-500% making it great soil conditioner for dryer soil areas and vegetable gardens. Leaf mold is great for acidic loving plants.
  • Use shredded leaves as mulch by directly adding it around trees, shrubs, in your flower beds and vegetable gardens. Put a 2-3 inch layer down and take care not to have it directly touching the plants.
  • Mow those leaves and leave them in the lawn to decompose.
  • There are some leave that you will want to avoid composting. The beech, oak, holly, and sweet chestnut are high in lignin and low in nitrogen and calcium. And black walnut and eucalyptus contain natural herbicides the prevent seed germination. Try to avoid those in your compost pile.

Today was the perfect day to play with making my own ink pad using a baby wipe. Here is my very simple card.

leaves stamped with baby wipe ink pad

Are you shaking your head and saying “Simple, Is she nuts?” I am not and you will be surprised at how simple and fun it is to make your own multi-colored stamp pad using a baby wipe.

CREATING THE INK PAD

I have heard all kinds of talk about which baby wipe. Just pick a brand that has no fragrance and is alcohol-free. Grab a wipe and fold it in quarters. Add drops of reinker onto the folded baby wipe. I like to add 3-5 different colors and dot the wipe with each color 3 times in a triangle pattern.

Create an ink pad with a baby wipe

I used Old Olive, Merry Merlot, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze, and Pumpkin Pie reinkers. TIP: Place the inked baby wipe on a craft mat. Tap the leaf stamp into the inked baby wipe. TIP: You can press down and move the stamp around the ‘pad’ to get a good inking. Then stamp your image onto the Fluid 100 Watercolor paper. This also works on cardstock but I knew I wanted to blend the colors a bit more with a Water Painter and regular cardstock is not as forgiving.

BLURRING THE LINES

Stamp a random pattern of leaves on my 3-1/2″ x 4-3/4″ panel of Fluid 100 Watercolor Paper. Then use the Water Painter to blur any sharp lines and blend the colors just a bit.

mute the color lines with water

FLICK A LITTLE INK

Next, flick ink and paint over the stamped panel.

flicked ink and paint over panel for interest

Do you still have some of the retired shimmer paint? If not, use Stampin’ Blends that coordinate with your colors. Or use a random dot stamp and add dots of gold or copper ink.

A RIBBON & SENTIMENT CLUSTER

Add a sentiment. But let’s give it some pizzazz. I cut a piece of the vanilla ribbon from the retired Forever Greenery Trim Combo in half and glued them down with frayed edges to the outside. TIP: Go over the edge when adding these layers then trim them after layering the panels. Add strips of Merry Merlot and Cajun Craze crisscrossing over the ribbon. I added a little sliver of Be Dazzling DSP from Sale-a-bration because I could not bear to waste it. Untwist some gold or copper thread and ‘moosh’ them down with a couple of glue dots. Stamp the sentiment from the stamp set A Wish For Everything on Soft Suede with Early Espresso ink and trim. Add Dimensionals to the back of the sentiment and add the ribbon cluster.

Another fun idea! Use the dot dies in Give It A Whirl or Seasonal Swirl to create your own ‘sequins’ from Be Dazzling DSP. Add a couple of these Be Dazzling dots around the sentiment.

LAYER AND PERSONALIZE

leaves stamped with baby wipe ink pad

Layer the stamped panel onto a 3-5/8″ x 4-7/8″ Merry Merlot panel. Then add to a Crushed Curry cardstock card base (8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ scored at 4-1/4″).

Add a little more personalizing on the inside message panel and envelope. I used Very Vanilla cardstock for the message insert and the Medium Envelope.

SIMPLE, YES?

Now, wasn’t that easy? No die-cutting (except the little Be Dazzling DSP sequins if you choose to add them) and no heat embossing. But lots of WOW! The leaves of Autumn lend themselves to this technique. I can see using the baby wipe ink pad technique with evergreen trees and holly stamps or any solid image stamp to add some interesting color and texture. And this is a great technique to do with kids. Go have some fun!

Before you go, check out the other stops on this hop. And come back tomorrow to see more using pieces & parts from this design session.

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog ho. There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it!

msi-sig-CTA

INKING ROYAL BLOG HOP

Thank you for hopping along with us. If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

  1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
  2. Sheryl Sharp at Sharp Notes by Sheryl
  3. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
  4. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery
  5. Renae Novak at Blessed by Cards
  6. Jan Dufour at Stamp Me Silly
  7. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
  8. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
  9. Robin Myren at Songbird Designs by Robin
  10. Marilyn Jones at Stamp with MJ
  11. Ann Murray at Murray Stamps Ink

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