The Prodigal Stamp

One of my stamps decided to go wayward today.  Of course, the stamp was from a brand-new set that I had just opened.  I had to stop in the middle of my project yesterday afternoon because of the need to feed my family and didn't return to said project until this morning.  And the stamp was gone!

I spent 20 minutes painstakingly going through each piece of trash; turned over every trimmer, block, ink pad, and stamp case; did a little dance to shake my clothes out; crawled on the floor to run my hands over the carpet; and wiped my desk clean.  Nothing!  

That's when I decided to pray about it.  God has been answering a LOT of prayers lately for myself and family members, so I figured He's got this, too.  I sat quietly for a minute, eyes closed, telling God He's been so faithful in so many other ways that I just knew He'd show me where my lost stamp was in due time.  I remained sitting quietly for another few seconds, opened my eyes, glanced down and over to the right, and my eyes immediately fell upon the stamp:

No joke, a shiver ran up my spine and I got goosebumps!  I was so excited at the absolutely crazy way my prayer was answered that I ran upstairs to tell my 14-year-old daughter the story.  No prayer really is too small for God!

So what WAS the card I was trying to make during this miracle? 

The TGIF challenge this week was to make a card all in black.

My mind immediately went to white pumpkins.  I love how they look and I thought I could recreate it with a white watercolor pencil on Basic Black cardstock.  It worked!

All those pumpkins were stamped in Versamark and heat set with white embossing powder.  I then used the Gathered Leaves Dies to die-cut the pumpkins and glue them to a Basic Black panel.  I added strips of Come To Gather Designer Series Paper (don't you LOVE that plaid?!) to the top and bottom and also die-cut leaves from it (the leaf die is also from the Gathered Leaves Die set).

Tip for stamping on vellum: I inked up my sentiment with Versamark, then immediately (before putting stamp to vellum) inked up with Early Espresso ink.  This trick allows you to sprinkle on clear embossing powder in any color of ink!

Here are the supplies for this card:

* (starred) supplies will be available September 4 in the Holiday 2019 catalog

• Gather Together stamp set *
• Gathered Leaves dies *
• Gather Together Bundle (stamp set and dies together at a discount) *
• Come Together Ribbon Combo Pack *
• Come To Gather DSP *
• Versamark ink pad
• Early Espresso ink pad
• white embossing powder
• heat tool
• embossing buddy
• vellum
• Basic Black cardstock
• Cajun Craze cardstock
• watercolor pencils (white)
• bone folder
• SNAIL adhesive
• Mulitpurpose Liquid Glue

I so appreciate your business!  Thank you for choosing Nicole Steele as your demonstrator when shopping.  Please let me know if you would like a catalog if you don't already work with a demonstrator that you love.