I’m starting to get in the autumn holiday mood but didn’t want to pull out all of the Thanksgiving stamps and paper pads.  Instead I decided to use a layout/technique that I’ve used in the past for many different occasions – birthday, baby, spring, etc.  I only needed a couple ink pads, a few stamps and some printed paper in fall colors.

As all the cards used the same layout and sizes of paper I followed an assembly line process to create the cards.  To get started I cut several sheets of white cardstock into 2 7/8 x 4 1/8 inch pieces.  I then picked an ink pad (red, yellow or orange) and stamped a circle on the left side of the white cardstock.

After stamping a circle on 6-10 pieces of white cardstock, I switched to another colored ink and stamped the 2nd circle slightly overlapping the 1st.  I followed the same steps for the next 3 circles.

I then switched to brown ink and stamped a leaf in the center of each circle.  I think changing the direction of the leaf gives the feeling of motion, like leaves falling from the trees.

The final step for the white cardstock panel was to add the sentiment.  As the circles were all randomly stamped, the space for the sentiment was slightly different on each panel.  Again using brown ink, I stamped an appropriately sized autumn sentiment on each panel.

While the ink was drying I cut the rest of the papers – background paper to 4 x 5 1/4, coordinating matting to 4 1/8 x 5 3/8 and matting for the stamped pieces to 3 x 4 1/4.  By then the ink was dry and I was able to assemble the first batch of cards.

The first few batches of cards used 12×12 paper from an older Recollections paper pad for the backgrounds.  I was able to make 6 cards from each 12×12 sheet.

The final few batches used partial 12×12 sheets and a few 6×6 sheets for the backgrounds.  The batches were smaller, but it was interesting to see how using the different backgrounds changed the look of the cards.

I can’t decide if my favorite uses the wood panel paper or the brown checked paper as the background.

All of the stamping was a bit time-consuming but with an assembly line process and small batches it was easy to complete about 50 cards in just a few days.  And, while the layout and supplies used are all the same, each card is slightly different as everything was hand-stamped.