Friday, May 30, 2014

Succulent Garden


We’re back for a third day of beautiful new sets from Power Poppy!  It’s been so great already hasn’t it?   Today’s set really captures a popular gardening trend in our outdoor settings...and indoor ones too!  It’s called Sassy Succulents, and it’s fabulous!  So many elements for the set will work for CAS designs and more elaborate ones too.  I was inspired by a pretty succulent frame that sat on an outside wall like a piece of art.  Here’s what I did....



And here was the inspiration photo... so you can see how I was working to get the different succulents to work in that colour pattern and layout.  I stamped two different stamps the single succulent and then the hen and chicks combination several times in Memento Tuxedo Black ink, colouring them with Copics and then cut them all out carefully.




I laid it all out on a piece I had cut with a lattice die, getting it to where I thought it looked similar to the inspiration.  


Then I wanted to give it the look of a framed so I used a wood texture embossing folder to frame it out over the lattice.  Accenting with some pearls.  


And here is how the inside looks.  I think it’s a fun Clean and Simple design.  And I loved trying to recreate the inspiration.  


Here’s the beautiful Bloom Brigade playing with this set today showing you their creativity...

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
 (you are here)
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Julie Koerber
Katie Sims
Tosha Leyendekker


And make sure you stop by the Power Poppy Blog to hear what Marcy has to say about this fun new set!

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Play Ball!


Welcome back to another great day of new stamps at Power Poppy!  I’m so excited to show off today’s set!  It’s perfect for masculine or sports designs...and since I have a boy playing Slo Pitch this season, I’m happy to introduce to you.... Play Ball!


I started with this amazing image that Marcy illustrated...I just love the combination of elements together.  I worked really hard on the colouring to give it a lot of richness.  So I used both Copics to start with and then finished it off with Prismacolor pencils for extra depth.  Don’t you love the pennant that’s also in the set?  There’s an assortment of sentiments that will fit in the pennant perfectly.  


Here you can see I also stamped the red leather threads that sew the baseball together onto the red patterned paper.  I love that it’s a separate stamp too!  For accent I added some Candi that I had coloured with my Copics with a woodgrain feel.  


I used so many Copics that I could barely fit them in the cup - sorry these are a bit fuzzy.  I’ll list them too.  W1, W2, W5, E50, E51, E31, E33, E35, E33, E39, E29, E37, E39, E43, E79, R24, R27, R29, YR30, B60, B63, B66, B24, B26, B91, B95)


And here’s the Prismacolors I used as well.  


And now....enter the fabulous Bloom Brigade!  

Allison Cope
Christine Okken (you are here)
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

And be sure to stop by the Power Poppy Blog to see what Marcy has for behind the scenes footage of this great set.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Peaceful Lavender


Welcome to our first day of beautiful NEW Power Poppy stamp sets!  We have a beautiful array of sets this month that cover a lot of great themes and will make for wonderful and versatile designs.   Today we’re going to begin with some gorgeous Lavender!  These peaceful and fragrant blooms also have a note of elegance, healing and peacefulness.  


I wanted to give these pretty stems a rich and earthy background to pair with that soft and lovely purple.  I began by stamping the image in Memento Espresso Truffle ink and colouring just the sachet with some rich browns (E43, E44, E47).  Then I took an old SU Linen background stamp, sponged some blender solution on it and then stamped over the sachet, lifting off the pattern of the linen from the sachet.  This way it really gives the feeling of a linen sachet.  Then I finished colouring the image and sponging the frame with some soft purple.  


Here’s a better look at the sachet colouring and also the background.  I ramdom stamped other elements from the set in SU Soft Suede ink as well as the linen background stamp in sections, did lots of sponging and distressed the edges of the cardstock, this gives it a really rich earthy feel.  



Inside of the card I also did some stamping and sponging using a mask cut from Eclipse masking tape  with the same Spellbinders Die I used on the front of the card (A2 Scalloped Borders One).  


Here’s the Copics I used for the design.  




I know you will see some beautiful designs from the Bloom Brigade today:

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence

Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

And be sure to stop by the Power Poppy Blog to check out what Marcy has to say about this lovely set!  

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

June Sneaks with Power Poppy!

Starting tomorrow....fabulous June Sneak Peeks from Power Poppy begin!  There’s some really great sets ahead that I know you’ll enjoy.  Here’s a quick peek of what you’ll see from me!


Can’t wait to show you more tomorrow!  

Friday, May 23, 2014

Get Sketchy - Gerberas


Friday!  Yay!  This starts a very busy weekend for us.  Our daughter’s commencement is tonight where she’ll be playing in the Symphonic processional and recessional and also walking the stage wtih 900 other grade 12 students in her school.  Her graduation banquet is tomorrow, and we have family coming into town for 10 days too.  The kids have been counting off the days for weeks.  My little nephew that’s coming who is 3 has been waking up every morning for months saying, “Is it Canada Day yet?” :)  Totally makes me smile.  

How about something bright and sunny for your Friday?  It’s a new Challege at Power Poppy and this week it’s a Sketch.  Be inspired by the sketch, use whatever shape you like for your die cut and feel free to flip this sketch any which way! Stop by the Power Poppy Blog for full details.    



So these are the lovely sunny Gerbera Daisies.  I decided to go in Power Poppy inspired colours too, with vibrant oranges and greens.  The flowers are coloured with Copics and I paired it all with some fresh white Cougar Opaque card stock to keep that crisp effect with the colours.  

As you can see I used the gerbera image to print in the background too, I just enlarged the image, and changed the colour of the daisies to orange and you have your own custom paper.  To help distinguish layers I embossed the larger white panel too.  


One of the blooms on the top is popped up, and there are some circle accents including the sentiment from our Good Thinking: Renewal set.  I needed something small that would fit perfectly in a little circle.  

So come along and play with our digitals in this fun Sketch Challenge!  

Here’s a few extra deets:  Entries will be accepted until 3PM EST on May 30th. A winner will be announced on June 2nd, after our June release (cant wait to show you). Keyword for the challenge for online galleries is : PPSKETCH1. The winner wins a set of their choice. Players DO need to use one of the new digital stamps to play along.  Easy peasy!

Heres the beautiful Bloom Brigade playing along today:  

Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence

Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Tosha Leyendekker


Monday, May 19, 2014

Up and Away Slider!


The Cat’s Pajamas Challenge this week is Anything Goes...which is fun because I need some more graduation cards.  There’s nine grads in our daughters’ youth small group ...I have a few more to go for sure!  I used a couple of fun TCP goodies on this design.  First the always cute set - Take Off, and then the very fun slider dies that Alma put together for this last release.  It makes making these interactive cards so easy!    And at $5 for the die - its totally economical too.  


Here is his take off....the papers are Echo Park - Summer Bliss and I’ve added some hand drawn clouds - just perfect for fitting the sentiment, some glitter and that’s it!  


And here he is at the top of his flight plan!  

Happy Tuesday everyone!  

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Fusion Tulips


I don’t know about you, but when it’s been a while since I’ve done any stamping, and I’m feeling a bit rusty, it’s always good to get the creative juices flowing again by jumping in on a challenge.  Today I decided to do the Fusion Challenge where you can choose inspiration, sketch or both.  The inspiration is above and I obviously chose to use both elements.  I think black, white and yellow is such a great colour combination!


I began by printing Power Poppy’s beautiful Tulip digi and printing on Cougar Opaque White cardstock.  I coloured it up with Copics, carefully fussy cutting it out and placing it on a black oval.  



I added a little embossing to the yellow panel and the papers are older SU (black) and then Echo Park Summer Bliss for the yellow.  A little bit of lace anchors the main banner and then a few rhinestones give the bottom of the design a little weight.  A great challenge to jump in on :) 

And I *hope* to do a few more challenges this week to...just to get the moth balls out of my creative head :)   

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Beauty Captured - Twenty

Wow, five whole weeks have passed since I’ve brought any photographs to this project.  That says a lot about what’s happened in the last 5 weeks.  Thanks for your patience with me as we try to “be normal” in the midst of all this :)   My husband has 3 more weeks in a “Robo-Boot”, and then hopefully will move to about 6 weeks of physio.  Our youth events wrapped up this week and now we’re heading into spring/summer mode which has less programming.   And hopefully in the next weeks I’ll do some catching up in between graduation, family visiting and sports.   

These are random shots of the past week or two :)


Our daughter’s graduation pictures came in!  Obviously not taken by me :)  She’s such a beauty and we’re so proud of her.  Graduation ceremonies start next weekend with Commencement and Banquet Friday/Saturday.  Her dress just came in and my Mom is hemming it this week!  She’s going to look beautiful.  


A new retainer :)  He’s been such a trooper about it!  I just LOVE this little guy.  



My little guy and I in matching metal mouths :)  I have about 3 months left with my braces (hopefully!) so we had to take it to show our matching style :)


He and his uncle’s kitty on Mother’s Day.  


Our older son is playing Slo-Pitch this year on the school team.  A surprise to him, they asked him to be pitcher.  It’s been YEARS since he’s played but he’s having a great time.  


The play :)  Our older son was in the school play as well and played the evil villian.  That’s him in the red cape with his “brother” the King.  He did such a good job.  He has an “alter-ego” voice he uses often and he’s so good at it and SO funny!  


A number of his buddies from his small group in Youth came to watch the play as well as his small group leader.  Such great guys he’s so blessed to do life with.  


And this grin in the back row is so typical of his personality.  :)



One of the highlights of my week was going to see Steven Curtis Chapman in concert here.  He is my all time favourite artist, and the concert was amazing as always.  The first time I ever heard him in concert was in college when my best friend and I drove 3 hours one night to see him.  We had so much fun and stayed after the concert to meet him.  He has such authenticity and humbleness with such great talent, this new recording Glorious Unfolding is fantastic.    In the picture, he’s center stage in the vest sitting on the stool and playing his guitar.  A fantastic night of celebration and worship and fun!


I think fallen tulip petals are so pretty so I quickly grabbed this shot too!  

Thanks for dropping by for a peek.  Have a blessed Sunday!

Friday, May 16, 2014

Turn Over a Blue Leaf


We’re back for another fantastic challenge with Power Poppy this week!  To match Marcy’s Mixtape love we’ve got a very fun Album Cover inspiration this week to get your creativity started.  



There are a million different ways you could go with this inspiration that would be really fun.  I chose to do something that would stretch me a little, and went for a Mixed-Media feel with our beautiful Instant Garden Digital set Peonies.  I printed the flowers on Cougar White Opaque and then gave them some different treatments with sponging, ink splotching, a little watercolor feel with light blues, dark blues and greys, and then adding some embossing paste through a Tim Holtz stencil allowing all of that to dry.  I printed a second peony image, colouring it up with some soft blues in Copics and added that on top of the design to give it some dimension.  Finally I finished off the colouring with a little Prismacolor pencil work in grey.   


Here you can see a close up of the different applications and the sentiment from our Polymer set Good Thinking Renewal, as well as some of the embellishments.  


I set it in the sun so that you could see the sparkle (I added some Mr. Huey’s Spray) and the pretty glitter strip made from Scor Tape and glitter.  

So jump in on the challenge!  You have a couple more weeks to finish this challenge or our Pop Goes the World Challenge and you could be in the running for Power Poppy Stamps!  And just WAIT till you see our June release!

HERE’s a link to THE OFFICIAL RULES for this week’s Challenge.  

Here’s the beautiful Bloom Brigade girls that jumped in on the challenge!  Hop on over and see.....

Allison Cope
Christine Okken (you are here)
Danielle Kennedy
Julie Koerber

There are more ways to WIN Power Poppy Goodness!

Did you know that if you follow the Power Poppy boards over on Pinterest you could win the entire release for June? Yep, you can! And on top of all of that, if you follow us you'll be staying in touch with instant inspiration! The Power Poppy boards are chocked full of Bloom Brigade creations and they are all categorized by set! So, if you don't follow us yet, just log into your Pinterest account, click HERE and then click on the red "Follow All" button. We'll draw one lucky name from all of our followers and the winner will be announced on June 2nd after we unveil our fun-filled June release!


Friday, May 9, 2014

Pop Goes the World Challenge




Welcome to our first Challenges at Power Poppy!  We’re so excited you joined us for the fun!

This challenge is inspired by this gorgeous sunset photo using purples, oranges, yellows and grass green.  I thought it would be fun to recreate the feel of the sunset with these beautiful Gladioli from our new Instant Garden digi set

After I printed the image on some heavy cream card stock I die cut it out and leaving the die on I sponged these pretty colours on the design.  The colouring is with Copics.  For the card I used a Tim Holtz Stencil to sponge in the background to have the same colour feel as the main image.  


There’s some pretty seam binding to match the colours in the design and I trimmed out just a little of the sentiment for the front of the card (printing in a soft orange colour - so great to do with digis).  And then added a pretty orange beaded gem to accent.  



Here’s a quick look at the inside and the entire sentiment.  I’m going to use it for my Mom for Mother’s Day this weekend. 

So now we’d love if you’d jump in on the Pop Goes the World Challenge!  Grab the digi of your choice from this month’s collection and go have fun!  

Use any three of these colors in your card or creation and link to the Power Poppy Blog. Entries will be accepted until 3PM EST on May 30th. A Winner announced on June 2nd, after the June Release.  And ....the winner wins a set of their choice!   Keyword for online galleries is: PPWORLD1.

The Bloom Brigade has lots of colour inspiration to jumpstart your creativity...

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
 (you are here)
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Screeeech!

Hello Friends.  

If you could picture me in a sports car careening around the corner, screeching to a quick halt for this post and then speeding off to my next destination  - that would be an apt description of how the last few weeks have felt.  When my husband tore his right achilles tendon just over two weeks ago that was a significant bummer/interruption/not-what-we-were-expecting-for Easter event.  The further frustration for all of us is that because it’s his right leg and I’m the only driver  - all the things our kids and we were doing that we assumed could be split between the 2 of us are now up to me to get us to.  Our two boys are each in 2 sports this spring (not what we usually do - but we made that decision a couple of months ago when we assumed there’d be two of us!), our older son has a major role in the school play this weekend and our daughter is - well, she’s a girl that REALLY needs to take her driver’s test so she can go to her own places!  We’re in a really busy ministry season for me too with our regular youth events winding down, so there’s larger special events I’m working on like grad celebrations and year-end events that are full of extra planning details.  

So sorry - I really don’t mean to whine, I just mean to explain that I’m really behind, really tired, and really feeling like I’m dropping details all over the place.  So, if you’ve emailed me asking me a question or sent kind words, I’m sorry I haven’t responded yet!  

Last night after a very long day of Dr appointments, meetings and carting kids around we cancelled one sports practise so I had a free hour and I just really wanted to actually have some peace and create something....so I did.  Yay me! 

These are fantastic colours from The Cat’s Pajamas for their TCP Tuesday challenge and I need grad cards - so here you go!




I used the very adorable TCP set Away We Go! I think it’s one of my all time favourite TCP sets because of how great it is to colour.  And don’t these colours look great together?  I had a lot of fun with them.  The clouds are from another new TCP set - Flying By.  


The little strip of paper and the enamel dots are from the MME kate and co collection.  

Alright I’m speeding off again...thanks for sticking in there with me!