The Blossom Challenge: Eat Your Fruit and Veggies

Hello Power Poppy friends!  It’s Christine with you here today and we’re headed into harvest season this month with The Blossom Challenge and our theme “Eat Your Fruit and Veggies”.  Today I am showing off our “vegan” concept with two cards celebrating both gratitude and yummy fruit and veggies.

My first design showcases Power Poppy’s Cabbage Patch set.  Each of these cabbages or kale are coloured with Copic Markers and trimmed out.  I have more photos of this design on my blog, as well as a short tutorial on how I created the coordinating cabbage and kale background.  The mini-slimline size is perfect size for this design to make it feel long and lean, and with lots of room for the images, sentiment banner and background.  

The sentiment is from the polymer version of this set, which is embossed in white and inked in black below. I love all the rich green colour!  It’s the colour I love best!

Next up is a card with one of my favourite fall sets from Power Poppy called:  Pumpkins and Pears.

Marcy always does little vignettes so charmingly and they are such a delight to colour.  I started with Copics for this design and then finished off the colouring with Prismacolor Pencils to add in the fine details.  

The background is a Kraft panel that was masked off with tape and then Distress Oxide Ink was added (Crackling Campfire, Abandoned Coral, Fossilized Amber and Seedless Preserves).  After splattering with water and some white ink and it was dry,  I ran the panel through with a pierced die.  I love the look it gives. It’s finished off with some patterned paper, inked die cut leaves and enamel dots.  

Have you been eating your Fruits and Veggies?  How about creating a card with them?! 

Join us this month with a design using some form of Fruit or Vegetable in the card and at least one Power Poppy stamp.  The Challenge is open for a month and you could win a $20 gift card to the Power Poppy Store!  

To top it off, Marcy has a SALE on some of my favourite Fruit and Veggie themed digi stamps in the store if you’d like to add to your collection and play along!   

You have until October 16th to submit your link below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Want to know the WINNER from our Sentimental Challenge last month?   Congratulations goes out to..... Maggie S ! Maggie, contact Marcy at bloom@powerpoppy.com to get your prize code!  We look forward to see what you create!  

Enjoy and be inspired with more Fruit and Veggie goodness from the Bloom Brigade playing along today.  

Gloria

Essie

The Blossom Challenge Goes Sentimental

 

Hello Friends and Welcome to the August edition of the The Blossom Challenge.  I’m Christine bringing you this month’s The Blossom Challenge, and we’re Going Sentimental, focussing on Power Poppy’s beautiful selection of sentiments.  

Today I’m bringing you two inspiration cards with Sentiments as the focus.  

First up is a design I made for a recent wedding.  

For a lot of years my husband and I were youth pastors and it’s been fun to see our former students get married over the years.  This wedding was a delightful one with the bride from Indian-Canadian descent and the groom from British-Canadian descent, the mix of cultures and colours at the wedding was gorgeous.  This palette reflects the colours in the wedding of orange, pink, coral and red.  I’ve utilized two beautiful Power Poppy sets,  Hummingbird Paradise as the beautiful floral frame, and then one of my ALL TIME favourite polymer sets from Power Poppy Big Scripts.  Did you know that this set features hand drawn sentiments by Marcy?  I just love her scripty writing.  

To highlight the sentiment I embossed it on white cardstock, then sponged warm shades of Distress Oxide Ink, Seedless Preserves and Abandoned Coral around it, wiping the ink off the sentiment once it was done.  The floral frame is fussy cut out in a windowed design.  

Next up is a Clean and Simple design.  

Dear friends of ours move away today to another city in the province.  We are going to miss them terribly.  Over the years we’ve watched them grow from a newly married couple to a family of four.  We’ve shared a love of creativity and the mountains, so this design is a bit of a nod to our friendship, and the fact that they are moving closer to the Rockies.  Similar to the first card, I created a background of a sunset sky using Distres Oxide Inks: Tumbled Glass, Wilted Violet, Abandoned Coral and Seedless Preserves, spashed some water on the background, then embossed this awsome encouraging sentiment from Power Poppy M-Powering Words (currently sold out in polymer) onto the beautiful colour of the background.  I used a framed arch die to accent the sentiment, and then hand drew in a silhouette of our favourite mountain range in Canmore, Alberta, the Three Sisters, filling it in with a black Sharpie, and added a punch-cut sparkly paper moon.  

Now how about some phenomenal Sentimental inspiration from The Bloom Brigade?  

Barbara

Essie

Gloria

Lisa

and Me, Christine!

Now it’s your turn Power Poppy friends!  Your challenge this month is to create something “Sentimental”  where the focus is on the sentiment.  We’re inviting you to think about creative backgrounds, stencilling, framing the sentiment with other sets, or creative uses of patterned paper and dies.  You can use any Power Poppy set as part of your design to be in the running for our monthly prize!  

To sweeten the deal Marcy has discounted a number of her Fall themed Sentiment sets (and a few extras) for you HERE.  Did you know there are also two sets in the sentimental family that are FREE?!  I Can Do All Things and Let It Be.  We’re making it easy for you to play along!  

Add your link at the bottom of the post for your chance to win a $20 Gift Code to the Power Poppy Store!

Would you like to know who last month’s The Blossom Challenge: Christmas In July winner is?    Random.org picked Amanda!  Congratulations Amanda!   Please email Marcy at bloom@powerpoppy.com to collect your gift code!  

Looking forward to seeeing all of your Sentimental Creations!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Inspire Me Monday: Power Poppy Holiday Gift Tags

 

Hey friends! Welcome to another addition of Inspire Me Monday! The theme of this month's challenge is Christmas in July so I thought that I'd get a jump start on holiday gift tags.  I love making tags because they are quick projects that I can pull together when I’m short on crafting time. And if you make too many, you can always use them as a focal point on a holiday card or just save them until next year. They never go out of style!

LET'S TAKE A LOOK AT TODAY'S PROJECT!

The basic design of all the tags is the same starting with the Easy Layer Tag Die by Avery Elle. I like using this die set for tags because which creates two layers -- a top layer for the image and a bottom layer for a background design. If you use Copic markers, this will nicely cover the bleed through on the back of the image layer and the base is large enough to add a greeting on the back.  

TAG 1 - SIMPLE JOYS

For this tag, I used the ornament image from the Simple Joys stamp set. The image was colored with the following Copic markers:

• Ornament: B000, B00, B02, B05
• Ornament Cap: C1, C3, C5
• Sprig: G24, G46

TAG 2 - MOSSY POTS WITH PAPERWHITES

For this tag, I used the single Paperwhites image from the Mossy Pots with Paperwhites Stamp Set. The image is also available as Mossy Pots with Paperwhites: Accent Pieces Digital Stamp Set. The image was colored with the following Copic markers:

• Flowers: BV000, B000, BG10
• Moss & Foliage: YG03, YG17, YG67
• Bulb: E31, E33
• Bowl: BV0000, BV000, BV00
• Shadow: BV0000, BV000

TAG 3 - SEASON'S GREENINGS

For this tag, I use an image from the Season's Greenings stamp set. This image is also available as Season's Greenings: Planta Claus Digital Stamp Set. The image was colored with the following Copic markers:

• Skin: E00, R20
• Beard: W1, W3
• Hat, gloves & pants: R14, R24, R46, R59
• Shirt: BV0000, BV000
• Boots: N3, N5
• Tree: R46, YG03, YG17, YG67, E35
• Shovel: R46, YG03, YG67

FINISHING THE TAGS

Once the coloring was complete, I stamped the sentiments using a black pigment ink. For each tag, I cut a piece of design paper to 2.25" x 3.25" (the width of the tag) and adhered it to the bottom tag layer. I applied foam tape to the back of the image layer and assembled as shown.

Hope you enjoyed today's project! Thanks for stopping by!

Nancy

Inspire Me Monday: The Perfect Paper

Hello, my flower-loving friends! I hope you are enjoying the return of Inspire Me Monday! If you have yet to play in the monthly Blossom Challenge, there is still time to join the May challenge, "April Showers Bring May Flowers"! The challenge closes at NOON on June 17th. See all the details HERE.  

Today is my turn to share the weekly inspiration. I wanted to inspire you to think outside the box...the paper box that is! If you are part of any coloring or card making groups on social media, then you know that one of the most asked questions is, "What is the PERFECT paper to use for my coloring?" That is not an easy question to answer because the true answer is, it depends. It depends on what you wish to accomplish, what your coloring medium is, what stamps you are using, what your skill level is, and more. The truth is, there is NO perfect paper that fits every artist or every need. 

I decided to try a few experiments to see what I could do with alcohol markers, colored pencils, and digital stamps from Power Poppy...on non standard paper! Namely...on scrapbooking paper. Because, let's face it, I have a huge boatload of scrapbooking paper!

I decided to print some Power Poppy stamps onto SCRAPBOOKING PAPER. And not only scrapbooking paper, but TEXTURED scrapbooking paper. (I used various papers from Authentique, but any heavy-weight, slightly textured paper should work.) I printed each image to to fit onto paper that was cut to 8" x 10". 

Note: To make sure the paper would run through my printer without jamming, I taped the scrapbook paper to an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of printer paper. I had no issues with my printer accepting the thicker scrapbook paper by doing that simple trick. 

Now, we are always told that you cannot use Copics on paper other than marker paper because you will not get good results, the ink will bleed, and all sorts of other dire things will happen. And all those things can happen, but it is only paper and ink! Why not have a play to see what happens?! If it doesn't work out, it only costs you a few dollars in paper and ink, and a little time.

I printed the Hydrangea Hype Digital Stamp Set image at approximately 4 1/2" x 5 1/2" onto a piece of Authentique Glamour One (double-sided) textured, decorative paper. I love how the text pattern seems to overlay the printed image.

I used a very light gray line which was really difficult to see on this paper. I do wish I had printed the "black line" rather than the "no line" version, but in the end....wait and see...

I began to color with Copic markers, and the paper did feel like it pulled the marker a bit, and it felt like the paper soaked up a little more ink than regular marker paper. But, happily there was almost no bleeding of the color outside the lines! What magic is this?! Any bleeding that happened was masked by the busy print and texture of the paper! Plus, the no-line printing of the stamped image also helped to disguise any bleeding that did happen.

I kept adding color and blending. The ink did not blend exactly the way it does on marker paper, but it was looking very much like water color! The no-line printing with the gray lines makes the lines disappear, especially on this text background!

I roughly scribbled in color, then went back over to shade and blend. I did not do as much shading or fine detail work as I normally do because I wanted to keep the water color look. Plus, I did not want to risk the paper getting too soaked with ink.

I used the following Copic colors: BV31, BV04, BV02, BV000, BG70, B34, B21, B000, G28, G24, G21, G20, RV52, RV34, RV19, C9, Colorless blender. I also drew in the leaf veins with a Prismacolor Goldenrod colored pencil.

Using this technique was very fast compared to my normal way of coloring with Copics on marker paper! I am not at all skilled with water coloring, which made me super happy to achieve a water color substitute with a medium with which I am much more skilled and familiar! 

I ended up double-matting the piece as a picture suitable for framing rather than turning it into a card. I could have added a sentiment and created a card out of it just as easily. 

Since Copic markers are a more transparent medium they allow the background to show through the coloring. I think the text background makes the finished piece look a lot like a vintage postcard or a vintage botanical water color print!

Next, I turned my attention to my Prismacolor pencils. I have mentioned before that I am not a huge fan of Prismacolor colored pencils because they are so soft and waxy. However...

I printed the flower wreath from Peony Love Digital Stamp Set at approximately 7" x 7" onto Authentique Party One textured, decorative paper. (Make sure you have the textured version of this paper as Authentique made both a textured and a smooth version of some of their paper collections.)

This time I printed the "black line" version of the image to make it easier to see the lines. This is a really intricate image, printed onto paper with a background print...and my eyes are kind of old! {smile}

The sentiment in the center of the wreath is from the Geraniums Digital Stamp Set. Once again, I love the "built in" background of the scrapbooking paper! Printing directly onto the printed paper was so interesting! Because the colored pencils are a much more opaque medium, the background gets colored over and only shows on the actual project background! 

The Prismacolor Premier colored pencils are a dream to work with on this textured paper! I normally prefer an oil-based, harder lead colored pencil so that I can layer the color. However, this paper is very "toothy" which would mean layering for dog's years! With the Prismacolor pencils, I could lay down a thicker layer of wax and then blend it, easily filling in the tooth of the paper (tooth = texture).

I am overjoyed at how bright and vibrant the colors look on this slightly ivory paper! I have used the following Prismacolor Premier pencils, from the 150 set: 

Dark pink flowers: Scarlet Lake, Blush Pink, Carmine  Red,  Pink, Deco Pink, Hot Pink, Process Red, Magenta, White

Light pink flowers: Blush Pink, Pink, Hot Pink, Deco Pink, White

Red flowers: Scarlet Lake, Crimson Lake, Tuscan Red, Mahogany Red, Deco Pink, White, Black

Peach flowers: Sunburst Yellow, Salmon Pink, Light Peach, Peach, Nectar, Mineral Orange, White, Sepia

Yellow flowers: Goldenrod, Yellowed Orange, Canary Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Deco Yellow, Cream, Light Umber

Flower centers: Spanish Orange, Light Umber, Yellowed Orange, Goldenrod, Canary Yellow, White

Leaves: Limepeel, Chartreuse, Apple Green, Prussian Green, Olive Green

Shadows and highlights: Indanthrone Blue, Black, Sepia, Cream, White

I am still working on this piece, so it will remain a Work In Progress (WIP) until the next time! But it is turning out pretty well, don't you think?!

Thanks for joining us for Inspire Me Monday! Make sure to come back every Monday to see new inspiration!

Power Poppy Products Used:
Hydrangea Hype Digital Stamp Set
Peony Love Digital Stamp Set
Geraniums Digital Stamp Set

Other Products Used: Copic markers, Prismacolor colored pencils, Authentiuqe printed paper,  cardstock

Inspire Me Monday: Spring Meadow Bouquet

 

HEY FRIENDS! Inspire Me Monday is back and so am I with a new Copic coloring video. Since we have a new monthly challenge, I decided to feature one of the Spring themed digital image sets currently discounted so that you can play along with the challenge. Check out Christine's post for the challenge details as well as the 4-1-1 on the discounted stamp sets.

For this week's inspiration, I decided to feature the Spring Meadow Bouquet digital stamp set which has always been one of my favorites. 

It's been a while since I featured a digital stamp, so I decided to start today's video with a quick refresher to help get you started. I have a fuller tutorial on my channel, but for this video, I'll just give you the shorter version.

So with no further ado - here's the video!

If the video isn’t visible below, click HERE to view it. Enjoy!

That's it for me today! Hope you found some coloring inspiration!

STAMP: Spring Meadow Bouquet
COPICS: RV55, RV63, RV66, RV69 (Bleeding Hearts); BV31, BV34 (Summer Snowflake); BV31, B63, B66 (Lilacs); G20, G24, G46 (foliage); Y15, Y19, YR04, N3, N5, B000, BG10, BV31 (bee)

Nancy

The Blossom Challenge: Bring Those May Flowers

Hello Power Poppy Friends!  

We’re so excited to welcome you here today and to invite you to our NEW Monthly Challenge!  I’ll be your host (Christine), but each month I’ll be joined by some of our Power Poppy Bloomies bringing you inspiration with the challenge. 

It’s called The Blossom Challenge!  As I’ve been thinking about the challenge, my heart keeps coming back to this theme of “Blossom”.  Yes, of course the flower allusion, that’s the beauty of Power Poppy, but also to Blossom in the sense of growing and thriving as creators, becoming more abudant in our abilities .......and sometimes that means we need a spark of inspiration, a push to try something new, a place that celebrates what we’ve done, and how we’ve grown.  I want this to be a place to feel proud of our creative gift, in a Power Poppy Community that cheers one other on!  So that’s what you’re going to find here each month at Power Poppy, and we hope you all join in!

This month our theme is “April Showers Bring May Flowers”.  We want you to pull out all of those lovely Spring blooms that Marcy illustrates so beautifully and create anything with them.  More on the theme, and prizes later in the post, but first I’ll start with the card I created.  

Heart Abloom is one of my favourite illustrations from Power Poppy!  I love the composition of the images, the combination of daffodils, narcissus, hellebore, tiny lilies and the fun blueberries and snail!  Its sister set in polymer is called Always Here (still available!). I really enjoy picking unique palettes for my colouring and when I found a fun peachy-yellow hellebore that helped me decide on these fun colours together.  That’s one of my #1 tips for colouring, do some research on your flowers first.  Find some inspiration and build a cohesive colour palette from there.  

The colouring is done with Copic Markers, with details added in with Prismacolor Pencils.  Trimmed out carefully and placed on this pretty ombre patterned paper, with paper ric-rac and a scalloped frame helps keep the emphasis on the beauty of the flowers.  I delight in how fresh and fun it is and how much I enjoyed colouring it!

So....here are the details about the Challenge!

1.  You must use a Power Poppy image somewhere on your design.  It could be a stamp, digi, sentiment, Power Poppy freebie, or a background, but we want to see you using your Power Poppy images.  Those will be the cards entered for our monthly prize. 

This month we want to see your Spring flowers, think tulip, daffodil, narcissus, hellebore, hyacinth, primrose, snow drop, crocus, and cherry blossoms for your creations.  Let’s leave those summer blooms for a few months from now :)  

Marcy has generously discounted some of our BEST Spring themed images by 25% OFF so you can play along!!   You are not limited to these sets, but what an awesome sale!  

Click here to see the discounted sets this month:

ALL NEW: Sketches of Spring Volume I
Daffodil Bouquet
Dancing with Daffodils

Bowl of Beauty

Auricula Theatre
Blossoming Cherry
Heart Abloom
Hellebores
Hyacinth Bulb in Glass
Love One Another
Magnolia Sunshine
Spring Border One and Spring Border Two
Spring Meadow Bouquet
Springtime Love Roundel
Tulips
Tulips in Hobnail Pitcher
Created to Create
Flowering Branches
Winter Pick Me Up

2.  There will be a monthly PRIZE for playing along!  Sometimes it will be a random draw, and other times it will be a Bloomie Favourite winning design.  Winners will receive a $20 Gift Card to the Power Poppy store!  This month’s Challenge will be open until NOON on June 17th.  

Here is more inspiration for our April Showers Bring May Flowers from the Bloomies!

Barbara C

Lisa J

Gloria

Essie

and Christine

Enter to win using our Linky below!  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to ent

Inspire Me Monday: Easy Breeze Coneflowers!

 

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE! Well spring has finally arrived, at least according to the calendar. We spent last weekend at our local garden supply store to get ideas for our backyard. My husband is the gardener, but I get to pick out the flowers. It's a division of labor that I enjoy! 

It's too early to plant anything here - our garden relies on a combination of containers and raised beds. We have a small water feature which my husband wants to redesign so we've been busy rearranging our equally small backyard to accommodate all the changes. But it feels good to be outside again and planning for what we hope will be a more normal future.

I plan on adding coneflowers into our backyard this year but it will be a few weeks before they are available in our garden store. In the meantime, I have to be content with coloring them so today's post features the Easy Breezy Coneflowers Digital Stamp Set in anticipation of my summer garden. 

Often, I'll enlarge a digital image so that it takes up most of the card front, but I decided to downsize the image and color it on a smaller scale. But the smaller image didn't take up much real estate on the card front so I struggled awhile with the card design. I changed the card orientation from portrait to landscape and that change helped me view the layout in a different way. I've always loved the critters that Marcella adds to some of her drawings so I cropped out one of the bees in the Asters Abuzz Digital Stamp Set to add to the background and used one of the sentiments from that set. I added a honeycomb stenciled background inked in pale pink and suddenly the card came together.

Since the image is small, I didn't worry about adding a lot of detail into the petals. Instead, I stuck to a simple dark to light blend with my Copic markers. 

That's all for me today! Be sure you get out and enjoy the sunshine!

Nancy

SUPPLIES

• Easy Breezy Coneflowers Digital Stamp Set
• Asters Abuzz Digital Stamp Set