December Diva Inspirations Hop

---

Hi Verve fans! It’s the 5th of the month and time for our monthly Diva Inspirations Blog Hop! If you’re not familiar with our hop, it’s our design team’s time to shine a light on some old favorites from the Verve line-up and breathe a little fresh life into them. Sometimes we dust off older sets to use them by themselves and sometimes we mix and match them with newer products, but we always have a lot of fun getting our Verve on! Hop along with us to see what I mean! For my card, I mixed old and new stamps for a whimsical little Christmas card.  My little Christmas birdie and sentiment are from the brand new Christmas Joy set.  I stamped the sentiment onto a Scroll Die cut stamped with the coordinating Scroll Plain Jane, then accented with a snowflake from Holiday Treats cut with the Winter Fun Die Set. My birdie has a glitzy red coat and is standing on some glimmery white snow, courtesy of Stickles!  I added some fun scrappers floss and mini jingle bells to finish things off. Did I mention there's a PRIZE hidden along this little hop! Just leave a comment at each stop as you hop around to the blogs linked below and you’ll be entered into a drawing to win a $40 voucher to the Verve Store!  Eye candy AND a chance to win free stamps... sounds simply fabulous!  I can't wait to see what everyone created! This little shindig starts over on my blog, Poetic Artistry, so I'll see ya there! {grin} 1. Julee 11. Andrea 2. Amy 12. Teresa 3. Anya 13. Charmaine 4. Betty 14. Laurie S. 5. Jessica 15. Stacey {Guest} 6. Karen 16. Jen 7. Sankari 17. Maureen 8. Sarah 18. Marisa 9. Susan 19. Christyne 10. Tiffany Comment deadline for the prize drawing is 5pm Mountain on Tuesday, December 10.

---

And since the year is coming to a close, we thought we'd celebrate with a 25% off sale on all of our stamps that released in 2013 (and their coordinating dies)!

Supply List:
Stamps: Christmas Joy, Scroll, Holiday Treats (Verve)
Paper: 'Tis the Season (Echo Park), basic black, basic gray, cherry cobbler (SU!), white
Ink: Black
Accessories: Scroll Die, Winter Fun Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), red, green, orange and frosted lace stickles (Ranger), white scrapper's floss (Karen Foster), mini jingle bells (JoAnn)

April Diva Dare - Day 7

Hey there everyone, Christyne here on this wonderful Monday morning bringing you some inspiration for this this month's Diva Dare over at Verve.  During April we are featuring the styles of Diva Charmaine (Oodabug Alley) and Diva Marisa (Rosemary Reflections).  Combining the cheerful, bright colors of Charmaine and the butterflies of Marisa'a work, we arrive at a "Bright Blooms and Butterflies" theme.  

To start my card, I decided to use the My Mind's Eye - Happer paper collection because the little bugs reminded my of Charmaine's blog theme and this paper is very "bright" by my standards.  To highlight Marisa'a use of butterflies, I have two from the new Verve So Fluttery set, all done up with pearls!! I also decided to keep my card clean, unsponged, and undistressed as a nod to these two ladies' clean styles.  The sentiment panel was created using the Scroll PJ and the Scroll die.  The "With Love" sentiment from the With Love set was just a perfect fit for inside the scroll PJ.  I also fit in a little piece of the Banner Bundle die set since that set no sooner gets put away before it's back on the stamp desk again (can you say addicted to pennants!).  I  decided to pair the Diva Dare theme with the April week four Viva la Verve! sketch and inspiration piece from Andrea (below).  Well, that's a bunch of challenges that we're throwing at you but who doesn't love "Bright Blooms and Butterflies" in the spring!!  I can't wait to see what you all come up with!!

Click Here To Link Up Your Creation!

Finally, noted below are two ways you can win some shiny new Verve!  

1. Win a $40 Verve gift certificate! Play along with our March Diva Dare and link up your creation to the linky widget entry form.  A winner will be chosen by random draw. To be eligible, your entry must:
• Be a new creation - posted April 12th or later.
• Be a card or project using bright colours and having a flower and/or butterfly (or other die shape) as your focal point.
• Use at least one Verve product.
• Be added to the linky widget before 5pm Mountain on Wednesday, May 1.
2. Win a Verve set of your choosing! Leave a little shout-out for the Divas in the comments section as we post our answers to this month's dare weekdays through April 29th.  A random comment winner will be chosen from all the comments over the course of the Dare.
3. Winners will be announced on Friday, May 3rd.

- Go forth and get inky! We DARE you! -

March Diva Dare - Day 6

---

Hi there Verve fans!  Laurie S. here, and I'm excited to share my take on this month's Diva Dare theme - "Just Give Me Stamps, Buttons and Bling"!!  This month, "we dare" you to create a card combining Diva Laurie (Just Give Me Stamps (hey, that's me :-)) and Diva Maureen's (Buttons and Bling) styles.  For insight into their styles and inspiration galore, you can find my Verve creations here and Diva Maureen's Verve creations here.

I'll admit it, this was not a tough challenge for me!  LOL!  I mean, I just had to make a card using my usual style combined with some goodies that Maureen is known for (and I LOVE her big, puffy grosgrain bows and use of embellishments)!!  I used a couple of sentiments from the new So Fluttery set, combined with the Scroll Plain Jane, Scroll Die, & Jotted Heart Die!  Oh, and lots of embellishments!  :-)


Has that got your wheels a turnin'? The Divas are going to be posting their Diva Dare creations using our newly released products right here, each weekday, for a total of two weeks. Why, do tell? There are going to be winners!  We'll announce the winners on Thursday, March 28th.

Here are two ways you can win some shiny new Verve!

1. Win a $40 Verve gift certificate! Play along with our March Diva Dare and link up your creation to the linky widget entry form.  A winner will be chosen by random draw. To be eligible, your entry must:
   • Be a new creation - posted March 8th or later.
   • Be inspired by a Verve card or project combining Diva Maureen and Diva Laurie's style.
   • Use at least one Verve product.
   • Be added to the linky widget before 5pm Mountain on Wednesday,  March 27.
2. Win a Verve set of your choosing! Leave a little shout-out for the Divas in the comments section as we post our answers to this month's dare weekdays through March 25th.  A random comment winner will be chosen from all the comments over the course of the Dare.
   
   

Fanspiration Diva Dare ~ Day 8

Hi Verve fans and friends!  Andrea here continuing with this month's exciting Diva Dare theme!  I have to say that as I was perusing our fan gallery and seeing all the fabulous entries for our recent card carnival I was very inspired as well!  I can certainly see how this inspiration led to Julee's decision to make this month's Diva Dare theme...Fanspiration!   This month, we "dare" you to show us your new creations inspired by projects made by Verve fans!  You can pick any little Verve project to inspire you, as long as it is not by one of our design team members (or yourself!) {grin}.  To get your wheels a turnin', the Divas will be posting their Fanspiration creations using our newly released products right here daily for a total of 2 weeks!
I have long since admired one of our Verve fans' work (among others) and what really draws me to Olena's creations is her incredible use of color. I tend to make things more on the neutral/pastel side, but wow! When you see how color can be used, particularly on this card....my goodness, it really inspired me to make this card here:

I started off by heat embossing with clear powder, the flowers from the newly released Lean on Me set. After embossing, I sponged color, starting from the middle with Sunflower yellow ink, then working outwards using Really Rust and then the outside perimeter is colored with Walnut Stain distress ink. I cut out each flower with the coordinating Pointed Flowers die. I cut out 3 large and 4 small designs, layered them, curled up the edges and added a rhinestone to the middle. The leaves are a combination of the previously released Bloom and  Grow, cut out with the Elegant Leaves die and also leaves from the Dream Big set, cut out with the new Dreamy Leaves die.  The sentiment is from the With Love set, stamped on the Scroll Plain Jane  and cut out with the coordinating Scroll die. The last colorful details added were some orange organdy ribbon, orange rhinestone flourishes, a doily and a raffia adorned wooden button. The perimeter was paper pierced as well.

 Read on to see how you can win some shiny new Verve!  There are two ways to win...

1. Win a $50 Verve gift certificate! Play along with our Fanspiration Diva Dare and link up your creation to the linky widget entry form. Winner will be chosen by random draw.  To be eligible, your entry must:
• Be a new creation - posted September 7 or later
• Be inspired by a non-design team created Verve card or project
• Include a link to the inspiration piece you used, as well as a brief explanation of what inspired you
• Use at least one Verve product
• Be added to the linky widget before 5pm Mountain on Sunday, September 23.
2. Win a Verve set of your choosing! Leave a little shout-out for the Divas in the comments section as we post our answers to the Fanspiration dare each weekday through September 20.  A random comment winner will be chosen from all the comments over the course of the Dare.

- Go forth and get inky! We DARE you! -