The Midsummer Stunner starts here!

Five Days, Seven Clear Stamp Sets. Illustrations, sentiments, and creative goodness to fit so many occasions! So many, in fact, we’re calling it the Midsummer Stunner Collection. Come visit us now until Tuesday for glimpses into the possibilities with each of our new clear sets. We kick off today with a tour into our Bloom Brigade’s creative confines! The imaginations of these ladies are always a STUNNER. Wouldn’t you agree?

I’d love to introduce the first set we are previewing today, and as you know, all of my sets are near and dear to my heart — how could they not be? I draw and nurture each one from infancy in my sketchbook, through its childhood as we work through various combinations of images and typography, handlettering, details. Through maturity into a physical stamp set using the best photopolymer etching to create the crispest images available. And then, THEN, I get to watch it go out into the world, where it travels far and wide, and is nurtured by crafters who in turn extract a unique beauty and creative implementation for the images. My goodness, do I really get to do this for a living? Pinch me!

Coming back down to earth... let’s look at this picture from my garden real quick:

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.
Pray you, love, remember.”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Our first set to preview is one I hope you’ll turn to often in times when you need to comfort someone who has suffered a loss. Most of you know that we lost my mother, Susan, in February, to cancer. The support and love that I was shown (and continue to be shown!) by friends and my dear, sweet customers was so helpful and will never be forgotten. I felt it was high time to create a sympathy stamp set with phrases and gentle botanical images that would offer love and support, just as I had been shown.

Rosemary has been a symbol of remembrance since way back in Shakespeare’s time, and it continues to serve that purpose for me with its unique and glorious scent. It transports and transcends. In fact, I’ve grown it in my garden or in pots nearly every year (Rosemary is typically an annual in the Midwest) and I feel that grasping a fresh sprig in your fingers, rubbing it a bit to release the oil in the leaves, and then inhaling that scent — a flood of memories and a real sense of calm overcomes. We even had a very large pot of Rosemary at Mom’s celebration of life last month, brought over by dear friends, members of the St. Louis Herb Society.

In our new set, you’ll find a sprig of flowering Rosemary to use in your cards. And you’ll find a few more symbolic flowers, a lilting butterfly, and words of sympathy to share in your creations. We call this set Soothing Sympathy.

We’d love to share some of the possibilities with this clear stamp set, so I’ll turn it over to the incredibly capable hands of our mega-talented designers, the Bloom Brigade... they always know how to wow us!

Stacy Morgan
Christine Okken
Kathy Jones
Tosha Leyendekker
Cindy Lawrence

Tomorrow we’ll have TWO sets to share with you — with all-new images that I think you’ll love! Thanks so much for coming by to see us! Have a wonderful day, and you can find me out in the herb garden... (did you happen to see my Instagram yesterday? We have a dill flower head that is seriously larger than my own head.) Goodbye for now....