Holiday Day 8: Winter Wonderland

We made it! It’s our last day of sneak previews — the final set of my Happiest Holiday 2017 collection is in the spotlight today and I cannot waiiiiiiit to show you!

Many of you heard that Doug and I were married last month, and boy oh boy was it a beautiful, love-filled celebration (note: I *will* be posting lots of photos here, I can't wait to share moments from our celebration with you!! Just been so busy working on this collection for you!). While flowers are always something that’s on my mind, they were definitely front and center as I worked with my very talented friend, Trenna Travis, to design our wedding flowers and decorations.

Flower design and photography by Trenna Travis Design Studio

Can you tell that our wedding had a woodland theme? Trenna and I absolutely went bonkers at the wholesale flower market — this bouquet has five varieties of ferns swimming around in there! Pepperberries, snowberries, and seeded Eucalyptus... Hellebores, Anemones, Astilbe, Coreopsis, Protea, Scabiosa seed heads, and the pièce de resistance: pitcher plant, which is a relative of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. The range of shapes, textures, and subtle shifts of color were simply dreamy. A pink petal would echo a pink vein in the pitcher plant, a pale green of the Scabiosa picked up on the greenish tinge of the double Hellebore. Budded Astilbe fronds resemble fizzy bubbles, a clever reference to the larger sizes of berries and seeds that mingled about. Twisting and curling ferns added a liveliness and vivacious burst of green to the calming colors — Trenna’s eye for detail and skill at arranging is beyond masterful. She texted me these photos of my bouquet as I was about to get my hair done the morning of the wedding, and I just sat in my car and cried. She had created the dreamiest dream bouquet for me, on the day I was to marry my true love.

Before we designed the wedding flowers, Trenna and I developed mood boards to help us determine the direction, adding photos of our attire, and scouring Pinterest for flowers that fit the theme. Once we had a vibe and general color palette, the mood boards helped us stay on target with every aspect of the wedding.

I share these with you today, my friends, because putting together bouquets in my mind is something I do quite often. While I adore working with flowers in real life, it is much more economical to dream them up I my head and put them down on paper, where the colors and style can be changed with every new stamp impression.

Photography by Lisa Fioretti

That is one of the reasons I’ve been sharing my “Marcella’s Mood Board” image for each day of the release this week — I want you all to see what goes on in my mind as I’m designing ANYTHING — whether it’s a room in my house, my wedding day, or the stamp sets I create for Power Poppy. I’m busy dreaming up new schemes, drawing on references old, new, natural, artisan, rustic, modern... getting inspired by colors and shapes, textures and tiny details.

I like for things to be special and rarified, and I hope you can feel the difference when you work with our Power Poppy designs. I know that I feel that way when I see what you make with them!! Each one of you has such a unique look to your work, you bring your personal experiences, your talents, your preferences, your special care for detail into everything you make, and it is a delight for all of us to see your precious creations.

On to today’s set, a Poinsettia-spiked bouquet I’m proud to share with you ... Winter Wonderland.

Winter Wonderland was inspired by fabulous wedding bouquets, wintery floral combinations with unexpected twists. A bouquet that can be as showy on Christmas as it can be in February! Starring a beautiful double Poinsettia (I know you’re getting good at working with them from what I’ve seen using our original Poinsettia set, so I wanted to challenge you with this one!), accented with Anemones, Pepperberries, and Dusty Miller Artemesia, this one will stop folks in their tracks.

REMEMBER: You can use any colors that strike your fancy!! While I have gone off into a muted maroon, periwinkle, and pink fantasy — this grouping would be stunning in reds, greens, silver and gold — stay traditional or make up whatever combo you want. We are running things and nobody is going to tell us we have to make our flowers match reality. #wootwoot

I’ve included some very large single word sentiments that can be used in a mix and match fashion to build the perfect message. I hope you enjoy working with these, I think they’ll make such pretty, unforgettable Christmas cards.

Wouldn’t you like to see what our Bloom Brigade designers have made with this one? Winter Wonderland is on parade at these Bloomie blogs...

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Julie Koerber

Katie Sims

Aren’t those FABULOUS???? I mean to tell you, I sit here in awe. Bravo, bravo, bravo, Bloom Brigade!

Now folks, tomorrow, October 24, IS THE DAY! 

We’ll throw a full scale blog hop with one more peek at ALL EIGHT of our new Holiday stamp sets... Everything will be available in the store, PLUS, we’ll announce a special promotional offer to save when you buy multiple sets. 

STAY TUNED!

XOXOXO and thank you again for your kind words on our posts, you truly are all dear-hearts and make us feel really, really good. :)