Live simply, bloom wildly!

While I personally haven’t mastered the first part of the sentiment, to “live simply” (have you seen my post about the heaps of books and magazines that I surround myself with?) — I like to think I’ve got the “bloom wildly” aspect down pat.

How about you?

I do enjoy simple things like taking walks, especially nature walks. They revive the soul, help you to slow down a bit, and gosh darnit, they can be inspiration galore for an artist or creative person. A few months ago I ventured out to Missouri’s Shaw Nature Reserve. I’ll share more about this exceptional place in a future post (oh yeah, it’s that good). But on this day, I simply soaked up the natural habitat, hiked around the ponds, and walked in the restored wildflower trails all by myself.

Peaceful stuff, my friends. This scene pretty much says: “live simply, bloom wildly.” At the time I was there, this scene was saying to me: “stay here, and don’t go back to work for another few hours.”

While the flowers in my new Countryside Bouquet stamp set were not directly from my nature walk, the appreciation of nature’s bounty surely inspired it.

I am so glad to see you back for our fantastic final day of the Bloom Wildly stamp collection, where all the sets are digital images, and they are all available in the Power Poppy shop for your purchasing pleasure. My latest introduction is a bouquet of wispy wildflowers and that cool companion sentiment described above, and together they are: Countryside Bouquet.

This bouquet is composed of flowers you might find driving across America - we’ve got spiky hummingbird sage, daisylike Cosmos, and then lots of California Poppies - all mixed up and ready to toss with your favorite art supplies.

Thank you so much to California girl Dina Kowal for the suggestion to draw California poppies — I decided to include them with this bouquet and I had so much fun researching and illustrating them.

Speaking of fun... you have got to see what the Bloom Brigade has created with Countryside Bouquet, you are gonna freak!

Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Dina Kowal
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

Thank you so very much for stopping by — and WAIT!!! You gotta come back one more day, and that day is tomorrow. For we’ll have one last celebration of the Bloom Wildly release, and the Bloom Brigade will inspire you again, I just know it. We hope you’ll share your card creations with us - remember to follow Power Poppy on Pinterest and tag your Splitcoast posts with PowerPoppy to be sure we can see you in our gallery!

Thanks, all!

Geraniums are good for you!

Hard to find a happier plant than Geraniums—would you agree? They’re so very colorful and free-wheeling; so easy to grow and make cuttings; so reliable. They’re like the essence of contentedness really! Plus they bloom like absolute fiends (why, I have 6 different cultivars showing off their colorful selves in my garden right now). I’d go so far as to say Geraniums: They’re good for your spirit!

While I can go on til the break of dawn about the merits of the jaunty Geranium (and I could also get into my plant nerd mode about how the Latin name is actually Pelargonium), that doesn’t help much in the card-making department. But wait—that’s where this new digi stamp set comes in!

If Geraniums are so happy and content, you can give your cards a healthy dose of cheerful, carefree charm with this illustration, which you can color a bajillion various ways! The leaves can be given all manner of color variations. The sentiment sums up the way I feel when I look out into my yard at this time of year.... full on botanical explosion. “The Earth laughs in flowers” — isn’t that just so great? It makes me smile just thinking about what a clever observation that is.

You know what else makes me smile? Gawking at what outstanding creations the Bloom Brigade designed to showcase the Geraniums digital stamp set. You are really going to feel the happy vibes, c’mon, let’s go see...

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Tosha Leyendekker

Thank you for popping over, and hope you’ll come back tomorrow for our last day of the Bloom Wildly all-digital stamp release! The last day is gonna be a real doozy!!

Arranging Roses - new digital stamp set!

Howdy y’all! I am so happy to finally be able to unveil my first set in Power Poppy’s July release. It’s called Arranging Roses, and it’s available for sale right this momento!

I’ve created a new collection of super deluxe, flower-filled digital stamps, and if you hang with us over the next few days, the Bloom Brigade will be showcasing some of the most outstanding card creations I’ve ever seen. Don’t doubt me on this! Go see for yourself:

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

Remember, part of the fun of digital stamps is that you can get them NOW and have a card made before your kids even get out of bed. (If your kids are teenagers... my Lulu and Finn are usually up by the crack of dawn, so no early morning cardmaking for me.)



Speaking of my kiddos, though, I got the idea to add strawberries to an arrangement of cottage roses (I mean, who does that? I don’t even know if you can pull this off in real life—but if you think it’s possible, somebody snap a photo and share it with us!) after going strawberry picking with them a few weeks ago. We had such a blast! And the saturated colors of the early-morning berry patch really struck me (for any midwesterners who may want to stop there next season, it is Lakeview Farms outside St. Louis). I wanted to work the leaves and berries into a new set, but how? One really fantastic thing about drawing, you can make combinations of whatever the heck ya want. So I paired the berries with roses in a big bouquet, and when you all make your cards, I hope you’ll color and play with this wild combo in any way that strikes your fancy! Maybe even in colors that seem totally impossible—have at it. 

Thank you SO much for coming by, and I hope you’ll take heed of the words that come with the sentiment in this set: Find your eternity in each moment. I was so struck by that quote, I posted it on Facebook while I was researching what words I wanted to pair with my still life of the sweet summer pleasure of arranging flowers. It is actually part of a longer missive:

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

That Henry David Thoreau was one wise dude. My friend Kirk Ranson quipped, “One should Thoreau themselves into life!” Hehe! Right on.