August’s Color Me Grateful Collection is here!

I’m so happy to share with everyone that we’re ready to roll out the three new sets that will keep you coloring til the cows come home! Or maybe til you’ve worn out the grooves on your old 45 records... were you able to spend some time this week visiting with our enchanting Bloom Brigade? Each card they created for this release was a brilliant sight to behold, if I do say so myself! How is it that they can bring such shock and awe in the form of stunning stamping release after release? It is not for me to ask, but for me to be so stoked!!!

Now, it’s YOUR turn to get your hands dirty — what would you do with all of these images to color? Each set offers something delightfully different and is available now in the Power Poppy Shop:

 Happy Crabapple

Well Played

So Grateful

I know this might seem too good to be true, but the Bloomies have fashioned ONE MORE CARD to really kick this release into high gear. Talk about being grateful, thank you ladies!! Let’s go see what very special creation they have to share with us today....

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

We are soooo glad that you could come spend some time with us—AND—we hope you had a chance to squeeeeze your card into our July edition of the Power & Spark Challenge, which had final call on Friday! We’ll be announcing the winner of the free stamp set next Friday, August 7, and will share a brand new challenge! See you creative kittens later.... hopefully over at the Power Poppy Shop to stock up on the new sets or to pick up a few you’ve been wanting to play with. Take care, and enjoy your weekend!

So Grateful!

Hello folks! Things are bustling so much over at Power Poppy home base that, when a blog post decides not only to not go up but proceeds to get lost in the blogosphere, we didn’t realize it! So, to get you to the action that much faster, I am going to make this introduction — short, sweet and full of gratitutde! Check out our final sneaky peak from Power Poppy’s Color Me Grateful Collection!

This set — So Grateful — captures our gratitude for nature’s abundance with giant doses of end-of-summer/early fall color! Just look at these lush and larger than life images that are oozing with possibilities when it comes to coloring! With a bunch of  dahlias, daisies, sweet potato vine, berries and even a darling flower-filled pumpkin -- you have a potpourri of beauty at the center of your fall cards and creations. Not to mention, the sentiments in this set are suited for thank you cards galore!

As always, the Bloomies went above and beyond when it came to bringing this new set to life — check it out for yourself! You won't be sorry!

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Kathy Jones

Katie Sims

Leslie Miller

Tosha Leyendekker

Be sure to check back tomorrow when our Bloomies kick off a Power Poppy Parade showcasing the fabulous sets in our Color Me Grateful Collection! And, it’s also the day when all the sets will be LIVE in the Power Poppy Shop, ready to add to stamp rooms far and wide!

See you then!

~Julie

Those about to rock this stamp set, we salute you!

Welcome back for day two of our Color Me Grateful August clear set sneak peeks!!

For everyone who knows that I am a music lover/fanatic/junkie, you may have been wondering just how long it would be before I would design a stamp set devoted to that divine topic: MUSIC! It heals hearts, it lifts up the spirit, it makes people gosh-darn happy!

Growing up I was surrounded by my folks’ record collection... the sounds of Motown, Stax Records from Memphis (which is now the American Museum of Soul Music and Doug and I recently toured it — swoooon!!), of course the Beatles and the Beach Boys and all the “golden oldies” really were the soundtrack of my childhood. Sprinkled in with hard bop jazz (my Daddy’s favorite), and influenced by my brother Andy’s hip hop and rap cassettes (taped from a friend’s cassette, who probably taped it off the radio), I went on to discover funk, ska, punk, skateboard rock, moody Brit pop and dance electronica ... and girl, we haven’t even gotten to the part yet where I started working in a record store in high school and my world exploded with a new variety of musical genres I’d never even heard of. The list of favorites just grew and grew, into country and metal and power pop and classical and, and, and...

OK, so, yeah, a music set was in order! And the ideas had been swirling...

But the thing that really got me in the groove to design this set was my daughter, Lulu. We went to our first rock concert together this spring. And by first, I mean, the first time she picked the band she reallllllllly wanted to see, and it wasn’t “Mom Music”. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her as giddy as she was at that show!! She was IN. HER. ELEMENT. She can often be found wearing her big puffy headphones, or playing guitar, singing, and writing songs. She’s a poet, a dreamer, and a leader. If anyone deserves a stamp set with a tribute to her favorite things, it’s this lil lady. I borrowed this selfie from her Instagram. (Don’t say anything to her, please, she’ll kill me...)

I realized that when I wanted to make a card for Lulu, Power Poppy did not have a set in our arsenal that fit Lulu’s tastes to a T. I had to get on top of that STAT! (p.s. the one set that would have fit the bill would have been Sassy Succulents, and we WILL get that one back in stock very soon, my friends, very soon!) I worked through lots of sketches and came up with a few images that I think are a sweet tribute to nostalgic rock n’ rollers, with quirky and fun images and sentiments that will light up a card for the tween-to-teen set... or heck, people of any age who appreciate a nice jam! Introducing: Well Played.

I want you to see just how much fun the Bloom Brigade has been having with Well Played...

Let’s Get Rockin’ BLOOMIES!

Kathy Jones
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
Leslie Miller
Christine Okken
Allison Cope
Katie Sims
Cindy Lawrence 

Thank you so much for checking out Day 2 of our August release! We’ll be back tomorrow to show you one more set that is so full of coloring options, I just know (hope, but really feel pretty confident) that you’re going to love it.

Branch out with our August stamps — sneaks start today!

Hello to you, and welcome back to Power Poppy, where we’re pleased (and totally giddy!) to start three days of previews for our August clear stamp sets!

Our new collection is called Color Me Grateful, and it offers a variety of images for making cards that celebrate the little details in nature and in life, details that can seem so simple—maybe often overlooked—but that can bring joy to you and to your card recipients. There are three juicy sets in all, and we hope you’ll be here with us to see what we’re revealing each day, til we pop the cork on release day with a big ole blog hop August 1st. You’re not going to want to miss any of the colorful fun, led by the women whose cardmaking prowess is only second to their kindness and loving hearts, my Bloom Brigade design team! I am so grateful for their gorgeous contributions and I know you’re going to not want to miss a single peek.

We kick off today with a set whose blossom-laden focal image was first introduced in April of this year in our Instant Garden digital collection. (You can read the story behind Flowering Branches right here!) One of the most fabulous facets of trees that explode into flower in the springtime, they then are covered in lush leaves all summer, then many take on exquisite fall color, and THEN, as if they just can’t stop giving, giving, giving to their admirers (like us, and you know, the birds and the bees) they are covered in little fruits! When I first drew this set, I went ahead and put three seasons of bounty into the images — flowers, leaves, and fruit all at once. Which is what makes this set work practically year-round. Take a look at Happy Crabapple!

This image has been so popular as a digi — and truly, it colors up so nicely that I think it might be difficult to make it look bad. It’s just that fizzy and fun. In our clear stamp version, I’ve done a little pruning, so that you can stamp the large image of flowering crabapple branches, but then you can add little “tufts” of fruits, leaves, and flowers with smaller accent images. Or you can save the big image for later and only use the tiny ones! They are the perfect size for a quick color-up!

Sentiments in Happy Crabapple invite you to see things in new way, to find happiness and gratitude by looking at a situation differently. To keep the faith. We all need those little reminders every now and again. And you know, sometimes I stamp the messages from my stamp sets on post-it notes and place them around my computer monitor just for that very purpose! I’m sure you all could come up with a bit more creative solution than that, but it’s the spiritual nudge I need some days. :) 

Oh, hey look!! The Bloom Brigade is breezing in to show us some of the many ideas you can try with this set of flowering, fruit-laden clusters and happy sentiments.

TAKE IT AWAY, BLOOMIES!

Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
Leslie Miller
Allison Cope
Katie Sims
Christine Okken

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope you’ll make a note to come on back tomorrow, for something completely different, that may have you getting a bit nostalgic and looking to unearth that dusty old box of 45 singles... Have a rocking day and see you soon!