The Good Vibe 5 Keeps Flowin'!

Hello all and Happy Friday folks! Are you ready to be hit up with a hefty dose of GOOD VIBES? Well, we have five of them for you! ;-) . We found quite a bit to be inspired by this week in blog land and we cannot wait to share these crafty finds with YOU! 

GOOD VIBE No. 1

Ahhh.... Our friend from the Netherlands -- Misseke -- is at it again with gorgeous coloring in her little corner of the social media world. Just take a peek at her take on Power Poppy's Flower Bomb digital stamp set. Not only do we love the depth of her coloring but we love the fact that -- just in case you want to see her coloring in action -- she has a speed coloring video just for you! Just click HERE to see it all -- up close and personal.

GOOD VIBE No. 2

ENABLER ALERT!!! Just in case you missed it, we have some fresh-picked digis to share. If that isn't enough of a tickler for you to check out Cherries & Berries, maybe Christine Okken's colored up card above will be the push you need to grab up these lush digital delights for your own fruit-filled cards and creations.

GOOD VIBE No. 3

If you're anything like me, when you get to coloring with Copic markers, you tend to reach for pretty much every marker you own! Well, that’s why this week's Inspire Me Monday is pure creative genius. Mindy Baxter uses amazing restraint and shows us how we CAN make beautiful things with 10 markers or less! Check out her ab fab tutorial HERE.

GOOD VIBE No. 4

There are times in life when you need a little reminder about how wonderful you are! Don’t we all need to follow these little words of wisdom above and not only let our light shine but surround ourselves with others who actually love our “light?” Words to live by, my friends.

GOOD VIBE No. 5 

OK, everybody — here’s a set that’s a REAL FAVORITE with our customers and our designers alike, and it’s on sale for three days only!! Pick up Simply Camellias in clear for $11.99, or the single-image digital download of Camellias for only $1.99. Special pricing ends on Sunday at midnight, so hop to it to save up to $6.


There you have it folks! Are you full of all kinds of warm fuzzies? We surely hope so! And, if you need a little inspiration to get through your creative weekend, be sure to check out this week's.....

Essie Swartz is our guest hostess this week and, if you ask me, she creatively slayed it! ;-) So, follow her lead, take a cue from Hues to Use,  and then, be sure to share by adding a link to YOUR card on THIS POST. We love to see all the ways you put Power Poppy in the spotlight!

Now it’s time for the all-star line up, the Bloomies are back...

Come see what cards are in the limelight this week, beautifully crafted by our designers.

Christine Okken

Katie Sims

Stacy Morgan

Have a fabulously colorful weekend, and we’ll see you back here in a few days, you won’t want to miss awesome Ally Cope’s newest Inspire Me Monday tutorial!

~Julie

Hues to Use: Daylily Delight!

Hello all! Another EXCITING day here on the Power Poppy Blog! It's Tuesday, which means that we have another explosion of color to shoot into the world wide web, hoping to cover card makers far and wide with a heavy dose of creative inspiration! It's time for the next Hues to Use! 

This week's delish color combo was born right in the lush land that surrounds Marcella's home that she lovingly dubs her "terrarium." Some of the Bloomies had the distinct pleasure of visiting Marcella's garden and man, it is a sight to see -- everything impeccably kept with the perfect variation of greenery and color tucked into every square inch! This week's color inspiration features her Hemerocallis-- a drop-dead gorgeous daylily -- rich with shades of fuchsia, lime green, and pale pink. Truly swoon worthy, wouldn't you say??

Now to the second part of the fun today. We have ANOTHER guest joining the ranks here on Hues to Use. This sweet lady is someone who has been wowing us all at Power Poppy for quite a while! Take a trip through her Instagram -- ESCards  and you'll see why. Wowza, tons of Power Poppy Goodness there folks! Well, enough rambling from me! Let's hear a little bit about this uber talented lady and see this week's Hues to Use Creation!

Introducing....

Taken inside the Taj Mahal by the tour guide who was looking out through a marble honeycomb screen at Essie. 

"I am originally from a very (very) small town in rural Ohio, and was raised by a crafty mother—who did a lot of needlework, knitted, and gardened. Her hands were never still and she loved to make things. We made our own Valentine cards every year using old holiday cards, sequins, and glitter. Crafts are sort of a big part of my childhood. I stopped crafting after college while I poured everything I had into my career as a military officer. Nowadays, I’m a civil servant for a very large government agency just outside Washington DC. I am beyond fortunate to have a kind husband who indulges my crafty habit. He’s my best friend and my much better half. We have one teen boy (Thing One) and a tween girl (Thing Two), who make me laugh and keep me on the road driving to all the usual kid activities. Thing Two is my card critic and has her own table in the “Craft Lair." We have a very spoiled, slightly aged cat who views our family as her on-call Glam Squad. She calls often and loudly.

A couple of years ago, when Thing One and Thing Two were suddenly old enough to not need me every second of my non-working hours, I rediscovered crafting—first I made birthday party decorations, and then a few red rubber stamps and an ink pad or two came home with me from the local big box craft store. I discovered card making through You Tube and Flickr. There was a slippery slide (okay, it was a headfirst plunge) into cling stamps, die cutting, Cpics, colored pencils, heat guns, and the like.

Power Poppy stamps and digis became a go to. I love the delicacy of the flowers and the original, fun sentiments. Those stamps make me feel like an artist, even though I’m certainly not. Marcella and Bloomies never disappoint and their generosity and enthusiasm, which come through on your blog posts and pictures loud and clear.

My Hues to Use Card using Flowers, Always

I’ve remade this card three times—which never happens with me, but I really wanted to make something special. And, not gonna lie, that color triple was a little challenging for me, although I’ve grown to love it. I hope you’ll like the results! 

The one above on gray cardstock was my first attempt (colored pencils), but Thing One said, “it’s very dark..is that a sympathy card?” Thanks, son. So, back to the drawing board. 

Next go round, on white Neenah with Copics, was better, but the background was (Thing Two said this): “Meh.” She was right, dang it. 

So, I carefully peeled off the card and the second iteration backing, used a stencil with texture paste, distress inked the textured stenciled stripes on the background and now we all agree… better! And this is a BIG card, measuring 9X5 inches. 

I do love to enlarge Marcella’s pretty designs, and this design of hers reminds me of the Elizabethan embroidery designs and tole painting (I think that’s what it’s called) my Mom played with when I was a kid. I remember liking this sort of design so much as a teenager that I embroidered my jeans with similar flowers and leaves. I have a picture of an apron pocket I embroidered for my mother back then that she later cut apart and framed and gave me as a housewarming present. It hangs in my kitchen.

Thanks for letting me take part in Hues to Use. I'm quite excited about my very first guest design spot -- to have it be for Power Poppy is a double-daydream come true! I am such a card geek!

Best, 

Esther a.k.a. "Essie"

Well, Ms. Essie, the pleasure was all ours! We love your take using Flowers, Always and do see that beautiful similarity between your stamped creation and that beloved embroidery that you crafted so long ago! Well done my stamping friend!

I do have a piece of news too! Essie shares that she will have a blog soon and I have to say that I personally cannot wait to see all the beautiful things she posts! 

Do you want to try your hand at this lush color scheme with this week's Hues to use? Play along! Get those fingers inky! Then, use our linky to enter your card! You could be one of our next guest designers for the week. What fun! 

~Julie

An InLinkz Link-up

New to the Instant Garden for February: Flowers, Always

Hello, and happy day-after-Valentine’s Day! I’m still full from our special dinner of fish and vegetables cooked “en papillote” — steamed in a pouch made of parchment paper in the oven, it’s so easy and soooo delish! Though, maybe I’m actually full from the hot fudge sundaes Doug and I had afterwards. I put in too much fudge the first time, so we had to go back and add more vanilla ice cream, because, as Doug pointed out, “it should all come out even.” It was only after we both sat there will mild belly aches that we agreed that we could have just put down the bowls and let the extra hot fudge just “be.” But... who does that?

So! Today we have a ALL NEW digital stamp set for you! It’s a close relative to a clear set that we’ll be showing off later this week in our February Clear Release, so if you like this vibe, know that more is a-comin’!

Folks who’ve been following me for a while may have heard me talk about my Grandmother Bonnie and her hooked wool rugs. She was a thrifty — and dare I say, crafty — crafter who would buy up wool coats from the Goodwill, dye them a myriad of shades at home, then trim into the tiny strands she needed to make wool for hooking. I have some of her marvelous heirloom rugs (we used to have them on the actual floor, but after we had kids and I saw a few too many sippy cups and Play-Doh canisters near them, we decided to roll them up to bring back out when its a bit safer) and they are a delight to the senses with their beautiful floral designs and creative borders.

I will have to share photos of these rugs another time (SORRY!) because they are inaccessible for me to get to in our storage area. Arrrghhh. But, I did find some really cool, but much more primitive designs that were definitely inspiring to me. I just love the rustic, folk art style that many of these old hooked rugs have... the shapes are more simple because in many cases they had to be.

Here’s an example of rug that you will see was a big inspiration to me. I found this one on Pinterest, and I thought it was so fabulous, I created a design that echos it in a lot of ways! But I included several plants that I am fond of. Take a peek... doesn’t this make you want to take up a new hobby and start hooking rugs?! Who’s with me??

It was thinking about these rugs (as well as Jacobean crewel embroidery, which I will get into in a post later this week!) when I was working on our next clear stamp collection, and to be honest, I drew the image we are sharing today to be a part of that. But it was SOOOO WIDE, I was worried it wouldn’t even fit on the clear stamp canvas, much less on an acrylic block. So we are releasing it as a special digital offering, and I hope you love it! Introducing: Flowers, Always.

BOOM! See how beautifully broad it is? I ended up cropping off two of the sides just to make my graphic for today. Hehehe! But if you want to see the whole thing, you can hop around to the Instant Gardners’ blogs, and you won’t miss a tiny detail of the image. Truly, this is the beauty of digital stamps. You can enlarge. You can shrink. You can crop in and focus on any aspect of the design.

Come take a look at how our talented designers interpreted Flowers, Always today! Then afterwards, come grab one for yourself! It’s really a lot of fun to color in, and because it’s a fantastical menagerie of flowers, fruits, and leaves, you can color it in HOWEVER YOU WANT! No need to stay true to what things might look like in “real life.” Keep it fun, and keep it interesting for yourself.

Cheryl Scrivens

Rhea Weigand

Broni Holcombe

Barb Walker

I really hope you will come back tomorrow... we are kicking off five days of new clear stamp sets with the Bloom Brigade. This is a release we’ve been looking very forward to sharing with you!

Have a great day, and hugs to all my peeps!