Nature and Nurture Preview: Day 3

Hi there! If you’ve found your way here to the blog today, you may know it’s the last day of our Nature and Nurture collection sneak peeks — but if you missed the first two days, just scroll on down to catch up on the beauty and creative sparks that are flying every which way!

In our part of the town, kids are heading back to school. While it still feels a bit summery out, there’s no mistaking that fall is going to be here sooooon! And with fall’s arrival, I will hope to be among the lucky ones to pick out the coolest hybrid pumpkins from the farmer’s market! The ones that make you say, “I didn’t know that gourds came in all of these cool colors!” I’m a sucker for those beauties — bigtime — but even then, you can’t go wrong with traditional orange. With four kids in the house, we always have plenty of the orange pumpkins lining our stairs, and I just have to hope that the postal carriers are now used to my displays on the front stairs. I do try to leave a bit of a walkway, of course, meandering to our door, but other than that, it’s a decorative gourd minefield.

Hope I don’t trip over the display myself on the way back to my studio from a walk up to Starbucks for my pumpkin spice latte....

I’ve designed a stamp set for this awesome time of year, celebrating all of these fall-y sensations, and when you see the images and sentiments packed into it, I hope that you too will be “Feeling Fall”...

We’ve got three large images, a few small accents, and some sentiments to boot! Did somebody say boot? Wellies (rubber rain boots) are all the rage at my daughter Lulu’s school, so I had to include one in a stamp set, they are just too cute to leave out! Our plaid wellie is filled with branches from a Japanese maple (based on the Acer Singokaku we have growing in the garden), but they can be colored up anyway you’d like! Maybe I’ll have to recreate this look on my front porch this year. Though I doubt Lulu will donate her welly to the cause... can’t really blame her. :)

Introducing this really fun set that I hope will be a must-have for your crafty stash... #currentmood: Feeling Fall.

Now, I know I’ve been saying that the Bloom Brigade are going all out with awesome creations to get you all buzzed up over this release... but you haven’t seen what they’ve done with Feeling Fall. Get ready for some of the cutest cards of the year!

Katie Sims

 Stacy Morgan
Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Kathy Jones
Cindy Lawrence

Julie Koerber

 Tosha Leyendekker

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy the inspiration!! And we’ll see you back here tomorrow for our big release day blog hop! All sets are IN STOCK and ready to ship. PLUS — We’re going to be throwing some special savings in three different ways tomorrow, time for you to stock up and save — both digis and clear! Have a great day, my lovelies.

Nature and Nurture Preview: Day 2

Did you enjoy yesterday’s showcase peeks of our new clear stamps? I was so giddy to start sharing this collection of images called Nature and Nurture, which range from meandering stems that could have been plucked from the prairie, to curated blooms popped into a vase, to fall’s colorful gifts presented with fresh perspective.

Today’s stamp set peeks feature two images that folks have been asking, asking, asking to see in clear polymer. I hope that it makes you a little bit excited to see what we’re sharing with you today....

Anybody recognize these? We’ve selected two very popular digital images: Sunshine of My Life and Sunflower Power — and bringing them together in a sort of sunflower supernova!

What more could you want, I’m asking ya. How about some highly versatile mix-and-match sentiments? We have those in this set, too!! The coloring possibilities with these sunflowers is totally off the charts. As I’ve mused in past blog posts, my sunflowers were a sort of ode to Van Gogh’s series painted in the South of France in the late 1800s. He arranged and painted tens of canvases in the most saturated of pigments and delicate variances of color. They became not only famous, but iconic. My ink drawing gives you a headstart to creating a rich bouquet of sunflowers, but YOU are the colorist, you are the artist dictating how these vibrant creatures will come to life! Isn’t that so much fun? Can you believe we get to be doing this?

I pinch!!! Myself — not you.

Let’s run ’round and see what the Bloom Brigade design team has made today. My friends, I’m going to warn you, I’ve gotten a headstart as gazing upon their cards, and they are all exQUISite!!!

Allison Cope

Katie Sims

Christine Okken 

Cindy Lawrence

Tosha Leyendekker

Stacy Morgan

Thank you for stopping by the Power Poppy Blog for our little reveal today. If you come tomorrow, you’ll be rewarded with some seriously cute inspiration from our team. They really are the bees knees!!

Nature and Nurture Preview: Day 1

Happy Tuesday, dear ones!

What a very exciting day, as not only are we sneak-peeking a brand new clear polymer stamp set and getting a glimpse into a ton of different ways to use it, but it’s Lulu and Finn’s first day of school (5th and 8th). Back into the routine we go... can I get an amen? It’s been such a nice summer for us: vacations with family and friends, swimming pool and skate park visits, bike rides and lazy mornings (for the kids, not so much for the adults) — but I am ready to get back to the regular school schedule. Just a bit. Or maybe two bits. Okay, four bits.

Today’s peeks are from a set called Prairie Cheer that works beautifully on its own—but is also a companion to the set we showed yesterday, Pure Prairie Bouquet. [Now, the bouquet is currently only available in digital format, but for the patient folks out there, know that we’ll be bringing out that one in clear as well in the future!]

Prairie Cheer was inspired by my jaunts to the wildflower restoration that’s going on near my house with all manner of native plants, but also by my travels this summer with roadtrips through the heartland. What do you see while you’re on a roadtrip through the Midwest and you take the scenic route (which takes forever but is so much more fun!)? Beautiful pastures! Rich farmland! Roads lined with nodding wildflowers! And in our area of the U.S., you’ll see acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat, wheat, wheat.

What I thought we really needed for a stamp set was a little sprinkling of several of these beautiful plants, drawn simply, wispily. So that for our customers sitting down to make a card with Power Poppy images, it could be both a joyful affair and not take quite so long to color. Or not be colored in at all, to be elegant enough to stand on their own. Along with, of course, some very sweet sentiments to help somebody else feel good. Which of course makes US feel good in the process! Presenting, Prairie Cheer.

While this set is available for pre-order, it will be fully revealed and start shipping on Friday, August 19th! Along with TWO MORE new clear sets. And you probably need all of them, let’s be honest. ;)

What a showcase we have for you today with Prairie Cheer! Take it away, Bloomies...

Katie Sims

 Stacy Morgan
Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Kathy Jones
Cindy Lawrence

Julie Koerber

 Tosha Leyendekker

We’ll see you back here tomorrow for more previews... and it just might include a few digital images that you’ve been asking for me to pleeeeeease bring out in clear! Have an awesome day.

August Instant Garden Introduction: Pure Prairie Bouquet

Let’s start our week off with a “bang!”, shall we? How about a power-pack of color born from the flowering gifts of the land’s prairies, meadows, and roadsides. I’ve created a new bouquet for our August Instant Garden digital stamp introduction that will put you into a pure prairie state of mind. I know it did for me!

Inspiration for this new illustration was sparked by trips to our local park, where a prairie restoration has filled a large hillside with wonderful wildflowers, grasses, seedpods, butterflies, and bees. I walk there quite often and marvel at the sights, scents, and sounds. Returning to my own garden, I have planted lots of these prairie beauties, but in much tinier confines. Several weeks ago I went “out back” and plucked a big handful from my garden stash, and while not everything made the cut into the final drawing, I was definitely feeling the pull of these wildflower wonders.

From bee balm and tickseed to coneflower and milkweed, I got my initial bouquet sketched out “just so”. Then, as I do, I ended up erasing and redrawing parts of this thing until sadly, the sweet milkweed (orange flower in the upper left) didn’t make the cut. Maybe another day, milkweed! But I brought in prairie favorites like little bluestem, New England asters, purple prairie clover, and Indian paintbrush.

After getting it all to my liking, I got out my Sakura Micron pens (points ranging from 01 to 03mm), and inked it up. Here is a peek at the drawing before I erased the pencil.

Did I tell you that this one is power-packed? There is a LOT of activity in this bouquet — it almost guarantees a colorful card that will be filled with passion and life!

Introducing our newest digital stamp set, Pure Prairie Bouquet!

I told you that it’s colorful — holy moly! And if you want to see the true definition of the word “awesome”, you have to come see what our Instant Gardener team has come up with using Pure Prairie Bouquet.

Today you’ll get to see even more beauty, because guess what? We are welcoming a new member to our Instant Gardener digital stamp release team. We’ve been admiring her work and ogling her incredible coloring for months now, and we just couldn’t stand by another minute before asking Jessie Banks to join us. Please welcome Jessie over on her blog today, as she is even along for today’s introduction, setting right to work on Pure Prairie Bouquet. And we are so excited to announce that Jessie will also be joining us with helpful tutorials and fresh ideas for Inspire Me Monday here at Power Poppy.

A few words from Jessie:

Hey everyone! I am absolutely thrilled and honoured to be part of the Power Poppy Family. Ironically I coloured my first Power Poppy image in August of last year so its been one year since I first started colouring these images! I have loved the flowers from this company! I enjoy all sorts of mediums, copic, coloured pencils, watercolours, I have recently started dabbling in pastel pencils and I thrilled to be able to share them all with you! I have been colouring and card making for about 5 years now, and enjoy every moment of it!

Visit Jessie Banks’ blog here.


Now, to the full blogroll for today’s digi release... are you ready to roll?

Cheryl Scrivens

Debbie Olson

Jennifer Dove

Broni Holcombe

Barb Walker

Nancy Sheads

Jessie Banks

I even spent a little time coloring in this image, you may have spied it on my Instagram (@marcellahawley) a few weeks ago, as I posted it during Kathy Racoosin’s Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge. I hadn’t painted with gouache in quite a while, so I armed myself with some juicy new paints and had a ball getting down to business with this new illustration....

If you like the prairie feel of this drawing, you’ll want to stay close to Power Poppy this week. TOMORROW we launch our August Clear Stamp previews with the Bloom Brigade, and Friday is our big release day of three new sets. The Nature and Nurture Collection is coming, and I think there’s a lot to love about what we have for you!!! See you back here soon, I hope! For now, let’s go see what the IG team has lovingly created for us....

Another Fanciful Friday!

Hello all and welcome to yet another fanciful Friday with the peeps here at Power Poppy! It's a day where we love to share the goodies we've found while scouring the web and a chance to show off the creativity from our uber talented peeps known as the Bloomies! We sure hope your creative week is ending on a high note and we hope you enjoy today's Power Poppy offerings! 

We should point out that some of our finds were rather easy because they were entries in....

Have you checked out this month's challenge yet? It's super fun and lets your creativity flow by being inspired by fellow card makers! What's better than that? You can read all about the official details and link up your creation HERE! 

SO... LET'S GET TO THE SHOW & TELL! 

First up is a lovely lady and fabulous card maker who ushered in a little Christmas early for us all to feast our eyes on! I love the way Robin Clendenning stamped the image from Heaven & Nature Sing to cover the entire card front, bridging the gap with a fun and flouncy sentiment! The stippled background is really the icing on the cake! Way to get us inspired before the paper flies for Christmas card making season Robin! ;-) Need more inspiration for Christmas? Don't forget to check out our Pinterest Page with literally hundreds of layout ideas! 

When it comes to the Power and Spark Copy, Steal, Inspire entries, we have a couple of beauties already! Misti Oblander whipped up this polka dot treat playing off THIS card that Christine created. Don't you just love the punchy design with those fabulously placed ink spots for a little extra pop? I sure do! Misti used the Power Poppy set Geraniums Take Two  for this number!

And last, but certainly not least, is this beachy delight that Becky fashioned using Power Poppy's Best Day Ever stamp set. Aren't the little embossed seashells pretty perfect? Me thinks so! That, and the soft yet sunshiney colors she used make me say... Ahhhhhhh! Well done Ms. Becky!

Well, we hope you leave our little spot on the web a little more happy, a little more inspired and little more on fire to share your talents with all of us! Think about playing along in this month's Power & Spark Copy, Steal, Inspire challenge!  I know a group of ladies who are on stand by to share some of their latest with all of you. Stop by and see these fine ladies if you will....

Cindy Lawrence

Kathy Jones

Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

Okay, just a heads up for all you Power Poppy fans. We have FUN STUFF coming your way in just a matter of days! First up, we have a brand new addition to the Instant Garden on MONDAY and then.... on TUESDAY look for a whole new crop of clear stamps that usher in a feel for Fall with the Nature & Nurture collection! You are not going to want to miss out! Between the gorgeous illustrations and our fabulous designers' creations using them, you just might be doing a little bit of a happy dance! I know we are!

See you back here real soon!
~Julie

Inspire Me Monday: Creating Fun Backgrounds

Howdy all!  Happy Monday!  Welcome to Inspire Me Monday!  I'm Allison Cope your hostess this week.

This week I was inspired by a re-occurring dream I've been having about a linear repeating pattern.  Yes... I dream about creating!  Do you??? So I decided to use my dream as inspiration to create some fun backgrounds on my cards today.

So here are my finished cards using our lined pattern and our gorgeous new stamp set, "Soothing Sympathy" stamp set...

So in the end, I didn't like how small the original stamped greeting was so I cut it off in a funky matter and created a shaker card using the remaining part of the circle.  I stamped my new greeting from the "Nice Things To Say" stamp collection inside the shaker aspect instead. I added all kinds of sequins and fun silver microbeads to match the colour scheme of the card inside.

As I had indicated in the video, I cut the larger panel I had created using Ranger Distress Inks down to a piece that I was happy with.  I didn't want to take away too much from the funky panel so I only added a simple gold embossed, yet large greeting form the "Big Scripts" stamp set to the front plus a few turquoise sequins.

For my final card, I kept it extremely simple.  I die cut some cute little hearts from the light purple cardstock background, added some violet sequins and added my focal panel with dimensional adhesive.  Voila!

I hope I've inspired you today go and create some fun background pieces.  Grab some fun, bright colours and a thin pen and have a ball!  Thanks for stopping by!

~ Allison Cope ~


Supplies:

Enjoy Your Big Day
stamps:  Power Poppy (Soothing Sympathy, Nice Things To Say)
cardstock:  Copic (XPress-It), Recollections (110# White), Vellum
inks:  Memento (Tuxedo Black), Copic Markers (B01, T3, V000, YG11), Copic Multi-Liner 0.25
dies:  Spellbinders (Classic Circles, Scalloped Circles)
sequins: Pretty Pink Posh (Share Kindness Mix), Little Things from Lucy's Cards (Bright White), CraftMedley  
microbeads:  Recollections

Thanks
stamps:  Power Poppy (Soothing Sympathy, Big Scripts)
cardstock:  Strathmore (Watercolor Paper), Recollections (110# White)
inks:  Versafine (Black Onyx), Versamark Ink, Ranger Distress (Lucky Clover, Peacock Feathers, Bundled Sage, Milled Lavender, Tattered Rose)


sequins: CraftMedley
other:  gold detail embossing powder 

Warm Hugs
stamps:  Power Poppy (Soothing Sympathy, Nice Things To Say)
cardstock:  Strathmore (Watercolor Paper), Recollections (110# White), Flourishes 
inks:  Versafine (Black Onyx), Brusho (Crimson, Violet), Copic Multi-Liner 0.25
dies:  Pretty Pink Posh (Scallop Frames), My Favorite Things (Vertical Hearts)
sequins: CraftMedley 

Apples in Season digi remix; August Challenge; Bloomie Fun!

Howdy Happy Stampers! Are you ready for a wild and creative ride? We sure have one in store today, I tell ya! We have a new challenge, some winnings to announce, a brand new addition to the Power Poppy Instant Garden and a little show and tell from our fabulous team of designers! Can you even stand it?

So, first things first, being that this is the 5th and you KNOW we release new digital stamp images on the 5s -- 5th, 15th and 25th -- we have a little something to help you savor the flavors of fall!

INTRODUCING: Apples in Season

You’ll have to stay tuned because I happen to know for a fact that several of the Bloomies and
Instant Gardeners used this delish image for their creations that they are showing off today. Woot woot!

Before we get to that fab link list, we have a brand new challenge to unveil for August and this one is a super duper fun one! Why? Because you get to.....

HOW TO PLAY: What? We are actually encouraging theft here? No, not really. We want you to surf the rolling waves of creativity here in the blogosphere, on Pinterest, and in social media—and find some Power Poppy inspiration. Once you’ve picked a card to be inspired by, we want you to go all C.S.I. and Copy, Steal and Inspire. Copy the original layout, Steal the idea and then Inspire with your own take on the original. What I love about this challenge is the fact that it encourages us to share and then let other card designers know when something they’ve done really strikes a creative chord! How fun is that? We can’t wait to see what you choose to copy and how you make it your own. Remember to source your original inspiration so we can see where you got your idea.

THE OFFICIAL RULES:

• Use Power Poppy stamps for this challenge please! We’d love it if the card that inspired your creation was using Power Poppy stamps as well.
• Link your creation below using our Linky (please use the exact URL from your post instead of a generic blog address.)
• Please mention Power Poppy in YOUR blog or gallery post with a link back to THIS challenge
• The winner will receive a free clear or digital stamp set of choice from the Power Poppy Shop
• Enter as many cards as you’d like, as long as they fit the theme of the challenge!
• Deadline to enter is August 31 @ 8:00pm EST.  At that point, we’ll draw the winner randomly and make the announcement right here on the first Friday of September!

If you need a little creative inspiration to get you in the spirit -- let me share what I whipped up for this little challenge! 

First, I have to mention that THIS creation by the lovely Stacy Morgan was my inspiration. As you click on over to see her card, you'll see that it was a HUGE influence right down to the placement of the bling! I just loved the sweet result and wanted to have a little fun copying her design.

And, if you want to read up on all the card deets, just head on over to my blog HERE for all the bits and parts! What I love about this challenge is the fact that you can really just be inspired and create in the moment -- not a lot of thought, but a lot of admiration for the designer that inspired you! So, thanks Stacy! 

AND NOW, we get to --- drum roll please -- pick the winner from our July Power & Spark B Happy Challenge! Are you ready? We had so many great entries that I just loved trolling around the linky to see what new additions sprouted from day to day!

After all the entries were in, random.org drew the number....

That means the lucky winner is.....

NANCY a.k.a. HUMMINGBIRD GARDEN over on SCS! 

Check out this sweet and simple design using the digital stamp Asters Abuzz. From the embossed card base to the dainty little die cut edges, Nancy nailed it with this one! Nancy, if you want to email us at bloom@powerpoppy.com and share what clear or digital stamp set you’d like us to send you along with your snail mail addy, we’ll get your goodies right to you!

Goodness, that was a lot of goodness to digest, huh? AND, we have more! The Bloomies and Instant Gardeners are on deck to share their handiwork with all of you, and many of them are bringing our freshly remixed Apples in Season digital set to life:

Allison Cope

 

Cindy Lawrence

Julie Koerber

Kathy Jones

 

Katie Sims

 

Stacy Morgan

 

Rhea Weigand

Cheryl Scrivens

Debbie Olson

 

Nancy Sheads

Barb Walker

Thanks so much for stopping by! Be sure to tune back in on Monday when the fabulously talented Ally Cope shares some tips and tricks in the next installment of Inspire Me Monday. See you back here then!

~Julie

An InLinkz Link-up