Spring Fling Day Three: Loving Tulips and Sweet Memories

Just a note here before we begin. I did not mess up Daylight Savings time! But I did oversleep... because I was up until 3 am going through all the Giveaway entries... good golly was that exciting. More on that later.

OOoooooOOoooooOOO we just keep on keeping on with the fun this week, are you loving it as much as I am? Two full days of Spring Fling previews are under our belt, three sweet stamp sets have been shared, and today we have two more to add to the stack of temptation! If you haven’t seen any of the other sets yet, take a moment to scroll through our blog to catch up on the juicy cards and creations the Bloomies have been whipping up! Plus you can see my new haircut. Yes, the breaking news and most important information can be found here, including the status of my out of control mane.

ON TO THE STAMP PREVIEWS...

Have ya seen our little peeks at this set yet? The one I spent some time coloring one beautiful morning, and was so excited playing with my tubes of paint that I decided to make a photo shoot on my dining room table with all my “little stuff”...

I woke up and had this vision in my head of arranging the stamps around an inspiring blurb, and for me, this verse is helpful. It’s hand-lettered, not a part of the set, but you could add anything you want inside a scattered circle of Sweet Peas! I shot a few details of the process as the image was coming alive on my watercolor block...

These are the stamps from our new clear stamp set that I think is one of most fun things I’ve played with in a while!! To create this set, I started with our digital version, Sweet Pea Show, which I drew earlier this year. It has been quite the hit with colorists across the world much to my delight, with a rainbow of colors and creative approaches. But the fun part of this clear version is that I took some computer-aided clippers to the vines! The result is a stamp set with a whole BUNCH of single sweet peas in various lengths with subtle variance in scale, along with new drawings of pea pods, tendrils, peas, and a fresh batch of small curlicue sentiments that go with it. It’s all too sweet! Introducing Sweet Memories.

You can do so much with this set, and I know it’s one that I will return to agin and again because it’s gosh darn FUN to play with the twisting, twirling tendrils and our flouncy, fancy hybrid sweet peas. These are no standard peas, my dears. These are special, just like you! hehe! :) Seriously I mean it, though. Special peas for special peeps.

On to the NEXT new stamp set preview for today... let’s just hop right in, shall we? Isn’t everybody everywhere just Loving Tulips? Find me one person who does not like a tulip. The simplest ones are hard to pass up, and the French, Parrot, and species tulips are downright jaw-dropping. So let’s check out this set that might ring a bell with ya....

Do you recognize that pitcher of prettiness? It’s based on one of our most popular digis everrrr, Tulips in Hobnail Pitcher. But I refined the clear stamp version a bit, and it’s just as awesome and fun to color as the digi. PLUS, this one comes with a spotty sentiment that I hope will win your heart as it did mine. The swoopy scripty “Hello!” is based on a vintage greeting card I found, and attempted to recreate — but with a polka-dotty vibe just to be extra lively.

This new set will also have COORDINATING DIES — yes, I am going there — and they will be in the shop next week!

ADDENDUM: Our alert cardmaking friend Maria V. inquired as to whether the dies for Loving Tulips will fit the digital stamp. I’d like to report that they will fit with a small adjustment. The digital stamp needs to be slightly reduced when you go to print. You'll just change the size to 97% in the print dialog box and the artwork should nestle right in. This was not my intention, but due to variance needed when manufacturing the clear stamps, the digital image is not a perfect match. If this becomes too tricky for folks, we may upload a "die-friendly update" to be available to anyone who has purchased Tulips in Hobnail Pitcher. Stay tuned, darlings!

Now let’s run ’round and see what creative cards are on display for today by the talented Bloom Brigade design team, who are just totally outdoing themselves on this release, I’m sure you’ll agree:

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Cindy Lawrence

Julie Koerber

Kathy Jones

Katie Sims

Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

Thank you sooooo much, Bloomies!! And thank you so much to my wonderful customers who have been burning up the internet with their kind comments so far during our previews.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And now it’s time to announce the winner of the Power Poppy Giveaway — you know, the one where we are giving away the ENTIRE SPRING FLING COLLECTION of 8 stamps to one entrant and a friend who was tagged.

We got approximately 80 ba-jillion entries from our blog, Facebook, and Instagram — and I want to tell you that by the end of going through all of them (I was awake until 3 am!!) I wish I could give them to every single one of you. If I ever win the lottery, I’m totally going to. 

But for this time around, we have one winner, who tagged one friend...

*** BARB ENGLER ***

Barb, Congratulations to you!

You win all 8 stamps in our collection, and the friend you tagged wins 8 stamps, too. That friend is Lisa Tilson.

Please send us a note at bloom@powerpoppy.com with both of your addresses so we can get those stamps on their way to both of you lickity split. Can't wait to see what you make with them, ladies, I hope you’ll share photos of your work with us.

THANK YOU ALL so much for entering, for your beautiful, loving, and sometimes very moving comments... this was great fun and I think we’ll have to do it again!!

See you back here tomorrow, yes? TWO MORE stamp sets will be coming out to play, and we’ll be one day closer to everything being available to purchase on March 14. 

Enjoy your day,

Spring Fling Day Two: Burst of Kindness, Succulent Singles

Here’s where things start to get nuts. Yesterday we shared the preview of the Natural Beauties set (thank you guys SOOO MUCH for your lovely comments! I am reading them ALL and smiling so big at your reactions, my sweet peeps!). Hold on to your hats, though, because today we’re introducing TWO new stamp designs, tomorrow another TWO, and TWO on Monday, and then a final set on Tuesday when all the Spring Fling stamps will be available to buy in the store! Let’s try not to go cross-eyed during this process, but instead, GET STOKED! Eight new stamp sets (some with coordinating dies, yes ma’am) that will bring you hours of coloring fun, plus, cherished artwork at the end of it all.

Don’t believe me? Dude, I totally spent time coloring these and can confirm the joy. I actually posted on Instagram about it because the feelings derived from coloring up one of today’s sets was so robust. It all started with these beautiful babies...

Sometimes we go a little crazy at the nursery. I know I’m not alone. (Please tell me I’m not alone.) In gathering the SUCCULENT source material to draw today’s sets, which I knoooooooow I could have drawn from photographs or the few lil plants I overwintered in the windowsills, but running out for a fresh supply was too enticing for me to pass up and injected some color into a grey winter’s day. After I sketched everything out, took it to final ink, and had our stamp proofs made, I was able to do a little stamping myself.

Warning: I am the world’s worst stamper, so if you notice little smudged bits or double-impressions, reread my aforementioned disclaimer. Leave drawing stamps to me, and I will leave the stamping to you guys, deal? (Unless you want to draw stamps, too, in which case, go for it!!)

Are succulent plants not still the total and complete rage? I’ve been down with ’em since the early 90s when I first discovered the plant called Sedum, which I needed to illustrate for a plant catalog. Head over heels ever since. So I painted them up with my gouache and watercolors, sitting on my sofa, while watching Netflix. That is living! I continued to add layer after layer of color:

I probably won’t make these into cards, because my new thing is leaving some of the stamps uncolored, and coloring in others. For a cool example of this technique, take a look at this floral fabric I recently saw on Instagram, a print called “Sibylla” from British decorating house Designer’s Guild.

Notice how some areas are colored in, and others are left as outlines? That’s a thing!! Try it sometime using Power Poppy botanical stamps for a cool effect.

Today’s first stamp set preview, which you can see across the social media “landscape” today, our new Succulent Singles stamp set, filled with cute lil mix-and-match plants and four fun sentiments.

This one has our new Coordinating Dies to help you make quick work of layering and throw those fussy cutting scissors out the window. Well, maybe don’t do that, because we only have dies for a few sets. ;) Also, fussy cutting can be kind of cathartic. But still, dies = easy button.

NEXT NEW SET..... !!!

I’m going to segue into this one by sharing a photo of my son, Finn, taken yesterday afternoon. We stopped by my stepdad Steve’s house to pick flowers before the frosty tundra descended upon our Midwestern land. Steve sent us home with clipped branches of yellow Magnolia ‘Butterflies‘, deep pink Magnolia ‘Susan’, flowering Quince (they’re stowed in the backseat), gobs of Hellebores of various provenance, and Daffodils GALORE! Finn had to balance three mason jars filled with plants all the way home in my Mini Cooper. He’s a bloomin’ trooper!

We also grabbed a few splashy Begonia leaves from the greenhouse (later these gems would make it into a bouquet to give to Lulu after her opening night performance at her school musical — she did SOOOO AWESOME, incidentally!! So proud of that kid. (See my IG feed for a pic if you are so inclined. Go Lulu!!)

OK, so I go into all of this because today’s second set is along the lines of the kinds of plants I like to grow, draw, and photograph. I have a fascination with plants that are different. That’s why you don’t see too many daisies or sweetheart roses around here. This world is filled with SO MANY delights for the eye, and I crave the outliers. Meet the new clear stamp, Burst of Kindness.

Many have asked for this one to be available in clear, as it has been in digital format since last March. Now I’ve done it, and it’s a biggie! Four inches across and perfect for cropping in to a favorite zone of the bouquet. You’ll see when you tour the Bloomies’ blogs, so many possibilities! I went into great detail about the origins of this set last year, and upon reflection, I’m going to direct you to that first Spring Meadow Bouquet blog post to see how this bouquet of Lilacs, Bleeding Hearts, Checkered Lilies, and Summer Snowflake came to be. Here’s a peek of what I share in that post, my behind the scenes illustrations showing how the final art came to be:

Now, you can go and grab the bouquet for this set RIGHT NOW if you want it as a digital (It is pretty showstopping for The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge, gotta say). But if the clear is near and dear, you’ll want to grab this beautiful bounty on March 14! It has new sentiments that are filled with kindness and thankfulness. Which actually sum up how I’m feeling right now, thinking about the Bloom Brigade’s cards for today. Are you ready??

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber

Kathy Jones

Katie Sims

Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

Whew!! Those ladies are CRUSHING IT, do you agree? Yesterday’s cards were incredz, but you are gonna faint when you see today’s.

As a final ta-da for the day, I’ll leave you with a pic of me with no make-up (oh, thanks, Marc, so special) that I took yesterday morning when the light was coming in my kitchen window and I thought, dang, this light really sets off my new highlights! (If you saw my post from yesterday about the cactus, you will know that I needed a haircut somethin’ fierce). Here tis!

Love you guys!! See you tomorrow for even morrrrrre! I know, it’s a lot to take in. Let’s just go with it!

Spring Fling Day One: Natural Beauties

Hello my dears, happy Friday to you!

Typically on Fridays we have a showcase of lovely cards by YOU, our wonderful customers, plus a round-up of the Bloom Brigade’s latest card making adventures. But today we have something extra. We’re starting previews of our new Spring Fling release, the first collection of clear stamps since October of last year! Aren’t you ready for some fresh stuff? The build-up to these peeks is palpable, and I am even feeling the tingles. So let’s do this.

First, we have to remember that I am obsessed with all things Spring. The sense of renewal, the verdant life bursting forth from frozen earth. The smell of the air. It’s easy to get swept up in!

Being based in St. Louis (can I get a holler for the Midwest?! WOO!) I’m a frequent visitor to the Missouri Botanical Garden. I think the daffodils and hellebores expect my arrival and give me a bit of a smirk when I’m all up in their grills trying to take detail photos. I know I was down on my knees snapping pix of these Primroses, a species which is commonly called Cowslips (Primula veris). Aren’t they daintily adorable? Like little petticoats.

By the way, a quick aside... to get these close up photos as I was just talking about, one DOES have to get in deep sometimes. Just this week, I was called out on Instagram by own daughter, Lulu, who apparently was taking photos of me taking photos of succulents and cacti in the Linnean House at the Botanical Garden... gave me a chuckle... because her caption is exactly what happened.

I left bits of my hair hanging from that big cactus arm like holiday tinsel... and in an unrelated piece of news, I got most of my hair cut off last night — and I already feel lighter!! Cacti, I will photograph you again, and this time I won’t leave my DNA dangling... OK, back to the pretty flowers.

Narcissus ‘Golden Echo’ was an inspiration for my drawings this spring, which I happily turned into images for stamping. I love how the flower heads of daffodils appear to be nodding, as if they are almost too shy to open. But then once they begin to unfurl, they cannot help but glow for all to enjoy!

These lovely woodland treasures, Trillium, were photographed at the Shaw Nature Reserve during one of my “Serenity Now” outings. Look at that speckled foliage, a perfect triad of billowy leaves to hoist up the three-petalled flower. This one is also known as Wake Robin, which is totally charming and old fashioned and you know I love stuff like that.

OK... enough of the nature, let’s get to the stamps!! Today’s preview features all of the plants we just discussed, plus a few more treasures, let’s give it up for Natural Beauties...

If you’re anything like me, this one is going to give you a thrill. One image is set up as a border, with a row of bulbs and primroses happily planted together. And THEN, there are four more images that work on their own as single plants, OR can be combined into a second spring border! eeee!! Girl, it is so fun to do what I do for a living.

Before I give you over to the Fabulous Bloom Brigade to show you what they’ve made for today, I want to point out that I am getting in to the Coordinating Dies game. We’re going to offer them with a few of our sets this release, and see how it goes!! Here’s what I’m talking about, check out the fun over on the left.

Right now the dies are up for pre-order, and they will start shipping after March 20. We’re so excited to begin offering these dies, as they are a huge time saver in the craft room as many of you already know.

One last announcement... we have two more days left for you to enter in our HUGE GIVEAWAY of all 8 stamp sets from this release, along with a friend of your choice getting the 8 stamp sets, too!! Have you entered yet? You just have to follow me on Instagram (@marcellahawley or @powerpoppy) OR like/follow us on Facebook OR sign up for our email newsletter. Then, go leave a comment on this post or on the Giveaway post on Instagram or Facebook or all of them to increase your chances of winning!

OK, folks, are you ready for a blog hop to see the possibilities with Natural Beauties? Let’s ROLL!

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Cindy Lawrence

Julie Koerber

Kathy Jones

Katie Sims

Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

Thank you so much for coming by. We’ll return tomorrow with TWO more stamp previews from our March release. Eeeeeeee!! Enjoy your tour!

Backgrounds and Borders ~ Using Power Poppy images in unexpected ways

Hello Power Poppy friends!! Tosh here today to inspire you to use Power Poppy images in unexpected ways.  I have 4 projects to share with you, so make yourself comfortable and follow along.

My first includes a stamp from the Play Ball set that really got me thinking.  When I saw the baseball stitches stamp, I thought...why can't I just use one side of the stamp and make it look like a blanket stitch?  I was explaining to my dear friend Katie (who just happens to be a Power Poppy Bloomie) that I wanted to use the flowers in the heart vase from the Folk Heart set with the blanket stitch, and that I wanted it to look like a quilt panel.  She asked if I'd ever seen Redwork quilts.  Well, I hadn't, so I checked out Pinterest, and found some fabulous examples.  And yes...that was exactly the look I was going for.  Here are a couple of links to some beautiful Redwork quilts that I used for inspiration:  Rosalie Quinlan Designs, Rosalie Quinlan Designs 2

I started by diecutting a square and stamping only half of the "baseball stitches" onto the edges using Love Letter Memento Ink.  Doesn't that look just like a blanket stitch?  I got giddy after seeing how it turned out.

I then decided I wanted a scalloped border.  So I traced the square die onto cardstock, and stamped the small heart, from Power Poppy's Good Thinking Love Notes set, around the entire square, just leaving to two top "bumps" from the heart showing.

Don't they look awesome together?  I was so happy with how it turned out.  I added a few extras to really give it the "quilt panel" feel too:  I scored and burnished the Folk Heart image to make it pop.  I also burnished the whole back side of the panel to give it texture like it was fabric.

I then embossed the background to give the feel of quilt stitching, and actually sewed around some of the edges and panels.

Next up is my tulip card.  I had some fun creating a "shabby elegant" border using the tire treads from the Power Poppy Move The Soul set.  I started by stamping the tulips from the Dynamic Duos: Peonies and Tulips set with Tuxedo Black Memento ink onto X-Press It cardstock and coloring it with Copics.  I then embossed an oval shape around them using an oval die and a diecutting machine.  Then I took the tire treads and stamped them randomly around the oval using Versamark ink.  Lastly, I rubbed the Versamark pad over the edges to give a frame to the whole image and embossed it all with gold embossing powder.  I really love the "shabby elegance" that the tire treads gave the frame.

Now, you've probably seen many variations of this next card.  I just took 3 different sentiments from the Power Poppy Nice Things to Say stamp set, and stamped them onto a precut rectangle that I taped off the edges of, so I could maintain the border.  

After stamping the sentiments, I photocopied it onto black cardstock so I could Minc it with gold foil.  (For some background information on how I use the Minc Machine, click HERE.)  I love how clean and crisp it turned out.  To finish it off, I added a "So Happy For You" sentiment from the Dream Wedding set, as well as a couple of gold cardsock punched flowers.

Below is a look at how I taped off and stamped the panel before Stamping it.

And finally, my last card.  This one was just plain fun!!  I took the "smoke" image from the Power Poppy Move the Soul set and randomly stamped it with three different Ranger Distress Ink colors:  Peacock Feathers, Twisted Citron and Squeezed Lemonade.  After I had my background, I splattered some diluted black acrylic paint over it and stamped the "hello" sentiment from Power Poppy's Big Scripts set.  Aren't those "splotches" fun?!?!?

Whew...right!?!?!  That is finally it.  I had some fun using these stamps in unique ways, and I hope I've inspired you to look at some of your images in different ways!

Thanks for sticking with this long post!

   Happy Stamping!!

Digis on the 5s release: Flower Bomb

Well, hello, fancy meeting you here! And welcome, welcome to so many new faces — I couldn’t be more delighted to see so many folks finding us for the first time. It’s a joy to meet you, and I hope you’ll pop by whenever you need some inspiration from some really special artists and papercrafters, or lush images from gardens, flowers, artwork, and things that catch my eye. I am so proud to share the work of our two design teams, the Instant Gardeners and the Bloom Brigade. I’m so proud of our gorgeous, kind, creative customers, who surprise me continually with creations that are getting more and more impressive. We have a community unlike any other, and it’s extremely exciting to be a part of. So, again I say, WELCOME!

Are you ready for the scoop on our newly remixed illustration? It’s one of my favorites, it’s fair to say. Plus, it’s ready to be downloaded right after purchase, so you can while the hours away coloring with something fresh and springy and absolutely loaded with space for your marker tips. This image is large and in charge.

I sat down to paint the other day, and after laying down layers of pinks and deep purples, olives and peaches, and even a background of midnight blue, I decided to leave some areas of the image partially blank. Yes, outlines unpainted and left bare. And I like it like this! For those who may be wondering, I used a mixture of Winsor & Newton gouache and Cotman watercolor paints in tubes. I like to squirt them onto a palette and mix ’em up in various ways to get just the right colors I’m looking for. I use Winsor & Newton Series 5 sable brushes and prefer the ones with the tiniest pointiest tips - numbers 0, 00, and especially 000, which is like the size of about 10 eyelashes made into a paintbrush.

So, what is this thing called anyway? Well, it’s an illustration of plump roses and plenty of violets that’s such an explosion of fragrance and petals and pure coloring pleasure, I named it: Flower Bomb.

This image is a real doozy — there’s a LOT of explore. Roses in all phases of opening from bud to fully splayed. Violets gone mad. A few ruffly leaves for good measure, and lots and lots of detail to help you know where to put your shading. I think you’ll have a lot of fun with it! You’ll get a sentiment along with the big bouquet of flowers that says “Thanks for always being there.”

Would you like to see what a few of our superstar designers came up with using Flower Bomb, you know, to really get you in the mood to color? I know I do!

Jessie Banks

Nancy Sheads

Barbara Walker

Rhea Wiegand

Now you can go grab Flower Bomb for yourself — and use it during the coloring challenge! Have a great day my lovely friends. I’m SO happy to have you here with me!

See you back here on Monday, when Tosha Leyendekker of the Bloom Brigade is going to lay down some REALLY cool step-by-step ideas for using your stamps in new ways. Who doesn’t love that?

March Challenge: Let's Go Green

Hello folks! What a flurry of activity here on the ole Power Poppy Blog. And, guess what? It's not even close to being over! Today we have a virtual candy shop of creativity -- with so much sweetness in design, you just might get a cavity from looking. ;-)

Being the first Friday of the month, we have a brand spankin' new challenge to help you rock that design power & get that creative spark!

Image Source

HOW TO PLAY: In honor of Pantone’s 2017 Color of the Year choice, “Greenery”, let’s create projects featuring green! Ms. Katie Sims will be your "creative tour guide" for this challenge and here's what she had to say to encourage you all to "Let's Go Green!"

“Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.”

That’s how Pantone describes this vibrant shade of spring. Now, doesn’t that sound like a color highlighting the Power Poppy vibe? I think so! So, let’s go wild with green! But, you don’t have to limit yourself to just using the color green. You can also “Go Green” by using a recycled element on your project. However you choose to play along, just make sure you show us your green.

Just to help you see a little green, Katie shares her take on this challenge...

Ahhhh... what a breath of fresh air! Katie always has this way of putting all the elements together with perfection. Look at those gilded edges and all that texture surrounding those finely colored shamrocks -- waiting to dole out a dose of good luck! Katie used Power Poppy's digital stamp set aptly called Wish You Luck. We hope you're inspired to Go Green. We can't wait for you to play along and get your fingers inky with this challenge!

THE OFFICIAL RULES:

• Use Power Poppy stamps if you have them. If not, it is a great way to win some! 
• 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
• Winner will receive a free clear or three digital stamp sets of their 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 March 31 @ 8:00 PM EST. At that point, we’ll draw the winner randomly and make the announcement right here on the first Friday in April. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

With the beginning of one challenge comes the end of another and a chance to find out who that lucky stamper is from February's Power & Spark Challenge: No Line Coloring. Random.org threw all the entries into a virtual pot and drew the number....

And our winner is.... IRENE RHODES! 

Irene created a stunning example of the no-line coloring technique, and using just a portion of our own Cuppa Buttercups digital stamp set. Absolute WOW! I love how the flowers begin on the frame and drape over into the main card panel -- so fun and creative! And what an awesome way to frame up that fun sentiment from the digital stamp set Everything's Rosy! LOVE IT. Irene, please send us an email at bloom@powerpoppy.com and let us know which stamp set you would like to receive and give us your snail mail address, too. Congratulations!

MOVING ON TO OTHER EXCITING NEWS...

Yesterday, we helped our dear friend Kathy Racoosin jump start her SEVENTH 30 Day Coloring Challenge! #thedailymarker30day And, if you missed the hop, click HERE to go back and capture the color that took over the web yesterday. At the very least, you'll have to click on this photo below to watch Kathy speed color Power Poppy's soon-to-be-released stamp set Tiger Lily XL. Did you know this big and lush flower is available for pre-order RIGHT NOW?

You might have to cue up that video a few times just to take it all in! This is where I tell you that she used Sharpies ---yes, Sharpies, to color up this mondo blossom!

As a part of Kathy's super duper 30 Day Coloring Challenge, Power Poppy has a whole HOST of goodies to share!

You'll have to click HERE to read up on the ways you could win this huge haul of Blog Candy!

Plus: 25% OFF ALL Digital Stamps ALL MONTH 

Power Poppy is offering 25% off all digital stamps for folks all month long to stock up and color. Just enter the code COLORMEHAPPY at checkout. This is good only on digis to help you enjoy this vivid and verdant month.

Goodness gracious, as if that wasn't enough to make you burst at the seams with joy, a few of our Bloomies are on standby to continue to share a little eye candy. Be sure and pay these fine ladies a visit, will you?

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Katie Sims

And then... swing back to the Power Poppy Blog on Sunday for a brand new addition to the Instant Garden!

And -- WAIT -- one  more announcement: On Monday, the fabulous Tosha Leyendekker will be in the house for another episode of Inspire Me Monday. For her tutorial, she is truly thinking out of the box so prepare to be amazed.

Thanks for stopping by and spending a bit of your day with us. We love your visits!
~Julie

An InLinkz Link-up

The Daily Marker Coloring Challenge and GIVEAWAY

Hello all and welcome to a fanciful and fun-filled post here on the Power Poppy Blog! Our dear friend Kathy Racoosin over at The Daily Marker is unleashing a whole range of color on her blog and Instagram this month, and she wants all of us to join her in the fun! 

Did you know that coloring can lower your blood pressure? Did you know it can make you feel happy and relaxed? 

With that in mind, have you ever joined in on...

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS: The premise of “The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge” is to color something every day — even if it’s just for five minutes. Can’t color every day? No worries! Jump in or out as time permits! And, it doesn't matter if you love markers or prefer paints, any coloring medium is welcomed! Click CLICK HERE to find out where to share what you are coloring and join the encouraging community of happy colorists. You’ll also find answers to questions you may have along the way, participate in contests and more! If you share your work on social media, don't forget the hashtag #TheDailyMarker30Day and if you use OUR stamps, pop in the hashtag #powerpoppy

ON TO TODAY’S VERY SPECIAL BLOG HOP...

Hostess-in-Chief Kathy Racoosin from The Daily Marker assembled a whole crew to give your creativity a jump start with some of her favorite stamp companies & Online Card Class partners. To start at the beginning of the hop go to The Daily Marker. If you are coming from the blog of WINNIE & WALTER you are in the right place. Kathy has the full list if you encounter a broken link.

NOW TO OUR BIT OF POWER POPPY SHOW AND TELL! To get ready for the big day, not only did Ms. Marcella pull out her watercolors and extra special brushes, she's giving you all a sneaky peek of a brand new digital stamp set that will soon be added to the Power Poppy Instant Garden (a.k.a. our digital stamp collection!). Take a deep breath and soak it all in will you? And then, join us Sunday, March 5th when this beauty below is released! 

AND HERE'S SOME EXTRA FUN NEWS! 

As a part of this sensational hop, Power Poppy Peep in Chief Marcella Hawley has a surprise of epic proportions! She is going to give away -- wait for it -- OUR ENTIRE SOON-TO-BE-UNVEILED MARCH CLEAR STAMP SET RELEASE! What does that mean? It means 8 of the freshest, most fun Power Poppy designs to hit the market! It’s a $144 value people!! PLUS - if you tag a friend, you could BOTH win the whole bundle!!!

LOTS OF WAYS TO ENTER
Try them all to increase your chances:

• Power Poppy Blog: Leave a comment on today’s post, and include the name of a friend who would love to win, too. Be sure you are signed up for the Power Poppy newsletter.
• Instagram: Follow Marcella on Instagram @marcellahawley, leave a comment on the Giveaway post. Tag a friend in your post, and they will also be entered to win the entire release.
• Facebook: Follow Power Poppy by Marcella Hawley, leave a comment on the Giveaway post. Tag a friend in your post, and they will also be entered to win the entire release.

Entries will be accepted until Midnight CST, March 11.

The winner will be announced here on Sunday, March 12th and also on thedailymarker.com

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!

THERE'S ALSO A SUPER SPECIAL DEAL THIS ENTIRE MONTH AS WELL! 

Power Poppy is offering 25% off all digital stamps for folks all month long to tie in with the Daily Marker's 30 Day Coloring Challenge! Just enter the code COLORMEHAPPY at checkout! This is good only on digis only to help you enjoy this beautifully colorful month!

It’s time to hit the next 30 Day Coloring Challenge Blog 

Hop Hot Spot...

VISIT MOMMY LHEY

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And don't forget on your travels to visit these fine ladies — our Bloomies —to see how they chose to help Kathy kick off her colorfest in style! Guess what? A little birdie told me that many of these ladies are using some of the never-seen-before stamps that will be released soon! Yippeeeeeee!

Allison Cope

Cindy Lawrence
Christine Okken

Julie Koerber

Kathy Jones

Katie Sims

Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

Thanks so much for stopping by! Some of the Bloomies will be back tomorrow to share even more colorific creations with you all! So, mark your calendar and be sure to swing back by! We loved having you!

~Julie