Inspire Me Monday: Poinsettias Eight Ways

Hello, my Power Poppy Friends! It is my turn once again to share some inspiration with you. 

I am sorry to say that I did not have any time to create a new project for you today, so I decided to share eight past projects...showing how you can use the Power Poppy digital Poinsettia images in various ways! (See the list of stamp sets below.)

This is the Ultimate Poinsettia digital stamp set colored with Prismacolor colored pencils in fairly traditional and vintage-leaning colors. I love when poinsettias are mixed with other flowers, and this bouquet is one of my favorites! 

This is the Poinsettia and Pomegranates digital stamp set. I colored this one with a combination of Prismacolor colored pencils and Copic markers. This is a very different color scheme, but if you like non-traditional colors, this style may be for you!

Here is the same image, rotated and colored with traditional colors using Copic markers. Those reds make me swoon!

This is the Poinsettia XL digital stamp set. This sample is colored with Prismacolor colored pencils onto kraft cardstock for yet another look. It is much more fun to color white flowers onto the kraft paper! This project is a more vintage take on clean and simple, which works perfectly with that HUGE white bloom!

Here is another traditional color scheme using the Joy to the World Bouquet digital stamp set colored with Copic markers. This is a deeply saturated coloring project! I always love the traditional red and green combination the most! This project is a larger scale, suitable for an 8x10 picture frame.

This "Santa's boots" image is from the Garden of Gratitude: Boot Bouquet digital stamp set. I colored it with Copic markers in a traditional color scheme, but chose greens that are more trendy. This is another great example of  the poinsettia mixed with other Christmas flowers. 

For this scene I used Season's Greenings: Wheelbarrow and Season's Greenings: Planta Claus. Again, I used Copics to color the scene and stuck to traditional colors, but here the poinsettias are NOT the stars of the show! But, the punch of the reds is perfect for this snowy scene!

For this slimline card I used the Winter Flora digital stamp set, colored with Copics. I used some digital wizardry to create this slimline layout showcasing those poinsettias very well. The addition of the blue, silver, and gold Christmas ornaments really makes that red pop! This style is also more modern...no printed paper, just clean and simple!

Power Poppy Digital Stamp Sets with Poinsettias

Ultimate Poinsettia

Poinsettia and Pomegranates

Poinsettia XL

Joy to the World Bouquet

Health and Happiness (NEW)

Garden of Gratitude: Boot Bouquet

Season's Greenings: Wheelbarrow

Winter Flora

Thanks for stopping by today! I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!

Inspire Me Monday: Small Stamps, Big Impact

 

HEY FRIENDS! Nancy here with this week's edition of Inspire Me Monday for Power Poppy! This week I took a look at my collection of clear stamps from Power Poppy to see if I could come up with a way to use them differently. I noticed that often Marcella includes small images in addition to the main image and sentiments and I hardly ever use them. So I decided to pull out my stamps, take a closer look at that the small stamps and sentiments, and see what I could come up with. 

So today, I have three different cards that use the small stamp images in different ways. For the first card, I combined images from Merry Littles with sentiments from Cozy Cupfuls. I arranged the stamps in three rows of three, inserting the sentiments between the rows.

For added interest, I staggered the order of the images so that each row was a little different. Although there are three of each image, the coloring went relatively fast since the images were small. 

My second card is a variation of the first. I selected images from the Bough Wow Wow and Berry Sweet Holiday stamps sets and combined them with a sentiment form the Let it Glow stamp set. I repeated the pattern for each row instead of staggering the images.

For the last card, I selected a single image and two of the smaller sentiments from the Garden of Gratitude stamp set. I love the simplicity of this combination.

Now you could probably do this with digital images, but I found it easier to use physical stamps so I could mix and match stamps and rearrange them to find the best designs. 

So pull out your stamp sets and take another look at all of those little stamps. Most of all, have some fun!

Nancy

Inspire Me Monday: Holiday Coasters!

 

Hi all and welcome to another edition of Inspire Me Monday! As I was putting all my Halloween decorations away, I was starting to realize just how close the holiday season is from ... RIGHT NOW! Can you believe we are already being inundated with Black Friday commercials and it's not even Thanksgiving yet? Even still, this is the perfect time to create for the holidays, before the hustle and bustle get us into full-blown shopping and baking mode! :-)

When I thought about something that might be fun and yet not too difficult to make, I decided to hit up the craft supply aisle at my local Walmart. And.... I found these!

Plaid has this package of four wooden coasters that I decided might be fun to paint up in a metallic color and decoupage on some holiday imagery. 

I grabbed some Krylon Looking Glass Silver spray paint and took the coasters outside hitting them with the spray paint every other minute. The bottle claimed you can use five thin coats with an ultimate dry time of about 10 minutes. Perfect! The paint did soak into the wood quite a bit but I still love the shimmer it provided. What was even better was that I had this paint in the house. 

I love that cozy feeling that winter provides so, in my head, I kept seeing the digital stamp, Cuddle in the Cabin. I opened up the image in my Photoshop Elements and moved the deer closer in on the image and then printed!

I also used the Spellbinders Nestabilities Hemstitch Square die to cut my image out and chose the die set that was just a wee bit smaller than my painted coaster. See? 

From there, it's coloring time! I decided to color just two of the images and chose to color the house just a little differently between the two images. After I was done, I used Modge Podge to attach my images to my wooden coasters...

Here's a peek at how the first coaster turned out....

And here's the second one!

When I was done, I decided that I might want a holder for my coasters. Who knows, I might decide these are a fun little gift for someone along with some cold-weather goodies! So, I created this holder below. 

I just love this little die-cut poinsettia thanks to a Spellbinders die (Shapeabilities Layered Poinsettia). After layering two of the die cuts, I did add some razzle dazzle in the center. 

Want to know how I created this little holder? I actually cued up an old tutorial I did over on my blog and you can find it HERE!

So, there you have it! Two coasters ready to hold my cocoa or spiced coffee when the winter chill moves on in!

Thanks for stopping by and spending a little time with me! I hope you had a little fun and have those creative holiday juices starting to flow! 

Have a fun and crafty week everyone!

Inspire Me Monday: A Winter's Night

Hello, my Power Poppy Friends! It is my turn once again to share some inspiration with you. 

I wanted to share a project that stretches me out of my comfort zone...coloring a dark background with Copic markers! So worrisome to me! I think it probably scares a lot of folks, especially Copic beginners. I can never color the background first for some reason, which means once I have colored the main image it scares me to try a dark background and potentially ruin all my hard work! 

I decided to pull on my big girl mittens and give a night background a try! I used the "to be released soon" digital Feeding Blitzen image that was originally part of the Under Glass: Christmas Traditions clear stamp set. 

The original stamped image is fairly small, so having it in a digital version which can be resized...priceless! I printed the image at approximately 3" x 5" onto white Copic friendly cardstock. 

This project has a lot of dark Copic markers! Don't be afraid of them. Just grab and go! It is only paper after all. If you make a mistake, you can always start over! 

Tip: If your Copic markers are old like mine, make sure your super brush nibs are fresh and flexible. When the nibs get old they get very "smooshy" which makes it hard to get into the fine details or to hold a sharp edge. The nibs are not expensive and are easily replaced.

I colored Santa and Blitzen first, including the apples and the snow. Using cool gray for Santa's beard and fur trim, then using blues for the snow shadows seemed very dark to me, until I added the background! 

Using the dark blue for the background was a bit intimidating, and I had to go over it and darken it to get rid of the streaks, but once it was finished....wow does the white and red pop! 

Here are my colors:

Santa's suit and apples: R24, R29, R59

Mittens and leaves: YG25, YG17, YG67, with a bit of E51 and E23 to tone down the mittens!

Boots, belt, hoofs, beard: C1, C3, C5, C7, C9

Blitzen: E53, E55, E57, E29

Santa's face: E50, E51, R21, E23

Belt buckle: Y17, Y15, Y11

Snow: B0000, B000, B00

Sky: B91, B93, B95, B97

Some of that pesky blue got onto Blitzen's antlers, but let's pretend it is shadows, shall we?!

After the Copic ink had dried I went back over the image with a white Posca paint pen to add the falling snow. Thankfully the snow did not turn pink or blue! The paint is thick enough that the Copic color did not bleed through! Or, maybe because I allowed the ink to fully dry?? 

I chose the sentiment from the Garden of Gratitude clear set which I stamped onto a scrap of cardstock and cut out with a skinny sentiment die. 

Here is more "winter's  night" inspiration from the past to help you take the plunge!

I used the Cuddle in the Cabin clear stamp set, but this image also is part of the digital set HERE .  See the original post HERE.

I used the digital version of the Enchanted Branches: Nativity Angel set and the ornaments from the Enchanted Branches: Woodland set. See the original post HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Power Poppy Products Used:
Feeding Blitzen digital set (coming soon)
Garden of Gratitude clear set (sentiment)

Other Products Used: 

Copic alcohol markers

Posca white paint pen

White cardstock

Red cardstock

Simple Stories Vintage Rustic Christmas paper pad

Enamel dot

Inspire Me Monday: Halloween Bookmarks

Hello friends! Since today is Halloween I decided to scare up a quick and easy craft, Halloween bookmarks.

My oldest son and I are big fans of horror novels and Stephen King is one of our favorite authors. My son recently gave me a new Stephen King book for my birthday so I decided I needed a new Halloween bookmark to go with it.

I used the digital stamp set Boo Cat and Pumpkins and put the images I wanted to use in Word, then manipulated them until I had arrangements I was happy with. I then printed them out and cut them with bookmark dies I have.

Once I had the images cut out I colored them with copic markers.

When I finished I had 3 Halloween bookmarks! This took me less than an hour to get done so if you need some easy Halloween treats to give out these are definitely a treat, not a trick!

Thanks for stopping by for this quick and easy Inspire Me Monday, and I hope you have a BOO-tiful day!

Inspire Me Monday: Holiday Inspiration - Sneak Peak!

 

HEY FRIENDS! Welcome back to Inspire Me Monday! Just a quick post from me today. In case you haven't noticed, new holiday digis will be arriving soon at Power Poppy. Marcella has some new and refreshed vintage designs that will be hitting the shop shortly so keep an eye out for their release.

I'm always delighted when new images are released because they're like a shot of adrenaline when my creative mojo is low. There's something about NEW that just gets the creative juices going. Plus Christine has been hosting the Blossom Challenge - this month's theme is "Gold, Silver, and Shimmer" so you can see how new holiday digis can get the wheels turning.

So this month, I thought I'd inspire you with a sneak peak of one of the new releases - this one is called Blankets and Bells. It's been chilly in my studio the past few days so coloring wool blankets was really appealing!

So here's my card:

As usual, I used lots of Copic markers. I used to be embarrassed by the fact that I used so many markers on my card, but when you have 358 markers, you tend to use them all! In all seriousness, for me, it's the only way to get depth and dimension as well as all of the variation of colors and color palettes to range from bright red ribbons to muted wool blankets. 

Now I have to tell you that I forgot to take process photos. To be honest -- between the ribbon, those bells, the lantern -- this card took all of my brainpower and it never occurred to me to take any work in progress photos. At the same time, I have to tell you that it felt good to be able to slide into that level of concentration. In a fast moving, loud and always changing world, there's a lot to be said for taking the time to shut it all out and just color!

That's all from me today! See you again soon!

Nancy

SUPPLIES

• Blankets and Bells Digital Stamp (COMING SOON!)
• Cozy Cupfuls Stamp Set (sentiment)

COPICS

• Ribbon: R17, R27, R46, R39 
• Leaves: G20, G24, G28
• Bells: T0, T1, T3, T5, T7
• Lantern interior: R01, YR02, Y32, Y35
• Reindeer: C9
• Lantern: C3, C5, C7, C9
• Top blanket: R17, BG90, BG93, BG96, W1, W3, W5
• Middle blanket: BG72, E42
• Bottom blanket: B91, B95, E13, E30, E50
• Cast shadows: BV20, BV23, N1, N1, N3

The Blossom Challenge: Gold, Silver and Shimmer!

Hello Power Poppy Friends!  It’s Christine with you today wondering when our lasting fall will begin to turn to the white of Winter.  Even though I don’t love long winters, I am so glad I live where it snows.  There’s is nothing more beautiful and peaceful then a soft snowfall, or looking at a sparkling snowcovered area.  It’s shimmer and shine makes the world look like a faceted gem! 

Today at Power Poppy, we’re excited to be kicking off a brand new Challenge and showcase some brand new digi images in the 2022 Digital Blitz that Marcy has cooked up for us!  You’ll see some wonderful remastered images that Marcy has released in the past in polymer that will be delightful for you to create with.  

The Blossom Challenge this month is called Gold Silver and Shimmer, and it’s all about metallic and shine.  

I have two designs to show you and I’ll begin with this brand new and lovely Wrapped with Love Digi.  It is filled with little pretties that evoke a elegant and classy traditional vintage Christmas all wrapped up in a bow!  I coloured the image with Copics, and added lots of touches of shimmer with my glitter pen on the ornaments, stars and paired it with pretty glittery paper.  Paired with the non-traditional coloured plaid patterned paper and it’s full of charm.  

My next design is cozy and warm with rustic touches using a remastered image called Mighty Pine.  I love winter botanicals like this where you can really dig into the colouring.  I brought it to life with Copics, a little Prismacolour Pencil and some gold metallic pen touches on the jingle bells.  All layered onto a distress oxide ink blended and stencilled background.  Little splatters of gold shimmer and wood veneer hearts tie it all together.  

Does Gold, Silver and Shimmer make your heart sing? We’d love to have you join in the challenge this month showing us your best designs with gold, silver or shimmery elements.  Pull out your embossing, gold, silver or shimmery paper, foiling, embellishments and paper treatments.  Dazzle us!  

This month we’re going to have our Bloom Brigade Designers pick their favourites from the Challenge Entries as winners, so pull out all the stops!  Remember you must use at least 1 Power Poppy stamp or image.  This month we’re going to pick 2 Winners of a $20 Gift code to the Power Poppy Store!  Enter below.  You have until November 20th to join us.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Were you a WINNER last month in our Fruit and Veggie Challenge?  Random.org picked Maria Rodriguez’s pretty veggie display.  Maria contact Marcy at bloom@powerpoppy.com to claim your gift code!  Congratulations!

There’s more to see with the rest of the Bloom Brigade playing along today.  

Barbara

Gloria

Essie