Ready for a Bloom Brigade Parade?

Hey all! Just a little note to pop in and say a couple of the Bloomies have been busy in their creative spaces (including ME)! Before we get to all that fun stuff, I did want to share just a few things with y'all!

First up, did you see this amazing class Amy Shulke is ushering using a bit of Power Poppy at the center of it all?

Wowza! Look at that coloring, will you? Well, you can join Amy for an entertaining yet valuable lesson on how to visualize and use accurate values in all your coloring projects. This lesson will not only improve the depth of your projects but it will simplify the color selection process for you in the future! And, she uses Power Poppy's Baseball Vignette -- just in time to get some fun colored up before the race toward the World Series begins! Want to learn a little more about what Amy will cover? Click HERE! The class will be LIVE...

Saturday, September 14th at 11am EDT

And if you can't join the class, the recorded version will be available after the class when you become a member through the Vanilla Arts website! Also, rumor has it that Amy will be in the house on Monday with a few of her tips for our next episode of Inspire Me Monday! 

Before I leave you with a little Bloomie Link List, wonder what Ms. Marce has been up to these days??? Well, if you've checked in on her IG feed lately, you can see she has been busy living life in full bloom!

She's baking fresh peach pie right down to that delish looking bubbly crust! She's hand lettering correspondence for the garden club she belongs to -- she's the secretary of the club and in her words, "correspondence has to be cute!" We agree Ms. Marce! And she's been taking in a little fall ball with her darling son at the center of all the slugging action! These are the times, eh?

So, with that bit of news and good vibes, shall we turn things over to our beloved Bloomies? I think so!

Ally Cope

Julie Koerber 

Stacy Morgan

And, just like I mentioned, Amy Shulke will be in the house next week for another edition of Inspire Me Monday!  Don't you want to see what the peep in chief over at Vanilla Arts has been up to? I sure do!

Until next time! 

~Julie 

Do it for the DADS!

Hello sweet folks! How's your week shaping up so far? Did you happen to catch Catherine's tutorial yesterday on making the most out of digital images? I have one word... WOW! If you haven't seen it yet, click HERE to "catch" the action and see what she masterfully whipped up!

I have to say her creation is serving as the inspiration for today's Creative Confetti! With her card, we are going to set a theme for the week to....

HOW TO PLAY: While the title suggests we're going to create for Dad, really any masculine cards will do! Let's show the men in our lives that we care enough to create the very best for them! And, if you have a dad you need a card for, you'll be ahead of the game when Father's Day rolls around on June 16th!

On to my creations! In honor of this challenge, I thought I would cue up a few of my "manly cards" to showcase a few different masculine stamp sets that Power Poppy has created over the years!

I made this one above for my brother-in-law who has a birthday around Father's Day -- so this little creation using Power Poppy's O Hoppy Day stamp set served as double duty! I also offered on the inside to buy him a beer! ;-)

This card above went to my hubby who used to be a gear head. In fact, we joke that my wedding ring is his old 1993 Harley Roadster, which I hate to say he sold in order to buy my ring. So you can see why Power Poppy's Move the Soul stamp set was a perfect way to honor my guy! :-)

This card above using Power Poppy's Play Ball stamp set was a Father's Day card a few years back. The kids decided to serve up a baseball-themed Father's Day and in addition to this card, we got family tickets for the minor league team here in town. It was a great day ... and it's a great set to take one of your guys out to the old ball game! Also, did you see a portion of this set was made into a digital stamp set called Baseball Vignette, with even more Father's Day sentiments! Click HERE to see!

So, do you have a guy in your life who could use a little handmade love? I sure hope so because I'd love to see your creation! After you finish up your card, don't forget to link it up using our linky below! Every entry is one more shot at a $25 gift code to the Power Poppy Shop! 

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

Because it's a brand new month, that means we get to dig into all the entries from last month and draw the winner for that $25 gift code! So, let's get to it!

After we threw all the virtual names into our hat, random.org mixed them all up and drew....

That means the winner is...

SHARON at RAINBOWS AND BORDEAUX!

If you want to take a peek at the winning creation, take a gander! Isn't it a beauty?

Sharon used French Lilac by Power Poppy and some Prismacolor Pencils with amazing results. I love that she made this one for her mom since purple is her favorite color. So sweet! Sharon, all you need to do is email us at bloom@powerpoppy.com and we will get that code right out to you! Happy Shopping! 

And there you have it folks! Some manly creations topped off with a springtime beauty! We can't wait to see what YOU create this month! 

Happy Stamping!

~Julie

a.k.a. The Creative Confetti Thrower! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

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!!

Inspire Me Monday ~ Depth with Burnishing

Hello friends! Tosh here, and I am so excited to share my very first Power Poppy Inspire Me Monday Tutorial with you today.

Marcella has a delightful way of adding depth and dimension to all her designs with perfectly placed petals, leaves, shadows, highlights, and even little surprises, making her images super fun to color and create with.  Now there are a variety of ways to add dimension to a card: style of coloring, shadows and highlights or even paper tole (to cut out the same image and layer it on top with dimensional tape). All of these add dimension to a project, but today, I want to take it a step further and show you how to burnish.  It’s very subtle and extremely hard to show in photographs, so I encourage you to try this for yourself and see up close the effects this technique has. It’s not only fun, but it adds an extra little physical dimension to the image. I used two Power Poppy images to demonstrate this technique today.  The first is the newly released digital image called Dancing with Daffodils. It’s gorgeous and perfect for this technique.

First, you need to print (or stamp) your images twice onto cardstock. I used X-Press It Blending cardstock for today’s project.

Second, color your base image entirely, and only the sections of your second image that you want to use for extra dimension. You can see below how I colored mine. I experimented with a couple of color combinations on the leaves (ignore those), but I was really focused on the two daffodils, the snail, and the 4 Periwinkle blooms. 

I then diecut my main image using Labels 28 (Spellbinders),  cut out my dimensional pieces from the other colored image, and got out a foam mat and a stylus.  That's all you need for this technique.  If you don't have a foam mat, you can use a mouse pad, or a stack of magazines.

Now, all you do is trace all the outlines of the image with the smallest part of your stylus.  Be careful not to press too hard, or you can pierce your cardstock.  (I traced the entire main image as well as the cut out pieces.)  Below you can see what it looks like on the back after all the tracing is done.  If you look closely at the bottom petal of the top daffodil on the right, you can see a little bit of the burnishing.

To burnish, just take the larger side of the stylus and “color” with it in a circular motion inside the traced lines. Again, don’t press too hard, or the paper might rip.

After I finish burnishing, I flip the cardstock over and run the smaller end of the stylus over edges where I really want to show more depth. For example:  the coiled back of the snail.  Can you see how the coils pop where I traced on the lines and burnished between the traced lines on the back?

Here’s a close-up of the daffodil. I really wanted the petals to pop, as well as the center, so I worked a little more around the centers' base. 

Below is the finished product. The entire image has been burnished, so even the leaves have depth and texture, and a few sections are popped up with dimensional tape.  I finished the card off with the sweet little “Just Because” sentiment, as well as some Gesso on the diecut and main panel. 

You can use this technique on virtually any image. I made my husband this San Francisco Giants card by printing out the SF logo onto cardstock and stamping the cap (from the Play Ball set) right over it and coloring it.  Then, for some added interest, I burnished it. I LOVE how the panels of the cap pop IRL.  It’s fun just to rub your fingers over it to feel the texture.

Here’s an angled view to try to give you a better look at the dimension the burnishing gives.

And here’s a straight on look. Like I said, it’s tricky to photograph the depth because it’s so subtle. I even outlined the logo so it pops a bit also.

Lastly, I finished off the inside of the card with an “All Star” banner from the Play Ball set. 

That’s it. I hope I’ve explained this technique clearly enough and have inspired you to try burnishing. It’s really easy, and adds just a little extra “pop” to your project.

  Happy Stamping!