Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts

Monday

The Blossom Challenge: Sponge Bath!


Hi Power Poppy fans!  It’s Christine bringing you another fun "The Blossom Challenge” for the month.  I’m feeling especially Springy this month, and ready for all the fun colour that’s soon to come.  So, this month’s Challenge has the theme “Sponge Bath”, and its all about using your sponging tools to bring smooth inky colour to your designs.  

I’ve got two cards to show you today that showcase different ways to sponge ink.  


First off is this beauty from Power Poppy called Spring Border One.  I adore this image and its sweet border style of blooms.  All the flowers are coloured with Copics, and I stamped the large tulip twice so I could add it to the left of the arrangement to balance out my how the flowers appear in front of the arched die cut windows.  


For my sponging technique I used a simple background technique, using Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide Ink on the card base, splattering it with water, and then splattering again with white ink.  Such an easy way to add a background to a scene.  It’s one of my favourite properties of Oxide ink, when you see how great it reacts to water.  


Perfect for a little note for a friend.  

Next I’ve used another gorgeous Spring image from Power Poppy called Daffodil Bouquet.  


For this design I utilized a stencil to create a backdrop for this amazing bouquet of daffodils and muscari (grape hyacinth).  Once my bouquet was coloured with Copics, I used some pale pink cardstock and a diamond stencil with soft shades of peachy pink (Tattered Rose, Victorian Velvet, Picked Raspberry and Seedless Preserves).  Using coloured cardstock and stencilling over top gives you a base colour that you don’t have to add with ink.  


I also lightly sponged the embossing of the die cut frame which allows it to tie in to the colour and accents the embossing slightly.  The sentiment is from Power Poppy’s Peony Muse polymer set. 
 

Those bright pops of colour really shine!  


Now WHO was our winner last month?  Random.org picked Camille (Short on Ideas)with her beautiful Black-Eyed Susans reimagined by the sea!  Camille, contact Marcy at bloom@powerpoppy.com  


Now we’re extending the Challenge to you!  It’s Sponge Bath time!  Use your sponges or blending tools to add inky colour to any part of your design.  You could simply distress the edges of your paper with ink, blend multi-colour or ombre backgrounds, or use stencils to create a background or layer to your design.  All you need to do is use at least one Power Poppy image to be included in the challenge.  

Link your entries below, you can play as many times as you like!  Challenge closes April 15 at 11 pm MTN. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The Blossom Challenge: Bring Those May Flowers

Hello Power Poppy Friends!  

We’re so excited to welcome you here today and to invite you to our NEW Monthly Challenge!  I’ll be your host (Christine), but each month I’ll be joined by some of our Power Poppy Bloomies bringing you inspiration with the challenge. 

It’s called The Blossom Challenge!  As I’ve been thinking about the challenge, my heart keeps coming back to this theme of “Blossom”.  Yes, of course the flower allusion, that’s the beauty of Power Poppy, but also to Blossom in the sense of growing and thriving as creators, becoming more abudant in our abilities .......and sometimes that means we need a spark of inspiration, a push to try something new, a place that celebrates what we’ve done, and how we’ve grown.  I want this to be a place to feel proud of our creative gift, in a Power Poppy Community that cheers one other on!  So that’s what you’re going to find here each month at Power Poppy, and we hope you all join in!

This month our theme is “April Showers Bring May Flowers”.  We want you to pull out all of those lovely Spring blooms that Marcy illustrates so beautifully and create anything with them.  More on the theme, and prizes later in the post, but first I’ll start with the card I created.  

Heart Abloom is one of my favourite illustrations from Power Poppy!  I love the composition of the images, the combination of daffodils, narcissus, hellebore, tiny lilies and the fun blueberries and snail!  Its sister set in polymer is called Always Here (still available!). I really enjoy picking unique palettes for my colouring and when I found a fun peachy-yellow hellebore that helped me decide on these fun colours together.  That’s one of my #1 tips for colouring, do some research on your flowers first.  Find some inspiration and build a cohesive colour palette from there.  


The colouring is done with Copic Markers, with details added in with Prismacolor Pencils.  Trimmed out carefully and placed on this pretty ombre patterned paper, with paper ric-rac and a scalloped frame helps keep the emphasis on the beauty of the flowers.  I delight in how fresh and fun it is and how much I enjoyed colouring it!

So....here are the details about the Challenge!


1.  You must use a Power Poppy image somewhere on your design.  It could be a stamp, digi, sentiment, Power Poppy freebie, or a background, but we want to see you using your Power Poppy images.  Those will be the cards entered for our monthly prize. 

This month we want to see your Spring flowers, think tulip, daffodil, narcissus, hellebore, hyacinth, primrose, snow drop, crocus, and cherry blossoms for your creations.  Let’s leave those summer blooms for a few months from now :)  

Marcy has generously discounted some of our BEST Spring themed images by 25% OFF so you can play along!!   You are not limited to these sets, but what an awesome sale!  

Click here to see the discounted sets this month:



2.  There will be a monthly PRIZE for playing along!  Sometimes it will be a random draw, and other times it will be a Bloomie Favourite winning design.  Winners will receive a $20 Gift Card to the Power Poppy store!  This month’s Challenge will be open until NOON on June 17th.  

Here is more inspiration for our April Showers Bring May Flowers from the Bloomies!

Barbara C

Lisa J

Gloria

Essie

and Christine

Enter to win using our Linky below!  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to ent

Inspire Me Monday is Back!

Hello, flower-loving friends! The Power Poppy Bloom Brigade is happy to announce that Inspire Me Monday is back! The team will be sharing inspiration projects every Monday of each month. Plus, on the third Monday, Christine Okken will be sharing a MONTH-LONG CHALLENGE! 

Today is my day! I get to kick things off by sharing a project and some inspiration with you! 

Raise your hand if you are happy it is spring! Where I live spring is a strange season, swinging between 90 degree days and 60 degree days, with cold nights. (And by cold I mean it drops into the 40's.) We can have 89 degrees at noon and in the wee hours it is only 42! So strange! 

But, enough about the weather. Let's talk about spring themed projects with Christmas inspiration! Don't groan! I know....no one wants to hear about Christmas and winter right now! But, we all have those beautiful holiday stamps, papers, and dies that we never had a chance to use during the season, right? My favorite season and holiday is Christmas. I buy a lot of new things every year, and I never have time to use everything! Well, if you are in a creative rut, how about pulling them out and seeing if you can change them up to be used for a different holiday or theme?!!

I actually printed this image and sentiment for Christmas of 2020, I think! Then I never had a chance to color it! It was just sitting in a folder of other images that I had printed and never got around to! 

The image is from the Season's Greenings: Wreath Digital Stamp Set. The sentiment is from Season's Greenings: Wheelbarrow Digital Stamp Set. (These images are also included in the clear set Season's Greenings.) 
I printed the image at roughly 5" onto marker paper. I colored with Copic markers and a bit of gel pen. I loved the spring feel of the image, but I needed to get rid of the Christmas sentiment and add something...well...not Christmas-y!
I used a large circle die to cut out just the colored image. The circle is a bit large, and I did not have a suitable circle to use for a cardstock mat, so I used a black marker to "color" a black edge all around the circle. 

Pro Tip: To avoid your marker slipping and making a blotch on your project, hold the pretty side of your project facing away from you, and then run the marker around the edge. That way if the marker slips, the blotch will be on the back of the colored image, not the front! 
I chose bright, pale spring greens and soft, sweet pinks to color the image. I also changed the bird into a robin! I also used lots of spring colors for my card front. And, just like that, a Christmas image is now a spring image! (For a full list of markers, check out my personal blog.)
The finished card is 6" x 6" and fits perfectly into a square envelope. I used a die cut sentiment to turn this card into a birthday card, but you could use any sentiment you wish.  

Thanks for joining us for Inspire Me Monday! Make sure to come back every Monday to see new inspiration!

Power Poppy Products Used:

Season's Greenings: Wreath Digital Stamp Set


Other Products Used: Copic markers, gel pens, cardstock, printed paper, die cut circle, die cut sentiment, adhesive