It’s STAMPtember with Simon Says Stamp!

         

Hello and welcome to STAMPtember!  It is such a fun time of the year at Simon Says Stamp!  It’s a month long celebration of great products and delightful company collaberations.  Today we’re kicking it off with a Blog Celebration!  Along the way you will find unique codes at each spot that can be used for discounts and free products from the Simon Says STAMPtember release.  Today, I’m creating with the new set called To Friendship.  Its a multi-step stamp set with beautiful sentiments around the theme of friendship.  For this design I did some tone on tone stamping in shades of blues and white.  

Aren’t these folk-art style wildflowers pretty?  I diecut the stamping layer with Simon Say’s Sparkler Scallop Frame layered the stamping onto coordinating sparkly and deep blue cardstock.  Both the flowers in the design and paper strips have that long lean look.  The sentiment is embossed in white.  

Don’t forget to visit the whole list of designers on the Simon Say’s Stamp Blog. Make sure you look for the promotional banner coupon code which you can use to claim a free gift ...for a short time only!!

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It’s STAMPtember with Simon Says Stamp!

Foiled Daffodils with Spellbinders

 

With two feet of snow on the ground, and more falling all the time, I’m longing for a warm up and a move toward Spring!  I’ve had this coloured panel on my desk forever and its Spring colours finally convinced me to create a finished design!  This is a retired foiling plate from Spellbinders called Flower Pattern.  After foiling it in silver, I coloured it up with Copics and trimmed around the interior to create a frame.  The foiling really takes it up a notch with the shimmer and shine.  

Daffodils are so cheerful!  You can never go wrong with them!  I also added in the interior sentiment from Yana’s Sentiments Hot Foil Plate and coordinating dies.  I’m always needing more Birthday cards.  

Some iridescent sequins make a nice finishing touch.  

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Foiled Daffodils with Spellbinders

Inky Blossoms with Alex Syberia

Hello!  I hope you’ve had a great day today!  Do you ever rediscover a technique after not using it for a while?  The most recent Instagram Challenge at Simon Says Stamp is ink blending, and I’d forgotten how wonderful it is for adding colour blends, especially with emboss resist!  

I started this lovely design with Alex Syberia’s digital stamp Full Bloom (from May 2020).  Coloured up the blooms with Copics and coloured pencils.  

 

Next, I tooks the background stamp from Simon Says Stamps called Lace Heart Kaleidoscope embossed it in white and then used ink shades that coordinated with the colouring to create an ombre background.  I love the pops of colour and blends between the colours, and it makes such a nice background for the card.  I also cut a few Big Branches: Ruscus Die from The Greetery onto white cardstock to ink blend as accents.  The leaves coordinate well with the stamped design.  

I also foiled a pretty sentiment onto vellum from Spellbinders Slimline Confetti Background doing some fussy cutting to trim it out.    

Vibrant and saturated.  Just how I love my flowers!  Thanks for joining me today.  

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Inky Blossoms with Alex Syberia

New Stamping Styles with The Greetery

Do you have a preferred style of stamping?  Mine has always been a stamp I can colour.  But, it’s good to try out something new sometimes!  I’ve been eyeing up the beautiful sets at The Greetery for some time.  I love Betsy’s style and polish, so I finally bought some of the stamps, dies and stencils from this March’s release and am using  Springtime Stamp Set and Coordinating Dies on this card.  

I was thinking about a baby shower design, and when I saw the umbrella in the set I thought it would be so sweet to have the flowers from the set bursting out of the umbrella.  The teeny tiny images take a little getting used to, but it was so fun to put the pieces together, almost like an intricate puzzle.  I’ve stamped all the layers and added some prismacolour pencil colouring to bring in the details.  

It’s all placed on a watercoloured background, and I’ve framed it up and added a few Nuvo iridescent dots as accents on the background an din the flowers like dew drops.  

That little bunny is so darn cute!  Thanks for joining me today! 

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New Stamping Styles with The Greetery

Power Poppy’s New Healing Bouquet

We’ve got another WOW set at Power Poppy to show you today called Healing Bouquet.  It’s a creative mix of citrus (lemon or lime), lotus flower, eucalyptus, elderberry, and lavender. 

I chose some pretty delicate tones and decided to go with a lime for this arrangement.  I love lime.  All the colouring is with Copics and I kept the other details of the design quite simple so the focus would be on the beauty of the floral and fruit spray.  

The sentiment is from the lovely Power Poppy set, Simply Camellias.  Touches of lace and polka-dotted paper give it an elegant feminine touch.  

For more WOW with this set, please pop on by to see what the rest of the Bloom Brigade has in store for you.  

Stacy

Leslie

Ally

Broni 

Barbara C 

Jenny

Gloria

Julie 

Catherine

Sathya

Christine (you are here)

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Power Poppy’s New Healing Bouquet

Hugs

This week we’re kicking off a new round of the TCP Challenge, and the focus is on Sentiments!  I think it’s fun to challenge ourselves (especially me as a floral lover), to focus on the sentiment as the main image in your card.  Alma is great at giving us such fun sentiments, so it’s not hard to find something TCP that will work wonderfully!

For this card I decided to create a clean design focussing on the HUGS sentiment from our new Sending You set.  I started by creating a mask in the center of the design and then stamping the flowers and leaves from our gorgeous set Sketchy Flowers along both sides of the mask.  This gives a nice clean line.  

I coloured those flowers and leaves with Copics, and then added some Scor Tape along the lines and burnished glitter onto the tape strips.  

Then all you need to do is add the sentiment and a little twine and it’s complete!  

Here are the details for the Sentiment Challenge, we hope you can join us!

1.  Every other Tuesday a new challenge will be posted on The Cat’s Pajamas blog and our Facebook page.

2.  If you want to play along you just upload your design to The Cat’s Pajamas blog page using the InLinkz button by the Monday, 11:55 EDT before the next challenge.

3.  You are not required to use a Cat’s Pajamas stamp or die but if you have them we would love to see them.

4.  On the following TCP Tuesday, the winner will be chosen from the previous challenge and will receive a Cat Cash Voucher for $10 or $15 if a TCP product is used.

Brenda Nakandakari
Christine Okken (you are here)
Jessica Rone
Julie Elak
Stacey Schafer
Wendy McGaffey
and Alma at the TCP Blog!

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Hugs

TCP Spring Blog Hop

Well folks, we’ve had lots of fun this week showing off all of the wonderful Sneak Peeks at The Cat’s Pajamas, and today all of the stamps and dies are available and we’ll show off one more round of creations.  You’ve probably come from the fabulous Sandy Allnock’s blog, we’re delighted to have her with us today! 

This also kicks off our next challenge at TCP....Flowers!  We hope you can join us!  

I couldn’t resist creating another card with these Sketchy Flowers!  I wanted to do some loose watercoloring with embossing and also use one of our new word dies.   I embossed the outlines of the petals and stems in white and then washed in some turquoise sky, some green to ground the bottom and then the vibrant orange leaves.  

I also washed in some watercolouring on the paper that I was going to cut the sentiment out of.  On this one I only wanted to use Hello instead of Hello There, so I snipped of the bottom of the paper after it came out of the die.  

A few rhinestones and some washi tape add to that carefree loose feel.  An easy breezy Spring card!

Now to head along the blog hop head on over to our last spot with Alma at the TCP blog, and tell her how awesome this release has been :)

Thanks for joining us for a great week of TCP Fun!  

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TCP Spring Blog Hop

Arranging Roses

It is our first day to show off what’s new for Power Poppy in July!  I think you’ll be quite delighted by the beauty that will come your way in the next 3 days!  This month it’s an all digi-release for that instant ability to create to your hearts delight this summer!  No shipping - no waiting!  You will see some gorgeous summer flowers from the Bloom Brigade that I know you’ll want to add to your collection.  

Today we get to play with Arranging Roses!  A gorgeous pitcher full of luscious roses just picked from the garden paired with the whimsy of strawberries.  Just take a look!  

I really wanted this design to speak of summer, so I chose really warm tones of orange and warm reds for the design.  I trimmed the roses “out-of-the-box-style” on the edge of the rounded die and then added another Spellbinders fancy border behind the image with some lace.  I always think there’s something old fashioned and romantic about roses.  

A little closer look at the colouring, some enamel dots, seam biding, and twine.  Swoon!  Marcy did such a lovely job illustrating this set.  I chose to leave the sentiment off, at least on the outside and then put one inside when I know what occasion I want it for.  

I did use a lot of Copics for this one - so here they are pictured above.  

Now here’s the full line-up of the beautiful Bloom Brigade playing today....and be sure to stop by and see what Marcy has to say about this gorgeous set!  

Allison Cope
Christine Okken (you are here)
Cindy Lawrence
Danielle Kennedy
Dawn Burnworth
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

Glad to have “seen” you today!  Have a happy Saturday!

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Arranging Roses

TCP Sneaky Peeks Begin!

It’s Sneaky Peek Week at The Cat’s Pajamas!  I’m excited to be joining them again this release as a Swanky Stamper :)  We’ve got a week ahead of some very fun and fabulous designs that I’m looking forward to showing you!

Today’s set is adorable!  It’s called Strange and Wonderful (totally cute idea once you see the sentiments), and I’m also showing of the TCP Challenge for the next 2 weeks too, it’s a colour challenge that I think you’ll have fun with.

Here’s my creation!

Just adorable right?  How can you resist a little penguin like this guy embracing a bundle of flowers, and a lovely sentiment about friendship too.  

I stamped our little friend in Memento Tuxedo Black onto Kraft card stock knowing I’d be able to use some prismacolor pencils to colour.  I used some brand new and older TCP dies to showcase this little guy too.   The first die is brand new for this release Petal Posies (under Mr. Penguin in the cream and the little pink petal accent), and then I used the circles from the inside and outside of the Framed Up 2 die.  

Here’s a closer look at the card.  I stamped the little butterflies in the backround and also debossed the flowers with the dies onto the cream layer behind the main image, you can just catch a glimpse of it on the photo below.  

A little shallow zig zag stitching, some linen thread and a pretty button, as well as some lace finish it off.  

You’ll want to drop by the TCP Blog today to see more inspiration with this sweet set.  The Cat Pack has lots to show off!  

Tomorrow I’ll be back with another cutie and my favourite TCP character!  

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TCP Sneaky Peeks Begin!

Love you Mom

I realized this week - whoa...it's Mother's Day on Sunday and you have no card for your mom!  So I put something together and thought I'd show you today.  A simple but spring-filled design for my very special Mom.  

I combined two Flourishes sets - Spring Blossoms and Motherly Love to make framing elements for the  Flourishes Perfectly Pierced Victorian Oval.  It forms this pretty vignette for her. Coloring is done with Copics, and I paired the card with Color Made Easy Sunflower and Emerald Coast Cardstock and a new line to Flourishes - Carta Bella So Noted designer paper (so pretty!), I'm so glad we're carrying them!  

Finishing details are some paper flowers, crystal trinket pins, soft yellow seambinding and some lovely white crochet lace ribbon.  

Hope you'll enjoy this weekend with someone you love!  See you soon!

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Love you Mom

May Flowers

April showers generally bring May flowers, but Spring is really not intersted in coming to my neighbourhood yet this year!  They're telling us it will be beautiful by the weekend, and I seriously want to hold them to it!  

We've arrived at the May Pre-Release Challenge at Flourishes!  This month's theme is to be inspired by this gorgeous illustration by our new illustrator Sam Pickard, who we'll introduce you to this month!  I'm so excited for you to see her designs!  You can pick 3 or more of the colors in the photo above and incorporate them into your design.  

I had to pull out my Magnolias set again.  They hadn't gotten enough attention lately.  Such a gorgeous image of flowers!  Because I wanted to use all the colours I could from the inspiration I wanted to stamp with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on our Flourishes Classic Kraft Cardstock, then colour with prismacolor pencils.  I SO love the look!

I cut the shape out with Spellbinders Radiant Rectangles die and then fancied it up with some MME - Bloom paper, Crochet Lace in ivory, some pretty Edgeabilities scallops along the bottom, beautiful iridescent ribbon, some pins and then used Flourishes Color Made Easy Tiger Lily cardstock and a base of Flourishes Classic Ivory.  

So, come on!  Play along!  And if you play along with us, you could win Flourishes entire May Stamp Release!  If you upload to SCS please use the keyword FLLCMAY13.  You can enter as many times as you like, but we want you to know if you use Flourishes stamps, your entry counts twice!  You have until Friday May 10, 2013 at 5 PM EST to enter.  See the Flourishes Blog for more details!  

We know you'll also be inspired by our Senior Design Teams Creations so go ahead and visit:

• Amanda Havon
• Christine Okken (you are here)
• Cindy Lawrence  
• Danielle Kennedy
• Heather Jensen
• Julie Koerber
• Maki Jones
• Silke Ledlow
• Stacy Morgan

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May Flowers

Eyes to See

I think this is such a beautiful sentiment about life.  Often it takes me paying more attention to beauty around us to realize how beautiful life is, having eyes to intentionally see what's really there.  

I have a two more cards left to show you from April's Flourishes Release of sets.  I have loved working with them.  I knew these flowers from the set Garden Gate would colour beautifully on Kraft cardstock  with Prismacolor pencils, and I really love a windowed design.  The edges of the Kraft layer are cut with a Grand Nestabilities die because I thought the lattice feel would go well here.  After I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink I traced over an oval Nestabilities die, then carefully trimmed out the leaves and the line where the die would have cut.  It's just another way to do an out of the box style of cutting.  

Some lovely green silk, white pearls, Echo Park designer paper (For the Record) and some of our Color Made Easy Pistachio cardstock and it's all done!

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Eyes to See

Heartfelt Thanks

Welcome to Friday friends!  We have a wide open Friday at Flourishes where the girls are picking any little set their heart delights in to show off to you!

I was asked to make some thank you cards for Administrative Professionals Day this year. I like to make each of them special as I know each person they are going to, so all of them get unique cards.  This year I made 9 of them, and this is the first one I'll show you.  

This is using the beautiful Hydrangea stamp set.  I've said it before and will say it again...love me those blue hydrangeas.  I think they are spectacular.  I stamped the image on Flourishes Classic White cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, then carefully trimmed around the image with a wee border.  I coloured up the blooms with some yummy copic colours, and then added a Perfectly Pierced Classic Window die behind the popped up flowers to really set them off.  I used some pretty bluey-purple paper I had in my stash (old Memory Box I think), and then accented with Iced Lime seam binding, white crochet lace, some pretty rhinestones and some embossing on the lovely Color Made Easy Pistachio green cardstock.   

Here's a tip on colouring greens.   Do you want some extra depth in those shadowed places of your leaves?  Want your image to really tie in together nicely?  Take one of your B markers that you used for the flower petals (in this case I think I used B63) and add some of that blue into the depths of your leaves, it makes all the difference in cooling the shadows of the greens and the tones then balance nicely together too.  

Be sure to check out the Flourishes Inspiration with the rest of the Senior Design Team....and check the Flourishes Blog for some exciting news I have to share!  For following in the footsteps of a small lady - I still have some big shoes to fill!  

Amanda Havon

Christine Okken (you are here)

Cindy Lawrence

Danielle Kennedy

Julie Koerber

Maki Jones

Silke Ledlow

Stacy Morgan

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Heartfelt Thanks

White Picket Fence

Hi all! Just like we do every Friday after our release, our designers pick up their favorite new sets and let their creativity go crazy with a "Free for All Friday!" The goal is to show off those new images and give you even more ideas on how to use them!

I decided to play again with the lovely Garden Gate set  (that I obviously love so much!) and our new 123 Create Kit called Stationary Noted...it's just so gorgeous.  I stamped the gate image onto Flourishes Classic White with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  I die cut out the shape with this gorgeous Spellbinders die (Decorative Labels 22), and then mounted it on our Flourishes Perfectly Pierced Classic Window Die, on Color Made Easy True Blue cardstock.  I wanted to keep a cool and neutral palette to go with the papers, so the colouring with copics is all C00 - C7's and then the little pops of red roses, and blue delphinium.  

Don't you just love the gray ribbon sliding through the die?  I think this kit and this set are Flourishes at it's finest!  

Also, time is running out for our New Release Bundle Bargain! Today is the last day to get all of our new sets at 10% off when you purchase them in a bundle. If you want to know more, just click HERE to see the bundle in the Flourishes store!

Ok, now it's time to hop on over and see.....

• Amanda Havon
• Christine Okken (you are here)
• Cindy Lawrence
• Danielle Kennedy
• Heather Jensen
• Julie Koerber
• Maki Jones
• Silke Ledlow
• Stacy Morgan

Hope you have a fabulous weekend and we’ll see you all back here soon!

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White Picket Fence