Featured Stamper #10

Our Featured Stamper # 10 is

One Happy Stamper (Cindy)

Huge Congrats! Cindy!!!

This card just jumped off the gallery pages with it's striking colors and beautifully watercolored images. Such a gorgeous creation!!!

Cindy used one of Flourishes newer sets, Poppy Patch, and she paid great attention to detail when she made this card!!! Her images are all watercolored just beautifully using her SU inks and an aquapainter. She then meticulously cut out some of the flowers and leaves and popped them up for dimension -- and what a beautiful bouquet of poppies she created!!! This was all done on a beautiful backdrop of green from the Lily Kate pad by Basic Grey, which was cut, embossed and framed using her Classic Oval Nestabilities. Topped off with a gorgeous red satin ribbon and mounted on black embossed Swiss Dots, this beauty grabbed our attention and captivated our hearts!!!

What a great job, Cindy!!! Thank you so much for playing, and your name is now added into the hat for our prize drawing on August 1. Good luck!

Peace

One word. One simple message. One stamp to convey a spiritual, yet non-denominational thought. The Peace set, created just for Flourishes by master calligrapher Joan Machinchick, provides stampers an elegant image to express the hope of the holiday season and is appropriate for people of many beliefs.

Linda Duke describes her card as simple elegance - and we could not agree more. Her use of blue and silver provides stampers a different option for holiday cards. The ribbon, rhinestones and silver paper are thoughtfully coordinated to match the sentiment.

Peace is currently on sale for 15% off through July 31, while supplies last.

O Christmas Tree

One of my favorite things to do during Christmas time is to put up and decorate our Christmas Tree. Orvil and I make it a point to purchase a Christmas ornament whenever we travel someplace special, so when I start hanging ornaments on the tree they bring back wonderful memories of the places we’ve visited. What this also means is that it takes forever to decorate my tree because I’m constantly stopping and saying, “honey, remember when we were at “x” and how much fun we had” and we recall the memories of that place. I guess you could say my tree is just one large scrapbook of memories!!

The O Christmas Tree set from Flourishes give you so many options to decorate the tree – or you can just go simple and leave the tree undecorated – either way it looks great!
This set is currently on sale for 15% off during our “Christmas in July” special – going on through July 31.

Christmas In July!

Flourishes is celebrating its one year anniversary this month and what better way to celebrate by having a Christmas in July promotion! Down here in hot, humid Florida we are roasting with July's normal weather - mid 90's and humidity as high. SO...to keep us cool let's think snow, roaring fires and ho-ho-ho! Our promotion, which starts today and runs through July 31 will have you saving on our Christmas sets. During this time, all Christmas sets will be on sale for 15% off their regular price.

This card by Leslie Miller is just one of the beautiful cards made by our design team.

No special codes needed! The prices are already marked down - so all you need to do is shop and save! But don't delay - the sale ends July 31!

Take a look at these greats sets - while supplies last!!

Flourishes Feautured Stamper!!

Yes, we're a day or two late in posting this!! It's what happens when CHA occurs - Jan Marie and Sharon J were at CHA over the weekend and things are a little hectic back at the studio! Here is our choice for the Featured Stamper and what a beauty it is!

Karen W. (Krb on SCS) made this stunning creation!

She used the Butterfuly Moments set - coloring the butterfly with Twinkling H2O's - the photo does not do justice to the shimmery colors! We love the background paper she chose - Memory Box paper - the Grove collection. It's soft background is perfect for the image and sentiment. The ribbon and half pearls are wonderful embellishments that add to the overall design, without taking away from the focal point. Karen will have her name in the hat for the August 1 drawing!

Thanks Karen for a great submission and thanks to all who played along this past week!

CHRISTMAS IN JULY - COMING SOON!!

Just a quick heads up to all our faithful readers about a promotion that will take place later on this month.

From July 23rd through July 31, Flourishes will offer all Christmas sets for 15% off the regular price!! No special code needed, just check the store during that time and all Christmas sets will be priced accordingly.

Mark your calendars for Christmas in July!!

Featured Stampers #8

Finally, the much over-due announcement for the winners of this week's Featured Stamper Challenge, and here they are:

Featured Stampers #8

are

Lois (clownmom)

and

Judy (jaydekay)

HUGE CONGRATS to Lois and Judy!!!

The first card I'd like to show you just happens to be the first card that Lois made using her new Stamp Simply set called Thank You. WOW, what a first creation!!! Lois did a gorgeous job on this card. She first stamped on the beautiful parrot tulip, colored it with her Prisma Colored Markers and then masked it, and the Eclispse Masking Tape with its low-tack self-adhesive back works wonders for this. Lois then stamped on the scripted background stamp included in the set to get this lovely look on her main image panel. She then cut, embossed, matted and framed her image using her Classic Square Nestabilities. Love how Lois then softly sponged the edges of her panel -- such a soft look! Some brads, pretty DP, ribbons and a cute little hang charm finish Lois' creation off nicely!!! Thanks so much Lois for this beautiful sampling of our Stamp Simply Thank You set.

This gorgeous card using our Iris set was created by Judy. She so beautifully colored in the Iris using her Watercolor Crayons and an aquapainter. Beautiful coloring in such lovely and realistic colors!!! Judy used her Classic Circle Nestabilities to showcase her Iris in the circle, and her Oval Nestabilities to cut and frame the sentiment. I especially love how Judy also stamped a portion of the image onto her sentiment oval -- sure adds a lot of interest! Judy also used her main image Iris stamp to create a lovely background for her card. Great use of this Iris stamp for both foreground and background!!! Judy finished off her card with some pretty gold cording, a strip of DP and some pretty die cut corners. What a gorgeous creation, Judy -- just lovely!!! Thank you so much for playing this week!!!

Both Lois and Judy will have their name thrown into the hat for the July drawing which will take place on August 1. The prize will be one Flourishes stamp set of the winners choice plus a ribbon bundle package selected by Flourishes.

If you'd like to play along, check out this link for this week's challenge. We'd love to have you join in the fun and have a chance at being a monthly winner!!! Thanks so much for stopping in!!!!

Sharon Johnson

JustRite, Flourishes and CHA

JustRite, producers of the monogram stampers that we've all been enjoying so much, will have a booth at CHA in Chicago next week, and Flourishes is so pleased to be a part of it! CHA stands for Craft and Hobby Association and their Summer Convention and Trade Show is being held in Chicago next week, Friday through Sunday, July 18 - 20.

JustRite has a continuous series of demonstrations and Make-N-Takes going on for the three day period, and we are so pleased to have Sharon Johnson, one of the Flourishes partners, and Susan Roberts, one of our fabulous Design Team Members, doing Make-N-Takes and incorporating Flourishes images into their projects. And as an added bonus, Jerri Jimenez, known to all as Jerri Kay at SCS, will also be making a special appearance and doing a Make-N-Take project using Flourishes images and Twinkling H20's. Jerri is a current member of the Dirty Dozen Design Team at Splitcoaststampers and we are so pleased to have her among the JustRite crew at CHA!

Here's a preview of the projects using Flourishes images that will be available as Make-N-Takes at CHA:

This beautiful bridesmaid's dress is the Make-N-Take project that Jerri will be doing. It's a little table favor box cut on an AccuCut. They are so quick and easy to stamp and assemble!!! Jerri used the magnolia image from our Lilac set to create the floral pattern on her dress, and she used some products by LuminArte to give it that extra shine and sparkle!!! The center of the tag features one of the new releases that JustRite will be announcing at CHA. A scalloped border made with the Spellbinders Classic Circle Nestabilities, a little Dotted Sheer Ribbon, a flower and Pearl finish this project off nicely!!! And check out that snazzy tux!!!

This pair of bridesmaids dresses were done by Susan Roberts. How pretty these are! Susan used our Damask background stamp to stamp white onto a vellum layer to create an overylay for the skirt. The delicate, lacey scalloped border is further adorned with beautiful little Pearls. Susan's dress bodice is Cuttlebug embossed and her JustRite monogrammed tags, also using new centers to be revealed at CHA, are cut and embossed with Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities. The rings and flowers on the yellow dress were colored with a Stardust Clear Pen. Susan also used the Dotted Sheer Ribbon and a tiny flower and Pearl at the waistline. So pretty!


Sharon Johnson created this trio for the tabletop. Both the bride (or bridesemaid) and the groom are AccuCut favor boxes and the place card was easily made using a Long Rectangle Nestability die by Spellbinders to cut the inside opening. The CHERISH is yet another of the new centers that will be available soon, and these tags were made using the Petite Circle Nestabilities by Spellbinders. The dress was stamped using Wedding Essentials and features our Black Sheer Ribbon, while the tuxedo uses Black Pearls for buttons. Although it is difficult to see in this photo, the tux was stamped tone-on-tone black with our Damask background stamp. The Inkksentials Opaque White Pen does a perfect job for writing guest names on the black paper. And going over the flourishes with a Quickie Glue Pen and fine glitter finishes off this project. Sharon has made two more items to coodinate with this trio -- a Will You Serve card and a Save the Date card. If you'd like to see them, you can find them on Sharon's Blog.

We invite any of you attending CHA to stop in at the JustRite booth to say *Hi* and enjoy a Make-N-Take project. JustRite will be located in Booth #3309 and has 32 new products to introduce — can’t wait!!! Here’s the schedule of fun events planned:

Friday, July 18 — 9 - 11 a.m. — MICHELLE WOODERSON (Mish Mash)

Friday, July 18 — 1 - 3 p.m. — SHARON JOHNSON (notimetostamp)

Saturday, July 19 — 10 - 12 noon — TAYLOR VAN BRUGGEN (tayloredexpressions)

Saturday, July 19 — 1 - 3 p.m. — JERRI JIMENEZ (Jerri Kay)

Sunday, July 20 — 10 - 12noon — SUSAN ROBERTS (rainy)

Before, after and in between the above, there will be a ton of fun projects being conducted by the JustRite crew!!! And, to SEE all the projects, read about each designer, and see some of the soon to be released new products, check out the JustRite Blog.

Flourishes and JustRite hope to see you at CHA!!!! Thanks for stopping in!!!

New Stamps!

This month’s new releases have the entire Flourishes team so excited. The three sets, Thank You (Stamp Simply series), Poppy Patch and Butterfly Moments are the culmination of ideas, sketches, and talents of a number of people and we thought we’d share some of what goes into making a stamp set.

Thank You is the second set of the Stamp Simply line at Flourishes. These sets are designed so that they are easy to use, have gorgeous images that maintain the Flourishes signature style of timeless and classic beauty, and are able to stand alone. Sharon Johnson started the process with a rough sketch and description - words of gratitude as a small background panel and images of tulips. Once we had the overall design drafted we enlisted the talents of two of our favorite artists, Joan Machinchick and Marcy Hawley. Joan and Marcy’s work are found exclusively in several other Flourishes sets and we think their designs are beautifully coordinated here. Joan’s elegant calligraphy provides the sentiments – one panel, measuring about 2.5 x 3.5, that can be used as a small background image and two individual sentiments. Marcy’s two tulip images have the same graceful style and work so well with the sentiments. It is amazing how well the works of these two talented artists meld so beautifully together, time after time. These cards by Faith Hofrichter and Julie Koerber showcase the beauty of this set.

Poppy Patch celebrates summertime and the colorful Poppies! In deciding what type of floral images to develop into a stamp set, Jan Marie said – “Poppies – we must have Poppies!!”. This set contains more great work by Marcy Hawley and is pure joy to stamp with. Marcy provides floral images, buds, leaves and sentiments for this set which is as colorful as summer itself! These cards by Leslie Mill and Linda Duke show the poppy in glorious color!

Butterfly Moments was developed with the thought that these images can be used as primary images that can stand on their own, or with other Flourishes sets as accents. We started with a couple of pages of butterfly images put together by Jan Marie and her sister

Diane, but then came the difficult part. Which of these images to select!! There were so many to choose from and they were all wonderful. Narrowing them down was difficult, but you can rest assure these just may show up in other stamp sets some time along the way. Once we chose our favorites we combined them with a heartfelt sentiment that Sharon Doolittle provided. There was no better name than Butterfly Moments and so it was! These cards by Susan Roberts and Julie Koerber are beautiful butterfly moments!

As you can see from these cards, our Design Team is feeling the excitement as well….for they are conjuring up all kinds of thing for you to get those creative juices flowing. Now it’s your turn to show us just what you can do with these great images. Remember to post them to our gallery on SCS using the keywords FLLC. We look forward to seeing what you create!!

Happy Stamping!

FEATURED STAMPERS #7

I LOVE writing this post and showing you some of the great entries we've had during the week. I only wish I could put them all here as they are all so very deserving -- the bar is being raised, week by week -- oh my!!! Today I chose to feature 4 cards, and here are the creators:

FLLC Featured Stampers # 7

are

ctorina (Cathleen)

ButterflyEars (Nicole)

sf9erfan (Michelle)

HUGE CONGRATS!!!! to Cathleen, Nicole and Michelle!!!

I'll start with this over-the-top elegant creation by Cathleen. She used both of our Damask background stamps, which are all-purpose, use-them-for-everything-and-all-the-time stamps. If you own them, you know exactly what I mean. You can click the links to see the positive image and the negative image of our Damask stamps.

I think what Cathleen did on this card is just so, so elegant, and I surely have a soft spot in my heart for elegant!!! Using a pink paper, she stamped the Damask Reverse or Negative image on the bottom half in ColorBox White Frost ink. She then stamped the upper potion on a sheet of vellum, still using the White Frost, but she stamped with the Damask Postive image stamp. She then took a Quickie Glue Pen and highlighted the images on the vellum sheet and sprinked with glitter. She used the tiny Love from Flourished Words, and finished it all off with her pretty, delicate flowers and ribbon -- WOW -- what a lovely creation! Thank you so much Cathleen!!!


Just love this beautiful card by Nicole. She used the tiny Lily of the Valley stamp from our Peony set. OH, how I love that little image!!! Nicole embossed the image and then further highlighted it with both Crystal Effects and Dazzling Diamonds -- oh, I can only imagine this little beauty in real life! Nicole's card comes together beautifully with her simple design, gorgeous background paper that she scored into a grid pattern and lovely organdy ribbon. Beautifully done!!! Thanks so much, Nicole!!!

The next two cards featured were both done by Michelle, using Coffee with Friends, a set that is very near and dear to my heart!!!! Michelle colored the mug with Prisma Colored Pencils and gamsol, but she paper pieced the saucer -- a great look combining two techniques. She stamped one of the many flourishes available with the set onto the mug. All the flourishes serve triple duty -- they can be used as steam, as decorations for the cup, and they can create some really fun backgrounds as well!!! Just love this card with Michelle's fun layout, dry embossed Swiss dots and fun embellishments!!!

And here's another fun card using Coffee with Friends done by Michelle. Love her fun little coffee cups on this one. She colored them with Prisma Colored Pencils before cutting them out. She then used some pretty epoxy stickers on the mugs -- what a great idea -- and how well it makes the mugs coordinate with the striking black and white designer paper Michelle chose to go with! And I LOVE the little touch of pink accents on this card -- just perfect!!! The Celebrate sentiment is from Many Sentiments. Thanks so much Michelle for these two beauties!!

So this week Cathleen, Nicole and Michelle will all get their names thrown into the hat for our next prize drawing which will be on August 1 for all the July entries. How fun!!! And keep the entries coming -- someone has to win each month -- and it COULD be you!!!

Oh, and before I go, speaking of Coffee -- would you like a chance to win a free Coffee with Friends set? Well, check out the Blog Candy offered here!

You already have Coffee with Friends? Great!!! You can play in this challenge with a chance to win a fun prize -- check it out here -- and there's even a photo of the prize!!!

Plus, we have many more fun activities happening in the Flourishes Forum at SCS all week -- check them out here -- play along, it's fun!!!

Thanks everyone for stopping in -- and please check back in soon -- we have a FABULOUS release of 3 news sets on Wednesday!!!! We just can't wait for you to see them!!!

Sharon Johnson

More Beautiful Peonies

Yes, we have some more beautiful peonies to show you. Everyone is just smitten with this large Peony stamp, so I thought it would be fun to share some more samples and techinques with you.

I'll start with this highly dimensional Peony done by Faith Hofrichter. Many of you are familiar with the fun, vibrant and exciting style of Markie's Mom. Well, she took it to another level with this one!!! Her layered Peony was stamped and gold embossed 6 times, and each of those images was then watercolored with 4 reinkers, before she cut them all out, curled and layered them onto her card!!! What an amazing look!!! The Thank You sentiment is from Flourished Words, and Faith used her go-to Black Dotted Sheer Ribbon. You can read more about how Faith made this card on her Blog here.

The next two Peonies I'd like to show you are both done by Jenn Balcer, who we all know and love from SCS. Jenn stamped both of her Peonies onto a Shimmer White Cardstock and then colored them with her Copic markers, and what an amazing job she did!!! Her Peonies look so lovely and realisitic.


This first card is just striking in it's simplicity. Jenn's color choices make the main image just pop off the page at you, and I really love how she used the Peony blossom to create her lovely background on the green panel. This card needed nothing more -- this beautiful Peony image and Jenn's striking design can stand very well all on their own!

Jenn's second card uses both Shimmer White and Chocolate cardstock and she's added a bit more glitz with Dazzling Diamonds and a sparkly nameplate for the Peony sentiment -- how fun!!! And the Chocolate Sheer Ribbon tied off to the side is the perfect accent for this gorgeous creation!!


And lastly I have a card that I did using the masking technique. I first inked my stamp with ColorBox Chalk Inks and stamped onto white cardstock. I then colored in all the white areas of the Peony with my Inkksentials Opaque White Pen, and accented the leaves in the same way. I then made a Peony mask using my Eclipse Masking Tape and stamped on my scripted background (SU retired). A little sponging, layering, accent pieces and ribbon, and I'm done!!! You may read more details on this card on my personal Blog.

We've done several previous posts on the Peony set and different techniques to use with it -- you may see them here, here and here.

Thanks so much for stopping in to see more of our Peony creations. I hope you are all enjoying your Peonies!!! They are available here.

Sharon Johnson

May I Suggest...

… euphoria. An utter and complete state of euphoria!!! For your cards, that is!!! I am just in love the the new Euphoria pad by Basic Grey and all the goodies that Flourishes has to go with them!!! I have SO MUCH to show you today, so let’s just get started.




A picture is worth a thousand words!!! Need I say more!!!

The above Euphoria paper by Basic Grey, May Arts ribbons, Basic Grey buttons and brads, self- adhesive Pearls and Twinkling H20's can be purchased at Flourishes.

You can find the instructions for this gift box which contains 3 monogrammed cards, and links to the cards themselves, on my Blog, No Time To Stamp? I call it a *Cheater Box*, because you really don't have to make the box!!!

More detail and discussion on all of the above product is also available on my Blog, No Time To Stamp?, including links to numerous other projects and tutorials using this product line. Hope you can take the time to check them all out -- you will NOT be disappointed!!!

And I think that about wraps it up for today — but to recap — what DID I suggest:

Euphoria Designer Paper by Basic Grey
Basic Grey Buttons, Brads and fancy Glazed Brads
Sticky back Pearls
Luscious May Arts Ribbons
Watercoloring with H20’s (see Leslie’s tutorial linked here)
Making *Cheater Boxes* linked here
Flourished Words for beautifully scripted small Sentiments
Tag Trios for creating the perfect little hang tags for your cards
And, of course, the JustRite Monogram Stampers to create these gorgeous Monograms

And before you leave, I’d like to recommend stopping in at these fun Blogs to see more creations using the fun products I’ve suggested for you today:

Julie Koerber - check out this absolutely darling little bird card — too cute for words!!!

Faith Hofrichter - check out her use of Pearls and her tutorial on how to change the color of your DP - yes, she did!!!! Amazing!!!

Leslie Miller - watercoloring with H20’s tutorial - she makes it so easy!!! A MUST READ!!!

Susan Roberts - check out this AMAZING 4th of July card made with Euphoria paper!!!!

Thank you so much for stopping in today. Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!!!

Sharon Johnson