Weekend Stamp Steal + Bloom Brigade

Well hello there Power Poppy fans, feel like you need a little spring zing in your life these days? Well, get this. We have a splash of spring that is not only beautiful to share... IT'S ON SALE! It's time to take a trip to the Power Poppy Shop for another Weekend Stamp Steal. Check it out sweet peeps...

Shop now through Monday at midnight central, you can nab a few of the blossoms that seem to sprout through winter’s thaw.

Weekend Stamp Steal — going on now

Bloomin’ Wonderful clear stamp set

A light and lively springtime stamp set featuring soft Pussy Willow and snowdrops, Crocus flowers and Forsythia branches. With plenty of sentiments designed with a vintage postcard style to serve all of your early spring celebrations, or help say thanks for being so bloomin’ wonderful! (or for being so very kind, OR for simply being awesome.) A wreath with a mossy cradle holding a nest of birds’ eggs is large enough to fit the sentiments. 

If it’s a digi you prefer, we have a versatile bouquet that you can dig into — and download in an instant.

Winter Pick-Me-Up digital download

Imagine poking around a chilly pasture, gathering plump stems of snowdrops, crocuses with their grasslike foliage, all intertwined with the puffy catkins of pussy willow branches. If the thought of this alone isn’t a “pick-me-up” in the middle of winter, I don't know what is! Well, maybe I do ... coloring in this image and giving the card to a friend.

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For inspiration, here are a few of our Bloom Brigade favorites using these images for beautiful, soothing cards...

Shop the WEEKEND STAMP STEAL now and save up to $5 on these classic images.

Since it's Friday, that means that some of the Bloomies are on hand to share some of what they've been working on this week. There are some MIND-BLOWERS in this list! Put on your seat belt...

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Cindy Lawrence

Stacy Morgan

Tosha Leyendekker

Loved seeing you here today for our Stamp Steal and Bloomie round-up. Be sure to come back and see us soon.

~Julie 

November Power & Spark: We Have A WINNER!

Goodness gracious --- with all of the excitement abounding with our 12 Days of Christmas extravaganza, we sugar plum forgot to announce the winner of the November "Portion Control" Power & Spark Challenge!

So, without further ado, let's find who our lucky stamper is! 

If you missed out on all the fun, you truly need to take a little trip back in time OR just click HERE to see all the fabulous entries that linked up this past month. Cindy Lawrence challenged us all to use some self control and only use a PORTION of a stamp or image! Great little reminder for this time of year! :-)

So, after random.org threw all the entries into the virtual hat, it pulled out the number....

Which means our lucky winner is.....

LYNDA PLECKAN! 

Lynda created this gorgeous little number above using Power Poppy's Winter Pick-Me-Up digital stamp and the sentiment from Acorn Ornaments, also a digital stamp set. Love, love, love the way she colored up her creation with the watercolor wash background paper and the embellishments to tie it all together. It's also a nice touch to add a piece of the image on the sentiment circle as well with those softly sponged edges! We say -- well done!

Lynda, just email us at bloom@powerpoppy.com and let us know which digital or clear stamp you'd like us to send your way. If choosing clear, don't forget to share your snail mail address!

Thanks everyone for playing along! We had so many new participants and we really hope you all play along in the coming months. We'd love to see YOU win! Of course, you can play along many times during this months' challenge!

That's right, 12 days of projects that you can try and enter for your chance at winning a $50 shopping spree to the Power Poppy Shop! Click HERE for all the fun-filled and festive details!

Have a great weekend everyone and don't forget to tune in tomorrow for Tosha's day of the 12 Days of Christmas. I heard it through the grapevine that's she's going to be giving us some pointers on how to dress up that ho-hum gift bag with stunning results!

Stay tuned!
~Julie

Inspire Me Monday: A little “Winter Pick-Me-Up” with How-to Video

Welcome once again to Power Poppy’s Inspire Me Monday with Rhea Weigand. Today I am sharing Winter Pick-Me-Up with an instructional video on how I do the backgrounds of florals.

I printed the digital image at 150% of its original size, and at 30% opacity. It is framed in a 5x7 very old frame passed down through the family. I chose it because it really helped pop the fluffy willow twigs from the project.

Enjoy the video. My voice is a little low so you may want to turn up the volume. Beware to turn the volume DOWN when the music starts...lol. It may startle you.   

Here are the colors used to create this piece.

Thanks for visiting today!

Sometimes you can’t see the garden for the flowers

Hello and welcome to the Power Poppy Inspire Me Monday from Rhea.  It’s true that sometimes your eye fixates on just one object when there is so much beauty than surrounds it. The same is true when you are in the Power Poppy store! When I am looking at all those yummy flowers I see each one individually. Then I remember that when working with digi stamps, there are no limits! Just because I love love the Gerbera Daisies and the Winter Pick-Me-Up and they are individual images doesn't mean I can’t put them together to create a beautiful garden!

The images needed to be turned into a .png file so the background was transparent. They come to us in .jpg format. Being a .png allows me to layer them and position them front to back. All I use is Photoshop. I do not delete anything or alter Marcella’s art in any way. It is as simple as moving things around until you like what you see. You can “flip” an image which I did with the Winter Pick-Me-Up on the far right side. To do that in Photoshop, all you have to do is click on “Image” and then “Rotate” and click on “Flip Horizontal.” You don’t want everything looking too chimerical or it appears unnatural. I also like odd numbers.  

Now, I always like to share my color palettes! This way you can purchase the Gerbera Daisies, and the Winter Pick-Me-Up and use the same colors if you like.

Thanks for your time today!  I will be back Monday, August 3rd for another inspirational post.

~xo Rhea

Inspire Me Monday ~ Digital Stamps to Altered Box Tutorial

Howdy fellow stamp lovers!  Welcome to another fabulous Inspire Me Monday here at Power Poppy!

I have been procrastinating on making my Secret Santa a gift for a few weeks now. (And I know, how much later I am I gunna leave it since Christmas is only weeks away PLUS I have to send it across the border too!?! OY!) So I finally got my behind in gear and set out to make my pal something for all year round instead of just something for the holidays.

So I went trolling through my alterable stash of goodies and came across this simple round papier-mâché box that I had hidden away. Perfect! Super simple shape to deal with and super easy to use the fabulous new Winter Pick-Me-Up digital stamp set on!

So I thought I'd share with you my creative process from start to finish! Digi to box!

Step One:
I opened up my Photoshop CS3 program in my computer and opened up my Winter Pick-Me-Up digital stamp and a new 8.5"x11" document (the same size as a regular sheet of paper so it's easy to print!)

Step Two:
Then I measured the diameter of my box’s top.  For my particular box, the lid was 5 7/8" in diameter.  You'll have to measure your project to determine the size of top element you will need to recreate this project.

I then drew a circle with that same 5 7/8" diameter and filled it with pink so it was easily seen on my document.

Step Three:
Next I dragged the beautiful Winter Pick-Me-Up bouquet of snowdrops, pussy-willow branches and croci over top of the pink circle. I also got rid of the white that wrapped around the digital stamp so I could enlarge and position it correctly within the diameter of the circle. You'll notice when I erased this outer white, it also erased some of the white within the pussy-willow buds and the odd snowdrop petal... nothing worry about!

Step Four:
I duplicated my image again and rotated it to fit upside down but within the boundaries of the pink circle (my box top limits) on the opposite side of my circle.  I wasn't too worried about having the single bud fall outside of that boundary because I had most of my image inside the circle.

Step Five:
Next I wanted to add some script back ground to my bouquets (a fav back drop for me!) so I pulled a 12x12 sheet of digital script paper in, resized it suit the feel of my project and layered it between the images and the pink circle.

Step Six:
Next I played with the opacity of the script paper (how see-through it is).  I wanted it to be there but not stand out too much against the beautiful bouquets.  Just a subtle script...

Step Seven:
As you can see below, since some of my pussy-willow buds are transparent and you could see the script inside them, I had to fix that.

I took my eraser tool and made it relatively small; small enough to fit inside the buds.  I erased all of the script layer showing through the transparent buds and petals.  Since I erased this back ground, you can now see the pink circle more clearly through the erased holes!  Not to worry... that circle is just a guide and won't be pink for our finished project!

Here is what my almost completed box topper looks like!

Step Eight:
Next I filled my circle with white and added a stroke of 1 pixel to the outside of my circle so I could still make out my basic guideline.

NOW... in hind sight, I would have forgone this step and just simply erased the circle all together!  Live and learn from your mistakes right!  Next time...

Step Nine:
I then saved my document with all the layers present and showing.  Then I saved it again with all the visible layers merged together and in jpeg format.  I printed it out on normal copy paper... yup... normal good ol' copy paper using my laser printer!  My inkjet printer would have worked too but my laser printer ink costs less per page.

TIP:  Always test your ink before colouring your image!

And here it is...

Step Ten:
Next, some colour was in order!  I pulled out my Copic air brush system and gave it a light spray of Copic R83 and then continued to colour up all the remainder of my bouquets with my Copic Markers.  Since I air brushed the back ground I had to use my Copic Blender Pen to remove some of the pink mist from my Snowdrop blooms.  (You'll have to excuse my wild pink & black damask mat in the photos!)

Step Eleven:
Once I was happy with my colouring, I applied some Glossy Accents to the top of my raw box top and used a paint brush to smooth it out and apply it to all of the box top surface.

I carefully laid my printed and coloured box top paper to the wet adhesive.  I used a clean, dry brayer to smooth any bubbles from the surface.

Now this is where I wish I had gotten rid of the circle's outline... it turned out that I didn't get the circle exactly centered within the confines of the lid, and it's REALLY hard to move once it's on there, so my circle outline wasn't centered!  Drat!  I did find a happy solution though... stay tuned!

Step Twelve:
Next I took some scissors and cut the excess paper that wasn't attached to the lid into 1/2" tabs all around the edge of the lid.  I used some MONO Tombo adhesive to stick all the tabs down to the edge of the lid.

Step Thirteen:
And this is where my creative brain came in and solved the problem of that pesky circle outline!  I just simple applied some white acrylic paint to the edges of the top of the lid.  I started in the place where I had to paint out into the lid the most and then continued painting around the edge at that same distance in.  I didn't want a uniformly painted edge so I just left the brush strokes as they came!

Step Fourteen:
For the finishing touches, I covered the round box base with the same script paper, air brushed with the same Copic Marker as the lid.

I then sprayed the lid and the outside of the box base with some Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear Gloss for a waterproof finish to the box.  Then I added some silver trims to the edges of the box's lid.

And here it is!  One little decorative box, made especially for my American Secret Santa!  I sure hope she likes it.  I think I will fill it with all kinds of fun scrapbooking items before I send it off!

What do you think?  Will she like it?

Thanks for joining me on my creative journey today!  I hope my tutorial inspires you to give the Power Poppy digital stamps a try!  You can have them in minutes from the Power Poppy Shop. Click HERE to browse all the gorgeous digital blooms and their corresponding sentiments!

Have a great Monday everyone!

~ Allison ~

Supplies:
Digital Stamps:  Power Poppy (Winter Pick-Me-Up)
Silver Trims:  Cosmo Cricket
Inks:  Copic Markers, Copic Blender Solution
Acyrlic Paint:  DecoArt
Adhesives:  Glossy Accents, Mono Tombo Glue
Box:  Dollarama

All-digi December blog hop — and a Thanksgiving recap

My December digis are here — a fresh-picked bouquet of wintery wonders, and a splashy set of Camellias, each with a unique sentiment. Will you create something special with them this winter? Maybe a non-traditional holiday card, or create a repeat background pattern and whip up some wrapping paper?

I hope you’ll spend some precious moments enjoying the Bloom Brigade’s Winter Blitz Collection cards — these women have their creativity stun guns set to full swoon ahead:

Allison Cope

Christine Okken

Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker

If you go around to all the blogs and leave a comment, you have a chance to win the entire digital release! Woooohooo what are you waiting for?

-------------------------

Oops, you can’t pull me off the stage yet, still have a few more things to share.... I HOPE YOU ALL had a MAGNIFICENT Thanksgiving weekend!! One filled with family, friends, food, and above all — a feeling of gratefulness and love. We hosted a Thanksgiving day meal with a Mexican food theme for the second year in a row (big fans of guacamole, pico, and my mom’s enchiladas ’round here, BIG fans!), it was so cozy and crazy and festive!

With my beautiful mamacita Susan before mealtime madness

I got really into creating the tablescape with vibrant plants, candles, colorful peppers and pumpkins—plus the kids’ pinecone-and-pipecleaner turkeys they made back in nursery school. The American Girl dolls had their own table set by Lulu, Sylvia, and Clara, with tiny placecards and placesettings and doll food (yes, we have the American Girl taco party set).

The girls each had their dolls present at the table, and Finn had two stuffed animal cats.

The enchiladas from my childhood (thanks, Mom!) were beside Great Aunt Mildred’s cranberry jello salad.

Good times in my tiny living room, it was full to the gills but filled with love!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! ¡OLÉ! And two days later, we were putting up the tree in this same room.

Doug fixed himself tacos for breakfast for the next three days and we lived happily ever after.

Stalking the Earth for a Winter Pick-Me-Up

I wonder if, when crafters await a new release of stamps to fuel their creative passions, it feels anything like a gardener stalking the arrival and bloom of her favorite plants.

I can speak to the latter, and good golly, it can feel excruciatingly long.

Last winter it was fa-reeeeeezing and snowy and subzero for way, way, way too many days, and when I saw the little tips of the snowdrops poke through the frozen ground in early January, I got so amped up, I photographed the leaf-strewn scene.

Check out those little nubs! All perky and fresh and purposeful. They look to be ready to keep up that momentum and burst forth from the ground in full splendor any day now, do they not? Well, I waited and I peeked and I waited and I tip-toed outside and peeked again and I waited and peeked. Waited. Peeked. Waited. Peeked. You get the idea.

A few MONTHS later, I was still looking at this.

That is not nice, Mother Nature!

I continued to wait and peek, and at last, by the second week of March, we had lift-off.

SWEET SNOWDROP REDEMPTION!

Man, that took forever, though, and these single snowdrops aren’t even the fancy double kind that need even longer to bloom! I just love the classic Galanthus nivalis, with their fat, droplet-like buds that open to simple nodding flowers. Over at my mother’s house, after she had to wait and peek for as many weeks as I did, we were rewarded with little scenes like this all over her garden beds, with the specialty bulbs she sources from around the world. I believe these are from Ireland:

Now remember, Susan H. Smith (my mama), likes things to be unique, the rarest of the rare. Her hybrid snowdrops (these are Galanthus ‘Ophelia’) are positively precious, are they not!? Worth the lengthy delay. So, let’s all just agree that it can be very hard to wait for things, be they new stamp sets or snowdrops. Which leads me to why you may be here today in the first place:

I have a new stamp set to share, it’s debuting as a digital image, AND — get this — it features the very plant that teased me along for so many weeks! Along with a few others... 

Winter Pick-Me-Up is ready to be plucked from the store right now! This set is actually two digital files, a bouquet and the coordinating sentiment, that, after purchase, is emailed to you directly. You then save the jpg image files from the email, print them out, and get to making a card the very same day. Nifty stuff right there!

I love the idea that the flowers in this bouquet could have been picked during a tip-toe through the winter garden ... snapping off a few pussy willow branches, bending down and rooting around in the leaves to get the glad-faced crocuses, and then, a few sweet snowdrops of course! Who wouldn’t be happy with a handful of that? A pick-me-up for sure.

Hope you’ll take some time to traipse through the blogs of the Bloom Brigade to see some of the snappy cards they’ve made with this set!

Christine Okken
Tosha Leyendekker
Stacy Morgan
Katie Sims
Leslie Miller

We’ve got another set coming on Sunday that’s part of my Winter Blitz Collection of digis for December. Can ya wait for it? I’ve already given you a peek...