Memory Box/Poppystamps Blog Hop

Greetings everyone!  Today I am participating in a blog hop between the Memory Box and Poppystamps designers.  I use a lot of products from both companies in my classes, and it is a lot of fun to mix the two for a project.

The theme of the hop is "Holiday Gift Tags and Treats," and I wanted to mix the Cute Cottage and Frosted Roof and Ledges from Poppystamps with some candy dies from Memory box.  To embellish my gingerbread house, I used the Goodie Gumdrops Die and the Tiny Candy Canes die.  I cut the candycanes out of white paper and then drew lines onto them with a red pen.  I worked on a method for making the gumdrops more realistic that we did in one of my classes.  Here is a close up of the gumdrops:

To make the gumdrops, I cut them out of white paper, colored them with an assortment of Copic markers, added some liquid glue from Art Glitter (dries clear), and dipped the gumdrops into Tim Holtz Rock Candy dry glitter.  That glitter is really chunky, and I thought it looked the most like sugar on the finished gumdrops.  I could have cut the gumdrops out of different colors of paper, but that would have taken longer.

As an inexpensive holiday gift, I tied a big red ribbon around a bunch of candy canes and then attached my gingerbread tag:

Of course, if you didn't want a tag, you could also turn the gingerbread house into a card:

Now it is time to continue your journey on the hop.  Here are a list of today's designers:

Memory Box- Donna Sledzik

Poppystamps 

Laura Fulcher (you are here)

Michele Henderson

Jennifer Van Pelt

Rudlis / Irena Kowalczyk 

Marnie Bushmole

Teo / Ilona Zbieg   

Yoonsun Hur  

Be sure to leave comments on each of the designers' posts.  You will have a chance to win a prize from Birch Press Design. You can leave comments through December 10th.  The winner will be posted on the Memory Box blog on December 15th.

Dave Brethauer, the owner and creator of Memory Box and Poppystamps, has a new venture called Birch Press Design that features letterpress, laser cut, and printed card designs, as well as beautiful products for your home.  The Day 2 blog hop prize is a Tea Towel of your choice.

For a second chance to win – like Birch Press Design on Facebook, and share the post about the hop.  One person who does both will win a prize from Birch Press Design.    

The next person on the hop list is Michele Henderson 

Cherry Blossoms

I can't begin to tell you how glad I was for the weather we had this weekend!  I am really ready for Spring and more time outside!

I live in the DC area, so I definitely associate Spring with cherry blossoms.  I am teaching a cherry blossom card class twice this month, and I thought I would share a couple of cards from the class.

The card posted above uses a cherry blossom embossing folder from Darice, a cherry blossom stamp from Hot off the Press, and a saying from Impression Obsession.  I colored the flowers and leaves with watercolor pencils.  Once again, I had to do an image search for cherry blossoms and saw some pink blossoms had dark pink centers, and some had a yellowish center.  I went for the dark pink

For the second card, I used the Sakura image from Poppystamps and a saying from Impression Obsession.  I stamped my image in pink Versamagic onto heavyweight vellum and then colored the images from behind using a pink Copic marker.

I hope everyone had a wonderful, sunny weekend!

O Happy Day

Did you know that Dave Brethauer, owner of Memory Box, started a new stamp company? It is called Poppystamps, and has whimsical animal and people images. I started my collection with "Petunia Petals." Isn't she sweet? For some reason, she just spoke to me.

To make the card, I stamped my image onto some of the new Lemonade Basic Grey paper and colored her with Prismacolor pencils. I then added a saying from Memory Box and layered everything onto more Basic Grey patterned paper and Memory Box cardstock.

Here is a close-up of the coloring:

If you would like to check out more of the Poppystamps collection, you can click on the blinkie below:

In other news, the Impression Obsession and Shimmerz design teams are teaming up for a fun week of stamping and shimmer. Each day there will be new samples (some of them are sneak peeks of the HUGE Impression Obsession Fall/Winter release) that will inspire you to incorporate Shimmerz paints into your work. Shirley will post the IO information each day on the IO blog and you can also follow the Shimmerz blog to see what they are creating. I can't wait! I have been playing with Shimmerz a lot lately, and they are wonderful! I will be posting my card on Friday, so be sure to check back then!