Current Mood for Power Poppy

Between work and other commitments it took me all week to get my card done for the current Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge but I finally got it finished up tonight! I had it colored days ago but it's been sitting on my desk waiting to be assembled into a card.

As soon as I saw these colors I instantly thought fall and wanted to use one of my favorite clear sets, Feeling Fall. This image with the boot and leaves is one of my all-time favs, I just love it!

I'm not a fan of purple so I always have a hard time incorporating it into my projects. Here I brought it in on the boots and the background paper. The yellow was brought in on some of the leaves and then the pop of orange is some of the leaves and the polka dot strip across the bottom of the card. I really like the way the orange pops against the purple!

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Power Poppy Neutrals

This week over at the Power Poppy blog Tosha is filling in for Julie as host of the Hues to Use challenge and she has a very thought provoking color palette for us...grayscale.

I have to admit, color challenges scare me to begin with, which is one of the reasons I always push myself to play along with the Hues to Use (well, that and Marcy has so many beautiful images that I want to color!) but when I saw what Tosha wanted us to do I was scared and intrigued! I immediately thought about doing some of the new mushroom images in grayscale but I'm not even going to lie, I tried it and hated it! Those images are now sitting in my circular file with a stream of naughty words still hanging in the air of my craft room. I walked away for a few days and decided to step back to the table this afternoon and grabbed the clear set Dynamic Duos: Glads and Gerberas for my next try.

I used my C copics to color in the gerberas, going with C0-C5. As I finished coloring I liked how it looked but I couldn't figure out a layout so I headed over to Pinterest to look at the Power Poppy board and their sketches. I found one that I thought would go good with this image and ran with it!

The patterned paper is some retired SU Neutrals DSP that I have in my stash and it was perfect for this challenge. I don't think the photo really does it justice, I really like how the card came out!

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Where Liberty Dwells

I was hoping that Power Poppy would have patriotic colors for their Hues to Use this week and they did not disappoint! I knew I wanted to use their free patriotic sentiments, I grabbed those last year as soon as I learned about Power Poppy, one can never have enough patriotic images or sayings!

I used the exact same paper for both cards, just switching it around along with the font color on the sentiments. Being a (retired) military family we still have tons of friends and family serving so these cards will be perfect for several occasions....boot camp graduations, military retirement, general military encouragement, etc.

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Strawberries and Cake for Hues to Use

I'm playing catch up on the Power Poppy Hues to Use challenges so I used a newly released digital stamp to play along with the hues from June 12. As soon as I saw the Tea Cake with Strawberries set I knew I wanted to use it with these colors!

I decided to make the frosting the pink color, and also brought in the pink on the cake stand and the polka dots on the cup. The yellow was brought in on the cake, teacup, lemon and the center of the flowers. The green is the leaves and the doily under the cake. I had to add some red to color in the strawberries and then a gray tone on the cake stand.

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Waiter, There's a Parakeet in my Teacup

If you didn't see, Power Poppy just had a HUGE digital blitz on Monday, adding 11 new digital images, plus another one was added today! I was like a kid at Christmas, I kept checking my computer all day on Monday to see what new images were being added. As a flower and nature lover Power Poppy stamps, both clear and digital, speak to my soul, I adore them!

I'm behind on the Hues to Use challenges by 2 weeks so I used one of the new digital images to play along with the colors released this week.....except there weren't any actual colors given to us. That's right, a photo was posted and this time WE get to choose the 3 colors from the photo that we want to use on our project. I decided to go with my top 3 favorite colors....blue, green and yellow.

The image I used is Waiter, There's a Parakeet in my Teacup and I just love it! I don't have the clear set it's from so I love that it was made into a digital stamp! I decided to go with a blue parakeet, as we had one when I was just a little kid. My parents named it Sam because they didn't know if it was a boy or girl and that name can go either way LOL I then used the 3 colors in the teacups and the plates. The patterned paper is some retired SU DSP that I've had forever. The yellow on my image is a tad brighter than the DSP but that's ok.

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Sweet Things for Hues to Use

It's still Monday here in Alaska so I'm getting the weekly Hues to Use over at Power Poppy done in time, wooohoo! The links are open ended but I like to push myself to get each challenge done before they post the next color combo. It doesn't always happen but I try!

This weeks colors are 2 grays and a rich yellow so I decided to go with the digital set Sweet Simple Things. The beehive is obviously going to be yellow but then I also decided to make the foxglove and cosmos yellow. There are yellow varieties of those flowers, I just don't think they're as popular as their pink/purple counterparts.

To bring in the gray I colored the stand the beehive is on with my cool grays and then I used SU Basic Gray as my card base. I had printed the main image out with the sentiment slightly below it so I trimmed the paper down, rounded the top corner edges, adhered it to the card base and then added a ribbon across the middle.

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Hops and Barley

A new Hues to Use challenge was posted over on the Power Poppy blog yesterday and as soon as I saw the colors I knew exactly what stamp I wanted to use, the Hops and Barley digital set. It's a stamp set I haven't used before but with Father's Day approaching I think it's good for some masculine cards and I love the warm hues of the challenge.

I created 2 cards, slightly changing the positioning of the stamp on each one, plus I used a different sentiment on each card. On the Hoppy Birthday card I used a lightly different green combo for the leaves than on the beer sentiment card. For the birthday card I also used my E40 copic to shade around the leaves and hops...it's a very subtle shading, I was too scared to do anything bolder LOL 

I brought in the maroon shade by coloring in portions of the "Hoppy" and "Beer" letters, plus I used some retired SU Bravo Burgundy for my card base.

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Santa's Zoomin' to Town

I finally got a card done for the Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge from May 8th. I've been running ideas through my head since first seeing the colors but I was in South Carolina the week the challenge came out and then I had to get over serious jet lag the following week LOL 

I thought Christmas as soon as I saw these fun bright colors and so I grabbed a set that I hadn't inked up yet, Power Poppy's Action Santa. How fun is this Santa on his scooter? I smile every time I see this image!

The patterned paper is some from S.E.I  that I've had in my stash for a while and it was the perfect color to go with the blue in the graphic. I also incorporated the blue through the scooter and the packages on the back. The red was brought in on the card base, the scallop circle and of course Santa's outfit, plus a package. The green was brought in on the strip across the middle and the Christmas tree.

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Just for You

This week at Sunday Stamps we have a fun sketch courtesy of Annette! It took me a while to think of how to use the circle but when I saw the colors for the current Hues to Use over at the Power Poppy blog I knew I wanted to combine the 2 challenges.

I used the Dahlia XL clear stamp from Power Poppy and colored it in with the peach and pink colors and then I used 2 circle dies from MFT to cut the inner and outside circles. I popped the inner circle up with dimensionals to get the distinction between that and the outer ring. I layered the circles on some SU DSP and for the "any shape" portion of the sketch I made a sentiment banner and then to finish off the bottom portion of the sketch I used some retired SU Calypso Coral ribbon.

The green in the color challenge was brought in with the DSP going across the bottom and in the middle of the flower. My peach color is a bit brighter than the photo so hopefully it still works!

Head on over to the Sunday Stamps blog to see what the rest of the DT created and then play along with us! You can also play along with the Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge....a new one is posted every Tuesday but the links are open ended, so you can play along any time you want, there is no deadline!

Acorn Ornaments Christmas

For this card I'm playing along with the Power Poppy Hues to Use from last week. I love these colors, nice and dark and masculine, but I was stumped on how to use them. I kept scrolling through my Power Poppy digital stamps and pulling out my clear stamps but nothing jumped out at me. It wasn't until I was at the movie theater watching Infinity War and a character said a line that got me thinking and boom, I went home and printed off the Acorn Ornaments digital stamp. Inspiration comes from the funniest places sometimes!

I tried to get the 2 different blues on the acorns but they ended up looking pretty similar so I tried to bring in the lighter blue by using some retired Not Quite Navy DSP from SU. The other papers I used are Baked Brown Sugar, also retired, and soon-to-be retired Night of Navy (I'm crying over this, I love that blue!). I used a silver gel pen on the hooks and ribbon to bring a little sparkle to the image.

My layout is from the sketch posted last week at The Paper Players. Since I had die cut the acorns in a circle it was perfect to use. The sentiment is from the clear set Rustic Rejoicing.

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Wonderful As You

I just love the colors for this week's Hues to Use over at Power Poppy. the pumpkin orange and green are just so pretty. I almost went with a fall themed card but decided to go with a simple Mother's Day one.

I took the Chinese Lantern digital stamp and manipulated it with the computer so that it overlapped itself a few times around corners of the card. I then took a sentiment from the Gladioli digital set and added that beneath the flowers, changing the text color to orange to match the flowers. To bring in the off white color I used a T1 copic to shade around the image.

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Reely Great Day

My nephew turned 21 on April 2nd  but he is still going through boot camp for the Army so I needed to make a card to send him. He loves to go fishing with my husband and our youngest so I thought this digital image from Power Poppy would be perfect for him.  He ended up moving units a few days before his birthday and I just got his new address the other day so I finished up his card last night and got it in the mail today. I used the colors from Power Poppy's March 27th Hues to Use challenge.

Fly Guy Fathers Day

There is a new Hues to Use challenge up on the Power Poppy blog and I really love these colors, they are nice and masculine. I sat there for a bit thinking about what set I could use and decided to use the Fly Guy digital set. My husband loves fly fishing and this image always makes me think of him.

The cream color was brought in on the rocks, some of the grass and reflection in the water. The green is the grasses, his clothing and the fish. The brown was used on his waders and hat, rocks and the bottom edges of the grass.

Easter Wishes

For this card I played along with the Power Poppy Hues to Use challenge from March 6. It took me a while to think of something because of the pink and purple hues. We all know how much I love those colors, not LOL They always stump me but I scrolled through my Power Poppy digi's and finally settled on this Easter image. 

I decided to color the egg purple and the ribbon and flower the pink. Then I brought the pink in some more with the background paper and used the green for the leaves and the background paper. My purple isn't as vibrant as the one in the graphic though.

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Be Happy

As soon as I saw this sketch at Clean and Simple Stamping I knew it would be perfect for a Power Poppy image. I decided to use the Geraniums Take Two set and also played along with the current Hues to Use challenge, which is a bright pink, white and black (at least that's what it looks like to me!).

I colored the geraniums the pink and then brought in the dark color on the pots. I also used black for the card base and for the strip of DSP along the left side. I tried to keep my leaves on the flowers a darker green and more neutral instead of a bright green.

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Be Yourself

I'm almost caught up with the Hues to Use challenges over at the Power Poppy blog! I love that they leave these challenges open so that we can go back and join in the fun whenever we can. This one is from Jan.23 and I just have one more to make up from around Christmas, wooohoo!

For these rich colors I decided to use the Hyacinth Bulb in Glass digital stamp set. The hyacinth are supposed to be the rich plum color but they turned out a tad brighter than I really wanted. Oh well, they still look pretty and I think it's still very close to the plum shade! For the grayish beige color I used my warm gray copics to color in the roots of the flower and I also outlined the image with the gray. The card base is the dark plum color.

This image is perfect for one layer cards, although I guess my card isn't a true one layer card...close enough though :)

Pretty in Pink Tulips

After typing out the blog post title I now have that song in my head...I know I'm dating myself but who else loves the song Pretty in Pink by the Psychedelic Furs....not the movie version but the main version? I love it! Ok, back on track :)

This week for the Power Poppy Hues to Use pink is once again in the colors. I really struggle with pink and so I had to go through my Power Poppy images to see what would work for me. I ended up going with the Tulips Digital Stamp Set and colored them with the dusty rose color. The green is obviously the stems and a pop of it on the patterned paper. I brought in the gray by using it as the card base and as a layer behind the image panel.

From Your Biggest Fan

I've still got a few Power Poppy Hues to Use Challenges to catch up on, so these cards use the colors from Jan.30. I'm also playing along with the Power and Spark Challenge again with the theme of love. It's so easy to join this challenge with the Va-Va-Valentines Digital Set!

I took these colors and just switched them out on the elements...using the green for the fan blades on one, yellow on the other. I did the same with the background paper, just switching up the colors for each layer. I don't care for the color pink so I kept it to a minimum, using it only for the hearts and lettering.

 Nice and simple cards, just like I like it :)

Love You

Today's card features a brand new digital image from Power Poppy called Blossoming Cherry. I really love this stamp because it makes me think of my grandma. Her and my grandpa used to travel all over the US by train and they used to go to Washington D.C. quite often. Grandma always loved it when the cherry blossoms in DC were in bloom, she thought they were so beautiful.  

I took the image and put it on my Word document twice, then I turned the branches to try and form a heart shape to fold around the sentiment.

There are a few challenges I played along with for this card.....the colors are from the current Power Poppy Hues to Use, the theme of love and the use of sparkle (I used silver Stickles in the middle of the open flowers) is for the Power Poppy Monthly Power and Spark challenge and last but not least the love theme is also for the Be My Valentine theme at The Paper Players.

Daffodils for Power Poppy

I'm still playing catch up for Power Poppy's Hues to Use and this card was made using the colors from their Jan.1 challenge. 

As soon as I saw the yellow in the colors I instantly thought of the set Daffodils. I colored the larger image in the set and had to add a touch of purple for the hyacinth in the bouquet. The layout is from one I found on pinterest, I believe it came from Operation Write Home when they were active.