How Does Your Garden Grow?

Hello!  I’m popping in with a cute little design for The Cat’s Pajamas newest challenge, How Does Your Garden Grow?  There are a lot of different TCP sets that will work for this challenge, but I chose to go with two of the newest using What’s Up Gnomie?  and Big Blooms.  This time I used the flowers as intended as Agapanthus and gave them some pretty deep blue colour, fading into the green of the stems.  It’s really easy to do using a MISTI.  I ink up the tips of the flowers with blue ink first, and then come back with my green ink, re-ink the stamp and stamp the stems. 

I wanted our sweet little gnome to be hiding under the blossoms, tucked in the grass.  I coloured him with Copics, finishing with a little prismacolor pencil, especially to make grass blades.  

For the top of the main image I used a TCP CutUps die called Fancy Flip, using just the top portion of the die on the top portion of the panel.  This gave it a fun and interesting curve.  

I added the Hello from TCP’s CutUps Die called Hello There.  It’s a great little word die because of the great script, and you can alter it with a couple of snips to just say hello, which fit perfectly on the card.  

Just a note for all my TCP friends and fans out there, I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be taking a break from the Design Team at TCP for the next season to make some space for the demands of my job and those crazy kids of mine.  I know the TCP and the Cat Pack will continue to bring you fun and whimsical delights in the mean time.  Thanks for all your support for the great things at The Cat’s Pajamas!

Don’t forget about the Challenge!  

Here are the details:

1. Each month 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 day of the next challenge the winner will be chosen from the previous challenge and will receive a Cat Cash Voucher for $50.

Under Glass

Hello Friends!  I’m so delighted you stopped by today, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the last week of sneak peeks for Power Poppy’s Abundance Collection!  Today we’re showing off the final set, and I think we’ve saved the best for last!  This set allows you to create precious little vignettes that can work on their own, or under a little glass dome, also called a Cloche.  A Cloche has some fun vintage history because they were designed to keep plants warm in chilly temperatures, but now it’s a very popular design trend to display sweet things together.  It is just like Marcy to create her own little collections of things that work beautifully together, and she does it so skillfully again in this set,  called Under Glass.  

There are so many lovely collections in this set that it was hard to pick which one I wanted to work with first.  I finally settled on this adorable little nest scene, with the book and greenery.  It’s coloured up with Copics.  Then, I trimmed the cloche out and placed it on a little sponged scalloped circle.  I chose to do a tall and skinny card design for this one, it seemed to fit the petite-ness of the little pretties in the cloche.  The card is 3 3/4 x 5 1/2.  

Isn’t that the sweetest little scene?  I added a bit of speckle for those little eggs in the nest.   A little strip of plaid paper, a bright orangey-yellow ribbon and some enamel dots add a bit of the colour.  This set has some really sweet sentiments in it, but I chose to use a sentiment from our first set we showed you this week, Vibrant Thanks, because of that lovely little scripty Hi.  

Sorry about the haphazard collection here of the Copics I used, but this was another one that I coloured when I was visiting my mom and dad, so I grabbed them all quickly and snapped a shot with my phone.  

Now all of these amazing sets in the Abundance Release are AVAILABLE!  And did you hear about Marcy’s new promotion?   It’s a fabulous one!  

Here’s the rest of the Bloom Brigade showing off for you on Release Day...

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
and Marcy at the Power Poppy Blog

Abundant Dahlias

Today we’re bringing you another fabulous flower in the Power Poppy Garden.  Here’s Dahlia XL!  This is the second addition to our XL collection of supersize flower stamps — a Dahlia modeled on the exquisite and popular cultivar 'Cafe au Lait’. 

Its such a beautiful stamp!  Those curly dahlia leaves are gorgeous to add colour to!  I went a wee bit away from the Cafe au Lait Dahlias and used a colour palette found in another type called Crichton Honey Dahlias because in some of their varities, they go from a deep burgundy inside the curls, to a light soft peach or even yellow.  The Crichton Honey variety have really tight curls, not fluffy ones like this one, but it’s always good to use your imagination when you’re colouring.  

I trimmed this beauty out and added some pretty leaves tucked in behind it, laying it all on a layer of watercolor paper that I had given a peach/pink background wash to.  

I added some gold touches with the sentiment, edging the peach cardstock in gold and adding some pretty peachy pink and gold sequins.  This card is 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 so it really makes a statement.  

The Bloomies will show off mad colouring skills today with this one!  Just go check them out!  One more day till all of these goodies will be released and psst.....Marcy has an awesome promotion starting tomorrow too!  Don’t miss it!  Thanks so much for stopping by today!  

Allison Cope
Christine Okken (you are here)
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
and Marcy at the Power Poppy Blog!

Tree of Life

Today we’re delighted to show off our third new set from Power Poppy in the Abundance Release!  This set called Tree of Life showcases a gorgeous tree in all stages of blossom, full leaf and abundant fruit at the same time.  When I think of abundance this really fits the bill.  There are lovely little birds perched in the tree as well as another you can place wherever you like, and even a little squirrel you can tuck under the tree.  

For this design I thought that it would be neat to also showcase colour transforming from bottom to top to illustrate growth and blooming in the same way Marcy showed us so many stages of the tree at once.  So from bottom to top I used more purples and deep greens in the lower third of the tree and fruit, moving to mid-greens  and deep reds in the middle to yellow-greens in the top.   It has a neat effect I think.  

I also created that same effect with my strip of designer paper by sponging the panel with different shades from deep bluey-purple, to a lighter purple to yellow on top.  It all works with the green/turquoise and purple tones of the paper.  

I like that sentiment too, I just said to my husband the other day, “I need to be in the mountains at least a couple of times a year for my spirit.”  I think that works with trees too!

A few sparkly Nuovo dots accent the design to finish it off and keep it simple so that all that lovely colouring is center stage.  This is another one of those cards where I used about 50 markers to bring it all together, so no picture of them today :) 

Here’s the Bloom Brigade showing off Tree of Life for you today.  I know you’ll enjoy what they have to show you!  

Allison Cope
Christine Okken (you are here)
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
and Marcy at the Power Poppy Blog!

It’s that Pure Prairie Spirit

Today we’re all about that Pure Prairie Spirit at Power Poppy....its that zest for life, full of vibrant sunshine, and it comes to you a little untamed.  This new set from Marcy takes its cues from an earlier release of Pure Prairie Bouquet in digital form.  So many of you asked for it to be released in polymer, and now it is!  What’s fun is that you can use the monarch butterflies in the set wherever you want and there’s a new bunch of lovely sentiments as well.    The little collection of flowers features a mix of wildflower favorites such as coneflower, New England asters, tickseed, little bluestem, purple prairie clover, bee balm, and Indian paintbrush.  

This pretty bouquet is so full of pizazz that I had a hard time deciding what colours to use for my paper choices. Then when I placed it on this turquoise background which mimics the colours I used to colour the background, the image really popped.  I die cut the image into a circle to really fill the frame and then added some plaid embossing to the background, some designer paper that really goes with the biggest coneflower bloom, and finished it off with some enamel dots and twine.   That cute little sentiment is perfect for one of those “anytime” cards.  

Here’s a quick peek that’s closer.  I added the butterfly popped up on a foam dot.  I used about 50 Copic markers for this one, so I didn’t take a picture, sorry!   What you will hopefully be able to see is that I used a lot of the colours from each flower, in the other flowers.  That way it ties the colouring together a bit.  

The Bloomies are all back in action again today to show off their Pure Prairie Spirit!

Allison Cope
Christine Okken you are here
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
and see what Marcy has to say at the Power Poppy Blog!

See you back here tomorrow!  Stay tuned for news about an awesome Abundance Promotion Marcy’s starting on Release Day!  

The Abundance Release Begins!

A very happy welcome to each of you stopping by today!  Power Poppy has a fabulous week ahead for you with brand new polymer sets created by Marcella Hawley, full of Abundance!  There’s so much beauty in store that it’s overflowing.  

Today we’re kicking it all off with a sweet set called Vibrant Thanks.  In it you’ll find three pretty sprigs of summer flowers and some stylish sentiments that make this thank-you set a must-have! Zinnia, Bee Balm and Coreopsis allow for multitudes of combinations with the various sentiments. 

I started off with the pretty zinnias to colour.  They are such a great cut flower and you can colour them in SO many different combinations, which is really fun.  After colouring this beauty up, I placed it on a couple of pieces of designer paper (MFT) and added a pop of vibrant orange ribbon, layering that over another piece of white cardstock that I used embossing paste and a stencil on to give it some texture.  I think those bright colours and the bright white pair well together.  

A few teeny iridescent jewels finish off the design.  

Here are the Copics I used....a quick photo taken when I was colouring at my parent’s place.  

There is so much beauty in store for you today from the rest of the Power Poppy Bloomies...be sure to pop by and leave your love!  All this beauty is coming at you each day over the next week, be sure you check back each day!  

Allison Cope
Christine Okken
Cindy Lawrence
Julie Koerber
Kathy Jones
Katie Sims
Stacy Morgan
Tosha Leyendekker
and Marcy and the Power Poppy Blog!