Power Poppy's July Blog Hop!

Hi there and a big howdy do to you!  Have you enjoyed all of the release week goodness this week?  Marcella really knows how to host a shindig, doesn't she?  The flowers we have seen this week are nothing short of spectacular. Today is the official Power Poppy July Release Blog Hop.  This is your opportunity to get another round of inspiration from the Bloom Brigade, and let me tell you.....my team mates have quite a lot to show you today!  So....let's hop, shall we?  ;)

I chose to use the amazing Geraniums set again but I paired it with the sentiment from the Countryside Bouquet...it's ok to mix and match these things....no rules here.  :)  I think that while geraniums are quite showy in their color, they still strike me as a more humble flower.  They are not necessarily the swans of the flower garden, they just kind of "live simply" but "bloom wildly"....their gorgeousness is absolute but they just have that homey quality....ok, if good ol' home cookin' comfort food were a flower, I  personally think it would be a geranium...lol.  Your thoughts?  :)  Using that line of thinking and my recent adventures playing in the dirt in my own yard lately, I chose to do a more earthy, homey, feel good kind of card....and this is where geraniums fit right  in!  And  if you are going to color geraniums, why not go all the way with fire engine red?  Hee...so let's go RED !  :)

I first sized and printed my image out.  Next I die cut it out using the "Out of the Box" technique.  There is an awesome tutorial for this on the Splitcoast Stampers site here....if you have not seen it yet, it is wonderful! I usually color my image first then die cut, but not when I am doing the out of the box technique...you could accidentally render your image that you painstakingly colored...absolutely useless.  I still get chills thinking back to the horrible "Cherry Blossom Incident of 2014".....it was not pretty and it's still hard to talk about.  Anyways, if you can....just cut before you color for this technique.  

Sooo, geraniums being the "home-body" flower that they are, I thought a little dirt was in order.  I still had my spritzing tool left out on my table, so after coloring her up with  Copics, I set in to sponging and spritzing it with ink-it was loads of fun to get it all "dirty" and I love the effect!  There are so many ways you could color these geraniums up....there are leaf variegations and bloom variations so have fun finding your perfect geranium specimen to color!  I chose to do a leaf variegation with my bold red blooms. 

 Next up....the card layout.  This shape seemed to lend itself to a nice big square, so I went with it and just used a few layers of papers to build it up....if you are going to go rustic and homey, I think gingham and ticking stripe are the way to go, don't you?  Next I did some stitching around those pretty papers.  A little punched border to look like eyelet, some brown polka dot ribbon and a bit of twine feel right at home here too.  Of course, everything is getting a nice sponging of distress inks to age them up and now we can move on to our sentiment. I wanted my sentiment treatment to be simple, so I used  some kraft paper, printed my image and trimmed out a piece to have a little banner.  Some pinking shears made a nice edge, I spritzed and sponged more ink then sewed it to my assembled panel with a random back and forth stitch and then added a little paper clip just because.  To make your tag look really nice and worn, ball it up in your hand and then smooth it back out.....instant age!  ;)  I wanted it to look like the brown paper the nursery gives you to put in your trunk when you buy flowers so you don't get dirt everywhere and the rustic look of it does go with the overall feel of this card.  

Here is her close up....Hello, Pretty!  Didn't Marcella capture the beauty of geraniums to a tee?  The detail in all of her images really makes coloring them up pure joy.  And remember, this is a digital image, so you can make it as big or as small as you like....AND it is available for purchase now!  What could be better than that?!  Well, that is it for my card today....I hope you got a little inspiration here but you have got to see what the rest of the Bloom Brigade has created for you.....you are going to love it!  So go have fun!  Thanks so much for stopping by here...so glad you did and I look forward to your next visit soon!  Until then, take care!

Allison Cope 

Christine Okken 
Cindy Lawrence 
Danielle Kennedy 
Dawn Burnworth  
Julie Koerber 
Kathy Jones 
Katie Sims <------You are here
Leslie Miller 
Stacy Morgan 
Tosha Leyendekker


Supplies:  Images- Geraniums and Countryside Bouquet digital sets from Power Poppy; Inks-HP printer, Ranger Distress Inks in Antique Linen, Vintage Photo, and Peeled Paint, Stampin' Up markers in Early Espresso, Soft Suede, and rumb Cake (for use with spritzer tool); Paper-Patterned papers from My Mind's Eye 6x6 pad, Crumb Cake from SU!, Tonal neutrals and Classic White card stock from Flourishes; Dies-Spellbinders Labels Twenty Two and Grand Scallop Squares; Other-ribbon from SU!, twine from May Arts, paper clip from Tim Holtz, ink spritzing tool from Stampin' Up!, and these Copic colors:  G40, G43, G46, G29, YG91, RV95, RV99, R20, R21, R22, R24, R27, R29, and R59.