Floral Smorgasbord

Happy Saturday!

I'm super happy that the spring stamping season is upon us. I look forward to the floral releases when we are still suffering the indignities of winter. I realize that I'm not allowed to complain about our tiny winter, but I do what I want. I am not a fan of rain or grey skies, which is what our winter is primarily made up of.

So when I start seeing poppies and roses and daisies, I rejoice. Today is no exception.

Poppies are my favorite. They're so BOLD and different. Our Natural Gardener store's property is covered with poppies - it's the first thing you see when you come around the last curve to the business. It makes me happy. I really need to try to grow them - for some reason they intimidate me.

But they do NOT intimidate me on paper - not even a little bit.

I spent some quality time with a clipboard and this stunning new poppy image - it's nearly card front sized, so that makes watercolor dreamy. I actually only used four pigments for this - all out of the "Lydia" split in my Daniel Smith split group on Facebook. It's a hand-selected split of the Daniel Smith colors I use most. If you are interested in purchasing a split (splitting the tubes among several people to make them less expensive) request to join here. Be sure and answer the questions!

Anyway - I find that you can do a LOT with 4-6 pigments. For this flower, I used Indian Yellow, Pyrrol Scarlet, Carbazole Violet and Undersea Green. See how I added a bit of the red to the leaves like a reflection? I love doing that. This image was stamped first in Fadeout Ink.  I decided it didn't need a sentiment, so I left it as is and mounted it on Kraft cardstock.

 But the die set for this stamp set is PERFECT for loose watercolor - it just cuts the layering shape of the poppy, and so you can paint them all separately and then just assemble them. I paired them with the awesome peek-a-boo sentiment die that's out this month - made to cut a greeting out of the card front, and then on the inside of the card, you can stamp patterns from the matching stamp set, or do what I did here and line the inside of the card with Key Lime Cardstock. I used the same four pigments on this poppy.

 And then, because I can't get enough of Key Lime and Red Hot and Kraft ink together, I stamped this builder image (it has a little orientation tab on each stamp to make lining these up more easily.)

I added the hello die from this turnabout stamp set and die bundle. This is a five minute card, and I LOVE these fill-in sets - they help me make ink be the star of the card.

There are more goodies in this release today that you need to check out. I have them all linked below. I love the critter dies in this set. SO much fun.You can always hit the buy it all button too - my favorite button at Concord & 9th.

All the products I used are linked below - and before I forget - when I published my post yesterday, I forgot to include the discount code for the paint. Click here and use code understandblue3 to get 10% off site wide.

Pretty Poppy [ C&9 ] Pretty Poppy Dies [ C&9 ] Petite Posie - Free With Purchase [ C&9 ] Floral Print Silhouette [ C&9 ] Floral Print Silhouette Dies [ C&9 ] Hey There Turnabout [ C&9 ] Hey There Dies [ C&9 ] Peek Through Patterns [ C&9 ] Peek Through Patterns Dies [ C&9 ] February Release Bundle [ C&9 ] Fabriano Extra White Cold Press... [ BLIC ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- Black... [ GNK ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- Key Lime [ GNK ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- Kraft -... [ GNK ] Fadeout No Line coloring Detail Ink [ INK ] VersaFine Clair Ink Pad, Nocturne -... [ ELH | SSS ] GKD Color Companions Ink Pad- Key Lime [ GNK ] Gina K. Designs Red Hot Ink [ GNK ] GKD Color Companions Ink Pad- Kraft -... [ GNK ] Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors [ BLIC ] Escoda Versatil Brushes, Travel Round... [ UTR | BLIC | INK ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSW | HA | SSS | ELH | MFT | UNT ] Cut Align [ MSW ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | ELH | CST | ART ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Nesting Porcelain Bowls - BLICK art... [ BLIC ] My Favorite Watercolor Sketchbook [ UTR ] Tombow MONO MULTI Liquid Glue Two... [ SSS | MFT ] LightView 2in1 LED Magnifier for... [ BRG ] Heavy Base Weight Card Stock- White [ GNK ] Mudder 10 Pack White Buffer Sanding... [ AMZUS ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Ink Off Cloth [ INK ] Essentials by Ellen Storage... [ ELH ] Die Storage - Clear Storage Pockets... [ CHC ] XL Stamp Storage Pockets [ ELH ]

Loveyameanitbye.