Planning for Magnolias

I've been thinking for a few days about The Challenge #73 over at Always Playing with Paper. The Challenges change each week and this week's image is actually one that I've played along with at another challenge back in March.  I wanted to really be inspired in a different way than what I previously did. Thankfully, I had happy mail today!  

I was looking through Pinterest the other night, trying to gather some inspiration as I sometimes do.  I have several boards there, but ones I frequently pin to are Color Combinations or Flora & Fauna.  I think you will always have a winning combination if you go with colors that already exists in nature.  For example, Pink and Green is a frequent floral combination seen everywhere in the spring.  I think there must be more pink flowers in the world than any other color although I try to enjoy them all.  But I came across an image that immediately grabbed my attention. I followed it (as I am inclined to do) and found a website called Power Poppy by Marcella Hawley.  OH. MY. WORD!  I stumbled upon some incredible digital images and clear stamp sets. The bad news is that not all the digital images are available in clear stamp sets because they are a new, young company, but the good news is that there are several stamp sets to choose from and one can hope that as they release new stamps that some of the digital favorites will make it into the collection.  

Marcella has enjoyed incredible success including Martha Stewart Living and Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion.  You can read about it HERE.  The images you see here are all her gorgeous photography influenced no doubt by her mother, whom she lost recently.  Her mother was a painter and illustrator for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City.

This beauty is one I have never seen or even heard existed before and is called Magnolia Coral Lake. Isn't the color just breathtaking? These images were the inspiration for the Planning for Magnolias Stamp Set by Power Poppy. The stamps are clear photopolymer and are a few dollars more than most on the market, but they are incredibly detailed while still giving you the outline image to paint or color as you wish.  They are by far, the most detailed and nicest floral images I have.  I felt that was worth the couple of dollars and I was so happy when they arrived in today's mail and solidified this opinion.  I checked this morning and saw that they were "out for delivery" by my mail carrier so I started checking and rechecking the status (a.k.a. STALKING) until it showed up as "Delivered" to my mailbox.  Then I knew I could go out and get the mail.  I wish you could have seen the smile on my face....

I am just not that in to Copic Coloring.  It doesn't soothe my soul the watercolor does.  I totally appreciate other people who can do it and I love seeing their creations but it is a last choice for me rather than a first choice.  I took some Copic Classes several years ago but I don't feel like I get most of my images to look the way I want them to so it's just not relaxing to me.  I know part of it is practice so I am doing that a bit, but watercolor is my first love.  Trust me when I tell you that I will be attempting to duplicate this gorgeous shading on a card soon. Today, I was after instant gratification so went with the color of the Tulip Magnolia at one of my daughters' homes in Missouri.  And as you know, Pink is a favorite. Actually, I feel like Coral is right up there with Pink these days, even more than purple.  It has to be the right shade and not too orange-y, but I do love it too.  

This card was super simple.  I used the largest bouquet from the Planning for Magnolias Stamp Set, stamped it with Versamark then heat embossed it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder.  I used a Zig Clean Color Real Brush Pen in Sugared Almond Pink to paint it, layering color where I needed to.  A tiny amount of Gathered Twigs and Forest Moss Distress Marker was all I needed to finish coloring this image.  All of the pink is done with just that one color. 

After that I die cut the panel using the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die.  I re-aligned that into the die to cut a little off of two sides so I could mat it with the pink panel.  Then it was adhered to a top folding card base made from Olive Cardstock. When I use darker colored card bases I cut an extra stitched rectangle to go on the inside of the card. 

In case you are wondering, I find that watercolored images are "the show" on a card of this style.  They don't need a lot of other distractions such as patterned paper going on so I prefer to keep the look of my cards clean and classic. I really admire those who can incorporate a lot of pattern and color in their cards but it's not for me.  

I'll be entering this over at the CAS Mix Up Challenge using Stamping, Heat Embossing and my choice which is Watercolor for this card.  

Thank you for stopping by to see my creation and read my blog post.  I hope you'll look around over at Power Poppy.com.  It means the world to me when you take time to comment.  Have a great weekend everyone!