Tempting Sentiments & Paper! (AND a CHALLENGE!)

This giveaway is now closed. Check this post to see if you won! :)

I am thrilled to have Patricia from Paper Temptress involved today, she has generously offered THREE packs of paper, each valued at 19.99, so today we will have three winners, woo hoo!! The Pop Tones 2 cardstock pack is a sampling of all 24 of the Pop Tones colors (you get two of each!) and I'm totally diggin' on the mouthwatering names and shades. Here are some of my faves from this pack! (colors can be purchased individually too!)

I will be back later to show you in a separate post more color comparisons for you to help you get a better feel for these shades, but I will include some for today's sample! (AND, my new Copics arrived today so my Ciao collection is complete! (hip hip hurray!) I would like to do a color match of these with the Paper Temptress shades for you ASAP, I'll let you know when i'm done!)
Berrylicious is a dead ringer for one of my faves, the RETIRED Cool Caribbean!! (no need to hoard your stash anymore!) Snow Cone is a great alternative to the also RETIRED Soft Sky!! How many of you have both matching inks already, LOL!! ;)

The Tangy Orange is such a vivid red-orange. you cna see how much brighter it is than SU!'s rust. I had to throw the Ruby Red in the pic, because the brown of the rust had me thinking it was like ruby, until I put them together.. .nope! so much brighter! love it!

Gumdrop Green is almost a perfect match ot Su!'s retired Wild Wasabi... :) me like!!

Today's sample uses a quote from my "Say it With Flowers" greeting set. When I selected "When words escape, flowers speak", for this set (which I LOVE!!) I honestly was thinking more about those hard to write sympathy/loss cards. But as I wanted to work in some of these colors for today's sample, I realized there are many happy times too that you just can't say enough how much you mean what you're feeling! So I'm using it on a "fun" card for the first time, I love how exuberant it, turned out, says "happy HAPPY!" loud and clear!

All DP is Basic Grey Cupcake, I was able to find three great matches in these prints for my new Pop Tones papers! I also really wanted to use the Basic Grey Cupcake Glazed Brads I love but have been neglecting, so I poked those through a sateen flower and punched two more for flowers using an EK Success punch out of an ivory distressed print in the same Basic Grey pack. I framed up my quote first in a Square Nestabilitie and added the three flowers below with glue dots. Then I alternated scalloped and classic die cut layers of both DP and the Paper Temptress colors: Tangy Orange (love this fiery shade), Snow Cone ( so close to SU!'s retired Soft Sky (if you're having with withdrawal LOL!) and Gum Drop Green. Instead of using a whole 4 1/4" square, I cut it into 4 equal sections and staggered two so I could leave some white showing through (and I can save a little of that beautiful green paper for something else!) :) Gina K Pure Luxury White is my base.

I had some scrap leftovers so I decorated the inside of the card, too, shown here (It is really is such an extra treat for the recipient if you have the time to make the inside a work of heart, too!) but I want to suggest that this could be your simple version for the outside of a card! "forever grateful" is also from the "Say it With Flowers" set, you can cover almost any occasion with the individual words his set includes! This card has SO many more layers than I normally use, but this paper is 65lb, lighter than my colored SU! paper so you really don't feel how much paper you've added, won't add extra postage to my card, which I like! : )

TIP: To get my sentiment just right, I placed the embellishment I knew I wanted on top of my round acrylic block(you've gotta get these!), which was centered on top of my scalloped mat. I added my words above and below, removed the flower and stamped... ta da!! perfect. :) Then I added the inside flower with another gluedot.

This card has inspired today's challenge: create a project that features a sentiment in some way. How would you show it off? It could be fancy or simple, but something that makes "a statement with your statement" LOL! Please upload you project to SCS or PCP with the keyword GKDMB1 (linking it here would be helpful, too if you can!) by Tuesday January 7th, 9 PM CST, I will pick a winning project and the winner will receive a guest designing spot next month and my January release, coming soon (you will LOVE it!!) I would love for you to use one of my stamps if you can, but if not, please play along anyway! (I expect to have hundreds of projects to pick from , you hear?!) ;)

So who will win today's prizes?* Leave a comment here to enter, today I would like you to go through the Gina K Gallery on SCS and or Papercraft Planet(thanks so much for letting me know about all your faves on here, that is very helpful!) , and link a favorite creation you find that uses any of my stamp sets (or one from your very own blog!) so we all can see!! Check back for the winners tomorrow and more fun samples and FREE stuff! EDITED TO ADD: Okay, very few people are following the directions on this so far LOL!! I asked you to link a card using one of MY stamp sets in the comment section, most are not leaving a link or they are linking to a card that uses someone else's set, OR not even Gina K sets! (That's okay if you like it, but that's not the rules! Don't feel bad if you did, I will assume you haven't had your coffee yet;) ) Try this: check out the Pop Tone Colors and tell me which color or colors you like the best in this post!! (either answer will count as an entry, okay?)

After leaving your comment for the paper, here's today's blog hop (still can't believe how many of your favorite designers turned out for this (happy dance!!!)

Carolyn, Donna, Jessica, Lee, Michelle, Theresa, Carolina, Joanne , Jessie, and Gina K!! (check out THAT prize!!wow! My biggie (Copics!!)is coming up soon!!!) :)

*If you don't... guess what? Patricia has the PopTones on sale the entire month of January 25% off! :-O

PS There is another clue in this post for an upcoming sponsor...

PPS How do you like this "au naturale" backdrop for my cards? The way I've chosen to rearrange all my tools in my stamping space, I don't really have room to do my low-tech mock up of a photo tent(2 sheets of 12x12 white!) I'm kinda diggin it, you?