Sunday, March 14, 2010

Sneek Peek day 1: A Beautiful Life, Fairy Tales, and Sending Sunshine

Welcome to Day 1 of our sneak peeks! First we have my new set, "A Beautiful Life"! Your response was so overwhelming to my holiday "Festive Frame" set, I just had to create another floral frame that you could use year round, with beautiful greetings for ALL occasions! "A Beautiful Life" features these graceful tulips inside a border and surrounding an oval, to which you can then add your favorite photos, images or the new greetings from this set, and beyond. Tulips are among most people's favorite flowers, and not only for spring, they are the most versatile "occasion" flower, as appropriate for a wedding or birthday as they are a memorial. Creating beautiful cards is a breeze with this set that requires no masking of the images or time thinking about a special layout, it fills up the whole front!
A large "beautiful" greeting is included, that acts as a base for most of the other greetings in the set ((but not all, wait till you see some of the other heart-melting sentiments! I bet we'll spot a few on our hop today!) , just stamp the occasion you want around it and you can wish someone a beautiful wedding or day, to simply "hello beautiful!" You will also love the little bee and butterfly images I've included in this set, they are a wonderful addition to bring all your nature cards "to life" as well as coordinating with all my other floral sets from Gina K Designs, like you just stepped out into the garden! :) I made the borders pop with a white Koh-i Noor pencil and colored the butterfly and tulips with Strong Red, Cardinal Copics, and Willow and Spanish Olive for the leaves. Shadows drawn with Warm Gray 1.
Here I made a Mother's Day card on Kraft CS, making the inside flap a little wider so you could see this punched border on the white liner from the front, just a different way to use this frame! :) I cut out the oval, so you could see my greetings and butterfly on the inside. I doodled on the dotted trail with a pen and added a few pearls...

Now since I have "A Year of Flowers"(heh heh!), I couldn't resist stamping more tulips inside over the cut outs. (You could also make the arrangement on the front even fuller by adding your other favorite blooms from the set to complement the tulips if you wished, enjoy customizing it!)
I cannot wait to show you more projects with this set, it's becoming one of my favorites after stamping with it just a week! (It will be great for mini albums and framing up your favorite Easter photos, too!)

Next we have Tami Mayberry's "Fairy Tales" set, I picked my favorite images and greeting from it to make this sample. The doodling and whimsy of the Sugar Rush paper is perfect with this set and fun, wonky font she used in the quote!
The oval border is from the new Stamp TV kit (you'll see that on Day 3!) After adding the greeting, I popped up Tami's crown, blinged up with rhinestones, and the winged heart below. Now it has kind of a "mirror, mirror, on the wall" effect! (Ribbon and Black Onyx and new Bubblegum Pink CS are also from the upcoming kit.) :) Here is a closeup to show the detail.
I added little white dots to the heart to match the hearts in the DP, and I LOVE what that little bit adds! :) Using the fine tip of your different markers, making the letters different colors (remember doing that in school? LOL!) for the words you want to pop really brings your attention to them and makes it extra "happy happy"...!

My next card uses Theresa's "Sending Sunshine" set. Perfect for Spring, it has several lovely park images, my favorite being this lazy tree and tire swing, can't help but think back to simpler, innocent times! I started with a Kraft base and stamped my tree on Pure Luxury White. After coloring the tree (a wisteria, you can really have fun choosing the colors for your flowers!) I stamped the tire onto scratch paper so I could cut off the rope part of the image (if you want to it's very easy to just stamp it in the spot you wanted, but I chose to make something interactive this time!) and then tied on some hemp twine, perfect for the old rope (here is the jute Gina K sells). The color is perfect with the natural Kraft! Poke a hole through the branch on the tree with a piercing tool and thread your twine through.
Place a sheet of scratch paper over the top two thirds of your scene and sponge in some green ink until you are satisfied with your grass. TIP: Don't worry about getting it completely even, having some lighter areas will create the illusion of beautiful sunlight filtering through the tree and creating dappled patches. Remove the paper and sponge in just a bit of aqua ink, this will create a clear, bright day!


Here you can see the motion (I dare you try not to give it a few pushes if you received a card like this, irresistable, hee hee! wheeeeeee!) ;)
I kept the layout really simple as you can see, adding the greeting (love this clean modern font!), a few Spring buttons and a mat of Vibrant Violet to bring out the purple in tree. :)

Are you ready for even more inspiration?



Then, visit these Illustrator's blogs of these new stamp sets:


Melanie Muenchinger - A Beautiful Life (thanks for visiting!)

Theresa Momber - Sending Sunshine

Tami Mayberry - Fairy Tales

Finally, check out these Designer's blogs:



Jennie Harper - our Guest Designer for this Month!

StampTV is celebrating it's first birthday and the festivities are in full swing with this month's release! We'll be holding this month's Release Party on StampTV and couldn't be more excited about all that Gina has planned for everyone! The party kicks off this Thursday, March 18th starting at 7pm and ends at 10pm (all times CST) when all the new products will be available for purchase in Gina's online store.

To keep informed of all the party plans and activities, check out this link:

40 comments:

  1. Wow Mel - those are all awesome! I absolutely love what you did with Tami's set - the highlighted letters are just too fun!

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  2. Eeks, love your cards Mel! Your Beautiful Life card is GORGEOUS..... and love the way you used the oval with the crown. The coloring on the tree is just fabulous :o)

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  3. Your tulip card is just gorgeous. I love what you did with the little swing!

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  4. WOW! Your first card is so gorgeous! And your next 2 cards are so cute and creative! I'm loving the fairy tales set and even though I'm afraid of realistic flowers, I think I can handle tulips. Yeah! LOL! I think I have to have that one to show off your talent :)

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  5. OMG, you know I loving how you used that kraft with your set, AWEsome! As all of your creations are, love that tire swing too!

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  6. OMG! you know I am drooling for this new set!!! yes...actual drool!!! LOL
    and love those other two as well - that tire is too cute!

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  7. Melanie, you and Theresa come up with the most beautiful stamp sets. The others are great too, but I migrate to your delicate designs. Another must have!

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  8. Melanie, these are amazing! Gorgeous coloring and that tire swing is so cool!

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  9. Oh. My. Word. Your tulips are just gorgeous and where is this bee of which you speak? I must see it!
    The tire swing is too cool and I am in LOVE with your mirror, mirror frame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  10. All of your cards tonight are amazing! Looks like another beautiful set from you Melanie!

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  11. You KNOW I love those tulips!!! LOVE that card... just fabulous!! Like how you used Tami's set and that swing is adorable!

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  12. The Mother's day card is beautiful! Lovely, lovely work!

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  13. Wow! Great cards Mel!! Love the tulips done on kraft and that moving tire swing is tooooo cute!!!

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  14. Ohhhh breathtaking tulips!!!!!!! I love the peekaboo design!!! And the tire swing!!!!! You are too cool!!!

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  15. I knew I was going to love the tulip frame from the moment I saw the snip it last week and I was right. Love your samples too - lead me to the shopping cart!

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  16. Such wonderful samples of these new sets. I absolutely love your Beautiful Life card and can't wait to see the rest of the sentiments.

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  17. They are all perfectly gorgeous cards and fun sets!

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  18. Melanie,
    As always your cards are amazing. Love,love,love the new tulip set.
    and that swing how wonderful is that! :)

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  19. I love the tulip card! Gorgeous!

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  20. Beautiful cards, Melanie! Awesome coloring and design on all of them! The swing is really cool!

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  21. This is absolutely beautiful! I am going to have to get those stamps! Love your technique!

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  22. Great cards! And lots of wonderful ideas floating around today! I see some must have sets already! Thanks for the inspiration.

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  23. Amazing! Love the new frame! Your creations are fabulous!

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  24. Mel, your cards are awesome! The tire swing is genius!

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  25. I love the tulips on the craft paper! And the "girlie" card is sooooo cool! Who wouldn't love it!

    But my favorite is the tree with the swing. PERFECT!

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  26. OMGosh these are all beautiful! Melanie - I have to tell you - I can't take it anymore - I ADORE your stamp designing style! This new set is stunning, and the fact that it goes with several other sets... :) I'm hopeless - now to start scheming, er, I mean planning on when I can add to my Melanie M. stamp collection! ;)

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  27. Beautiful cards!!!! I LOVE the new set....can't wait to get my hands on it.

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  28. Melanie - I love all your cards. And the tire swing...absolutely wonderful!

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  29. My goodness, but your samples today are gorgeous! Love your new set!

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  30. The Mother's Day card is Georgous, but the Tree with Tirer Swing IS THE BEST!!!! Can't wait to see this complete set.

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  31. You have wonderful images and ideas and make beautiful cards. TFS your talents.

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  32. beautiful. LOVE how you used those images from the fairy tales set---awesome way to frame the sentiment! and your tulip frame is beautimous!

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  33. Wonderful cards! Thanks for the peek at the sets - I can't wait to see the full sets.

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  34. Amazing cards and sets, loving them all!

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  35. Awesome cards Melanie! You're new set is gorgeous.

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  36. Melanie, your cards are fabulous!! I adore your new stamp set and had so much fun playing with it for the previews! I can't wait to see what else you've made with it!

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  37. Wow, amazing cards, Mel. The red tulips with the kraft is lovely, as the other cards.

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  38. Oh..I love the tulip card...will have to get that set for sure. The card with the swing is clever too.

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  39. All three are awesome cards. The mothers day card is so BEAUTIFUL. The sending you sunshine card is very unique, I love the tire swing.

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