Sneak Peek: Pressed Flowers and O Baby

I'm so excited to present my newest set this month, because one of your favorite stamp sets is about to get even better! My February release "Pressed Flowers" contains bold images of all the classic flower elements you love in "A Year of Flowers", plus new sentiments! Like blooms preserved in a book, it will be a timeless addition to your stamp collection. On its own, "Pressed Flowers" can be used to make wonderful vintage cards or very stylized, trendy ones, perfect for creating year round cards in vibrant color using a variety of techniques like kissing, direct to stamping; but paired with "A Year of Flowers" you'll get exciting new two-step combinations without having to color, and there won't be a stamping technique you can't do with both sets. I'm really having a blast finally getting to play with both (this was a really hard one to wait for!) Although I adore coloring the line art with my Copics, I know not every one has them and sometimes you just don't have the time or inclination to color! With these you don't have to. No coloring on any of these flower samples today, unless you count scribbling on a stamp LOL!
This first card uses just "Pressed Flowers". I wanted to show direct to stamp as well as what beautiful custom backgrounds you can make to match them in any color, no need for DP! I inked up my flower with a light purple waterbased marker, loosely adding a darker purple to the middle and then yellow and darker mustard to the flower center before stamping, then stamping once again without reinking to create the second flower. I cut them out and popped them up over my stamped leaves and stems. the background I inked up just the flower in lavender and went back adding some green leaves, didn't even bother with masking, hee hee! I sponged on more purple ink to soften it and on my focal point before removing my Labels Eight Die. "Bloom" on the tag is also from this set, perfect for spring or an anytime reminder to enjoy growing! Base is Vibrant Violet and embossed CB background is Victoria.

This next card I used both sets like 2-step stamping, black for the line art and a solid pink pad to ink up the roses to match the Passionate Pink card base. I intentionally did not use a stamp positioner here to show how lovely it looks when you just eyeball it and get this beautiful little highlight along the edges without going for a perfect match, it adds a lot of whimsy and gives it a very artsy look! Plus how easy, right? (They WILL match UP though with a positioner though if you prefer that. I will show lots of different tips and ways to use these later on my blog, I promise!) The leaves I inked up with a green pad and then ran a darker olive marker along the veins to give them more depth, and stamped them off several times to create the cut accents and background. Card also uses Ivory, Black Onyx and Fresh Asparagus. I'm really liking how these two different techniques, vivid roses with the more shadowed leaves look, on the same card! (And I'm so happy to have a beautiful "Praise the Lord" as a stamp!)

This last card I combined both the new set and "A Year of Flowers", but instead of using the new bold stamps like "fillers" for the images, I stamped solid black stems and leaves from the new set onto White CS and added the line art daisy from the previous set to make this bold graphic print, isn't that fun? Very modern looking, and completely different from the two cards above! I added button centers from the new Gina K Spring Collection, an assortment of pastels in both opaque clear and pearlized buttons like you see here, and then added the thanks in a circle punch. Card base is the new zesty Pure Luxury Lemon Drop to match the button centers, I just love this color with Black Onyx and White, such a fresh combo! This card was finished in less than ten minutes, you gotta love that! Would you like to win this set? Leave a comment below telling me which of these flower cards is your favorite OR your favorite stamping technique to do with bold stamps. I will draw a winner Thursday and announce it before the party!

My next peek uses Rupa's new "O Baby!" set! Although it took some time, I cut these little duckies apart because I wanted to link e popped up ducks with some real floss along with a little pearl tied on at the end for my pull string. The pearl is held in place with a glue dot. I used my new Labels Die like an alphabet storybook here, scoring down the middle and cutting my greeting stamp apart so I could stamp the "B" separate from the "blessing" on the different pages.
Here is a closeup to show the coloring. I added a little button again for the Spring Collection as well as some yellow ribbon from the Spring Ribbon Assortment to match the Lemon Drop base (I pierced this with the Scor-Bug). Isn't the little safety pin sweet? The beautiful polka dotted DP is from Nina's new "Spring Into Spring" Digi paper, which coordinates with the other Pure Luxury pastels.

Now visit these designer's blogs for even more samples with the Pressed Flowers stamp set and Rupa Shevde's O Baby Stamp set as well!

Gina Krupsky
Jessica Fick *
Theresa Momber
Nina Brackett
Carolyn King
Cathy Tidwell
Lee Murphy
Lynn Mercurio
Donna Baker
Emily Giovanni
Erika Martin
Bev Gerard
Suzanne Dean *

* also previewing the new Card Kit Stamp set: Spring Florals

More peeks to come! Also, the winner of my flower picking contest from LAST week is....Carla Suto! Congrats Carla, the way you masked and arranged that trio of roses and then layered them on all the different dies just took my breath away! She will be receiving a copy of my new Pressed Flower set as well as designing with March's set next month, so stay tuned! Thanks everyone for all the wonderful submissions!