Inspiration Hop, Day 1 Stately Flowers 5 and Vogue Vases 2

Good morning!  The Design Team for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to another fabulous Inspiration Blog Hop! Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas, and as you hop through their blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because  a few random comments will be chosen and those stampers will each win a grab bag of Gina K. Designs products! To see the full list of winners, check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a couple of days after the hops.

First up, we have my newest stamp set from Gina K Designs, Stately Flowers 5.  This is the fifth in a series of hand drawn official state flowers, and is available for purchase in both premium quality clear photopolymer and red rubber.  This set includes flowers for Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Kansas, but the mistletoe and sunflower have been specifically grouped together with all your upcoming fall and winter holiday cardmaking needs in mind, and the sentiments to match!

I predict you see will lots of expertly colored versions of the large sunflower in our hop today, it seems to be the "favorite" so far and I also believe it is one of my best illustrations to date. ( A couple hours making all those dots paid off! Such a happy flower, I like to use these all year on cards.)  Since I have done a few Copic versions of it myself for the blog, I wanted to go a little more whimsical today and stamp it on a patterned paper instead, with just bit of green Copics over the stem and leaves and darker yellow at the middle, allowing this plaid to show through.  No paper piecing, just one cut cut image!  Paper is from the GKD Poppy Prints Designer Paper Pack

The trick was lining up the pattern in the plaids when I added this cropped strip to the side, as well as stamping the image with the lines at right angles so the pattern wouldn't go wonky at a tilt when I went mount it on my card! Isn't that fun with a big ol' button in the center? (and some gray bakers twine) Card base is Honey Mustard.   Chevron is from my Pretty Patterns set, stamped in Memento Cantaloupe.

 

If you wish, you can add some piercing and faux stitching with a Toffee Crunch marker to step it up (but all the "men folk" here in my house preferred it without!)

This next card was inspired by a quick trip to Target last week! Walking through the store, I spied this funky banner above the girls department, white with gray, pink, red and black line art flowers, and knew it would translate beautifully to a card!

 

 Collage stamp a background with the small sunflower using Memento Love Letter, Rose Bud, London Fog and Tuxedo Black on layering weight White CS, then add your sentiment.  TIP: After using the ScorBug embosser and Scor Buddy for piercing the gray mat, I put the brush tip of a black marker into each hole to help them pop.

 I stamped two more sunflowers on cuts out I made with  the coordinating Silhouette cut file for the set and colored them with the Copics you see pictured above.  Love these unconventional colors, who says they're just for Fall?  Cardstock is Pure Luxury Black Onyx, Moonlit Fog, and Passionate Pink.  (By the way, I got to attend a Design Camp last week, and HOT PINK is the HOT color for 2013! Use a touch of it everywhere!)

Finally, I challenged myself to see how CAS I could go with this set for Christmas cards in a pinch!  I hadn't used the smaller mistletoe image yet, and I gotta say, I like how this turned out! Just some Gina K Designs Pure Luxury Ivory, a strip of adhesive rhinestones, Memento Rhubarb for the sentiment and Tuxedo Black for the image.  The scale here I think is key: tiny rhinestones, tiny image, delicate fonts, but a luxurious heavy creamy cardstock like this is a must if you are going to go this simple.

(Too CAS for you?  Hey, you might get a card like this if I run out of time after all the Christmas baking!)

****Now can you help me welcome some super special guests?  ****

*I am honored and delighted to have two of my stamping idols*

Beate Johns
and 
Laurie Schmidlin 

joining in our hop and designing with Stately Flowers 5 this month!  Huzzah!

Can't wait to drool over what they made, please check those links and leave them some love! Thank you, ladies, for sharing your talent and ideas!  I'm thrilled with your enthusiasm for these flowers!:)

Next up, we have Theresa Momber's follow up to the one of her bestselling sets, Vogue Vases, yep it's Vogue Vases 2! (also available in red rubber) I adore stamping with sets like this, so fun to mix and match!  These new additions are slightly smaller but also have a simpler, earthier quality than the fancier vases and arrangements in the first set.

As much as I love her scenic sets, these vases and additions are super cool for CAS cards, check it!

 Stamp the bold and line art vases in Tuxedo Black on Pure Luxury White Base Weight CS. The vases are great for paper piecing and shading with markers, but I love the simplicity of just black on white.  Trace flower additions loosely with markers and add silver adhesive nail heads to the centers for shine and dimension.  Isn't that a sharp card? But super simple?!  I love how the curves of her vases nest into one another, what a cool look! Check back as I plan to make some fun patterned background with these vases, no flowers required.
(Now I don't know why everyone was reading so much into my card at the party and asking if I was "the black sheep of the family" at the release party because of this one vase, LOL!  Thank you, but NO, I am the apple of my parents' eyes, hee!)
Awesome set, Theresa!!

Now please check out the rest of our fabulous design team's newest creations, you won't want to miss a single post!  Don't forget to leave comments for more chances to win a fun grab bag of card making goodies!

• Gina K
• AJ Otto
• Beth Silaika
• Carolina Buchting
• Carolyn King
• Cathy Tidwell
• Deb Felts
• Emily Giovanni
• Giovana Smith
• Lee Murphy
• Lori McAree
• Melanie Muenchinger (Illustrator of Stately Flowers 5-you are here!)
• Sharon Harnist
• Tami Mayberry
• Theresa Momber (Illustrator of Vogue Vases 2)
• Tina Gilliland
• Vicki Dutcher

Thank you for visiting me today!