Gina K Designs Inspiration Hop, Day 1: Fabulous Flowers and Framescape: Simply Spring

Good morning, and happy Monday! The Cast and Crew for Gina K Designs welcomes you to another fabulous blog hop celebrating the new stamp release for February by our illustrator team! We hope to inspire you with some beautiful card projects as you hop along to each of the designer’s blogs! Today we are featuring the stamp sets by me and Theresa Momber. Please enjoy some gorgeous designs from our team and then comment on each blog for your chance to win a $20 Gina K Designs gift certificate! To see who won, check the Big News Forum at StampTV a few days after the hop. Now for the cards!

My first card with Fabulous Flowers I just wanted to focus on one little arrangement. I used GKD Red Velvet ink for the bold flowers and stamped off to create the second flower in a lighter coordinating shade. Outline is stamped and stamped off in GKD Cherry Red to be just a hint darker than the Red Velvet for a subtle outline.

After laying out where my my mat would be on the base, I stamped up some more flowers and leaves to create a little border peeking out. I did the same on my envelope and inside the card (and one bud on the back where I sign my name!) Added skinny strip of Ocean Mist to enhance the stamped water filler in the vase. it is SO fun to put these tiny blooms anywhere (and everywhere!!) You could do a clean and simple single layer card with just this little vase arrangement if you want, but it was fun going a bit further with some layers and more stamping! Centers are stamped in GKD Sweet Mango, leaves and stems in GKD Grass Green, and water in Ocean Mist.

For this next card, I just played around with using the flowers as accents and the doodle bits to frame up this popped up sentiment from Scripty Love.  Isn't that border across the top and bottom fun?  I dotted every other loop with the Ebony Black Nuvo Crystal Drops for shine and more dimensions.  Dies I used are GKD Inverted Scalloped Ovals and Stitched Ovals. Oh, I almost forgot to point out, you can make BIG daisy-like petals with the different leaves, like I did with the red! :) Create your own flowers!

Here is one I made since I hadn't used the lily yet in a sample (and hadn't used any purple), aren't these flower "centers" stamped in GKD Wild Dandelion fun being flowers of their own, and a great match for this Gina K. patterned paper?!  To fill in the line art stamped vase, I inked up the bold filler vase with lavender and then swiped my lilac pad across and stamped. Lot sf irect to stamp possibilities to add multiple colors, hand-drawn detail and cool ombre effects with these bold vases! I created my own coordinating embellishment using the larger stem, leaf and lily images from my A Year of Flowers 2 set.  (I used Spectrum Noir markers to color in the larger lily) A Year of Flowers 2 is not currently in stock, but on order, and will be back in time for the next kit release in a couple weeks! Put it on your wishlist! :) Cardstock is GKD Pure Luxury Wild Lilac, Lovely Lavender and White.

Some of my favorites I've made so far with this new set, though, I'm not showing YET because I really want to demonstrate the design and technique in videos the next few weeks!  Gotta leave some surprises! Trust me, FUN stuff, soon, soon!  

Next up, we have Theresa's new Framescape: Simply Spring!  I like this one even better the first, and that's saying a LOT, because both are fantastic!  Here I created a night sky by sponging GKD Blue Denim and GKD Navy ink at the corners (masking with sticky notes) and having the balloons reflecting on water instead of coloring like a grassy meadow.  I looked at a few photos of hot air balloons over water to help me determine how to make them glow and the colored ripple trail they would cast from their fire.  I'll admit, I didn't create the "glow" of these illuminated balloons exactly to my liking, but even so, I still think it looks really cool!!  I also sketched in just some blurry tree reflections, and then, just add stars! (white gel pen) Card base is GKD Pure Luxury Lipstick.

Finally, here is the card I showed at our release party, I just LOVE this one!  Ink sponging and  card base are GKD Blue Raspberry, and grass is sponged with GKD Jellybean.  After sponging the sky, I left an open white space and ran my Faber-Castell Pitt White Artist pen out in rays from that area, over the blue ink, to look like a burst of sun.  After  coloring the bushy areas with Spectrum Noir CG4, I used this same white paint pen to create some open areas in the bushes so I could dot on red, pink and yellow with my markers that would really pop and show up over my dark green coloring . Drawing a quick shadow "puddle" with a gray marker or pencil under your girl running will create a lot of light instantly in this scene! Dies again are GKD Inverted Scalloped Ovals and Stitched Ovals.

Fabulous Flowers

Framescape – Simply Spring

Ready for more from our team?! Just click on the links below for more from Gina and the Cast & Crew:

Gina K

Melanie Muenchinger  - Illustrator for Fabulous Flowers (you are here!)

Theresa Momber  - Illustrator for Framescape – Simply Spring

Cathy Tidwell

Chris Dayton
Claire Brennan
Donna Idlet
Karen Hightower
Laurie Schmidlin
Sean Fetterman
Sheri Gilson
Silke Ledlow
Susie Moore

Don’t forget to pop over to the Gina K Designs Store and check out all of the new products available this month in the “What’s New” section at http://www.ginakdesigns.com.

Thank you for stopping by! See you tomorrow as we showcase three more new stamp sets! And then a new video and tip sheet from me for Fabulous Flowers on Wednesday!

PS I didn't realize until this morning I never posted my video from last week here on my blog! Oops! Here it is if you missed:

And one more from the party!! Lots of requests for a video on this one, so look for that!

Praying you have a blessed day!