Sneak Peeks Day 2: Old Tea Rose!

Welcome to Day 2 of Flourishes Sneak Peeks for May!   Those April showers have brought May flowers and we're bringing a beautiful flower to you today too, it's a brand new set from a brand new illustrator for Flourishes!  We'd like to introduce...

It's a gorgeous new set that celebrates the majestic rose.  Artistically drawn by our new artist Sam Pickard, this old tea rose just begs to be colored with style!This elegant floral features three accent images, including a stately looking butterfly and five beautifully scripted sentiments - all on a 4 by 6" set. This set will also have a Silhouette Cut file available as well for wonderful creative options!  You can find out more about our new Illustrator Sam Pickard HERE.

On to my creation!

When I saw this set, I knew that I wanted to watercolor, and I knew that my card would be rather simple in nature because of it! So.... I stamped the rose, butterfly and sentiment on a 4" square of watercolor paper using Versafine Black Onyx ink. And then, I grabbed my watercolor pencils and literally scribbled on color. After I was done laying down the color, I grabbed a water brush and started about an inch away from my image and kept drawing the color out away from my flower. It has been so long since I used watercolors -- it was fun! I see more of this in my future! 

And here's a close up!  

One thing I did use was some elements from Flourishes brand new 123 Create Kit called Prairie Chic! You'd never know it looking at the colors below but -- there is a nice yellow in the pack and I love the ivory crochet lace too! I need to use some of the vibrant colors so you can see the versatility of this kit! Stay tuned -- I'll be using this kit a lot this month! :-) Here's a peek at what's inside!

When it comes to the Old Tea Rose set, you'll want to see all beautiful inspiration that the Design Team has for you with this set, and you'll want to be sure to comment because...

One of our Design Team Members is the Mystery Blogger of the day!  That means commenting on her blog puts you in the running to win you today's Old Tea Rose Stamp Set!   You'll have to comment to find out who it is!

Want to see all the beautiful things you can create with this gorgeous flower? We love it so much we've invited some extra friends to the party.  Head on over and see…..

• Friends of Flourishes Team Coordinator Allison Cope
• Christine Okken
• Cindy Lawrence
• Danielle Kennedy
• Heather Jensen
• Julie Koerber
• Maki Jones
• Silke Ledlow
• Stacy Morgan
• and BBB Team Member Dina Kowal

Do you want to win Flourishes' May Release? 

If you want a chance to win all four of Flourishes' soon-to-be released May sets, you can always play in the Colorful Creations Challenge – there will be multiple winners there! OR, play along with the gals for this week’s Timeless Tuesday Challenge! Check out the links for the official rules! Also, if you like what you see on our designers’ blogs today, you can pre-order this set (along with the other three sets as well). You can also take advantage our New Release Bundle and get 10% off when you purchase all four together in a bundle. All sets will be live first thing Friday morning along with the coordinating cut files for this release. So, be sure to stick with us this week as we unveil a whole new host of paper-crafting fun!

Tomorrow's set will have you asking "What's the 4-1-1?" Yep, that's your hint! So be sure to swing back by tomorrow to see what our DT has in store! :-)

~Julie

supplies:

Flowers for a friend....

Do you ever color up images and then stuff them in a drawer to make into a card later? I don't do that a lot now, but I used to. I used to keep extras that I colored up while teaching a class to save for a rainy day.

Well, last weekend, I was digging through some of the drawers in my stamp room and found one that I did on watercolor paper using markers and some really fun stamps from Art Impressions. It was just there on a scrap piece of watercolor paper calling my name. And guess what? It was actually a rainy day! ;-)

So, I grabbed my new Nesties and went to town to make a semi-easy card.
If you click on the link above for Art Impressions, you'll see the kind of "watercolor" stamps I used. They key is to stamp by inking up the stamps with Marvy markers, mask the areas (like the gloves and the water pail) and accent with flowers and the grass. Then, when you are done, you simply take a damp water brush and meld the colors together to make these hand stamped images look like you painted them yourself!

The rest is easy. Use the Labels 3 Nestability to cut out the watercolor image and a second for a mat (I used Bo Bunny paper). Use a distressed background stamp (SU) with Antique Linen ink, paper pierce the edge and distress, add some brads and a little hardware and ribbon! The tag was done with a fun little set I bought years and years ago from Hero Arts. I made it into a tag thanks to a 1" circle bunch. And..... done!

Now... to a story. I honestly could not believe this one! On Saturday, my family and I went for a short walk to our favorite island nearby that is separated from our neighborhood by the Yellowstone River. It's not uncommon to see some fun creatures big and small. We've seen porcupine, ground hogs, beaver, heron, deer, and fox. Well, on Saturday we saw a beaver and it was just sticking out its head staring at us while we stared at him. I was kicking myself that I didn't have a camera. As we walked away, honestly I said, "The only thing better would be to see a bald eagle." Well, we finished our walk and didn't see one....... at least not then.

The day melted into evening and we had seized the day by barbequing. As we were eating our steak kabobs, right over our house we saw this circling above.... Holy cow! Are you kidding me? It was a bald eagle circling over the nearby field. I didn't get a shot of what happened next because it happened so fast but out of nowhere a hawk of some sort dive bombed the eagle in mid air causing them both to spin out. I guess the hawk didn't want the eagle in "his" territory. It was a sight to see! What was hysterical is the hawk was half the size of the eagle. It had some ki-hon-ays!

So, I guess, be careful what you wish for!

Well, thanks for stopping by my place, see you back here tomorrow!

The Feeling of Fall

A few weeks ago, I picked up this stamp by Art Impressions at my LSS to get ready for a class on watercolor. I spent today painting in the colors of fall and thought---that time of year isn't all that far away! This card was done, not with traditional watercolor, but by "scribbling" watercolor pencils in areas and using an Aquaflow brush to blend and move the color on the watercolor paper. I can't wait until the summer, winter and spring images come in!

T.G.I.F.!