Going Bold w/the Spring 2018 Collection

Our Spring 2018 Collection is now available! And let me tell you, they are gorgeous!

Wplus9 Spring 2018 Collection

He Is Risen Shop at: WP9	He Is Risen Die Shop at: WP9	Just For You Shop at: WP9	Modern Calla Lilies Shop at: WP9
Modern Calla Lilies Die Shop at: WP9	No One Else Shop at: WP9	No One Else Die Shop at: WP9	Sympathy Lilies Shop at: WP9
Sympathy Lilies Die Shop at: WP9	Tossed Florals Background Die Shop at: WP9	Floral Border Die Shop at: WP9

So let's take a look at some of these in action, shall we? I promised I'd be serving up lots of inspiration over the next several days, so I thought I'd start with a few of the bolder, more colorful projects today.

First up, let's take a look at He Is Risen stamps and dies. I Could.Not. put these down. I have so many samples to share featuring this set, but I am saving some to share in a video a little bit later. This is a 6 x 8" stamp set featuring gorgeous Lilies. The images are quite generous in size, as are the sentiments, and perfect for many different coloring mediums. These definitely beg to be colored, but I wanted to share how amazing they look with very simple coloring techniques as well.

I started by stamping the large background stamp onto yellow cardstock using our Queen Bee ink. And Wow! It is so bright and screams to be seen. LOL. Since I already had such a vibrant color going, I decided to run with it and added a few individual lilies. I stamped them in Versamark and heat embossed them in white. I then used Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry, and Twisted Citron with a round blending tool to ink blend some color onto each.

I did want to add a little greenery, so I did used the same technique with a palm frond from Sympathy Lilies. I stamped my sentiment - also from He Is Risen - in our Black ink and die cut it using it's companion die. I wanted to add just a little more interest to the background, so I did a little diagonal scoring in both directions and then added a dot of Nuvo Drops at each intersection. To help ground all of that color and give the eye some where to rest, I matted both the floral cluster and the card panel itself with white.

I really liked how the tone-on-tone stamping looked on the previous card, so I decided to try it again - with softer gradation of color.

I inked the background stamp up using our Shell Pink and Sweet Nectar inks and stamped onto a Blush colored cardstock. I again, used the same heat embossed and inked technique on more lilies and palm fronds. This time I used Abandoned Coral Distress Ink, Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn. (side note - I might have a slight addiction to coral)

I arranged clusters of flowers and leaves over the background. For the main cluster I used the background as a guide and allowed the leaves in the background to look like part of the cluster.

For the sentiment, I again stamped and die cut it. But this time I heat embossed it in white and then ink blended the Abandoned Coral over it. Finally, I did make a sad attempt at adding a few Nuvo Drops in White to the background. I have not quite mastered this product just yet. I think I am being a little too stingy and need to make the dots bigger so they will be more domed and less flat. LOL

Next we're gonna switch gears and take a look at the Modern Calla Lilies stamps and dies. Again, this set just says "color me, color me, color me...with all the things!" So, I obliged.

I just have to put this out there. I LOVE the results of colored pencil, but man do I ABHOR the process! It's so slow.

Now, you're probably wondering why I decided to go with pencil, right? Well, look at the results! Pencil is just so gorgeous, especially on dark/colored cardstock. But mainly, I chose Prismacolor pencils for this one because - a) most of my Comics are dry thanks to my son, and b) the open areas of this stamp set meant that I could stamp in black and be able to clearly see it and not have a bunch of black stamping to work extra hard to cover, making this a great candidate to brush up on my colored pencil work.

Because I chose to go with a coral Calla Lily (there it is again!), I chose to keep the Anthurium and Palm neutral in greens and cream to really make the flowers pop. I finished this one off with a heat embossed sentiment from He Is Risen and a few Nuvo Drops again. I think my Nuvo technique was improving by this card. ;)

And on another side note, I do seem to prefer the Prismacolor pencils on dark cardstock and Polychromos on white/light cardstock and hot pressed watercolor paper.

And finally, I wanted to share a card featuring the Tossed Florals stamp set. This 3 x 4" inch cutie is a FREE gift with all purchase 25 USD and over while supplies last.

This is a simple yet versatile mini background that quickly stamps a tossed pattern of florals. If they look familiar, they should. These are the outlined counterparts to the solid floral images in the new No One Else stamp set. I really wanted both outlined and solid of these images. So I decided, what the heck. And, I may have taken a second set and cut it apart so that I'd have little outlined floral clusters for accents too!

For this card I simply stamped the full background across the upper two thirds of my card base in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and did super simple one color Copic coloring. (Again, dry markers. But I'm not salty about it.) For the sentiment, I used the Thanks For Being So Wonderful sentiment from the Happy Mail stamp set.

I really hope that you've enjoyed today's post. I know it is a long one. But, like I said, I have a lot to share with you!

For those that have expressed how happy they are to see a new stamp release, THANK YOU so much! I know it's been a bit, but sometimes we all need to take a little break and get that creativity flowing again.

As always, thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow!