Friday Fun with Power Poppy

Happy Friday, Colorists and Card Makers! The Power Poppy Team is going to be making a few changes to things, small, but fun changes! I am going to use the "normal" Friday header until we get things all sorted for our new Friday Fun Days! From now on, both the Bloomies (clear stamp team) and the Instant Gardeners (digital stamp team) are going to be bringing you some fun inspiration each Friday!

Here is my Fun Friday project!

I love, love, love spring flowers. Unfortunately, here in Southern California, we don't see many of the "traditional" spring flowers such as tulips, daffodils, or hyacinths! We don't get cold enough weather for these beauties to become dormant, thus they need to be dug up and replanted each year, and who knows when they would even bloom given our year-round warm weather!

Don't be sad for me, because we do get a "spring bloom" of different kinds of plants and flowers! This is a photo I took at the Carlsbad Flower Fields near my house. They bloom between March and May each year. The ice plant also blooms in the spring, as do many varieties of wild flowers.

But, the spring flowers I remember from my childhood in Pennsylvania will always be sweet to me! I colored this hyacinth from the Hyacinth Bulb in a Glass digital stamp set (a $5 download). My mom used to have loads of hyacinths in her garden, along with crocuses, snowdrops, tulips, and daffodils. Across the creek, behind our house, were acres of wild daffodils which bloomed in the forest each spring. Such beauty in God's Creation! 

I colored my image with Arteza colored pencils. I am really loving this new brand of pencils! They are so creamy, but not as waxy as Prismacolor, plus they keep a sharp point for much longer than the Prismas. My only gripe is that they are so super saturated that it is hard to get a pale color out of them (especially since I am a heavy handed colorist). I am going to try to match them up with some Marco Raffine and Irojiten pencils, which are harder, and tend to lay down very pale color. Stay tuned for that experiment! 

I printed this image onto the Speedball Bienfang Bristol Vellum cardstock that I talked about a few weeks ago (HERE). I felt that the Arteza pencils worked very well with it. I also printed the image a "regular" size to make an A2 card. After attending Copic Boot Camp in January, I feel that I can go back to doing smaller images again, rather than always doing them in a large size. It is easier to learn new techniques when you have a bigger space to color, but it is not fun to try to make a card out of an 8x10 piece of art! 

 Here are the colors I used from the Arteza 120 set of colored pencils.

Bulb: Dark Chocolate Brown, Espresso Brown, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Ginger, Cream
Flower: Royal Purple, Lavender, Lilac, Periwinkle Blue, White Quartz, Noir
Leaves: Matcha Green, Lime Green, Basil Green, Forest Green, White Quartz
Glass Vase: Sea Blue, Peacock Blue, Sky Blue, White Quartz
Shadow: Elephant Gray, Sky Blue, White Quartz

I love the color names. They are so expressive and you can see in your mind's eye what the color will look like!

If you have not tried anything from Arteza, I encourage you to give them a look. Their price point is so affordable, and I am hearing great things about their products. I recently purchased some of their mixed media paper pads to try, along with a second set of the colored pencils. They don't offer open stock yet, so I took advantage of a big sale and purchased a back up set! I also purchased a set of their fineliner markers to try. (I know, I have to have all the things!) They have some gel pens that I want to try, too! 

Arteza has great prices on their site, and they have fast shipping. I don't get a kick back or work for them, I am just very happy with my purchases. I purchased their whole line of watercolor items for my daughter, and so far she's been very happy! My daughter (who is 24 and an artist, especially with watercolor) loves their tubes of watercolor paint and their real brush pens. 

I stamped a greeting from the Tea in the Garden clear stamp set. I created a standard A2 card (5 1/2" x 4 1/4") out of black cardstock. I layered some cute papers for the background. I have some 6x6 pads collecting dust, so pulled a few out the other day. The pad I used for this card are from My Favorite Things - Plaid Merry and Bright and Isty Bitsy Polka Dots.

Ok, so full disclose. I have 100's of 6x6 paper pads! I have stopped buying them! I went through my stash a year or so ago and weeded out what I would probably never use. You know how you buy a little pad because you like 3 prints in it, and it only costs $5? Well, you end up with a lot of prints you don't like! I still have a monstrous amount of 6x6 pads!

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a lovely weekend!

FOR MORE INSPIRATION

Please visit the Power Poppy Blog to see all the other projects from the team!

Christine
Gloria - you are here
Leslie
Nancy
Lisa
Stacy
Barbara W.

Allison
Julie

Stamps: Hyacinth Bulb in a Glass digital, Tea in the Garden clear
Cardstock: Speedball Bienfang Bristol Vellulm, WorldWin Midnight
Printed paper: My Favorite Things 6x6 pads
Colored pencils: Arteza 120 Set
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black