summer flowers

Hi there! I’m so excited to be taking part in today’s Garden Party blog hop, hosted by Tonic Studios to help celebrate their newest release! This release is chock full of fantastic florals and some stinking adorable critters. You should have arrived here from Galina Filippenko‘s blog, and your next stop is Keren Baker‘s blog. Be sure to stick around to the end to get my special discount link to save an extra 15% on your Tonic purchase! I have two cards for you today using new goodies from the Garden Party release, so let’s get started with the details!

For my first project, I used the Nuvo Shimmer Powders to do some watercoloring. Now, I am kind of particular about being precise when it comes to my coloring in any medium. There are some people who can absolutely rock the “loose” look, but I am not one of them. Every time I try, it ends up looking like a giant, muddy mess. But, the good news is that you don’t have to use the Nuvo Shimmer Powders as “bursts” as they’re probably intended; you can use them just like regular watercolors! Isn’t that awesome?

I began by stamping the new Flora Background stamp on some watercolor paper and heat embossing it with some silver pearl embossing powder to create a pretty pearlescent charcoal look. I then tapped some of the Nuvo Shimmer Powders in shades of Cherry Bomb, Violet Brocade, Lilac Waterfall, Storm Cloud, and Green Parade onto my Water Media Mat and used a wet paintbrush to create a “paint” so that I could add color to the flower images! I was so impressed at how the color moved so beautifully!

Once I had finished my watercoloring, I trimmed the panel down to A2 size, then added a heat embossed greeting from Summer Flowers, which I popped up using foam tape for some added dimension. The final touch was to add some Lilac Whisper Nuvo Drops randomly on my card front.

For my second project, I absolutely couldn’t wait to ink up the beautiful Peony Blooms stamp set and go to town coloring them! I have really been loving the combination of deep raspberry with a pretty orange-y coral lately, and I just love how the color combo turned out with these flowers! I began by stamping them using Fadeout Ink on some Copic-friendly card stock. I then used my Copic markers in shades of RV17, RV29, RV14, RV13, and RV42 for the coral peonies, and RV99, RV69, RV17, and RV09 for the raspberry peonies.

Once I had finished coloring the images, I used the Tim Holtz Mini Snips detail scissors to fussy cut all of the images. I got a little sloppy with some of my coloring (whoops) and so cut right up to the edge of the image instead of leaving a white border. It took a little extra time, but I think it was worth it to achieve the final clean look!

Finally, I arranged all of the blooms in a little cascade on my long white card front and adhered them with some foam tape. I heat embossed a greeting from Botanical Burst onto some black card stock using gold embossing powder, cutting around it to create two sentiment strips. Finally, to help tie in some more gold, I added a few Gold Rush Stone Drops to the card front.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! Now, I have some fun sale information and a giveaway for you!

Tonic has generously provided each stop on the hop with their own unique discount code for 15% off your total purchase!
•To receive the discount: Simply click on this link for US purchases, this link for UK purchases, then fill your cart, and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout! How easy is that?!

Tonic has also generously provided each stop on the hop with a £25 gift certificate. Simply leave me a comment (and if you wanted to become a blog follower via email or WordPress, I would be ever so appreciative!) on this post, and the winner will be announced on the Tonic blog on Wednesday, August 29.

Here’s the full hop list in case you get lost: