wonderful in every way

Good morning, and happy Monday! Today, Pinkfresh Studio is hopping along to celebrate their first new release of the brand new year! I am always delighted to work with Pinkfresh Studio products, but it’s even more exciting for me when I get to use stamps that I’ve illustrated. The new Wonderful In Every Way is one of my most favorite illustrations that I’ve created, and I’m so excited to finally see it in a tangible stamp. And, bonus, Pinkfresh Studio has even created a coordinating hot foil plate to complement the stamp, die, and layering stencils, and I will share another project using that product tomorrow. Today, I have two projects to share using new goodies from this month’s new release using my current color combination obsession. Let’s get started with the details!

Both of my cards today feature bold, dramatic black backgrounds with brightly colored flowers as the focal point. In order to keep my color scheme as cohesive as possible, when coloring, I go one step further by coloring around the edge of my colored image with a black marker. This helps to visually keep the color scheme for both cards as true as possible, avoiding that white outline that detracts from the overall color scheme.

My first card uses the beautiful new Floral Trio stamp, die, and stencil suite. I began by stamping the main floral image from the Floral Trio stamp set onto some white cardstock using black pigment ink, then clear embossed over the top. I like to do this especially with images that will be stenciled, because the clear embossing powder seals the black lines and prevents them from smudging while blending.

I paired the Floral Trio Layering Stencils with Peach Fuzz, Coral Reef, Passion Fruit, Olive, and Evergreen inks from Pinkfresh Studio, using a light touch and some soft blending brushes to achieve a more subtle effect. I can be somewhat heavy-handed sometimes when it comes to ink blending, so I made special effort to use a light touch with these images, and I love the result with the soft peachy flowers and fresh green foliage! I used a black copic marker around the edge of the finished blended flowers, then used the coordinating die to die cut the floral bouquet.

When I am working with new hot foil products, I always try to hot foil with several different colors of foil and cardstock, so that I have lots of options when the time actually comes to start creating with the new goodies. I had hot foiled the beautiful new Floral Lace Hot Foil image onto some black cardstock using matte platinum hot foil from Spellbinders, and I had also hot foiled the greetings from the new Wonderful Sentiments Hot Foil set using the same matte platinum foil so that the two designs could work together nicely. I trimmed down my hot foiled panel, then popped it up on an A2 black card front using foam adhesive.

I added a sparkly black glitter foam die cut border cut using an Essentials: Lacey Edgers die. I adhered the floral bouquet to the card front with some more foam tape, creating a double layer of height, then added the greeting (creating a triple layer of foam-eek!) and a few Champagne Glitter Drops for some sparkle! I love how adding that simple black edge around the die cut makes those lovely peachy blooms pop from the dramatic dark background. Such a simple step, but I think it makes the card so much more interesting.

My second project features my new Wonderful In Every Way stamps and the coordinating dies. I wanted to do some simple watercoloring to show how much fun these stamps are to color! Because I had already hot foiled my black and platinum sentiments using that matte platinum hot foil and the Wonderful Sentiments Hot Foil, I heat embossed the large poppy image from Wonderful In Every Way using platinum sparkle embossing powder, which matches the platinum foil beautifully, onto some Arches cold press watercolor paper.

I taped the panel down to my watercolor board and used my Daniel Smith paints in shades of bright coral and red with olive green for the foliage to watercolor the large, open image. I love how easy the watercoloring for this image can be; the large petals of the flower and simple foliage help simplify the coloring process and give you plenty of area in which to work with those nooks and crannies! I used a black Karin watercolor marker to color around the edges of my image before die cutting, again using that black die cut edge to keep the color scheme true.

For the card base, I heat embossed the poppy image from Wonderful In Every Way along the edge of a black A2 card front using the same sparkling platinum embossing powder. This adds almost a lacy effect to the background, creating an intricate pattern, but maintaining the dramatic black and not adding any extra colors to the background helps to keep the focus on those watercolored poppies.

I die cut a coordinating platinum foil frame using the Fancy Circles die. I popped up the circle on the black embossed background using foam tape, then added the watercolored floral die cut over the top, allowing the simply embossed images on the card front to peek out from behind the colorful watercolored image. I added another greeting from the Wonderful Sentiments Hot Foil set, which I also die cut with the coordinating dies. The last touch was a few sparkling Champagne Glitter Drops.

Well, that’s all for my projects today! I have another project for you tomorrow, featuring my new Wonderful In Every Way Hot Foil Plate with the layering stencils, so I hope you will come back tomorrow to take a peek.

Now for some fun giveaway information! Pinkfresh Studio is giving away their full release over on the Pinkfresh Studio Blog and YouTube channel, as well as ten $25 gift cards to the shop drawn from comments left along the hop! Simply leave a comment at each stop on the hop to be eligible to win! Winners will be announced on the Pinkfresh Studio Blog on January 31, 2023.

Here’s the full list of hop participants:

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy hopping!