The Gina K Designs design team welcomes you to day 3 of our fabulous May release Inspiration Blog Hops … Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas! As you hop through the blogs listed below, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because we will choose a few random comments and those stampers will each win a grab bag of Gina K. Designs products! To see the full list of winners check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a few days after the hops.
If you have saw Gina's previews last week or were at the Release Party last Thursday night, you may have seen mention of these fabulous new products:
8 pretty new Color Companion ink pads:

Left side: Bubblegum, Passionate Pink, Sweet Mango, Blue Raspberry; Right side: Sweet Corn, Grass Green, Turquoise Sea, Black
And 4 fabulous new Color Companion Button Collections:

Left to right: Pink Passion, Sunrise Smoothie, Berry Blues, Tuxedo Mix
Aren't those gorgeous?!!
On with our stamp set introductions for today . . . Our featured stamp sets today are Pretty Patterns 2 by Melanie Muenchinger:

and Bold Blooms by Becky Oehlers:

For my first project, I combined these two sets to create my 6x6 May calendar:

I stamped this gorgeous bloom onto Becky’s coordinating Bold Blooms Silhouette cut file (made from Gina’s Ivory Heavy Base Weight Cardstock) with Memento Gray Flannel ink and colored with these Copic Sketch Markers: BG53, BG57, Y23, Y26 and Copic Yellow Atyou Spica Glitter Pen, to coordinate with the Fancy Pants Park Bench paper I used.
The smaller blue flower accent at the top left is also from Becky’s Big Blooms set, stamped with Gina’s Ocean Mist Color Companions ink pad (also onto the coordinating Silhouette cut file) and the center accented with Star Dust Stickles.

Melanie’s herringbone/chevron design was stamped with Gina’s beautiful NEW Sweet Corn & Turquoise Sea ink pads, then hand trimmed to use as a border strip at the bottom of the calendar. For the month title, I used Melanie’s previous Lots of Letters alpha and Turquoise Sea ink pad. The calendar is my own 2013 Grid Calendar, printed onto Gina's Ivory Layering Weight Cardstock.
My next project is an A2-sized card that also uses both sets:

After using the Bold Blooms Silhouette cut file on Gina’s Ivory Heavy Base Weight Cardstock, I used the negative space that was left to create my card front. I stamped Melanie’s circular patterns with Gina’s new Color Companions ink pads in Bubblegum, Sweet Mango and Sweet Corn. Next, I stamped the bloom onto the die cut with Sweet Mango ink and then colored it with these Copic markers: Y23, YR01, YR03 and YR04:

I had no problems with the Sweet Mango ink smearing or reacting with the Y23 Copic marker that I base coated the entire flower with, coloring right over the stamped lines! The center of the flower is accented with Star Dust Stickles. Next, I popped the background up with foam tape, over the bloom. The sentiment tag was made by stamping the single circle element from Melanie's set with Sweet Corn ink and then stamping the “for you” sentiment from Tami Mayberry’s new Simple Flowers set with Memento Gray Flannel ink. I punched it out and tied it around the popped up frame with thin Sweet Mango organza ribbon. The card base is Gina’s coordinating Sweet Corn Heavy Base Weight Cardstock. I {heart} color coordinating products!
These Gina K designers also have projects with these stamp sets to share with you today:
Thanks for stopping by . . . we’ll be back again tomorrow with more May stamp set inspiration!
~ Sharon