Day 1 AnniVERVESary Spotlights

Hi friends! It's finally time to start hopping for our 10th Anni-VERVE-sary release! Wow... a decade of designing stamps for you. Such an honor and a privilege.

I'm the first stop on today's blog hop so WELCOME! I'm so glad you're here! Verve is releasing 4 new sets and 2 die sets on Monday, August 28. The Divas (our design team) along with our very special Guest Diva, Kelly Lunceford are hopping today to share our first looks with the Little Ones stamp and coordinating die set. Be sure to check out the Verve Blog today for another creation from me, plus a little spotlight on Kelly and a little in-depth look at the new set! Oh, and we've got some rockstar Diva alumni guests making some guest appearances later in the week that you won't want to miss. Hooray! Should be a fun release countdown, so let's get started!

Today's feature is on the Little Ones stamp set and coordinating Little Ones Die Set. A fusion of old and new, this baby themed set brings back some of Verve's most popular plain janes, mixed with a few new designs to tie it all together.

I've had so many requests for some of the baby plain janes and sentiments that I knew they needed to make a return to the Verve lineup. When I sat down to design this compilation set, I knew I wanted to add in a way to make the set usable for my own needs. Being a mom of twins, I wanted to have a stamp that said twins and also a way to add an s to boy or girl to accomodate multiples.

I've never really been much of a scrapbooker. Before kids I didn't have anything too interesting to scrapbook and after kids I've just been too busy. Now that my boys are getting older, I see how much they LOVE to look back at old photos. Since we're in the digital age, not many of our photos are printed, so I'm trying to make an effort to sift through the thousands of images, get some printed and make them a simple scrapbook to look at.

Selecting the photos for this 2 page spread was such a trip down memory lane. The boys will be entering Kindergarten in September and it's so crazy to look back and see how much they've grown. But even at these young ages, so much of their personalities were shining through.

The first layout started with the rattle image, which I stamped twice, colored with Copics and cut with the coordinating Little Ones Die Set.  I then stamped the precious in soft sky and the little twins stamp in black on white cardstock and arranged how I wanted them to look. I printed the photos in black and white and cropped two down to size, layering over the white and then finished off with a bit of alphabet washi tape. I just love the simple cuteness of this. Trevor is the one leaning into Kellan in that bottom photo, and it fits his loving, hugging personality to a T. Although they quarrel on a daily basis, there is definitely a whole lot of love between these two.

For the second page, I knew I wanted to use these smiley little photos. I stamped the baby boy and the s stamp in the corner of the page, then decided the smallest things sentiment would be the perfect sentiment to pair with the photos. Because definitely these two small little things take up so much room in our hearts!  I stamped the sentiment onto a die cut square, then stamped the stitched heart in soft sky and cut with the coordinating die from the Little Ones Die Set. I added the photos and a bit more washi to tie the two pages together. Super simple layouts, but I'm so pleased with how they turned out and I know my boys will love them!

Okay, thanks so much for stopping by today! Hope you enjoyed these little layouts from my heart.

Next up on the hop is Maureen.

Want to win some shiny new Verve? We'll be picking a random commenter on one of the hop spots below to win today's featured products! Leave a little shout out in the comments section on all the blogs below to increase your chances! Check out the Verve Blog today for the full hop list, a little more about our new products and all the prize info and deadlines!

1. Julee 5. Marisa 2. Maureen 6. Lesley 3. Betty 7. Christyne 4. Charmaine 8. Kelly (Guest)

Enabler's List
Stamps: Little Ones (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Bundle of Joy Dots & Stripes (Echo Park), white
Ink: onyx black (Versafine), soft sky (SU!)
Accessories: Little Ones Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), pierced squares dies (Cottage Cuts), washi tape

Project Life and a hop

Hi friends!  It's Tuesday morning and it's time for the Divas to share their first looks at some exciting new sets releasing from Verve this Friday!  Today we're shining our Verve spotlights on the new stamps Remember This, Calendar Countdown and Smile Plain Jane. Each of the release team Divas below (including 4 brand new talented designers) has posted her first look at these new stamps today. As you hop through the list, you just might see some super sneaky peeks of new coordinating dies, too, so keep your eyes peeled! Everything you see previewed along today's hop will be available in Verve's online store on Friday, February 22.
 
Want to win some shiny new Verve? We'll be picking a random commenter on one of the hop spots below to win today's featured products! So be sure to leave a little comment on all the blogs below to increase your chances! Check out the Verve Blog for all the prize details and deadlines. Woohoo! Let's get started...

3x4 Journaling and Filler Cards

I've been so excited for these sets and coordinating dies to arrive!  Like seriously giddy!  I always love it when a stamp set fills a need that I have in my personal stamping stash... it's like the ideas just keep coming and there's just not enough time to implement them all!  And there definitely hasn't been a lot of time around here, but I promise you you'll be seeing a lot of these sets in the months to come.

4 x 6 Week In Review Card

I've never been too much of a scrapbooker.  I never took pictures of myself and found there were only so many interesting ways to scrapbook a cat, so I just stuck with card making.  But now that I've got these two little guys in my life, it seems the camera is always clicking and I'm already starting to forget little things that happened in the last year.  So it's time to do a little memory keeping.  I decide on a mix of things including Project Life for it's ease and ability to do in short little bursts throughout the week.  For today's hop I made a 1/2 spread of the boys and also a couple Weekly title cards for future pages.  Used a couple of the sentiments from Remember This punched out with circle punches to highlight the boys' sleeping photos.

Project Life half spread

I used both Remember This and Calendar Countdown on the 3 x 4 and 4 x 6 cards I made for today and also used all but one of the 5 new die products...  Banner Bundle Die Set, Flag It Die Set, Starry Die and Scallop Trim Trio Die Set.  I'm not going into the how of every card, but if you have questions be sure to ask and I'll try to answer them tomorrow.

4 x 6 Weekly Title Cards

Okay, next up on the hop is the amazing Laurie Schmidlin!

1. Amber	7. Julee
2. Andrea	8. Laurie S.
3. Charmaine	9. Laurie W.
4. Christyne	10. Marisa
5. Janelle	11. Maureen
6. Jen S.	12. Teresa

Project Life Cards
Stamps: Remember This, Calendar Countdown, Borderline (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Scoot (Echo Park)
Ink: Black, Midnight Muse, Peach Parfait (SU!)
Accessories:  Banner Bundle Die Set, Flag It Die Set, Starry Die and Scallop Trim Trio Die Set (A Cut Above by VERVE), corner chomper (WRMK), stars & swirls embossing folder (Sizzix), Tiny Attacher and mini clips (Tim Holtz), washi tape, wood veneer shapes

How Do I Love Thee

Hey Everyone! Happy Thursday! Today I'm sharing with you my very first digi layout. I was feeling creative, but not wanting to go to the trouble of cleaning up the disaster area in my stamp room, so I pulled up the sketch template for this week's Sketch Challenge over at the DigiChick and put my "I know I can conquer this fear of Photoshop" hat on. All digi papers and the flower, border and LOVE elements are from the Strawberry au Lait kit by Sugarplum Paperie. I love the soft colors in this collection! Although I made this page completely digital, I think it would be super easy to make traditionally, as well.




Almost all of my photos from the digital age were lost in a hard drive crash, and Mark & I rarely remember to take photos anymore, so I'm limited to the handful I had uploaded to Shutterfly to have printed a few years ago! I wish I had a better photo of Mark, but I guess the beauty of the digi layout is that I can swap it out with a new picture once I convince him to let me do a photo shoot. :)

Well, anyhow, I love this sonnet by Elizabeth Barret Browning, and the softness of the papers and elements had me all lovey-dovey, so I typed up an excerpt from Sonnet 18 and added it to the layout. The heart swirlies are a free photoshop brush by Coby17.

And now for something completely different....

No, your eyes do not deceive you! It's a scrapbook page on MY blog! Yes, I'm a card maker. No, I'm not a scrapper. What happened??? Well, I guess I'm going through what I would call creative growing pains. Have you had those? You know, where you're just the teensiest bit bored of doing the same thing day after day? That's how I've been feeling lately about making cards, so I'm just putting it out there. After coming up with a new card layout every week for coming on 2 years, plus all my other stamping commitments, I'm just itching for something different to stretch me creatively. So, over the next little while you'll probably be seeing some "different" things here at Poetic Artistry. And probably not quite as many posts.

But don't worry, everything is A-okay! Change is sometimes good. Without it we don't grow as artists. Without it we don't grow as people. And that's what I want to do...

Grow... Flourish... Thrive.

So, I'll be sticking my little crafting neck out into unfamiliar waters to see if I can bring a little spark back into my stamp studio. And while I'm doing that, you might just get a few more of my thoughts and a few less of my creations. I love to write. From the time I could print a complete sentence, I was always writing some sort of short story or poem. I started this blog to get me back in the practice of writing every day but somewhere along the way it just became an instruction manual for making cards. And that's okay, but it's like being forced to ride the ferris wheel again and again when all you really want to do is ride the roller coaster. Know what I mean? I'm looking for excitement!!! :) So, I hope you and your cup of caffeine will continue to join me for my creative journey, even if I don't tell you exactly how I made every little creation here. And I hope you'll take a minute or two today to think about something in your world that could use a little change. In the words of Sheryl Crow... "A change will do you good!"

Julee's Recipe:
1 old photo of Mark & me
Stamps: Hundred Hearts, Hearts on Fire (Verve Stamps), alpha snap stamps (Karen Foster)
Paper: Black and Basic Gray cardstock, BasicGrey Bittersweet DP
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette (SU!), Black (A muse), Copics, white gel pen
Cutting Tools: Scalloped Hearts and Squares dies (Nestabilities), Scallop Edge and Square punches (SU!)
Accessories: old rub-on from Jo-Anns pack, Black candy dots (Pebbles Inc.)