Power Poppy Gladiolus

I love to color flowers and to be outside in the garden.  If you give me a row of stamps to choose from and one is a flower that is most likely the one I will choose to use.  If it is a nice day out you will most likely find me out in my flower or vegetable garden.

This weeks sponsor at Passionate Paper Creations and Friends is Power Poppy and all of their stamps are right up my coloring alley.  The beautiful images are created by artist Marcella Hawley.  I just love her work and there isn't an image that she has that I would not love for my collection.

Today I chose to color the Gladioli Digital Stamp Set.  I love Gladiolus flowers.  They come in so many colors.  I have them growing in my garden here in Maryland and I can't wait for them to bloom.  The Gladiolus can grow to over 3 feet tall so you should stake them when planting to make sure they have the support needed for their beautiful flowers when they bloom.

The Gladiolus grows from a corm instead of from a bulb.  I was new to corms when I picked up some gladiolus at the store so I did lots of research on the best ways to grow them.  If you live in zone 7 or above you can over winter your corms in the ground with no problem but I live in zone 6 so I have to dig up my corms before the first frost to ensure their survival for the next planting season.  

Corms are replaced every year by the Gladiolus with growth of a new corm. The new corm forms at the shoot base just above the old corm.  As the plants grow and flower, the old corm is used up and shrivels away. The new corm that replaces the old corm grows in size, especially after flowering is done.  Corms can form many small cormlets called cormels, from the bottom of the new growing corms.  The cormels are used to propagate additional Gladiolus.  If you continue to dig up your corms every year you will have continuous Gladiolus because of the small cormlets that eventually grow into large corms.  Soon your garden will be full of beautiful Gladiolus.

OK enough about growing the flowers lets show you some cards made with this beautiful Gladioli Digital Stamp Set by Power Poppy.

For these cards I used my wonderful Creative Basic Dies and embossing folders.  

For the first card I wanted to share some pink Gladiolus.  I used Fancy Rectangles and Layers Die Set and the Picnic Quilt Embossing Folder.  I just love the pattern the embossing folder leaves on your card stock.

Copic Markers I used:

Flowers: RV21, RV23, RV25, RV29

Leaves: YG21, YG03, YG17, YG67, YG99

For the second card I wanted to share some orange Gladiolus.  I also used the sentiment from Power Poppy's Loving Tulips Stamp Set.  I used my Fancy Circles Die Set and the Basic Stitched Flags Die Set.  It is amazing to me how different an image can look when you just change a some of the colors.

Copic Markers I used:

Flowers: YR12, YR16, YR68, R05

Leaves: YG21, YG03, YG17, YG67, YG99

Come join us at Passionate Paper Creations and Friends where you get awesome discounts to sponsors like Power Poppy.  There is one on there now and you can purchase a beautiful image by Marcella Hawley for your collection.