The Ton’s Spring 2017 Release Blog Hop

Happy Friday everyone! Today I'm hopping with The Ton as they celebrate their spring release. You should have arrived here from Chris Dayton's blog.

The Ton has 18 new stamps, 13 dies and 14 Couture Mixes for their new Spring 2017 Release which includes up to three free gifts with purchases. For more information on The Ton’s incentive gifts, head over to The Ton’s blog. All new release products are available now!

I have a soft spot for peonies, so when I saw the release I knew immediately which stamps I would be working with.

First up a very clean and simple card featuring Dearest Peony.  I really wanted this beautiful image to be the star, and I waded back into the world of no line coloring.  The image was stamped with WPlus9 Fairy Dust ink and then colored with Copics.  The gray leaves are solid in the stamp, and I wanted to keep that effect, so rather than my normal three color shading, I just used two shades of gray and kept it very subtle.  

I really didn't want to add much to the card once I was done coloring, I wanted the focus to remain on the flower, so I fiddled with placement of the panel and the sentiment strip going with something not so centered to give it a modern feel.

Next up, is Peony Crush, a gorgeous 6x6 background.  This was stamped in Versafine on watercolor paper and then heat embossed.  Then I broke out my Kuretake Gansai Tambi Starry Colors watercolors (that I bought 6 months ago and hadn't used yet) and chose a couple shades of gold to paint the peonies with.  The open leaves were painted a very light green and then covered with the lightest gold from the Starry Colors set, and the background was  painted a dark green.  

I loved the very rich feel of the background when I was done, almost like a tapestry fabric, but it was a bit too heavy for a full card background, so I did some fussy cutting to trim it down.  I popped up the panel for some extra drama and then added a sentiment from Dearest Peony to finish it off, also popped up.  

That's all for me, but you definitely want to keep hopping because there are prizes! Five $25 gift certificates to The Ton's shop will be given away to random commenters from the hop participant blogs. To qualify, you must leave a comment on The Ton Blog Hop post. The comment period will close on Monday, April 10th at 11:59pm. Winners will be announced thereafter on The Ton’s blog.

The next stop on the hop is Janette Kausen, and I've included the full list below in case you get turned around.  Happy hopping and good lucky!

1. The Ton
2. Brenda Noelke
3. Svitlana Shayevich
4. Lisa Harrolle
5. Chris Dayton
6. Miriam Prantner
7. Janette Kausen
8. Justine Hovey
9. Laura Jane Head
10. Amy Kolling
11. Tae Eun Yoo
12. Amy Tsuruta
13. Eunji Jung
14. Isha Gupta
15. Jenny Yamasaki
16. Kay Miller
17. Vera Yates
18. Stephanie Klauck
19. Emily Midgett
20. Taheerah Atchia
21. Mayline Jung
22. Laura Sterckx
23. Laurel Beard