Taheerah Atchia

Hey everyone! Happy Tuesday!

When you get a present, say for Christmas or your birthday, do you like to know what it is before you open it? Or do you like the surprise? Me personally, I like the surprise. I *love* the surprise. It makes the tearing off the wrapping* and revealing the gift all the more exciting.

*okay, I don’t tear off the wrapping. My OCD wouldn’t allow it. But I carefully and neatly peel the tape away one piece at a time and carefully unwrap the package, and then fold the paper neatly away. What can I say. I party on the wild side.

Aaanyway.

The reason I’m prattling on about how you like your gifts is because the Stamp of Approval Collections from Catherine Pooler evoke that Christmas Morning/surprise gift feeling. Every. Single. Time.

If you’ve not heard of Catherine Pooler’s Stamp of Approval then you are in for a treat. It is a completely curated box of exclusive supplies delivered right to your doorstep! Amidst the gorgeous box and hidden in that pretty wrapping is an *awesome* collection of not-yet-on-the-market stamps, dies, and maybe even a couple of other surprise goodies too – all expertly designed and selected for each box to match, coordinate and amaze. The products in each box are only available as an entire collection and won’t be offered for individual sale until several months from the Collection’s release date, so they’ve got that whole exclusivity thing going on. AND just like that Christmas Morning/surprise gift, the first time you see the entire contents of the box is when you unwrap it for yourself! How fun is that?!

Oh, and one more thing. These babies sell like hot cakes. Fresh from the oven. That’s right. If you want to be the first to the cake aisle then I recommend subscribing to the Waiting List at Catherine Pooler’s Stamp of Approval site so that you’re notified when the collections go on sale, and so you won’t be left staring at empty cake shelves. No-one wants that.

And now I want cake.

Right. Before I digress into some kind of Christmas Morning Cake Fantasy, I better tell you the reason you’re here! The latest Stamp of Approval Collection is being released TOMORROW and it’s called The Perfect Reason. And man, is it one perfect collection. Catherine has been sneaking peeks of the contents of The Perfect Reason Collection on her blog last week, and the past couple of days have seen the amazing Design Team (and some special guests!) show off just what some of the items in the collection can do! I’m helping to bring up the rear for Day 3 of 3 Blog Hops (saving the best ’til last? Or am I an awkward embarrassment? Let’s go with ‘best ’til last’. I’m jesting either way, of course) to show off this *truly* amazing box of goodies with a couple of cards, and of course there’s a fantastic giveaway as well where you can win a box of your own too!

Let’s get to the cake. I mean, cards.

For this beauty I played around with the stamps from the Perfect Reason stamp set, stamping the blooms with Tutti Frutti and Midnight inks. I snuck in a couple of stamps from the Paisley Peacock set too!

I love the sense of movement in the card. It really feels like the blooms and leaves are blowing in the wind.

I added a sentiment from the You Did It stamp set, nestled nicely in amongst the foliage so it doesn’t break with the flow. Little design details like that make me happy.

For my second card, I could not have departed more from the clean and simple look:

I can’t lie. I am seriously, completely, totally and utterly, head over heels in love with this. LOVE!

This was a complete labour of love but so, so worth it. I used 34 individual stamps on this card, and they were all stamped multiple times! It took pretty much all day. But, just look at it!! Doesn’t it look just like a store-bought notecard that you might find at a high-end stationers?! Swoon!!

So, some details.

I laid out all my stamps (from the Perfect Reason and Paisley Peacock sets) roughly on my panel of cardstock to work out where they’d more or less go. I then disassembled it all and started with the peacock body, as that’s the focus of the card. I stamped the body using white pigment ink (about 3 times to get an even and opaque coverage. Thank you, MISTI!) then overstamped it with the Party Dress ink, a couple of times. I continued, patiently, building up my overall image in the same way, one stamp at a time.

Each stamp stamped around five times. Many, many stamped images. If you want to do the maths then you’ll be here a while.

Instead, how about some detail shots.

Perfection.

Apart from the white ink every single ink is one of the Catherine Pooler ones. Just look at how vibrantly they’ve stamped, even on white ink on dark cardstock!! I could not be more in love.

Giveaway!

So I bet you’d like to win one of these amazing collections for yourself, right? Read on!

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning is leave me a comment – and then make sure you visit the other hop destinations too to check out the amazing inspiration and increase your chances of winning by commenting there too!

Here’s your Hop line-up for today!

Catherine Pooler
Lisa Harrolle
Lydia Evans
Chrissie Tobas
Ingrid Blackburn
Taheerah Atchia

As I mentioned, this is the third of three Blog Hops – and each day’s Hop has a box to give away! That’s three boxes up for grabs for three very lucky winners – and the more you comment the better your chances, so be sure to comment on every single stop of every single hop! You can head back to Catherine’s blog to get the list for the other two days!

You have until 9am EST on Thursday 9th February to enter. Good luck!

And don’t forget that The Perfect Reason Stamp of Approval Collection goes on sale tomorrow! In fact, I’ll be back with another post tomorrow to remind you!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies

You Can Do This Floral Card

Peacock Notecard