Farewell tribute to Verve -saying goodbye to the Divas

Hi everyone!  Thank you all so much for all your wonderful comments these last few days.  What a wonderful journey this has been for me and you are all a huge part of it!!

So, today is my last day and I saved the hardest post for the last.  Saying goodbye to the wonderful Verve Divas.  Man, talk about talent.  For those of us who are fortunate enough to be on a design team, KNOW how important the other girls on the team are.  Believe me, if there is drama, snarkiness or competitiveness it can totally ruin an experience.  Not surprising, I am happy to report that the Verve Divas are WONDERFUL and talented with none of the yuckiness.  Just an amazing group of girls!

I couldn't figure out what to do with today's post, so I thought it may be fun to pick a few of my favorite Verve cards and post them.  I can't share cards from all Divas with me throughout my term, (that would be one HUGE ole post), I chose 8 fabulous ranging in style and stamp sets.

First up, the queen Diva herself, Julee.  What a fabulous and fun love card!  Check out her Verve gallery here.

Here is an amazing creation from Amy Sheffer.  Soft and elegant, so Amy.  Check out her Verve gallery here.

Here is a favie made by my BESTIE, Teresa Kline.  Such whimsical elegance!  Check out her Verve gallery here.

Here is one from Laura Fredrickson.  Look at this fun pink Christmas card!  Check out her Verve gallery here.

Check out this crisp cutie patootie from Jen Tapler.  Check out her Verve Gallery here.

And the fabulous Laurie.  I JUST couldn't settle on 1, so here are 2 beauties.  Isn't this Pretty in Pink?  Check out her Verve gallery here.

and look at Laurie go all CAS on us!!

And last, but not least, Shannan.  Look at the fabulous bold colors in this one!  Check out her Verve gallery here.

OK seriously, this was HARD!!  I mean, have you SEEN their galleries?  I wish I could have posted cards from ALL the Divas, I hated "leaving out" anyone!!  Girls, you all have been wonderful to me and wonderful to design with.  I will miss you all more than I can say.  Big hugs to you all.

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.  I'll leave you with one of my favs I made and here is the link to my Verve gallery.

Farewell tribute to Verve's Sentiment sets

Hi everyone!  Welcome to Day 3 of my Farewell tribute to Verve Stamps.  Today I share with you Verve's Sentiment sets.  I have to say, Julee's fonts are almost unparalleled!  Good sentiment sets are hard to find and when you do, you hang on to them forever.  Am I right!?!

Here are a few of my favorite sentiment sets and some cards I made with them.

I first fell in love with the oldie but goodie, Happy Thoughts (now discontinued):

Another fabulous set is Wishing You (now discontinued):

And lastly this amazing birthday set was inspired by my suggestion (well, I am sure more than me begged Julee to design a "birthday" set -heehee), Big Wish (now discontinued):

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you come back tomorrow for my Final tribute day -to the fabulous Verve Divas.

Farewell tribute to Verve's Flowers

EDITED 2026: 

This post is 15 years old now and I appreciate so much all the love for this post and my flower cards using Verve Stamps. Verve has been out of business for years now, and I have become more of a die-cutter over the years.

You can check out the wonderful flower dies by Spellbinders and Scrapbook.com. It is easy to adapt any of my older cards using flower stamps to a die cut flower!

 

Hi everyone! Today's post is all about Verve's flower images.  I tell ya, when it comes to flower sets, Julee's designs are certainly among the very best!

Take a peek at my favorite flower stamp sets and a few cards I made with each:

Wishful Elegance (now discontinued)

 

Feel the Sun (now discontinued)

  

Love's Flower (now discontinued)

 

 And last, but not least, Because of You (now discontinued)

 

Once again, that was A LOT of cards to scroll through and I thank you for sticking with me.  Come back tomorrow for my tribute to Julee's fabulous sentiment sets!  Have a great day!

A farewell tribute to Verve

Hi everyone!  Yes, you read the title correctly.  It is with much sadness that I announce I have stepped down from Verve Stamps.  If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you  know that Verve was my first Design Team and my first stamping "love".  But understandably, Spellbinders has a policy that their design team can not also design for a company that produces dies.  So as I accepted the offer to the Spellbinders team, I stepped down from Verve.  This really is a good thing.  Designing for Spellbinders is such a wonderful opportunity, I owed it to myself to take it!!  It wasn't without tears, but Julee is so wonderful and fully supportive of my decision, it really made it that much easier. 

I have to say, Julee's designs with Verve Stamps has largely attributed to the designer I am today, so I wanted to do something more than a paragraph blurb at the end of a blog post to mark my leaving.  I want to honor my term with Verve in a more fitting way.  So over the next few days, I will be doing a tribute to Verve Stamps, Julee and the Divas to show my love and appreciation.

Today, I will be showing some of my favorite cards that I made over the years.  This was REALLY hard.  I have made literally HUNDREDS of cards with Verve and man narrowing it down to 3 or 4 a year was tough.  Thankfully, I can share more over the next few days.

Some of my favorite cards from 2008 -stamp sets shown Abundant Blessings, Artful Elegance, Snow Wonderful and Birthday Surprise: 

 Some favorites from 2009 -stamp sets shown Kindred Spirits, Up Up and Away, Because of You, and Delightful and Delicious:

Some favorites from 2010 -stamp sets shown Love's Flower, One Person, Dude and Joy PJ:

I know that was A LOT of cards to scroll through and I thank you for sticking with me.  Be sure to check back in these next few days to see the rest of my Farewell tribute to my beloved Verve Stamps!  Have a great day!

You're invited...

Hi everyone!  I have 2 fun invitations for you today.  The FIRST, tonight is the Gina K. Designs March Release party!!  WAIT A MINUTE... you might be thinking, "Hey, did I miss all the sneak peeks?"  Well... no you haven't!  Gina switched things up this month.  We are doing the release party FIRST and then, starting tomorrow, we will have a 4 day DT blog hop showcasing the stamps.

Party details can be found on the StampTV Home page.  The festivities start at 7pm (Central).  It will be FAST moving with set reveals and DT samples going up every 10 minutes or so!  

Here is a little sneak peek of a card I made using the new March Stamp TV Kit, Springtime Silhouettes: 

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And now for my SECOND invitation - Sharon has launched her NEW and IMPROVED online store:

The Stamp Simply Ribbon Store!  

Oh this is such a fun day!  Now you can order all your favorite goodies with a click of a button, no more emailing for an invoice.  This took a lot of time and work, so please take a look around and let Sharon know what you think!!

In celebration, I have a card to share (OK, ignore that it's actually a sympathy card, oops).  This card uses the Rose Border set by Wordsworth, the pattern paper is from the Basic Grey, Curio 6x6 pad and the ribbon is the 1/2" wrinkled ribbon in Burgundy.

Thank you for stopping by and I look forward to chatting with you all tonight at the release party!!

Thinking of you

Hi everyone!  Today I have a card to share using the flowers from the Verve set, Great Friend and sentiment from Wordy Birds.  I LOVE the flowers in this set!  Perhaps my all time favie Verve flower sets.  My card uses the outline flowers stamped on pattern paper and cut out. 

I actually started this card several weeks ago using one of the PCrafts Go-To Sketches for their magazine call.  I didn't have time to work out the details and finish the card back then, so I set it aside.   I actually do that quite a bit -get started on a card, not like how it's turning out and toss it into "to work on later" file.  Sometimes get back to them, sometimes not.  But this card uses the fabulous papers from the Echo Park, For the Record collection, so I just HAD to finish it!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!  I'll leave you with a close up picture.

P.S.  I posted this card on the Echo Park FB wall last week, so if it looks familiar you are NOT going crazy!! lol!

Card Deets:

Stamps -  Great Friend, Wordy Birds (Verve Stamps)
Paper - white cardstock, For the Record "Fancy Floral", "Fabric Store", "Stamp of Approval", "Newsprint" and "Noteworthy" papers (Echo Park)
Accessories - Single embossed curve border punch (EK Success), Swiss dots EF, black wrinkled ribbon (May Arts), 2mm and 3mm cranberry rhinestones (Pizazz APlenty), Little Leaves Sizzlits (SU!)

Spellbinder Thank you blog hop

Hi everyone!   The Gina K Designs team would like to welcome to you this special Spellbinders Thank You Blog Hop!! Recently Spellbinders generously gifted each member of our Design Team with the amazing new Grand Calibur die cutting machine!  What an amazing and exciting gift and believe me each one of us LOVE it!! We have made some special Spring themed cards and projects to showcase the new Grand Calibur and why we love it so much.  Thank you so much Spellbinders!

If you are following the hop, you should have come here from the very talented Melanie Muenchinger's blog.   If you missed anything along the way, you can find the master blog list over on Gina's blog!

My first card uses the little chickies image from the Basket Blessings set.  Aren't they the cutest?!?  And the detailing in the eggs is drawn in, so they are super easy to color.

Here is a picture of all the Spellbinders die cuts I used on the card.  See how they ALL fit on the Cutting Plate?  This is what I LOVE about the Grand Calibur.  The Plate is 8.5x11 and it is big enough to do all the card die cuts in one swipe!! 

My next card uses the set, Bug Me Anytime.  I love this cutie little set!  Lots of fun happy sentiments and images -perfect for spring.  I inked the flower puff in brown and then took a pink ink to the edges.

Here are the Spellbinders dies I used for this card.

So your next stop along the hop is the fabulous, Nina Brackett!! 

Be sure to hop over and see what fabulous spring creation she has for you!!  I'll leave you with some close up pictures.

Card Deets:

Stamps - Basket Blessings, Bug Me Anytime (Gina K)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Chocolate Brown and Hibiscus Burst

Paper - White, Soft Sky, Lemon Tart cardstock, Springtime collection papers (Echo Park) and Olivia Rose Collection paper (K&Company)

Spellbinder dies - Blossom, Standard Circles Lg and Sm, Curved Rectangles, Labels One

Accessories - Grand Calibur die cutting machine, silver pearls and string, pink grosgrain ribbon, hot pink rhinestones (Kaisercraft), stickles, copic markers