Sneak Peek: Introducing Sleigh Ride Surprise Craft Dies

Hello, and welcome to the second day of our Holiday Sneak Peek Week!  All this week I am sharing cards showcasing our newest collection, which will be available for purchase this Friday!

Card No. 1: Today I'm showcasing our new Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies, and I have fallen completely head over heels in love with them! This set is full of so many fun details. I must point out, though, that the intricate tree die from this set is one of those dies where you need a metal shim with a strong electronic die-cutting machine, or the Sizzix Chrome Precision Base Plate with a manual die-cutting machine. Even with these measures, I found it helpful to run it through a few times, shifting the direction it passed through my machine each time.

My first card today uses almost every element from the set for a colorful Christmas card, and I love the way it turned out! The set includes a fun string of holiday lights to tuck below the sleigh's trim, and I layered up the tree and wreath with two cuts from two different colors of green cardstock to give them a fuller appearance. I trimmed my 4.25" x 4.5" panel from white cardstock and added stitching on the top and bottom edges using our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies. I then tucked 5/8" strips of colorful striped patterned paper from our Joyful Holiday Paper pack, along the top and bottom. The "wrapping paper" on the gifts used prints from our Dots & Stripes Jewel Tones Paper, Classic Gingham Paper, and Joyful Holiday sets. Lastly, I added a sentiment from our Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps.

Card No. 2: Next up is a card utilizing many of the same elements from the Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies, but this time I went with a pastel pink, green, and gold color scheme. For my background, I pierced my shimmery Opal Cardstock with our Dotted Diamond Portrait Dies and then randomly scattered die-cut stars from the set, cut from gold leaf cardstock. I used this same metallic gold cardstock to cut matching bows for my wreath and gifts. 

For the presents, I used prints from our Dots & Stripes Pastel Paper and Gingham Pastel Paper packs. Lastly, I added my greeting from the Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps to a pennant strip cut using the Notebook Photo Corner Dies. I stamped my sentiment using VersaMark ink with Liquid Platinum Embossing Powder to perfectly complement my metallic gold stars.

Card No. 3: For this Christmas card, I used the Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies and went with a classic red and green color scheme, using the dark green checked print from the Joyful Holiday Paper pack and topping it with its crisp white scalloped mat from the Frilly Frames Eyelet Lace Dies. I created a frame around my red sleigh filled with Santa's bags of toys using the smallest holly and berries dies from the set, adding extra touches of realism to the berries with my Copic Markers and a white gel pen. I then layered my greeting over the middle of the sleigh using a sentiment from the Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps and the word "holiday" from the Cozy Christmas Stamps, which I heat-embossed onto a green dotted print from the Polka-dot Parade Paper pack, and cut out using the Brilliant Banner 3 Dies.

Card No. 4: Up next is a festive, monochromatic slimline card in cool blue tones using the Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies. This time, I used the tree die from the set outside the sleigh, cutting it from white cardstock and topping it with sparkly Stickles Twinkle liquid glitter to give it a snowy appearance. I added a snowy hillside using the Slimline Nature Border Dies and a large oversized blue greeting to match from the Season's Greetings Stamps. For the gifts in my sleigh, I cut them from patterned paper from the Surprise Party Paper, Classic Gingham Paper, and Polka-dot Parade Paper packs and topped them with Metallic Silver Bows.

Card No. 5: I could resist pairing our new Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies with some cute critter stamps, and our Roly Poly Penguin Stamps and Penguin Pair Stamps fit the bill. I wanted the adorable penguins to take center stage, so I kept the rest of my card clean and simple, adding a snowy background using the Snow Flurries Stamps together with Gina K. Blue Sky ink. I should note that these stamps usually stamp quite crisp; however, my new ink cube was very juicy, and I decided to double-stamp them, as I'm in the habit of doing. I also failed to zap them with the heat gun to prevent the ink from bleeding, but in the end I decided I kind of liked the blurry, dreamy background that resulted. I added a simple white snowy hill using the Slimline Nature Border Dies and heat-embossed a greeting from the Sledding Critters Stamps, which I added to a Brilliant Banner 2 Die, cut from red cardstock.

Card No. 6: Switching gears, I always enjoy finding ways to stretch my dies by using them a bit outside the box, so for this card, I made the tree from the Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies my focal point, decorating it with the trimmed-down string of lights, mini ornament, and star from the set, and the little pot from the Distinctive Door Holiday Add-on Dies. I then paired the tree with the three deer from the Rustic Winter set, cut from black cardstock, and framed them using the Rounded Rectangle Window Dies, cut from a lime-green checked print found in the Joyful Holiday Paper pack. I added holly and berries to the corner of my frame and a red bow to one of the deer's necks from the Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies. Finally, I heat-embossed a sentiment from the Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps onto a red banner cut using the Brilliant Banner 1 Dies.

Card No. 7: Continuing the idea of using the Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies on a card without a sleigh, I created a card focusing on the wreath, bow, and holly from the set. I layered and lined up three wreaths, adding the peeking reindeer and Santa Claus from the Holiday Express Stamps. I then added a scalloped edge to my white cardstock panel and topped it with a red stitched strip using the Ribbon & Lace Border Dies. I cut a few 3/4" circles from red cardstock and then cut them in half so that I could glue them behind the eyelet openings of my scalloped border to help keep things from looking too busy when I added the red and white candy striped print from the All Is Bright Paper pack to the bottom of my card. Lastly, I added the retro "Merry Christmas" greeting stamped in red ink from our Bells & Baubles Stamps.

That wraps up today's sneak peek. I'm so happy you joined me today! I'd love to give a $40 gift code to one lucky winner, randomly selected from comments on this blog post and on our Facebook and Instagram posts. Our daily contests will run through Saturday, August 29th, at Midnight PST, with winners announced here on our blog on Sunday, August 30th.

Here's a closer look at our new Sleigh Ride Surprise Dies, which will be available for purchase starting on Friday morning. I've also shared a number of cards today using our newer Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps, which we released on their own without a full release last year, and have since become one of my favorites. You can create hundreds of custom sentiments, and I have compiled them in a printable guide HERE that I've found helpful to store with the set.

 

Other Supplies Used:

Notebook Photo Corners Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brilliant Banner 1 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brilliant Banner 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brilliant Banner 3 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Season's Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Season's Greetings Word Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Bells & Baubles Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Bells & Baubles Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Frilly Frames-Eyelet Lace Shop at: Sunny Studio	Dotted Diamond Portrait Shop at: Sunny Studio	Slimline Nature Borders Shop at: Sunny Studio	Ribbon & Lace Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Rounded Rectangle Window Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Rustic Winter Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Distinctive Door Holiday Add-on Shop at: Sunny Studio	Snow Flurries Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Roly Poly Penguin Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Roly Poly Penguin Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Penguin Pair Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Penguin Pair Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Sledding Critters Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Sledding Critters Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	All Is Bright Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Joyful Holiday Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Classic Gingham 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Striped Silly 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Polka-dot Parade 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Surprise Party 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Dots & Stripes Jewel Tones 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Dots & Stripes Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Gingham Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stickles Twinkle Glitter Shop at: Sunny Studio
Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	Liquid Platinum Embossing Powder Shop at: Sunny Studio

Sneak Peek: Introducing Pathway Home 6x6 Stamps & Dies

Hello, and welcome to the first day of our Holiday Sneak Peek Week!  All this week, I will be sharing cards showcasing our newest collection, which will be available for purchase this Friday! 

Card No. 1: This week we are celebrating our company's 11th birthday, so it only seems fitting to kick off our sneak peek week with a fun birthday card featuring our new Pathway Home Stamps. This 6x6 set showcases a cute house with a path, trees, and a picket fence, but it includes so many extra images, including a raccoon, two adorable squirrels, and a number of supporting images to personalize your scenes. I've been itching to have a new 6x6 scene that works for more seasons, and I've really enjoyed using this set!

To set the birthday party scene, I added the balloons from the Floating By Stamps and the banners from the Balloon Rides Stamps. I then added the foxes from the Foxy Friends Stamps, dressed them up in rainbow party hats, and added the present from that same set. Lastly, I added a birthday greeting by heat-embossing the phrase from the Inside Greetings Birthday Stamps onto a pennant strip from the Notebook Photo Corner Dies, cut from paper found in our Classic Gingham Paper pack.

Card No. 2:  My next card using the Pathway Home Stamps relies heavily on all the elements found in the new set, adding the apples, leaves, and birdhouse to the trees and stacking additional apples in the wagon for the raccoon to pull. The only additional images I added are the clouds from the Balloon Rides Stamps and a sentiment from our Punny Apple Greetings Stamps. I love how this card turned out and how this set works well for not only square cards, but trimmed down for both portrait- and landscape-oriented cards. If you like 5x7 cards, it was also designed to be used in portrait orientation for that format. 

Card No. 3: Next up, a Halloween night scene using the Pathway Home Stamps. It was fun changing the mood and adding glowing light to the windows of the cottage and adding the two small pumpkins to the background. In the foreground, I once again added the banners from the Balloon Rides Stamps, this time coloring them in festive Halloween colors. To help my die-cut elements not stand out like a sore thumb with their stark white edges against my dark sky background, I chose to color around their edges with coordinating Copic markers to make them blend in better. It took a little extra effort, but it made such a huge difference in the final look of my card. For my focal point, I added two dogs from the Happy Howl-o-ween Stamps and stamped a punny greeting from the set onto a speech bubble from the Comic Strip Speech Bubbles Dies.

Card No. 4: Up next is another card primarily focusing on the elements from the new Pathway Home Stamps to personalize the scene of my fall card. This time I added the oak leaf to my two largest trees and filled my wagon with maple leaves (presumably gathered from the smaller trees in the distance) with some acorns tucked in for good measure. I added the squirrels from the set and love that the rocks in front of the fence provide a prop for critters to stand on and allow for varying heights in the scene. I also added three of the birds from the Foxy Friends Stamps, propping them up on the fence post and rocks as well. I completed my card by adding a "happy fall" greeting from the Woodsy Autumn Stamps that was stamped onto a shortened pennant strip from the Notebook Photo Corner Dies.

For this particular card, I used the extra white space around the house scene to stamp extra images for my card, so I fussy cut around the rocks and path with my scissors. This gives you an alternative to coloring the path with markers or masking off the other elements to color the large path with distress inks like I did for my first three cards. In this case, I added a simple straight mask at the horizon and took turns inking my sky and path directly onto my card base before adding the scene over the top.

Card No. 5: My last two cards today use smaller parts of the scene from the Pathway Home Stamps to be framed in the background. Since I knew from the start I wanted to frame just part of the scene, I was able to trace around the window created with our Stitched Oval 2 Dies cut from the blue checked print from our Critter Country Paper pack to pencil off the parts of the scene that would be showing in my finished card. That allowed me to really speed up my coloring process. I then topped my scene with the Fancy Frame Oval Dies, topped with a greeting from the Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps that had been heat-embossed on the Brilliant Banner 2 Dies, die-cut from the orange polka-dot pattern from the same Critter Country pack. Lastly, I added the girl and boy with the wagon from our Fall Kiddos Stamps, surrounded by the pumpkins from the new Pathway Home Stamps.

Card No. 6: I know this is a bit out-of-season, but I couldn't resist sharing how well the scene from our new Pathway Home Stamps works for cards nine months out of the year, with the trees colored as blossoming cherry blossom trees. It truly is a flexible set that can be used year 'round! For this card, I framed the scene by layering it with a pink heart print from the Flirty Flowers Paper pack that had been die-cut using the Rounded Rectangle Window Dies. For my focal point, I added the panda bears with the mailbox and letters from our Bighearted Bears Stamps and added the "sending you love" sentiment from the Build-a-Greeting Holidays Stamps.

That wraps up today's sneak peek. I'm so happy you joined me today! I'd love to give a $40 gift code to one lucky winner, who will be randomly selected from comments on this blog post and on our Facebook and Instagram posts. Our daily contests will run through Saturday, August 29th, at Midnight PST, with winners announced here on our blog on Sunday, August 30th.

Here's a closer look at our new 6x6 Pathway Home Stamps and Pathway Home Dies, which are now available for purchase.

Other Supplies Used:

Foxy Friends Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Foxy Friends Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Balloon Rides Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Balloon Rides Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Floating By Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Floating By Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Inside Greetings Birthday Shop at: Sunny Studio	Notebook Photo Corners Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Happy Howl-o-ween Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Happy Howl-o-ween Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Comic Strip Speech Bubble Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Punny Apple Greetings Shop at: Sunny Studio
Fall Kiddos Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Fall Kiddos Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Woodsy Autumn Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Woodsy Autumn Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Fancy Frames- Ovals Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Oval 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brilliant Banner 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Rounded Rectangle Window Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Bighearted Bears Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Bighearted Bears Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Build-a-Greeting Holidays Shop at: Sunny Studio	PinkFresh Studio Blending Brushes Shop at: Sunny Studio
Flirty Flowers 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Classic Gingham 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Critter Country Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio
Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio