3rd Birthday Hop: Santa's Stocking, Sweater Vest & Loopy Letter Dies

Today's the big day!  Not only is it the day that our winter release is available for purchase, but it coincides with our company's third birthday so we are excited to be celebrating the occasion with many of our talented crafty friends!!!

Today I'm sharing product peeks and card ideas for three new die sets that are so much fun to play with!

Card Set No. 1: Up first we have a new A2 sized Santa's Stocking die that comes with all the parts and pieces to dress up your stocking with bows, holly & berries and layered candy canes!

For my cards here, I cut two of the stockings from white cardstock and scored them 1/2" from the top and adhered the two pieces together with some glue above the score line to form my card base.  I then decorated them with papers from our Holiday Cheer Paper.  For my sentiment I used our Greetings Word die and the word "Christmas" from our Alpaca Holiday Stamps.

Card No. 2: My next project turned the stockings into a fun holiday banner to hang from my fireplace mantel. I strung mini twinkly lights with an iridescent garland and attached the banner pieces with mini clothespins.  

I cut my stockings from a mix of pink & green patterned papers from our summer and fall collections (linked below) and decorated them with all the extra elements that come with the die set.  To dress up my stockings I used a hot glue gun to adhere an iridescent chenille trim that I'm pretty smitten with and then personalized them with our names using our new Loopy Letters alphabet dies.

Card No. 3: For this stocking shaped card I turned out our new Cable Knit Embossing folder and cut the cuff and holly from some wool felt in my stash.  I used a red jewel from Queen & Co. and our Wishes Word die for my sentiment. To keep the felt from tearing at the delicate points, I mounted my felt onto cardstock before running it through my die-cutting machine and then used my Sizzix Chrome Precision Base Plate to apply extra pressure.

Card No. 4: For my last card, cut two pieces and I hand-stitched around the perimeter of my stocking to create a pocket to hold a gift card.  I then adhered some Darice short pile fur to a piece of cardstock and hand cut the stocking cuff before stitching around it to help pervent fraying.  I embellished my stocking with some holly and berries from our new Christmas Trimming stamps & dies and finished off my card with a sentiment from our Alpaca Holiday stamps that had been stamped on a banner from our Sunny Borders stamps.

Card No. 5:  For our next new product we have our Sweater Vest dies which are also sized to create A2 size shaped cards.  The dies come with the argyle diamond, a stitching guide for hand-stitching, a collar, layered bow tie, the waistband and a V-neck or crew neck option.

For this card I cut my sweater from our Amazing Argyle Paper pack and then cut my V-neck and ribbed waistband using the woodgrain print on the reverse side.  Before mounting my front card panel onto my card base, I used a paper pierce together with the little "X" die from the set and punched the holes for my hand stitching.  I liked the control this gave me to line up my border without crushing the argyle diamonds I had already adhered to my card.

Card No. 6:  For my next card I thought it would be cool to create a full blown argyle pattern so I cut the diamond from the three colors of paper found in our Striped Silly and Dots & Stripes Jewel Tones Paper pack.  

To line them up perfectly I drew horizontal and vertical lines that intersected at the center of my card and used those lines to line up the 4 points of my blue diamond.  From there, I was able to build out to keep them lined up. When I was done I used my metal edge ruler with a paper piercer and punched little holes 1/8" apart through the center of each diamond and hand stitched everything with three strands of embroidery floss. It was a bit time consuming, but I did it while catching up on some fall tv and found it relaxing.  There are so many fun color combos you could create!  I think this looks like a fun fall sweater, but would also be really cool for a Father's Day card.  ;)

Card No. 7: I couldn't resist using the dies to create an "ugly Christmas sweater".  I think there are sooo many fun directions you could go with this them, but for my card I turned to the penguins from our Bundled Up stamps which I paired with a sentiment from our Gleeful Reindeer stamps.

To cut the top of my sweater to match the crew neck die-cut, I drew a faint pencil line on my card to indicate the placement and then used a 1-3/4" circle punch to punch out a "hole" in the top of my card base.  

Card No. 8:  I couldn't leave without using our new Cable Knit Embossing Folder together with our sweater vest dies!  To add a bit of color to what would be a fairly monochrome card, I added a button up shirt along with some teeny tiny buttons from my stash and added some holly from our Christmas Icons stamps.  A sentiment from our Alpaca Holiday Stamps heat embossed on a pennant from our Fancy Frame Rectangle dies completed the look.

Here's a closer look at the new standalone dies featured today...

      

    

I've also created a video sharing the full release in detail.  I was determined to do it in under 20 minutes and I'm thrilled to report I achieved my goal. Woo-hoo! (You can view it at our YouTube Channel in HD here). 

I'm ecstatic to have a very talented group of ladies helping me celebrate today.  They are showing lots more sneak peeks with amazing projects that are sure to inspire you!  Your next stop in the hop is Sandy's blog.  :) 

In case you get lost, here's a full list of everyone hopping today...

Sunny Studio
Sandy Allnock

Nichol Spohr
Eloise Blue
Laura Bassen
Francesca Vignoli

Kay Miller
Nina-Marie Trapani

Vanessa Menhorn
Michelle Short

Lexa Levana
Francine Vuillème
Juliana Michaels
Teri Anderson

Don't forget to leave a comment at every stop because each designer is giving away a $25 gift code to our online store for 14 chances to win and a total of $350 in prizes! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway
You have until Monday evening at 11:59 pm PDT to leave your comments.  Winners will be announced on our blog on Friday, October 5.  :)

Do you love what you see and can't wait to order your favorites?  Use the promo code CELEBRATE at checkout to save 15% off your entire order at our online store through Monday, October 1st at 11:59 PST (retail orders only).

For this release's free mini die with each purchase we are re-releasing our Snowflake die that we ran out way too quickly last year.  We have made sure to have more extras on hand this time.  ;)


Other Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

Bundled Up Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Bundled Up Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Gleeful Reindeer Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Wishes Word Die Shop at: Sunny Studio
Gingham Jewel Tones 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Amazing Argyle 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Dots & Stripes Jewel Tones 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Greetings Word Die Shop at: Sunny Studio

Striped Silly 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio

Holiday Cheer 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio

Cable Knit Embossing Shop at: Sunny Studio

Alpaca Holiday Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio