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

Sneak Peek: Foxy Christmas, Here Comes Santa & Rustic Winter Dies!

Hello and welcome to day 4 of our sneak peek week as we count down to our new Winter release debuting tomorrow!!!  I can hardly wait!

Today I'm sharing product peeks and card ideas for our new Foxy Christmas Stamps & dies, our new mini Here Comes Santa Stamps and our new Rustic Winter Dies. Let's get started!

Card No. 1:  Allow me to introduce you to our new Foxy Christmas stamps which come with 6 little foxy friends, a tree stump, a stack of gifts and several sentiments, including individual words for a number of different combinations.  

For my card here, I paired the foxes with some bright tone-on-tone prints from our Holiday Cheer Paper pack in an angled colorblock design where I used some basic square dies to cut  blocks out of my front card panel.  I made sure to tape my dies on with some washi tape to keep the angels straight and prevent them from shifting when running through my die-cutting machine. I then heat embossed my sentiment onto a strip of red grid paper from our Classic Gingham Paper pack and added a trail of Sparkling Clear Crystals to fill in some of the open space between my frames.

Card No. 2: For this card I thought it would be fun to mix the critters from all three of our new 4x6 stamp sets.  Each set has the opportunity for stripes so I chose to color them so that the were dressed to match.  ;)  I punched circles in my front card panel and backed them with some tone-on-tone snowflake prints and added a small strip of our multi-colored stripe from our Holiday Cheer Paper pack.  I finished my card with a sentiment from our new Alpaca Holiday stamps and added a trail of crystal clear mini sequins.

Card No. 3:  My next Foxy Christmas project shows that this set isn't limited to just Christmas cards.  I was able to create a heart themed card that would be perfect for the one you love or even for Valentine's Day!  The set comes with a little tiny bow that I stamped two of and added to my foxes to make them a fancy boy and girl couple.  

My background was heat embossed with white embossing powder using our Cascading Heart stamps onto watercolor paper.  I then created a color wash, adding heavier pigment towards the top and then watered down towards the bottom for an ombre look.  My heart frame was die-cut using our Stitched Heart dies and my sentiment was stamped onto a banner from our Sunny Borders dies with a stitched scallop border along the bottom.

Card No. 4: For my last Foxy Christmas card of the day I have used the little cuddling fox pair to nestle them between a birch tree forest against a snowy night's sky.  I inked up my card panel using a blend of distress inks and then hand drew my snowflakes using a Sharpie white extra fine paint pen.

The 4.25" high birch trees come from a cool new die set called Rustic Winter that is shared more below.  The set comes with three different tree options, as well as a solid layer to use behind them to give them a two-tone color.  After I had my trees adhered, I cut a snow drift using out Woodland Border dies which gave me a place to stamp my sentiment.

Card No.5:  For this Rustic Winter Card I went light and airy.  I am smitten with these colors together.  The die set comes with two little cardinal birds so I thought it would be fun to use a birdhouse from our A Bird's Life Stamps, but I wanted it to match the subtle feel of my card so I stamped it in tan and brown inks onto cardstock of a similar color and paper-pieced them together. 

I then used some embroidery floss to stitch around the tree branch to give the illusion it's hanging form the branch.  More snowy hills from our Woodland Border dies and a sentiment from our Festive Greetings stamps completed my card. 

Card No. 6:  My last Rusic Winter card of the day fully uses all of the dies from the set which includes the three deer shown.  I pulled my inspiration for my color scheme from some digital Christmas cards I found online.  I never would have thought of using kraft for my background, but I'm in love!  I used our Frosty Flurries stamps to repeatedly stamp the background with VersaMark ink and heat emboss it with white embossing powder.  I framed my scene using the largest scalloped frame from our Fancy Frames Rectangle Dies.  A sentiment stamped in red from our Holiday Style stamps completed the look.

Card No. 7:  I'm so excited to introduce another mini stamp set in our line-up called Here Comes Santa!  I've always wanted a silhouette of Santa's sleigh with his reindeer, but never managed to find the room to squeeze them on a previous set.  I finally decided it was time to just put them on their own set (along with a versatile fir tree border and some fun twinkly stars).

For my card here I paired Santa with some little scenes created with our Comic Strip Everyday dies. To make them work for winter, my trees lost their leaves and I cut extra rooftops in white and just cut along the bottoms of each with a wavy pattern using my scissors. I also fussy cut a little tree by hand to put on the top of my car. I die-cut the layer behind my windows from yellow cardstock to make my houses glow in the moonlight and used our Woodland Border dies for my snowy hills.  As a final touch I heat embossed my sentiment using a greeting from our Holiday Style stamps.  It was such a fun card to create, but I just might have trouble giving this one away.  ;)

Card No. 8:  My last card of the day pairs Santa's sleigh with our Christmas Home stamps from last year.  I cut a window from my white cardstock panel using a stitched circle die.  I then backed it with a piece of royal blue cardstock which I stamped with Santa's Silhouette across the center and the tree border a couple times along the bottom.  When they were dry I stamped the twinkle stars from the set with VersaMark ink and heat embossed them in white. I then stamped that same Santa onto a piece of yellow cardstock and punched out a moon to layer over the top of my other stamping.  A sentiment set on a curve from our Gleeful Reindeer stamps was the perfect finishing touch.

I hope you've enjoyed today's sneak peeks and will join us tomorrow morning as we celebrate our company's third birthday with a special blog hop with loads of special guests and prizes.

Here's a closer look at the new stamps & dies used today (available for purchase on Friday, September 28th). 

         

  

Other Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

A Bird's Life Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	A Bird's Life Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Gleeful Reindeer Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Holiday Style Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Memento Tuxedo Black Marker Shop at: Sunny Studio	Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio	Christmas Home Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Christmas Home Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Festive Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frosty Flurries Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Fancy Frames- Rectangles Shop at: Sunny Studio	Comic Strip Everyday Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Woodland Borders Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Holiday Cheer 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Crystal Clear Mini Sequins Shop at: Sunny Studio	Sparkling Clear Crystals Shop at: Sunny Studio

Memento Tuxedo Black Ink Pad Shop at: Sunny Studio

Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio

Cascading Heart Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio

VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio

Stitched Heart Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio

Stitched Scallop Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio

Sunny Borders Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio

Sunny Borders Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio