Sneak Peek Week: Love Monkey Stamps & Botanical Backdrop Dies

Hello and welcome to our Spring Sneak Peek Week!  This week I have been showcasing cards using our new collection for Spring available for purchase tomorrow morning.  :)

Today's share includes our new 4x6 Love Monkey stamps & dies, as well as a cool new standalone A2 sized die called Botanical Backdrop.

Card No. 1: For my first card of the day I used the Love Monkey stamps to create a monochromatic Valentine. To create my background, I double stamped our Cascading Hearts stamps in a crisp red ink onto white cardstock and then I sponged on candied apple distress ink with a jumbo dauber to create an ombre effect on my panel, saturating the ink more along the top and fading it towards the bottom to mimic my heart pattern.

I colored my images with Copic Markers and cut them out with the coordinating dies.  As many of you know I love to fussy cut stamped images, but this is one set where you just might want to purchase the dies to save your sanity.  As I learned the hard way, the tree branch and monkey tails are a bit challenging to trim around so if you're on the fence this is one set where I would recommend them (or perhaps stamping the images onto your card background and masking off the monkeys before stamping the tree branch). ;)

I framed my little monkeys using our Stitched Ovals dies and Fancy Frames Oval dies and then stamped my sentiment on a curve to match using a stamp positioning tool.  To play up the scalloped theme, I cut two scalloped borders using our Stitched Scallop dies out of the same white and red cardstock and then offset them for a fun ruffled look.

Card No. 2: Up next is a card using the swinging monkey from the set, together with the extra vines included. To frame my little scene, I used our Frilly Frames Lattice dies without the lattice insert and then masked off a smaller rectangle using Therm-o-web's Purple Tape. Next I inked up my background with tumbled glass and twisted citron distress inks before peeling off the tape. I then paired my little guy with the mailbox & letters from our Sending My Love stamps.  Finally I stamped my sentiment from the set using Versafine Onyx Black ink.  I love the look of the masked background and better yet, it's a great way to keep your card flat for mailing.  ;)

Card No. 3: For this card I thought it would be fun to color the balloons in rainbow colors to match the striped paper from our Rainbow Bright paper pack for a super bright and happy card.  I inked up my cloud background using a MFT stencil and tumbled glass distress ink.  I then colored two houses from our Happy Home stamps in equally bright colors to match the feel of my monkey and framed the little scene using the negative space from our Stitched Ovals dies. To finish my card I used a sentiment from our new Over The Rainbow stamps which I will be sharing more of tomorrow.  ;)

Card No. 4: For this fun card I turned to our new Staggered Circles Die which I shared yesterday for a sweet Valentine's Day card.  I used a piece of red, pink and white striped paper from our Holiday Cheer Paper pack which inspired the colors I chose for my front card panel and circle cutouts. I then added a zig zag border detail with our Ric Rac Border stamps and stamped my sentiment with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with white opaque embossing powder.

Card No. 5: For my last Love Monkey card of the day, I paired the cute monkey couple together with our Stitched Heart dies and the banner from our Sunny Borders stamps which was then stamped with my Valentine's Day sentiment from our Happy Thoughts stamps. Then I die-cut the polka-dot background using our new Frilly Frames Polka-dot dies, backed them with pink cardstock and paired them with two stitched scallop frames from our Fancy Frames Rectangle dies.

Card No. 6:  I am now completely switching gears with our new A2 sized Botanical Backdrop dies.  Honestly I would have liked more time to play with these because I think there is so much more things that these fun dies can do, but I sadly just ran out of time. 

For this card, I set aside the beautiful leafy frame die that comes with this set and focused on all the cool flower dies that come in the center for a pretty Mother's Day card. I had some striped paper strips from our Dots & Stripes Pastels paper pack leftover from another project so I adhered them onto some copy paper for my own custom print.  I then layered over the top a scalloped mat using our Frilly Frames Lattice dies.  After loosely arranging my flowers in opposing corners, I cut the Happy Word from our Flirty Flowers Paper and stamped the words "mother's day" from our Happy Thoughts stamps. After I had everything placed where I wanted it, I took turns lifting the pieces and applying them to my card with some liquid glue.

Card No. 7: For this card, I took that same medium sized flower used in my last card and this time paired it with some different pieces for the center to create daffodils!  For my background I embossed a piece of blue cardstock with our new Sunburst embossing folder and then distressed it with some blue ink and my jumbo dauber to accentuate the sun rays. To create my stems, I trimmed some thin strips of green cardstock on my paper trimmer and then added the two individual leaves from the set. For my sentiment I stamped the words "thank you" from our Autumn Splendor stamps onto a banner from our Little Angels dies using Versafine Onyx Black ink. A little strip of yellow striped paper from our Dots & Stripes Pastels paper pack and a scattering of Studio Katia Radiant Pineapple Fusion sequins finished off my card.

Card No. 8: My final card of the day uses the Botanical Backdrop frame and flower dies with Therm-o-web's PeelnStick Toner Sheets and their Amethyst Watercolor Foil and Lime Satin Foil.  Due to the foil's reflective nature combined with the dark background, this card was incredibly hard to get a good photo of, but it's so pretty in person! 

The directions on the toner sheets suggest die-cutting and then foiling, but after lots of trial and error I would say I got much better results by foiling small blocks of the toner sheet in the sizes I needed for a particular color and then die-cutting them afterwards.  By doing this the foil was able to get into the stitched grooves of the die (versus leaving black toner paper showing by doing it the other way).  I love these toner sheets though and it took away much of the frustration I have with foiling--It was super fun to be able to create custom colors and die-cuts from a single sheet of toner paper  Even better, I was able to combine these sheets with their foam adhesive sheets to die-cut dimensional flowers with one pass through my machine!

I think the glitz of the foil paper makes it ideal for a classy wedding card.  I added some pretty bling by Queen & Co. to my flower centers and heat embossed my sentiment using our Everyday Greetings stamps with silver embossing powder.

Here's an example of just a few of the fun ways the flowers from our new Botanical Backdrop dies can be layered...

I'm so happy you've joined me for today's sneak peek and I'd love to give a $25 gift code to one lucky winner.  Make sure to keep checking back all this week for more peeks & prizes for up to five chances to win.  The contests run through Saturday at Midnight PST with winners announced here on Sunday, January 6th. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Here's a closer look at the new Love Monkey stamps & coordinating dies and new standalone Botanical Backdrop dies used today (available for purchase on Friday, January 4th).

      

Other Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

Autumn Splendor Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Happy Home Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Happy Home Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Little Angels Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Sending My Love Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Sending My Love Stamps 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	Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio	Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Cascading Heart Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Fancy Frames- Ovals Shop at: Sunny Studio	Fancy Frames- Rectangles Shop at: Sunny Studio	Rainbow Bright 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Happy Thoughts Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Happy Word Die Shop at: Sunny Studio	Holiday Cheer 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Oval Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Flirty Flowers 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Dots & Stripes Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Sunburst Embossing Shop at: Sunny Studio	Over The Rainbow Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Staggered Circles Die Shop at: Sunny Studio
Frilly Frames Lattice Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames Polka-Dot Shop at: Sunny Studio	Everyday Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Radiant Pineapple Sequins Shop at: Sunny Studio