Sneak Peek: Pink Peonies, Blooming Frame, Heartstring Borders & Round Blocks

Hello and welcome to day 4 of our Spring Sneak Peek Week!  All this week I am showcasing cards using our newest collection which will be available for purchase on Friday, January 10th.

So I simply can't wait a second longer and have to share these cool new acrylic blocks right from the beginning!  

Our new circular blocks come in two fun sizes that fit very well in your hand and are made of a premium 9/16" thickness that has a really nice weight to them  They each come with a polished easy grip edge and have a 1/4" etched gridlines to help with lining things up.  

Don't get me wrong.  I adore my stamp positioning tools, but sometimes it's just really nice to grab a block and stamp things out quickly without the fuss and these are super fun to use!  They are also really handy for use with our new alphabet stamps which I'll be sharing more of in a video tomorrow.
  

In addition to these cool blocks, today's sneak peeks also include another new floral 4x6 Stamp set, along with their coordinating dies and two new standalone die sets.  These have been a blast to create with and I'm thrilled to finally share them!

Card No. 1: My first card combines both our new Pink Peonies Stamps together with our new A2 sized Blooming Frame dies, used with a twist.  I backed my navy frame with some white cardstock I had inked up with Picked Raspberry distress ink and then I cut the frame in half so that I could create the look of a gatefold card on front.

For my flowers, I stamped them in VersaFine Clair Charming Pink ink with the leaves in VersaFine Clair Verdant Ink and then heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.  For my color medium I turned to my Daniel Smith watercolors.  At this point I was running out of space for a sentiment so I stamped "for you" using our Happy Thoughts Stamps onto a small tag from our Sweet Treats Bag Dies.

Card No. 2: Our new Blooming Frame Dies are cool in that they leave the center of the frame solid, however we have fully maximized the open space with an awesome new "happy birthday" script style word dies and a little daisy flower.  For this card I repeatedly adhered the happy birthday words from the die set onto my white cardstock panel with a glue pen for a cool tone-on-tone embossed texture look.

My Pink Peonies were stamped in VersaMark ink onto watercolor paper, heat embossed with white embossing powder and watercolored using some Spun Sugar & Twisted Citron distress ink reinkers.  For my black and white striped paper, I stamped the stripes from our Background Basics Stamps using VersaFine Onyx Black ink.  A few pieces of iridescent pastel confetti adhered with liquid adhesive completed my card.

Card No. 3:  Up next is a card using the Blooming Frame dies in a more traditional sense.  It just so happens that the Fancy Frames Rectangle dies perfectly fit over the opening which is pretty cool.  I could have simply added another piece of cardstock there behind my scalloped frame, but to conserve on paper and bulk I just masked off the outer portion of my blooming frame and inked up the center with some Spun Sugar distress ink. 

My flowers were once again stamped in VersaMark ink onto watercolor paper and heat embossed with white embossing powder, but this time I used a different way to color them.  I wet each petal one at time with my paintbrush and then added a little color near the darkest spots with a brushmarker PRO pen (in Cerise 375) and allowed the water to just move the color outward. My sentiment was then stamped with VersaFine Onyx black ink using our Everyday Greetings stamps.

Card No. 4: I knew I wanted to attempt to color these peonies using a no-line coloring technique with my Copic Markers, but I wasn't fully prepared for how long it would take for me to color a single flower so I decided to to make my one flower count with a card that truly highlights it. To have my stamp outlines disappear with my coloring, I used a small mini pack of Memento dew drop inks in Angel Pink & New Sprout and then used those same ink colors to stamp the flower outlines for my background.  I heat embossed my sentiment onto a piece of polka-dot paper from our Dots & Stripes Pastels Paper pack using a phrase from the Pink Peonies set. A scalloped heart edge along the bottom cut using our Heartstrings Border Dies from some of that same paper pack completed my card and tied in some more pink.

Card No. 5: For this card I was really inspired by THIS gorgeous card I came across on pinterest. I started my stamping my first flower in VersaFine Onyx Black Ink and then masking it off, flower by flower until I had my entire floral border stamped out. I then left all my masks in place inking a blended ombre background using Peacock Feathers and Blueprint Sketch distress inks before spritzing my background with water to create the speckled look. When I removed my masks I colored my flowers in a black and white color palette using N0, N1 & N3 Copic markers. For my sentiment, I used that same scripty birthday word from our Blooming Frame dies together with the "wishes" word from our Alpaca Holiday Stamps. Then for a little extra sparkle, I sprinkled some mirror droplets as a final finishing touch.

Card No. 6: For my last peony card of the day I wanted to combine them with this cool banner from our new Banner Basics Stamps. It's hard to truly appreciate the banner when it's all by itself in the set, but it was designed to stamp two of so that you can flip one each way to appear like it's wrapping around an object.  For this set of peonies, I stamped the peonies using VersaFine Onyx Black ink onto watercolor paper which I then heat embossed with clear embossing powder to prevent them from smearing.  I then colored my flowers and leaves using Caran D'Ache watercolor pencils and blended with water on a paint brush, working from the lightest to darkest spots.

For my scalloped mat I turned to our Frilly Frames Eyelet Lace Dies, placing it over a piece of tone-on-tone floral print from our Spring Fling Paper pack.  I inked up both the banners and background behind my stamped flowers using Peacock Feathers distress ink and then for my sentiment, I stamped the words "Happy Mother's Day" using our Happy Thoughts Stamps.  

Card No. 7: I couldn't wrap up the day without sharing one last card using only the new Blooming Frame dies. I know sometimes it's nice to see ideas that use only a single product and for the most part I was able to achieve that goal with this bright and happy card. I started by inking up an A2 sized card panel with Picked Raspberry, Carved Pumpkin, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron, Salty Ocean and Wilted Violet distress ink and backed them with a piece a navy blue cardstock.  

I then cut the birthday phrase and daisies from white cardstock adhering them in a loose scattered pattern.  For the center of each flower, I inked up little scraps of cardstock in those same ink colors and die-cut the centers using the little circle die that also comes with the die set. As a final touch to make the flowers pop a bit, I covered each flower center with a clear droplet from the Studio Katia Clear Drops Mix.

Well that wraps up today's sneak peeks. I don't know if you can tell, but I was more than a little giddy to finally have some floral images to play with all my color mediums I've been collecting.  LOL!  I'd love to give a $25 gift code to one lucky winner using the rafflecopter below. 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 12th. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway Here's a closer look at the new Pink Peonies Stamps & Dies, along with the new Blooming Frame Dies and Heartstrings Border Dies (available for purchase on Friday, January 10th).

    

    

Other Supplies Used:

Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Fancy Frames- Rectangles Shop at: Sunny Studio	Background Basics Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Happy Thoughts Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Dots & Stripes Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Everyday Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Sweet Treats Gift Bag Shop at: Sunny Studio	Heartstrings Border Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Banner Basics Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Banner Basics Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames-Eyelet Lace Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Fling Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Alpaca Holiday Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Iridescent Pastel Confetti Shop at: Sunny Studio	Mirror Droplets Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio