Sneak Peek: Balloon Rides, Country Scenes & My Otter Half

Hello and welcome to day 3 of our Spring Peek Week!  All this week I am showcasing cards using our newest collection which will be available for purchase on Friday, January 8th.  

For today's sneak peeks I have two new 4x6 stamp sets including a new border scene set and a new 3x4 critter set. Let's dive it!  

Card No. 1: Up first is a card showcasing our new Balloon Rides Stamps. This set comes with a hot air balloon, a couple different banner options to personalize the balloon, a cute sunshine, two new cloud shapes (can never have too many cloud options), a house, two trees, six adorable critters, two party hats, a graduation cap and five coordinating greetings.

While the balloon can comfortably can fit on a standard card, it really lends itself well to the Slimline Card craze. I stamped and colored two balloons in a rainbow of colors and then cut one in "half" so that I could give the appearance that there were three balloons floating across my card (since odd numbers are often pleasing to the eye). To frame my scene, I used the Slimline Scalloped Frame die and popped up a couple clouds and one balloon with foam tape to give the appearance some were in the foreground and some were further away, even though they're all the same size. For my greeting, I die-cut a stitched strip using our Slimline Pennant Dies and backed them with a slightly wider strip of striped patterned paper to match from our Rainbow Bright Paper pack. 

Card No. 2:  Up next is a graduation card using the cute little panda bear, together with the graduation cap. For my balloon, I thought it would be fun to customize it with polka-dots so after coloring it with my Copic markers, I added some quick dots with my Sharpie White Extra Fine Point Paint Pen. I wanted to keep my colors limited to hot pink, black and white so I found a neutral grey cardstock for my sky which I cut out using our Stitched Circle Small Dies. For my background I cut out a black scalloped panel using our Frilly Frames Stripes Dies which I backed with a piece of white cardstock to match my little panda. 

I stamped a banner using our Basic Banner Stamps into a piece of white cardstock using pink ink and then sponged on some Picked Raspberry Distress ink, adding a little detail for the folds with my Copic Markers for a no-line coloring look. Who says you can't combine dye ink with alcohol ink? I use this technique often and it saves me so much time trying to get my coloring to look nice and smooth with my markers. I love to fussy cut them out with my scissors afterwards so I don't have to worry about all the distress ink that I sponged on outside the lines. A couple hearts from our Basic Mini Shape II Dies inked up with more of the distress ink were the perfect accent to complete this fun and spunky card.

Card No. 3: For my next project, I made another slimline card, but this time I wanted to showcase the world below with the cute little house image from the set. I paired three of them with the rolling hills and tree border from our new Country Scenes Stamps. For this card I incorporated a rainbow again, but this time I went solid for my balloon and added the rainbow with the two little banners I layered over the top. These banners are sized just right so you can criss-cross them like I did here or add them straight around the middle of your balloon.

The bottom of my card was feeling a little blah with all the fun stuff going on for the rest of the card so to create some visual weight and balance, I added another little hillside using our Slimline Nature Border dies which I stamped with a subtle, tone-on-tone polka-dot print using our Background Basics Stamps. For my greeting, I stamped another banner from our Banner Basics Stamps and once again combined distress inks with Copic accents, coloring it with a mix of Mustard Seed and a little Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks to mimic my Copic coloring for the balloon.

Card No. 4:  Up next I couldn't resist an Americana inspired hot air balloon. While it may be too early for the fourth of July, President's Day is coming up and I thought the little buntings add-on option would be so cute colored red, white and blue. I paired them with the barn scene from our Farm Fresh Stamps. I mounted then both onto an A2 sized stitched panel using our Frilly Frames Quatrefoil Dies for my sky background and a thin strip of our Classic Gingham Paper for my grass.

When I nearly was done, I had this nagging feeling that there was an open, unbalanced space in the bottom, right corner so the little car from our City Streets Stamps came to my rescue. It created a visual triangle between the three groupings and allowed me to add some additional blue accents to my card. Yay! Win-win.

Card No. 5:  For this Balloon Rides card I framed the balloon with our Stitched Arch Dies which I was able to slightly elongate by hiding where they cut off behind the mountains. Makes me think of how the ceiling raises or floor sinks at Disney's Haunted Mansion (depending on the park). It gave me just the wee bit of extra space I was wanting to have the mountain scene below using our new Country Scenes Stamps. I mounted my finished vignette onto a piece of sunburst paper from our Subtle Grey Tones Paper pack.

Card No. 6:  Last, but not least, I had it in my head while I was creating this stamp set that it would be really fun to recreate the opening sequence of The Muppet Show as seen HERE using the cute critters from this set. In fact it's one of the main reasons I decided to include party hats with this set. I knew these little guys might be a bit too short to fill the arches so I thought a couple party hats might give them height. Crazy how my mind works, right?  Anyway, I can't look at this card now without hearing the theme song in my head--takes me back. I can almost see them swaying back and forth. For those who didn't grow up with The Muppets, you can alternately pretend it's a Zoom birthday party.  ;)

To create my three stories of arches, I used the smallest die from our Stitched Arch dies and then lined it up along the edge of my three 1-3/8" wide white cardstock strips, cutting them out one by one. I then took a little masking material (a.k.a. post it notes) and took turns inking up behind each arch in square blocks using Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Peacock Feathers & Salty Ocean Distress ink. I then layered the arches over each other, starting at the top and working my way down. I made sure to leave a small sliver of space to heat emboss a little greeting from the set onto a strip of black cardstock. Finally I added stitching to the edge to dress it up and compliment the stitching around each arch using our Slimline Basic Border Dies. I'm not going to lie. This one took a bit more time, but it was fun and I love the results!

Card No. 7:  Switching gears, I have a couple cards featuring a darling new 3x4 critter stamp set called My Otter Half. This set comes with two little critter pairs: An otter couple (or set of good friends) as seen here and an otter Mom with her baby. It also includes five mix and match punny sentiments. As a bonus I had some extra room to available on the My Otter Half Dies so I was able to include the word "otter" for some extra design options.

To create my card, I cut a heart window using the largest heart from out Stitched Heart Dies. These hearts are big enough to make a shaped card from so this card is bigger than your standard A2 card.  It ended up being 5.25" wide x 5" high.  I could have made it square, but I was digging the unique shape. To form my background, I layered alternating strips of cardstock cut into wave using our Stitched Scallop Dies. I kept my design really clean and simple with a no-line coloring banner (just as describe in card no. 2) using our Banner Basics Stamps and a handful of hearts from our Basic Mini Shape II Dies and Basic Mini Shape 3 Dies.

Card No. 8:  For my last card of the day, I combined two different borders from our Country Scenes stamps: the pond border together with the mountains border behind it. I should note that the dies to match these stamps have been designed to only cut out along the top of each border so you can layer them with a different colored sky while have a seamless scene below. For some of the scenes I will be sharing tomorrow I colored the water and grass with my Copic markers but for this card I wanted to use my distress inks so after coloring the details with my Copics, I stamped a couple masks and fussy cut them out to cover & protect my images when I inked up the grass and water with distress inks. I then safely saved the masks so I can use them over and over again on a number of different cards without having to cut out new ones each time. To add the little waves, I alternated the mini wave dies that come with the Country Scenes set, although the otter stamps also include a couple waves as well so you have plenty of options.

I have some Action Wobbles that are mini plastic springs for crafting with adhesive on both sides that I purchased a long time ago and I thought they would be so cute for this card. They scrunch down fairly flat to fit in an envelope, but then bounce out and wiggle back and forth when the card is removed. 

I just love this Mom and baby otter. I think this pair would be perfect for Mother's Day or even for baby cards.

Well, as much as I would have liked to have time to create a third otter card, that wraps up today's sneak peeks. I'm so happy you joined me today. I'd love to give a $50 gift code to one lucky winner. Leave me a comment and then enter using the rafflecopter below.  Make sure to keep checking back all this week for more peeks & prizes. The contests run through Saturday, January 9th at Midnight PST with winners announced here on Sunday, January 10th. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here's a closer look at the our new Balloon Rides Stamps & Dies, Country Scenes Stamps & Dies and My Otter Half Stamps & Dies used today (available for purchase on January 8th).

  

  

   

Other Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

City Streets Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	City Streets Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Heart Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Scallop Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Background Basics Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Mini Basic Shape Dies II Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames Stripes Die Shop at: Sunny Studio
Banner Basics Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Banner Basics Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Arch Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames Quatrefoil Shop at: Sunny Studio
Slimline Nature Borders Shop at: Sunny Studio	Slimline Scalloped Frame Shop at: Sunny Studio	Farm Fresh Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Farm Fresh Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Circle Small Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio