Sneak Peek: Introducing Birthday Cat & Birthday Mouse Stamps

Hello and welcome to day 3 of our Sneak Peek Week!  Each morning this week I have been showcasing projects using our newest Summer collection which will be available to purchase on April 21st.

Card No. 1: Today I am sharing two adorable new critter stamp sets. Up first is a new 4x6 set called Birthday Cats which I utilized for this birthday card featuring a row of cute kitties sitting along the top of a brick wall. For my background, I die-cut masking material using our Fluffy Cloud Border dies and then inked on some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink along the top of my card base. I then used a generic brick stencil (by another company) to ink up my brick wall and lined up five cats using the 4 unique kitty faces with their party hats and birthday accessories, hanging banners from our Balloon Rides Stamps.

For the bottom of my card, I cut some grass using the patterned paper from our Spring Fever Paper pack, adding the grassy edge using the die from our Picket Fence Dies. I then tucked the little kitty in the gift box from the Birthday Cats stamps behind the rows of grass and heat-embossed a punny belated birthday greeting from the new stamp set. Finally, I finished off my card by die-cutting the words "big day" using our Chloe Alphabet Dies and inking up the bottom of each letter using Mermaid Lagoon Distress ink.



Card No. 2: For this card featuring the kitty cupcakes from our new Birthday Cats Stamps, I cut three 2.5" wide circles from our Dots & Stripes Pastels Paper using our Stitched Circle Small Dies. I then layered them on our Scalloped Circle Mat 1 Dies cut from white cardstock and offset them onto my pink A2-sized cardstock panel, cutting off the portions with my scissors that extended past the edge. For my punny birthday greeting, I heat embossed the phrase "happy purrthday" using stamps from the Birthday Cat set on a stitched strip from our Slimline Pennant Dies, tucking it behind my one kitty on the bottom. For my final touch, I sprinkled 5 little hearts from our Basic Mini Shape 2 Dies which I cut from pink cardstock, and added Glossy Accents for my own homemade epoxy hearts.

Card No. 3: For this fun radial cat design I turned to the help of Altenew's new Stampwheel Tool, stamping the cat with the party hat eight times and framing them with two layered circles using Hero Arts Nesting Circle Infinity Dies. For my rainbow background, I used a print from our Surprise Party Paper pack and then added an oversized "Happy Birthday" sentiment to the center using our Big Bold Greetings Stamps. I kept the rest of the card fairly simple, just adding white highlights to my words and polka-dots to the cat's party hats using a gel pen.

Card No. 4: I created a scene-style card utilizing our Comic Strip Speech Bubble Dies together with our new Birthday Cats Stamps. I love how these dies allow me to create smaller scenes to frame each of the cute critters. To give my card a motif to repeat through each frame, I used the small wood slats and grass border dies that come with our Picket Fence Dies. It gave me a surface for my kitties to peek over, as well as added interest to my backdrop. When my card was nearly complete, I felt like something was still missing so I added the flowers and butterflies from our Spring Showers Stamps.

Card No. 5: I used the adorable cupcake & candle images from the new Birthday Cat Stamps to create a trio of Scalloped Circle Tags. I layered the centers with a star print from our Surprise Party Paper pack cut out using our Stitched Circle Large Dies, stamping a curved greeting using a punny sentiment from the Birthday Cats Stamps together with Versafine Clair Acorn Ink. To fill in some of the empty space around my cupcakes, I added stars from our Basic Mini Shape 2 Dies and mimicked that with a star reinforcer for my tag's hole using a little die from our Build-A-Tag 2 Dies.

Card No. 6: Switching gears, I have a series of cards to share using our new adorable tricycle-riding, balloon-toting mouse from our new Birthday Mouse Stamps. This little 2x3 stamp set also includes a little butterfly, a series of mini hearts and this cute punny greeting. For my card, I started by inking up my background using our Fluffy Cloud Border Dies as a mask with Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, and Broken China Distress Inks. I then cut my grassy border using the Slimline Nature Border dies and patterned paper from our Spring Fever Paper pack.

To frame my scene I cut a circle opening using our Stitched Circle Large Dies and then added a scalloped heart edge along the bottom using our Heartstring Border Dies with a blue gingham print below from our Gingham Pastels Paper pack. I colored a small curved banner from our Banner Basics Stamps using a no-line coloring technique (mixing Picked Raspberry Distress Ink with Copic Marker detailing). Lastly, I stamped the banner with the punny greeting from the Birthday Mouse set.

Card No. 7: This cute little Birthday Mouse compliments the mice from our previously released Harvest Mice Stamps and Merry Mice Stamps for even more design options! With this in mind, I created a birthday at the park scene using our Spring Scenes Stamps for my backdrop and added a few smaller trees from our Balloon Rides Stamps. In the foreground, I added a cupcake and party hat to my extra mouse using images from our new Birthday Cat Stamps, gave him a bouquet of colorful rainbow balloons using our Floating By Stamps, and then strung some of the new Crepe Paper Streamers Dies along the top to continue the party theme. Lastly, I switched out the word "day" for "birthday" using the Harvest Mice Stamps.

Card No. 8: For my last card of the day, I created a slimline style card combining our new Birthday Mouse Stamps with the adorable animals on wheels from our Critters on the Go Stamps and the bicycle from our Paris Afternoon Stamps. For my background, I cut out the stitched strips using our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies and patterned papers from our Dots & Stripes Pastels Paper and Polka-dot Parade Paper packs. My scene was then framed with the stitched rectangle from our Slimline Scalloped Frame Dies. For my greeting, I used a sentiment from the Critters on the Go set with the word "hello" from our Chubby Bunny Stamps.

That wraps up today's sneak peeks. I'm so happy you spent part of your day with me today. I read all your comments and they mean so much!  I'd love to give a $50 gift code to one lucky winner using the Rafflecopter below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Our daily contests this week run through Saturday, April 22nd at Midnight PST with winners announced here on Sunday, April 23rd. :)

Here's a closer look at our new Birthday Cat 4x6 Stamps & Dies and Birthday Mouse 2x3 Stamps & Dies used today (which will be available to purchase starting on April 21st):

Other Supplies Used:

Chloe Alphabet Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Picket Fence Border Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Memento Tuxedo Black Ink Pad Shop at: Sunny Studio	Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio
Polka-dot Parade 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Build-A-Tag #2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Gingham Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Dots & Stripes Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Chubby Bunny Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Basic Mini Shape Dies 2 Shop at: Sunny Studio	Surprise Party 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Fluffy Clouds Border Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Comic Strip Speech Bubble Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Scalloped Tags-Circle Shop at: Sunny Studio	Banner Basics Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Banner Basics Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Floating By Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Floating By Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Scenes Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Scenes Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Spring Showers Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Showers Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Heartstrings Border Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Slimline Nature Borders Shop at: Sunny Studio
Slimline Scalloped Frame Shop at: Sunny Studio	Harvest Mice Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Harvest Mice Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Balloon Rides Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Balloon Rides Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Scalloped Circle Mat 1 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Slimline Pennant Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Circle Small Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Stitched Circle Large Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Critters on the Go Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Critters on the Go Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Big Bold Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Big Bold Greetings Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Ribbon & Lace Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Fever Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Crepe Paper Streamers Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Altenew Stampwheel Tool Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts Nesting Circle Infinity Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Zig Chisel Tip Glue Pen Shop at: Sunny Studio	Versafine Clair Ink- Acorn Shop at: Sunny Studio
Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Ranger Glossy Accents Shop at: Sunny Studio