8th Birthday Blog Hop + Introducing Love & Light Stamps

Hello and welcome to the final day of our Holiday Sneak Peek Week!  Each morning this week I have been showcasing projects using our newest fall & winter collections which are now available in our store!!!

Today I have the pleasure of celebrating our company's 8th birthday with all of you and a number of talented designers who are joining us for an inspirational blog hop with prizes at every stop and a special sale (more details below). I wouldn't have made it to this amazing milestone without your sweet support so thank you. It truly means so much. ❤

Card No. 1: My first card of the day is showcasing our new Love & Light Stamps with a Hanukkah card. I started by piercing my navy cardstock background using our new Dotted Diamond Portrait Die, followed by a white stitched mat using our Stitched Rectangle Dies, and a navy scalloped mat using our Mini Mat & Tag 3 Dies. I then arranged a number of the elements from the Love and Light stamps to create a little tabletop scene, sprinkling some Gold Jewels around the stamped elements. Lastly, I stamped my greeting from the set using Versamark ink on that same navy blue cardstock and heat embossed it using Hero Arts Brass Embossing Powder. As you'll continue to see for my cards today it's become my new favorite embossing powder for the holidays!

Card No. 2: Next up is a clean & simple card using the Love & Light Stamps and Dotted Diamond Landscape dies. This time I started with a piece of white cardstock which I inked up with Salty Ocean Distress ink, adding Prize Ribbon and Chipped Sapphire to the outside edges before running it through my die-cutting machine. I stamped, colored, and die-cut the 9 menorah candles shaped like a heart using the coordinating Love & Light Dies. I made sure to keep the negative space around my die-cut candles so I could use it as a template to place on my card front to help me perfectly align my candles back into a heart since once they are die-cut they fall apart. After they were adhered with some liquid adhesive I was able to lift the template right off.

Next, I stamped the "love & light" greeting from the stamp set onto our Brilliant Banner 1 Dies which I had inked up using Scattered Straw and Fossilized Amber Distress Inks. Lastly, I took some metallic gold Stickles Glitter glue and added the dots to every other intersection to emphasize the beautiful diamond pattern. I also added some Glossy Accents to each of my candle flames. Then I carefully set it somewhere safe to dry for a couple hours so I wouldn't accidentally drag my arm through it or stack something on top which I'm so prone to doing. 



Card No. 3: Up next is a card showing off the Star of David banner from the Love & Light Stamps. I thought it might be fun to make them look like they are glowing in the night sky, almost light a string of specialty lights. To achieve the glowing look, I set the banners down where I wanted them and then took turns lifting them up to ink behind where each of the stars would land going back and forth. Some of them ended up being slightly off, but you get the general idea. Honestly, this background really looked like a hot mess for a while. It took me some time to carefully lay down some of the ink around the glowing portions using the PinkFresh Studio Blending Brushes to get into the tight spaces and do the best I could to prevent the yellow portions from turning green while still covering up the white background. It really didn't feel like it was fully coming together until I started to adhere the banners and add the snowflakes to the sky with a white gel pen. I finished my card by heat embossing the sentiment, adding a little heart from our Basic Mini Shape 2 Dies, and adding the dove with an olive branch from the Love & Light set.



Card No. 4: For this Hannukah card featuring the Love & Light Stamps, I started by inking up a white cardstock panel using Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean, and Prize Ribbon Distress Inks. When it was completely dry (which I sped up with my heat gun) I then covered the panel with antistatic powder to prevent the embossing powder from sticking anywhere it shouldn't and then repeatedly stamped the Star of David using VersaMark Ink and heat embossed with Ultra Fine Clear Embossing Powder to create my tone-on-tone background print. I then added the stitching to the outside edge by running it through my die-cutting machine using our Frilly Frames Quatrefoil Dies. 

This time for my 9 candles I lined up my die-cut template over a gold metallic cardstock heart cut out using our Stitched Heart 2 Dies. I was careful to make sure to design these so they would work together and I love the results! For my banner that comes with the set, I decided to cut it in half and string them in two crisscrossing sections. For my sentiment, I inked up some scratch paper with the same Salty Ocean and Prize Ribbon Distress Inks to help my die-cut fade into the background and then I once again heat embossed it using my favorite Hero Arts Brass Embossing Powder.

Card No. 5: I couldn't let this release pass without showcasing how well our new Dotted Diamond Portrait and Dotted Diamond Landscape Dies work with our popular Frilly Frames Lattice Dies. For this card, I decided I wanted to have my lattice background bleed off the edges so I ran it through my die-cutting machine a couple times locking it in place with previous cuts until the entire background was fully cut. I made sure to use a slightly larger piece of cardstock to do this so I would have some extra wiggle room to play with so I could perfectly center it over my Dotted Diamond background, creating the look of argyle which I think is so much fun!

In hindsight, I wish that after this step I had added a layer of vellum over the top just so my elements on top would pop more and not get lost with my background. Another solution would have been to do a tone-on-tone background or to use two cardstocks closer in color. Sadly by the time I realized this, my candles were already glued down tight and I didn't have it in me to start over. All the elements on top came from our Love & Light Stamps, including the "Happy Hanukkah" greeting which I heat embossed with White Detail Embossing Powder onto the same blue cardstock as my background.

Card No. 6: I couldn't resist creating one more card with the Love & Light Stamps for a non-Hanukkah card. I was able to use the bottle and wine glass images to create Champagne for a New Year's card when paired with the greeting from our Holiday Greetings Stamps and Dies.

To create my background I started by taking a standard pencil eraser and dipping it into Gina K. Sweet Corn, Sandy Beach, and Kraft inks. Then when they were dry I dipped the eraser into Versamark ink and heat embossed those dots with Hero Arts Brass Embossing Powder as a final touch. I love the way they catch the light and tie in with the other elements I also heat embossed, including a scrap on my desk leftover from another card using the negative space from a scalloped border cut with our Slimline Pennant Dies. I was able to directly press the cardstock remnant into my VersaMark ink pad and sprinkle it with the same embossing powder to create a piece of metallic cardstock in the perfect shade to match the rest of my card. So pleased with how it turned out and how quickly it all came together!

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 $25 gift code to one lucky winner using the Rafflecopter below. 

In honor of our 8th birthday festivities, we are celebrating with an inspiring BLOG HOP which also includes a $25 gift code giveaway to our store at every stop on the hop!  Visit each link to see more amazing ideas by our team & guest designers. Leave a comment at each stop to be entered to win each drawing.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Our blog hop and daily contests will run through Monday, August 28th at Midnight PST with winners announced here on Friday, September 1st. :)

Blog Hop List:
Sunny Studio (You're Here)
Wanda Guess
Rachel Alvarado
Sandy Allnock
Marine Simon

Tammy Stark
Caly Person
Isha Gupta
Bobbi Lemanski
Gladys Marcelino
Tina Henkens

Your next stop in the hop is Wanda's blog HERE.

You can also enter to win a $25 gift code at each of our daily contests earlier this week and view more ideas using our new release at each of the posts linked here: 

Sneak Peek Day 1: Turkey Day Stamps & Brilliant Banners Dies
Sneak Peek Day 2: Truckloads of Love Stamps
Sneak Peek Day 3: Bells & Baubles, Pretty Poinsettia, Dotted Diamond & Feliz Navidad
Sneak Peek Day 4: Holiday Hugs Stamps & Woolen Mittens Dies
Sneak Peek Day 5: Baking Spirits Bright & Dashing Dachshund Stamps

In honor of our birthday festivities, we are also running a sale for 20% off all Sunny Studio branded products (excluding the new release and clearance items) using the code EIGHTYEARS at checkout through August 29th at Midnight. Limit one discount code per order.

With each new collection we always have a new free mini die we include automatically with orders placed in our online store. For this release we have a fun mini snowflake die!

For those of you who might want to bookmark the video to watch later, I've also created a special video sharing the full Fall and Holiday Release, as well as a closer look at each of the cards and tags I made with it (you can watch it on our YouTube Channel HERE).

Here's a closer look at our new Love & Light Stamps and Dies used today:

 

Other Supplies Used:

Stitched Rectangle Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Memento Tuxedo Black Ink Pad Shop at: Sunny Studio	Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio	Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio
Basic Mini Shape Dies 2 Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames Quatrefoil Shop at: Sunny Studio	Slimline Pennant Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Heart 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Holiday Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Holiday Greetings Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Mini Mat & Tag 3 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brilliant Banner 1 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Dotted Diamond Landscape Shop at: Sunny Studio	Dotted Diamond Portrait Shop at: Sunny Studio	Gold Jewels Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brass Embossing Powder Shop at: Sunny Studio
Frilly Frames Lattice Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts Ultra Fine Clear Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio