Sneak Peek: Puddle Jumpers, Spring Garden, & Mini Grass Border Dies

Hello and welcome to day 4 of our Spring Sneak Peek Week!  All this week I have been sharing cards showcasing our newest collection which will be available for purchase tomorrow!

Card No. 1: Today I am sharing a darling 3x4 stamp set with so many possibilities and two versatile new die sets! My first card uses many of the images from the new Puddle Jumpers Stamps including the girl in the duckie raincoat, the frog umbrella, the duck, chick, puddle, raindrops, and punny greeting. I started by inking up the center of my cardstock with salty ocean distress ink in a circular motion to create a soft circle frame for my scene. I then die-cut an inch off the bottom using the stitched scalloped border die from our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies and tucked a blue striped strip of patterned paper from our Sleek Stripes Paper pack along the bottom edge of my card. My raindrops needed some clouds so I paired them with the three clouds from our Spring Showers Stamps.

Card No. 2: For my next card, I used the sitting duck and the baby ducklings from the new Puddle Jumpers Stamps with the pond, lily pad, and cattails from our Country Scenes Stamps. For my pond border, I colored the cattails and pond's edge with Copic Markers and then stamped a mask which I fussy cut to cover my coloring and inked up the pond portion of my card using Salty Ocean Distress ink. 

I then used the Country Scenes Dies to cut out the top of that scene to layer over the new Mini Grass Border Dies for the background, coloring around the edge with a green copic marker to help it blend into the background. These new grassy dies layer so well with the grass borders from our Picket Fence Dies and Slimline Nature Border Dies, but are on a smaller scale to work better for backgrounds and smaller images. For my sky, I cut cloud masks using our Plane Awesome Dies and inked up my white cardstock panel using Tumbled Glass Distress ink. Lastly, I stamped the Spring Greetings sentiment onto our Brilliant Banner 1 Dies which I cut out from Classic Sunburst Paper and Polka-dot Parade Paper scraps to add to the bottom center portion of my pond scene.

Card No. 3: For my next card, I paired the little ducky and the girl in her raincoat from the Puddle Jumpers Stamps with the kite, butterflies, and tulip flowers from our Spring Showers Stamps. To create my grassy circular frame, I started by die-cutting a circle using our Stitched Circle Small Dies from green cardstock. I then die-cut more stripes positioned at various sections of the circle, before running them through my die-cutting machine again with the Mini Grass Border Dies. When I was done, I inked up the edges with Twisted Citron Distress ink to help emphasize the layers and then mounted them all onto a larger white cardstock circle cut out using our Stitched Circle Large Dies. I mounted them onto a 4-3/4" square piece of pink gingham paper from our Classic Gingham Paper pack which had been given a stitched edge using our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies. Finally I heated embossed the "hi cutie" greeting from our Happy Hamsters Stamps.

Card No. 4: I couldn't resist pairing the new girl and frog umbrella from the Puddle Jumpers set with the other kids and critter umbrellas from our Spring Showers Stamps. This mini slimline card measures 7" wide x 4" high and I started by inking the bottom of my card panel with Twisted Citron Distress ink fading it up to white, before then inking the top of my panel with Tumbled Glass ink which I also faded out towards the center. I then stamped all my raindrops using the solid drops from the Puddle Jumpers set to frame my kiddos. For my clouds, I used the stitched border from our Slimline Nature Border Dies which also gave me a great place to stamp my greeting. I then set to work layering in my three puddles, kids, umbrellas, and ducks from the two stamp sets which I had colored with Copic Markers.

Card No. 5: For my last Puddle Jumpers card of the day, I chose a clean & simple design lining up a family of ducks in a row for a cute punny birthday card. A few years back I literally stopped traffic (with my car) as I watched a mom & her babies cross a busy 4-lane street from the side of the street with a small pond over to a Lowe's parking lot. I've thought about that duck family a lot over the years so this card is my ode to them. 

To have both a mama and papa duck with a little variation, I added in the duck from our Farm Fresh Stamps. I turned to our Mini Mat & Tag 4 Dies with the zig-zag stitched edge to frame them which I mounted onto a yellow print from our Polka-dot Parade Paper pack. My last touch was adding three sets of banners in a row from our new Treat Bag Topper Dies. To get them lined up and perfectly spaced, I cut out an extra set from scratch paper to use as my template to pop my die-cuts into. Those same little banner pieces were the perfect size to be turned upside down and become party hats for my duck family to continue the birthday theme for my sentiment.



Card No. 6: Switching gears, I now have several cards featuring our new Spring Garden Dies which include a watering can, hand shovel, trowel, flower pot, and various flowers. For this card, I started by using the colorful gingham paper from our Spring Sunburst Paper for my background and then stacked three of the stitched rectangle dies from our new Treat Bag Topper Dies to create three little scenes together with the straight grassy edge from our new Mini Grass Border Dies. I also added a hint of tumbled glass distress ink to the center of each section before layering them with the flowerpot and watering can elements. I finished my card by stamping a greeting from our Puddle Jumpers Stamps and adding two butterflies from our Basic Mini Shape 2 Dies.

Card No. 7: I couldn't wait to pair the Spring Garden Dies with our Wonderful Window Dies. I had so much fun creating all the different flowers to go both in the window flower box and in the flower pots down in the grass using the Mini Grass Border Dies. I cut the watering can, mini garden shovel, and trowel using some shimmery matte Silver Stardream Metallic Cardstock for a touch of realism. I bought a 25-sheet pack of this wonderful cardstock about 5 years ago and I have loved having it on hand to use for all my chrome and metallic die-cuts, but I think this one package will last me for the rest of my life since a little goes a long way so if you're interested I might recommend splitting a pack with a friend or each buying a gold and a silver to share. 

After I had my card nearly completed, I realized my card was feeling very empty on the top half of my card given my choice to use white-on-white shutters. To help balance the top half in terms of visual weight, I added the banner from our Treat Bag Topper Dies and a little bird from our Rustic Winter Dies. I also heat embossed a simple "hi" greeting from our Hawaiian Hibiscus Stamps in the top right window pane. I adore the extra color these gave my card and really love the way it turned out! I'm not actually a gardener, but this card makes me excited for spring!

Card No. 8: For my last card of the day, I lined up three terracotta flower pots with alternating daisies and yellow tulips from our Spring Garden Dies using our Window Trio Square Dies to frame them. I backed the window openings using our blue Polka-dot Parade Paper and then added a little stitched "ribbon" strip of blue gingham paper from our Classic Gingham Paper pack along the bottom portion of my card, cutting it using our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies. I then layered a hunter-green watering can over part of it in the left-hand corner and stamped an oversized "Spring Hello" greeting from our Cheerful Daisies Stamps in blue ink to match my patterned paper. I struggled to find the right color combination to match my rusty red flowerpots and went back and forth with various paper options for a very long time, but these colors finally fell into place and I love the results!

I sadly ran out of time to create everything I had in mind, but I also think these Spring Garden Dies would look so adorable paired with our Build-a-Birdhouse and Rainy Days Dies! I can't wait to see how you all use these fun sets!

That wraps up today's sneak peek. I'm so happy you joined me today! I'd love to give a $50 gift code to one lucky winner using the Rafflecopter below. Our daily sneak peek contests run through Saturday, January 6th at Midnight PST with the winners announced here on Sunday, January 7th. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here's a closer look at our new Puddle Jumpers Stamps & Dies, Spring Garden Dies, and Mini Grass Border Dies used today and available for purchase Friday morning PST.

  

Other Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

Happy Hamsters Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio	Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Window Trio- Square Die Shop at: Sunny Studio
Polka-dot Parade 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Rustic Winter Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Gingham Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Sunburst 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Spring Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Basic Mini Shape Dies 2 Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hawaiian Hibiscus Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Plane Awesome Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Plane Awesome Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Cheerful Daisies Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Showers Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Showers Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Slimline Nature Borders Shop at: Sunny Studio	Farm Fresh Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Farm Fresh Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Classic Sunburst Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Sleek Stripes Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Country Scenes Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Country Scenes Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Stitched Circle Small Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Stitched Circle Large Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Mini Mat & Tag 4 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Ribbon & Lace Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Wonderful Windows Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Brilliant Banner 1 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Treat Bag Topper Die Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio
Classic Gingham 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio