Hello and welcome to the last day of our Spring Sneak Peek Week! All this week I have been sharing cards showcasing our newest collection which are now available to purchase. However, before you run off to shop, make sure to check out this last set of cards showcasing our super fun new Balloon Alphabet Stamps and Balloon Numbers Stamps.
I've also created a video today sharing a closer look at ALL of the products and cards from this release! You can also view the video directly on our YouTube channel HERE.
I would love for you to subscribe to our channel and give us a like, as it really helps us with YouTube's algorithm. However, please forgive me for the small audio issues in the second half of today's video. I was forced to upgrade my computer after holding out for so long, which meant my favorite editing software is no longer compatible, and the new one I tested turned out to be a hair-pulling glitchy mess. I finally threw up my hands and settled, but I promise I will be switching to something better for next time. Thanks so much. ❤️ Now let's jump into today's sneak peek and cards!
Card No. 1: I had so much fun with the new Balloon Alphabet Stamps! This 80s girl always loves a good excuse for a rainbow-inspired card! To spell out my "congrats" greeting, I first stamped the letters with one bright ink color and then used a finger dauber to apply a darker shade of ink to the same stamp image down the left side to create a more rounded look.
I die-cut the panel using the largest Rounded Rectangle Mat Dies and then added the various hanging kitties from our Cat Antics Stamps and Party Pets Stamps, coloring them all to match so they wouldn't compete with the other rainbow colors. I used my favorite Tulip Fine Beading Awl to pierce my stitched mat under each balloon and around the cat's paws. This allowed me to then add realistic strings with a thread and needle that I could tape on the back before mounting them to my rainbow-striped background from our Rainbow Bright Paper pack. I finished my card by stamping the word "friend" from our Big Panda Stamps with Versafine Black Onyx Ink just below my congrats greeting.
Card No. 2: For my next card featuring the Balloon Alphabet Stamps, I pulled out my vellum to heat emboss the letters using VersaMark Ink and various bright shades of Ranger Ink embossing powders in my stash. This gave my balloons a bit of transparency and helped me have some flexibility in positioning them using the Balloon Alphabet Dies. However, I realized with the transparent nature of the vellum, the shiny marks on the balloons got lost in the background, so I filled them in later with a white gel pen.
I created my cloud background by cutting masks with Spellbinders Masking Sheets and the dies from our Plane Awesome Dies, with a light touch of Mermaid Lagoon distress ink. I then trimmed down the panel using our Stitched Rectangle Dies and pierced holes to thread my balloon strings through using the Tulip Fine Beading Awl. I positioned the two hanging tuxedo-colored cats from our Cat Antics Stamps and the script-style "birthday" word below them cut using our Blooming Frame Dies. I also added a bit of white gel pen highlights to this word to help tie the two words together.
Card No. 3: Switching gears, my next card features the companion Balloon Numbers Stamps. My little niece's birthday is right before Christmas, so her cards are almost always delivered a few days late when we see each other in person during the holidays. With that in mind, I added one of the playful sentiments from our Inside Greetings Belated Birthday Stamps. I wanted to get a head start on creating her milestone birthday cards for the next few years, though, so these numbered balloons are perfect! I used the number "3" to stamp not only my own patterned paper for the card background but also to group five of them for my balloon bouquet. One solitary balloon hardly felt like enough for this cute pig from our Hogs & Kisses Stamps to hold. Before I move on, I should note that our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies provided the stitched edge. I love how this single die can dress up any plain strip of paper and make it any width you like with a couple passes through the die-cutting machine!
Card No. 4: For my next card showcasing the Balloon Numbers Stamps, I stamped various random numbers in a pastel rainbow of colors using the newest VersaFine Clair Ink colors (linked below). I laid each number out roughly where I wanted them to go and then carefully shifted them out of the way, one at a time, so I could stamp a balloon string out of the same color using the string images found in our new Balloon Alphabet Stamps. For my sentiment strip along the bottom of my card, I inked up a strip of cardstock using the same VersaFine Clair Baby Pink Ink and created a custom greeting with our Kinsley Alphabet Stamps. When the sentiment was good and dry, I used the Ribbon & Lace Border Dies to add stitched edges to the strip and placed the cute bunny in the middle that comes with the Alphabet Numbers Stamps. Finally, when everything else was complete, I added Ranger's Glossy Accents to the top of each number to give them the shiny balloon appearance (and then immediately set my card somewhere safe to dry where I wouldn't absentmindedly stick my elbow in it later).
Card No. 5: I made a New Year's card for my dear Taiwanese friend, who celebrates the Chinese New Year using our new Balloon Numbers Stamps and the greeting from our Holiday Greetings Stamps. From there, I built my card around these elements, tying the balloons to presents with coordinating gold metallic ribbon using our Perfect Gift Boxes Dies and adding metallic streamers with our Crepe Paper Streamers Dies. For my card base, I used a gold shimmer cardstock topped with a black striped print from our Sleek Stripes Paper pack, which had been trimmed down using our new Rounded Rectangle Mat Dies. I love how all the elements came together for this classic design.
Card No. 6: I will admit my next card was a bit of a creative experiment, playing with different embossing powders and how they would look with the Balloon Alphabet Stamps. I always love how pearlized balloons look so I pulled out Hero Arts White Satin Pearl Embossing Powder. For each balloon, I would stamp with colorful Versafine Clair Inks and then, for good measure, stamp them a second time with clear VersaMark Ink before heat-embossing them with the pearlized powders. Because the powder is semi-opaque, it muted the colors of each balloon.
At this point, I realized it would be difficult to find other patterned papers or even cardstock to match the balloons, so I created my polka-dot background. I then hunted to find a solid dot image, but this berry image from our Season's Greetings Stamps was the closest thing I could find. In hindsight, though, I like it because the berry has the same shiny mark as the balloons. Of course, to get them to match, I needed to heat emboss each polka-dot, so I started by stamping out the rainbow of dots using the VersaFine Clair Inks and then worked in sections to stamp them again with the clear embossing ink and sprinkling them with powder. I could do all the dots freehand with a small acrylic block, which went quite quickly compared to moving the single berry image around my Misti tool, and the simple image was easy to line up a second time with the clear ink.
Continuing with not having cardstock to match, I decided to ink a piece of white cardstock with the same Versafine Clair Verdant (green) Ink and die-cut a banner using our Brilliant Banner 2 Dies. From here, I stamped the "Happy Birthday" greeting from our Happy Thoughts Stamps and then pressed the entire die-cut into my VersaMark Ink pad before sprinkling it with the embossing powder. If I had to do it again, I think I might try harder to mix a custom blend of inks, and I would skip heat embossing the banner because the opaque nature of the pearlized powder really muted my greeting, and the Stazon ink pad in my stash appeared to be dried out. I pushed forward, though, and used a ruler with my Copic Multiliner pen to draw radiating balloon strings that I "tied" to a cat bed from our Pet Sympathy Stamps and the sleeping kitty from our Cat Antics Stamps. Ultimately, my daughter will appreciate my effort to create a personalized card that celebrates her love of cats.
Card No. 7: While I still had all my supplies and Balloon Alphabet Stamps already out, I decided to take a second stab at this design concept. This time, instead of using the pearlized embossing powder, I used Ranger's Holographic Embossing Powder, which is more transparent in nature and allows the bright colors to shine through. Once again, I stamped a rainbow polka-dot background with the holly berry from our Season's Greetings Stamps. I also directly inked a scrap of white cardstock with the Versafine Clair Verdant (green) Ink. However, this time, I die-cut the word "Congrats" using the word die from our Slimline Scalloped Frame Dies and matted it onto white cardstock before fussy cutting a small shadow with my scissors. I added the shadow because I realized too late that some of my stamped polka-dots were falling behind the word and interfering with the readability. My last steps were adding the two bunnies from our new Balloon Numbers Stamps and threading black thread for the balloon strings.
Card No. 8: For my last card today, I have another children's milestone birthday card using the Balloon Numbers Stamps. I paired the cute little monkeys and vines from our Love Monkey Stamps with the mailbox and letters from our Snail Mail Stamps. To frame my scenes, I use our Comic Strip Speech Bubbles Dies cut from aqua cardstock and a lighter shade of aqua cardstock for my sky. I grounded my scene with grass cut using our Mini Grass Border Dies and stamped my sentiment using the Inside Greetings Belated Birthday Stamps. The monkey holding the balloons initially held a bouquet of heart balloons, but I clipped them off to replace them with three #5 balloons stamped in shades of pink to match the letters in my scene. Not only was this my last card to share this week, but it was also the last card I created for this release, and I felt happy to end my crafty marathon on a high note.
With each new collection, we always have a free mini die we include automatically with orders placed in our online store. For this release, we have a fun new mini flower shape die!
When shopping, we have two ongoing promotions you can choose from to be entered at checkout, depending on which offer is better for you. Limit one discount code per order.
That wraps up today's sneak peek. I'm so happy you joined me today! I'd love to give one last $50 gift code to a lucky winner using the Rafflecopter below. Our daily contests will run through Saturday, January 11th at Midnight PST with winners announced here on Sunday, January 12th.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Here's a closer look at our new Balloon Alphabet Stamps & Dies and Balloon Numbers Stamps & Dies used today and are now available for purchase.
Other Supplies Used:
 Stitched Rectangle Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Onyx Black Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Rainbow Bright 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio |
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 Plane Awesome Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Kinsley Alphabet Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Blooming Frame Die Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Sleek Stripes Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio | |
 Holiday Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Holiday Greetings Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Ribbon & Lace Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Crepe Paper Streamers Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio | |
 Perfect Gift Boxes Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Cat Antics Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Cat Antics Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Party Pets Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio | |
 Party Pets Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Rounded Rectangle Mat Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Verafine Clair Ink- Hawthorn Rose Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Verafine Clair Ink- Lilac Bloom Shop at: Sunny Studio | |
 Verafine Clair Ink- Very Peri Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Verafine Clair Ink- Avacado Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Princess Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Baby Pink Shop at: Sunny Studio | |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Bali Blue Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Arctic Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Ranger Glossy Accents Shop at: Sunny Studio | |
 Season's Greetings Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Slimline Scalloped Frame Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Brilliant Banner 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Holographic Embossing Powder Shop at: Sunny Studio |
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 Pet Sympathy Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Pet Sympathy Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Charming Pink Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Verafine Clair Ink- Summertime Shop at: Sunny Studio |
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 Versafine Clair Ink- Purple Delight Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Cheerful Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Verdant Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Versafine Clair Ink- Warm Breeze Shop at: Sunny Studio |
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 Comic Strip Speech Bubble Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Big Panda Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Tulip Beading Awl Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Spellbinders Masking Sheets Shop at: Sunny Studio |
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 Love Monkey Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Love Monkey Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Snail Mail Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Snail Mail Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
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 Hogs & Kisses Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio |
 Hogs & Kisses Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio |
