Sneak Peek: Introducing Beautiful Bluebells & Wicker Basket Dies

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 is now available to purchase! Before you head off to shop, I hope you will take a look at our last set of new products and a video down below where I share a better look at each of them "in person".

Card No. 1: Today I have a new layering stamp set to share called Beautiful Bluebells and I had so much fun creating cards with these cute flowers! For my first card, I started by cutting two loopy circles from our Snowflake Circle Frames Dies which I slightly offset to form my vine wreath. I then layered the bluebell flower buds over the top and sprinkled some of our Cornflower Blue Jewels around it, adhering them with Ranger's Multi Medium Matte. For my greeting, I used a sentiment from our Lovey Dovey Stamps, heat embossing them with White Detail Embossing Powder onto a piece of cardstock to match my background and cutting them out with the matching Dies. For my last touch, I added the stitched strip cut out with the Ribbon & Lace Border Dies and layered over the scallop trim from our Eyelet Lace Border Dies.

Card No. 2: For my next card featuring the Beautiful Bluebells Stamps, I die-cut our Stitched Heart 2 Dies from lavender cardstock and then heat embossed the nice large greeting from our new My Heart Stamps, adding the little die-cut heart that comes with the My Heart Dies to fill the open space. I then added adhesive to the back of my heart's edge so that I could press in and add all my flowers around the outside. I then filled in any open spaces with some inked-up green leaves from our Out On A Limb Dies. I have always adored these petite little leaves with their cute veining detail. I then mounted my entire heart onto my card panel trimmed down to 5.5" wide x 5" high using our Classic Gingham Paper pack and rounded the bottom corners using my We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper. I adore this color scheme and how this card turned out! 

Card No. 3: Up next is another blue and white Beautiful Bluebells card (another favorite Color Scheme of mine) where I started by cutting an A2-sized cardstock panel from our Classic Gingham Paper pack, adding a little stitched edge to the bottom using our Ribbon & Lace Border Dies so that a thin sliver of my card base could show through. I then did my best to create similar floral arrangements on both sides of the stitched rectangle die in the center that was cut using a die from our Treat Bag Topper Dies. I had a couple spots (like in the top left) where I felt the space was a little bare so I added some random triple dots with my white paint pen to balance them out and make them feel like an intentional part of my design. I completed my card by adding a shorted pennant strip from our Notebook Photo Corners Dies which I stamped with the Birthday Wishes greeting and added the die-cut "Sending" word from our Gift Card Envelope Dies.

Card No. 4: When I think of bluebell flowers, I think of fairies so I couldn't resist pairing our new Beautiful Bluebells Stamps with our Garden Fairy Stamps. I started by inking up my background with pink clouds using a stencil I created with our Fluffy Clouds Border Dies. I then layered it with our new Mini Grass Border Dies, and a white cardstock window using our Stitched Oval 2 Dies. For my sentiments, I spelled out the word "yay" with our Hayley Uppercase Alphabet Dies and Hayley Lowercase Alphabet Dies. I then stamped the "lifetime of happiness" from our Inside Greetings Congrats Stamps. Lastly, I heat embossed "so happy for you" from that same stamp set onto our Brilliant Banner 2 Dies.



Card No. 5: Moving on to our new Wicker Basket Dies, I have a sunny Easter card! I started by cutting a yellow floral background panel from our Spring Fever Paper pack which I layered with a scalloped mat cut out using our Frilly Frames Eyelet Lace Dies. For my focal point, I used almost every last die from our Wicker Basket Dies with the bow, eggs, flowers, leaves, and tufts of grass. As a last touch I heat embossed my "basket full of love" sentiment using our Eggs To Dye For Stamps and our Brilliant Banner 2 Dies, which were cut from our Classic Gingham & Polka-dot Parade Paper packs.

Card No. 6: My next card combines the Wicker Basket Dies with the Beautiful Bluebells Stamps. I tucked my basket in grassy hills by mixing our Slimline Nature Border Dies in the foreground with the Mini Grass Border Dies in the background. I added some small leaves to my basket from our Tree Branch Dies and added a coordinating bow from the Wicker Basket die set. I then stamped my "Spring Hello" greeting from our Cheerful Daisies Stamps using PinkFresh Studio's Paradise Ink. A pair of butterflies from the Watering Can Stamps stamped to match my flowers completed my card.

Card No. 7: For my last Wicker Basket card today, I die-cut a scalloped mat from a green print from our Dots & Stripes Pastels Paper using our Frilly Frames Polka-dot Dies. I then heat-embossed the large "Happy Easter" greeting from our Chickie Baby Stamps in the top right corner. I die-cut all my eggs from the set from small scraps of white cardstock that I keep near my desk, leftover from other die-cutting projects. I inked them up in some complimentary shades of Distress ink, avoiding yellow and green colors that were already heavily used in my scene.

I thought the little chicks from Chickie Baby set would be the perfect compliment to my basket of eggs. To make them match my basket even better, I chose to color them using a "no-line" coloring technique. To do this I stamped them all using Hero Arts Contour Ink which is a light-colored Copic-friendly ink in my stamp positioning tool and kept all the stamps in place while I colored my images. Then before die-cutting them, I put the colored sheet back in my stamping tool and inked up just the little chick's eyes using the corners of my VersaFine Onyx Black ink pad, rubbing off any spots on the stamp image that might have accidentally been inked just so I could stamp the perfectly placed dark eyes to make my little chicks come alive. I also colored my bow with Distress inks and then added the crease details over the top with Copic Markers to make it look more realistic. I love the results of both of these little tricks!

I frequently am asked which ink colors I used for my layered images.  While I think there are so many great options out there, these are the colors I used today for my stamped images from light to dark:

Royal Blue Bluebells
Hero Arts Dusty Blue
Hero Arts Cornflower
Gina K. Powder Blue
Hero Arts Indigo

Blue Violet Bluebells
Altenew Wisteria
Hero Arts Passion Flower
Altenew Hydrangea
Altenew Ultraviolet

Purple Bluebells
Pinkfresh Studio Soft Lilac
Pinkfresh Studio Candy Violet
Versafine Clair Purple Delight
Hero Arts Grape Juice

Stems & Leaves
Pinkfresh Studio Key Lime
Pinkfresh Studio Olive

To help you line up our layered stamps like a pro I've created a special layering guide (you can click on the photo below to view it larger).  The guide shows the stamps starting with the lightest ink color, working towards the darkest, but sometimes I find it easier to start backward. They both work depending on what your preference is.  The black outline indicates where that layer touches the previously stamped layer.  

Helpful Tips and Tricks

When designing this set I really wanted to connect more of these flowers into larger groupings to save stamping time, however, I struggled to fit them even within the confines of a 6x8 stamp set with the larger layers which would have made the stamps and dies twice as expensive. In the end, in addition to saving money, I love how flexible they are to work with when they are not connected to each other.

I didn't find this set any more difficult to line up than our other flower layering stamps. However, given the smaller size and some of the intricate details, I wanted to share the tricks I used to achieve the best results.

1. I stamped each layer twice in most cases to reduce blotchiness with some brands of ink, but then I had my heat gun set up next to me and would zap it with the heat gun immediately afterward to dry the ink on the spot so the stamp detail wouldn't disappear with the bleeding as the ink typically smooths and settles into the paper. I actually do this for all our layering stamps, but it was particularly helpful for this one.

2. For the little white dots on the three largest flowers, I went over them after I was done with a white gel pen to regain the brightness and crispness of those dots. This isn't a must, but I liked how it made them really pop. Those same dots really help with lining up the layers for that blossom.

3. I found it much easier to use my Copic marker to add the yellow stamen details than to mess with lining up that tiny stamp. I was able to quickly flick them on all at once with my pen in a fraction of the time rather than trying to line up the tiny stamp image.

4. I did not use the second layering option for my stems. I had already invested quite a bit of time on my giant pile of flowers (see below) and thought they looked awesome without it so that layer is optional. 

5. The three flowers in the top right corner of the layering guide (shown above) use the same flower blossom and only have different stems so if you are careful in your planning, you can set up your flower in such a way that all you have to do is add different stems without switching out the flower layers.

6. I always set up my test layers in my stamp positioning tool using copy-weight scratch paper, stamping a half dozen of them to have on hand to help me set up each layer. When it came to positioning the stems to match my dies, I laid the die over the blossom portion and then traced the stem along the inside of the die onto my scratch paper. I could then line up the stem image to line up with my tracing so it would perfectly line up with the dies for each one. This trick worked beautifully!

I was able to create this happy little pile of flowers over one day while binging a TV series.  I only used a fraction of them for my cards shared here today, but I love to keep a Ziploc baggy for each set ready to grab for future cards since I think lining up the layers is the most time-consuming aspect of any layering stamp set. 

As is my tradition, I also created a new release video sharing a closer look at each of the projects I shared this week along with new products and maybe a couple extra tidbits I failed to share here on the blog. You can watch it down below or on our YouTube Channel HERE.

It's getting harder and harder to get the word out about new releases and have videos seen with YouTube's new algorithms these days so if you can do me a favor and hit the like button even if you don't have time to watch the entire thing right now I would greatly appreciate it. ❤

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 Beautiful Bluebells Stamps & Dies and Wicker Basket Dies used today which are now available to purchase.

Other Sunny Studio Supplies Used:

Tsukineko Jumbo Dauber Shop at: Sunny Studio	Classic Gingham 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Polka-dot Parade 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Happy Thoughts Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio
Snowflake Circle Frame Shop at: Sunny Studio	Cheerful Daisies Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Eyelet Lace Borders Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames-Eyelet Lace Shop at: Sunny Studio
Slimline Nature Borders Shop at: Sunny Studio	Eggs To Dye For Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Garden Fairy Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Garden Fairy Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Stitched Oval 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Lovey Dovey Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Lovey Dovey Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Out on A Limb Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Stitched Heart 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Watering Can Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Watering Can Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Inside Greetings Congrats Shop at: Sunny Studio
Hayley Lowercase Alphabet Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hayley Uppercase Alphabet Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Ribbon & Lace Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Spring Fever Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio
Notebook Photo Corners Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Brilliant Banner 2 Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	My Heart Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Tree Branch Die Shop at: Sunny Studio
Gift Card Envelope Die Shop at: Sunny Studio	Treat Bag Topper Die Shop at: Sunny Studio	Mini Grass Border Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Cornflower Blue Jewels Shop at: Sunny Studio
Fluffy Clouds Border Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio	Hero Arts White Detail Shop at: Sunny Studio	VersaMark Watermark Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio	Multi Medium Matte Shop at: Sunny Studio
Dots & Stripes Pastels 6x6 Paper Shop at: Sunny Studio	Frilly Frames Polka-Dot Shop at: Sunny Studio	Chickie Baby Stamps Shop at: Sunny Studio	Chickie Baby Dies Shop at: Sunny Studio
Hero Arts Contour Ink Shop at: Sunny Studio

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