Betsy

Welcome to the last New Product Meet & Greet for our June collection! We have some really fun things to show you today! There are two different sets of products being showcased today. Katie’s been busy again, creating some adorable sea friends, and we have a Pot-Pourri of plants! There are also a couple of great new stand-alone dies.

All of the new products being introduced today will go up in the shop tomorrow (Friday, June 21st) at 10am EDT.

Let’s get to all of the fun details…

Katie’s Cuties: Feelin’ Fan-Sea Stamps & Dies

Feelin’ Fan-Sea? These adorable sea critters can be dressed up with all of their “fan-sea” accessories, complete with a top-hat and monocle for him and a cute bow for her! Color them with your favorite medium and experiment with creating underwater scenes using the Sea Scene die!

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Sea Scene Die

Create beautiful underwater scenes with a single diecut! The Sea Scene die cuts a pretty frame surrounded by underwater plant-life, shells, bubbles, and sweet smiling fish. Use the die with the Katie’s Cuties: Feelin’ Fan-Sea set to create cards that are cute as can sea, or go for a more elegant look by adding watercoloring or sponging. Try using it to create shaker cards for fun, interactive designs!

Pot-Pourri Stamps & Dies

It’s a potpourri of pots! The Pot-Pourri set is filled with cute pots in all shapes and sizes, and a fun mix of plants to put in them. Each of the plants has two steps for fun, yet quick and easy detail. This set also pairs perfectly with our Macra-Made For You die collection to create cute hanging planters!

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Macra-Made For You Die

This isn’t your grandmother’s macramé! Macramé is back and oh, so fun! These dies cut a trio of macramé hangers and pots. Fill them with the plants from the Pot-Pourri set and more!

To aid in your list-making and planning, below you will find the prices for today’s products.

• Katie’s Cuties: Feelin’ Fan-Sea 3″ x 4″ stamp set – $7
• Katie’s Cuties: Feelin’ Fan-Sea die – $11
• Sea Scene die – $22
• Pot-Pourri 6″ x 8″ stamp set – $24
• Pot-Pourri die – $31
• Macra-Made For You die – $21

I can’t wait to show you my projects today using these new products!

First, let’s see some Katie’s Cuties. I just love this set! It’s so fun to color, I just had the best time with these cute images! First off I have a set of birthday cards, one that’s great for a boy, and one for a girl. Katie included the cutest little accessories for these creatures so they can be all “fan-sea!” She has an adorable sense of humor and it comes through in her artwork. She giggled when she drew the umbrella – what underwater creature needs an umbrella? 🙂 For these cards I did a simple watercolor background for each, then topped it off with the new Sea Scene diecut, which makes such a perfect frame! These images were colored with colored pencils using the no-line coloring technique. The “Feelin’ Fan-sea” sentiment is from the set of course, and the “on your birthday” is from the Sentiment Suite: Thinking of You set we released in April.

My next card uses mostly the same elements, but this time I put both the octopus and starfish together inside the Sea Scene frame. I used the other sentiment from the set for this sweet card. The outer frame started with a panel of aqua cardstock, which I sponged with some Distress Oxide ink to add deeper color towards the bottom. The pink/yellow background was also done by sponging Oxide inks. The images were colored again with colored pencils using the no-line coloring method.

For my next card, I couldn’t resist making a rainbow-seashell-juggling starfish. 🙂 He’s dressed up in his top-hat and he’s ready for a party! The sentiment I used here is from the new Sentiment Suite: Birthday set. I created a simple underwater scene by doing a bit of watercoloring in the background, and then stamping some of the details. The little pebbles are included in the Feelin’ Fan-Sea set, and the plants are from the Pot-Pourri set being showcased a bit later in this post. The images here were watercolored.

My last card using this collection uses just the Sea Scene die along with some watercoloring for a more elegant look. I diecut the Sea Scene from watercolor paper and just had fun watercoloring the background and the different plants and fish. When I was finished, I backed the frame with acetate and turned it into a pretty shaker card! The sentiment from the Feelin’ Fan-Sea set is stamped inside the frame.

Up next I have several projects using the new Pot-Pourri stamps and dies and Macra-Made for you dies! This first one is simple and quick to put together. These pots and plants are so fun to stamp! Each plant is two easy steps (except the cactus, which is three steps counting the flowers). They are fun to mix and match and just play around with! A couple of the smaller pots in this cluster are from the Macra-Made For You die collection, which is such a great complement to this set. The sentiment is from the new Sentiment Suite: Birthday set.

Next I paired a few of the plants with the Macra-Made For You dies to create some adorable hanging planters. These come together so quick and easy! I just love those hanging planters, they are so fun! I did some simple watercoloring to create a background for the hangers. The small birthday sentiment is from the Sentiment Suite: Birthday set. I just love that there’s a sentiment in just about any layout I need in that set, this small one was perfect for the space I had beside the planter.

My next card is similar to the last, except this time I filled the planters with diecuts instead of stamped images. Here I used the smaller bloom from the BotaniCuts Succulents die and some small leaves from the BotaniCuts Bamboo die. For the succulent, I used just the two center layers of the smaller bloom and omitted the two larger layers for a succulent that fit nicely in the largest pot in the Macra-Made For You set. I also added some details to the planters using Nuvo Drops.

My last card for today was so much fun to make! I wanted to create something that looked like a lush jungle. I started off by sponging shades of green ink onto a panel of cardstock. Then I stamped one of the larger plants from the Pot-Pourri set over the sponging. I also tucked in some BotaniCuts Bamboo into the background. In the foreground I put a mix of pots from the Pot-Pourri set and the Macra-Made for You dies. The sentiment is from the Lemon Blossom set and was heat embossed with white.

I just had an absolute blast creating with today’s products, and I hope you enjoyed “meeting” them! Now that we’ve done that, you can “greet” them for a chance to win a $50 gift card! Read on for details…

• Comment here on the blog for one entry (one comment per person)
• Comment on our guests’ blogs for more entries (one comment per person, per blog)
• Comments close at Midnight EDT on Thursday, June 20
• Winners will be posted at 7am ET on Friday, June 21st, here on the blog

Without further ado, our amazing guests for today!
(click on the images to visit their blogs)
(if viewing via email subscription, click here)

That’s officially a wrap to the countdown to the release of our June collection! All of the new products are ready to go and they’ll be live in the shop Friday morning at 10am EDT! I’ll have a post up here at 7am EDT announcing the gift certificate winners!

It’s time to show more of our June collection today! I am so excited about today’s products…should one really be this excited about stamps? Well…YES! Of course! 🙂

Let’s get to today’s product introductions, and then we have lots of projects to inspire you!

Robin & Wren Stamps & Dies

A little birdie told me…these stamps are sweet as can be! The Robin & Wren set consists of multi-step bird images to stamp a robin and a wren, each in two different sizes. You’ll love the way the images come to life as you stamp them! Taken directly from original watercolored images, these little birds are filled with intricate details that come to life through ink and paper. Stamp them in their traditional colors, or branch out into exploring other colors to stamp your own rainbow-filled aviary!

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Blooming Branch Stamps & Dies

The multi-step Blooming Branch set creates a beautiful large-scale branch that stretches across the front of an A2 card. The various layers work together to create an image that mimics the look of the pretty watercolored piece that this set was originally adapted from. It’s the perfect place to perch some sweet birds, such as those from the Robin & Wren set!

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Sentiment Suite: Birthday Stamps

Do you ever find yourself hunting for the perfect sentiment to finish your card? The Sentiment Suite stamps cover the most popular card making occasions, with sentiments in many different layouts. You’re sure to find the perfect fit for your project, whether it’s a one-line sentiment that spans the width of the card, a small sentiment for a tag, or even the perfect saying to stamp on the inside!

The Sentiment Suite Birthday set has stamps for birthdays for young and old, along with sentiments that would be appropriate for other celebratory occasions. Pair these sentiments with the Sentiment Suite: Basics dies for lots of layering options! You’ll be reaching for these great basics again and again!

To aid in your list-making and planning, below you will find the prices for today’s products.

• Robin & Wren 4″ x 6″ stamp set – $15
• Robin & Wren Die – $11
• Blooming Branch 6″ x 8″ stamp set – $24
• Blooming Branch die – $16
• Sentiment Suite: Birthday 4″ x 6″ stamp set – $15

Now for the fun part! Let’s get on to the projects using these new sets! The cards I’m sharing today are probably some of my all-time favorite cards. I just love how these images come to life with stamps and ink!

This first one is bright and colorful, yet somehow soft and pretty all at the same time. Instead of stretching the branch across the width of my card as I had really intended it to be used, I turned it upright, and I just love how that looks, too! I used the large main branch from the Blooming Branch set, but then also tucked in a few of the smaller accent branches from the set to add more color. The blooms on the main branch were stamped in blues, and the small accent branches were done with brighter reds and corals. I wanted the birds to be very colorful as well, so I stamped those in bright yellows and blues. I used my favorite inking method using Distress Oxide inks that I shared a few weeks ago in this video. It just adds so much interest and subtle shading to the images! I thought the sentiment from our new Simple Things set was the perfect finishing touch.

I was having so much fun stamping these birds in all sorts of colors and they looked so pretty lying on my work table, that I decided to create a card full of them! Here I used the pierced circle die from the Sentiment Suite: Basics die set to create an all-over circle pattern on my card front. I then added a bird and small branch from the Blooming Branch set to each circle. The colors! I just love them so much! The small “happy birthday” sentiment from the new Sentiment Suite: Birthday set was just perfect to finish it off, stamped on the small banner diecut, also from the Sentiment Suite Basics die set.

For my next card, I used our Small Terrarium die to create a little bird cage for our feathered friends! I hung it from the eucalyptus branch from our new Simple Things set. Again, I filled it with colorful birds. They’re not stamped in their traditional browns and robin-red, but that’s ok…that’s what us stampers get to do, right? 🙂 The sentiment is from the Sentiment Suite Birthday set, stamped on the pierced circle from the matching Sentiment Suite Basics die set.

For my next card, I took a softer approach, and although the birds are a little closer to their authentic coloring, I chose to give these robins more of a gray/blue breast rather than red. This time they’re perched on the large branch from the Blooming Branch set. This set is also very fun to play with as far as ink colors! Here I decided to experiment with colors other than brown and I just love how it turned out! I used my Distress Oxide inks – Stormy Sky, Dusty Concord, and Ground Espresso for the last layer.

For my last card, I gave the birds a traditional look by stamping them in colors close to their realistic coloring. I perched them on some eucalyptus sprigs from the Simple Things set, and also added a little color by using the small accent branch from the Blooming Branch set. The sentiments were stamped using the new Sentiment Suite: Birthday set. I wanted to create a soft background that still had some colors that mimicked the birds and flowers, so I did some watercoloring and also added some splatters in rusty red and gold. It would also be pretty to cut a window from a card front and create a scene inside – now I want to go try that! 🙂

Now that you’ve gotten to meet all of today’s new products, you can “greet” them for a chance to win a $50 gift card! Read on for details…

• Comment here on the blog for one entry (one comment per person)
• Comment on our guests’ blogs (see below!) for more entries (one comment per person, per blog)
• Comments close at Midnight on Thursday, June 20
• Winners will be posted at 7am EDT on Friday, June 21 here on the blog

And now for today’s amazing guests!
(click on the images to visit their blogs)
(if you’re viewing this post through email, click here!)

Thank you so much for all the enthusiasm you’ve shared during our countdown days! It means so much to us and we appreciate each and every one of you! We’ll be back tomorrow for one last day of product reveals and projects before it’s time for everything to find its home in the shop!