Hi friends! TGIF! Thanks for popping back over to the blog this afternoon for some BONUS weekend inspiration! Were here with Mendi Yoshikawa who has made FOUR gorgeous holiday cards to get you inspired and in celebration of the newest collection release from Sunny Studio Stamps! Read on & enjoy!

Hello there! It’s Mendi here today. I’m so happy to be back sharing a handful of holiday cards using Sunny Studio’s new Winter Release!

For my first card I paired the new layering set called Holiday Style with a phrase from the new Merry Sentiments stamps and coordinating Merry Word die. I love that the branch from this set can be used in so many fun way for completely unique looks. For this card I stamped the branch twice so that it would stretch across the length of my card.

This set comes with a number of layering images to decorate the tree with including glass ball ornaments, a life-like jingle bell and holiday bows. For this card I layered the ornament in fun shades of pink and then topped them & my merry word with glossy accents for a touch of shine. I finished off my card with a sweet scalloped border using the Sunny Borders Stamps & coordinating dies.

Ornament Card Supplies:

For my next card I turned to the new Gleeful Reindeer stamp set. This set comes with three sweet Reindeer images, trees in three sizes (perfect for scene building) and a number of supporting images including decorations for the trees, gifts and a sled.

I started by stamping my card base with the hearts from the new Mug Hugs set and Sending My Love set using Versamark ink and clear powder on red cardstock. I stamped an extra Heart from the Mug Hugs set with Copic Friendly ink, colored it in with Copics and topped it with Glossy Accents before setting it aside to dry.

To create my arched panel, I used the new Sunny Semi Circle Dies. These dies were designed to be ultra flexible for creating tags, labels, bookmarks, card panels and shaped cards from 1/2″ wide to 4″ wide. To use them, I drew a faint pencil line on my cardstock with a T-square ruler, used some washi tape to secure them in place along the line that was drawn, ran it through my die-cutting machine and then used my paper trimmer to trim them down each side. Because they are sized at exact 1/2 increments they are super easy to trim.

I stamped and colored my images from the Gleeful Reindeer set with Copic Markers and then cut them out. I inked up a small piece of white cardstock with mowed Lawn Distress Ink and stamped the banner from the Little Angels set with the same color of ink before fussy cutting it out. I then heated it up with my heat gun to make sure the ink was completely dry before heat embossing my sentiment with white embossing powder.

To create my snowy hills, I used the Wavy Border dies which were cut from masking material and then inked along the edge with my jumbo dauber and tumbled glass distress ink to create soft snow drifts. I love the results! When I was done I just assembled my pieces as pictured using a glue pen to adhere the smaller pieces.

Reindeer Card Supplies:

For my third card I wanted to focus on the sweet angel images in the new Little Angels set. To create my background I started by inking a panel of white cardstock, starting with a small spot of squeezed lemonade where I thought one of my angels with her candle would go. I then applied some Broken China distress ink around the edge to create my glow and some more along the bottom of my card panel. Next I switched to Salty Ocean distress ink and I blended it out to the edges of my panel, applying it lighter towards the bottom as it blended into the Broken China. As a last step, I added some Chipped Sapphire distress ink on the outer edges.

I then die-cut some clouds from vellum using the Rain or Shine dies and Sunny Sentiment dies which I applied using 3M spray mount for an almost invisible application. Some simple dots with a white gel pen became my starry sky.

The sentiments in this set are geared towards the Christmas season, but there is a smaller companion set that I used for my card today call Angelic Sentiments which can extend it’s use to all year ’round.

To finish my card I trimmed down my panel, added a simple stamped sentiment and stitched it along the edges with my sewing machine before adhering it to my card base. As a final step I adhered my little angels which were colored with Copics and given glittery wings using Stardust Stickles.

Angels Card Supplies:

My last card lets the fun images from the new Mug Hugs set take center stage. I stamped all my images from the set (along with the mint candies from Sweet Shoppe set) using Black Licorice Hybrid ink and then Copics to color them in. After my images were colored and cut out, the rest of the card came together quickly.

I applied Evergreen Bough distress ink along the bottom of my card base and then again about 1-1/2″ from the bottom using a jumbo dauber and a post-it to mask off a “table” of sorts to rest my images on. I then stamped the tree branch image from the Holiday Style set repeatedly along the bottom to give my card a soft border.

I finished my card by adhering my images with a glue pen and stamping my sentiment with my favorite VersaFine Black Onyx ink (using the Mini Misti because I wasn’t wanting to risk messing it up at this point). A little bit of glossy accents was added to my cookie sprinkles and I was done.

Phew! Are you still with me? Sorry to be so long winded. ;)

I hope I’ve inspired you in all your holiday card making endeavors. I would love to hear which products are your favorite from our new release! Thanks so much for having me today. :)

Coffee & Cocoa Card Supplies:

Thanks for reading our special Friday BONUS post today, and thanks to Mendi for all this GORGEOUS content! See you tomorrow! :)

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