Today I’m popping in to show you a card I made for the May Pinkfresh challenge, where the theme is Anything Spring. If you haven’t heard of this challenge before, you have been missing out. Just by participating, and linking up your card by May 31st, you are in with a chance to win a $50 gift card to the Pinkfresh Studio shop!
You can use the graphic as a mood board if you want, and the colours as inspiration but honestly, anything spring themed is ok. Just make sure that your project features mostly Pinkfresh products, as they are the ones hosting the challenge.
Now, if you know me, I can use florals for ANY season but spring is a no-brainer. One of my all-time fave sets is the Blooming Branch set. It was released in September last year, and I still love it and use it. Probably a bit too much, but hey, that shows what good value for money it is, doesn’t it??
I started out by heat embossing the Blooming Branch outline stamp with Opaque Bright White embossing powder from WOW! Embossing. There is something so luxurious about heat embossing and I love the effect of it.
Over this I have used the Blooming Branch layering stencils with the inks and blender brushes. I am super extra and have a blender brush for each ink colour, so avoid colour contamination and I must admit that I love having these on hand.
Once the ink blending was done, I used the coordinating diecut to cut the image out, as well as another two pieces out of plain card stock, to layer it up with.
The background I kept very white, but very textured with the help of the lovely Floral & Diamonds cover plate. I also cut out an A2 frame using the Essentials Folk Edge Rectangle dies.
Of course I needed a sentiment too, and I stamped one from the Blooming Branch stamp set on some mint-ish coloured card stock. This was trimmed down and adhered to the card base and then the Blooming Branch image was adhered on top.
The last thing was to add some Glacier jewels… ok, ok, maybe more than a few, but hey, it works!
Now it’s your turn to play along! Make sure to upload your card via the InLinks link in the Pinkfresh May Challenge post, by May 31st to be in with a chance to win that $50 gift card!
Today is a great day because the Pinkfresh design team, and friends, are blog hopping to celebrate the April release! If you have arrived here from the insanely talented Emily Midgett’s blog, you are in the right place. The next stop is the one and only Heather Hoffman!
It’s another fabulous release (duh, what else, right??) and I am crazy excited about the Peony Print suite. Peonies are one of my fave flowers ever, and I have used this suite for an array of cards.
The panel is so pretty as it was, so I trimmed it down a little, added it to a white card base. A frame was added using the Stitched Scallop Rectangle die, which has been layered up a little.
I have made other cards with the same Peony Print suite, but I will share those on social media later instead, and move on to some other new goodies.
For this card I have used two new products: the Floral Diamonds cover plate, as seen below. It’s really lovely, and quickly became my favourite out of the new cover plates.
This is propped up with foam tape and then I used a few colour coordinating jewels to add to the middle of the flowers.
That’s it from me for today, and now it’s time to hop along. You can find the whole line-up for the hop via the InLinkz link here, if you want to just hop on to the next stop on the hop that’s the fabulous and inspiring Heather Hoffman.
Don’t forget that there are TEN $25 gift vouchers to be won, and all you have to do is leave comments along the blog hop.
The more you comment, the better your chance of winning. Winner will be drawn from the comments, randomly, and will be announced on the Pinkfresh giveaway winner page on May 10th. Please note that you need to check this page and get in touch within two weeks to claim your prize, if you are a winner.
You can also win the ENTIRE RELEASE by commenting on the Pinkfresh release blog post, as well as their release YouTube video, so make sure to comment on those too!
I have made a YouTube video too, and you can find that via THIS LINK HERE. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel, hit that notification button and the thumbs up button! I look forward to seeing you there.
There are compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting me by using these links, I really appreciate it!
Today I’m delighted to be hopping along with the fabulous Hero Arts Global Team, for the second time. Every other month we do an IG hop, but we are back to a blog hop this time.
You should have come here from my little brother from another mother, Daniel Diaz, and the next stop on the hop is the incomparable Ilda Dias!
This month’s kit is a flower lovers dream, with a gorgeous background stamp with coordinating layering stencils.
I used the ink cubes that comes with the kit, with the layering stencils and the backgrund stamp, and made two different cards with the panels I made.
I wanted the two cards to be slightly different, to show how you can use the same supplies to get different looks.
The second card is slightly different with the colours too, but not much. It is finished off very simply with a skinny banner with a sentiment on it, plus a couple of little heart stickers.
The fabulous fancy dies that are this months add-ons are so fun, I couldn’t stop using them and ended up with five different cards!
Having had lots of ready made striped backgrounds on hand, some of these were super easy to make. Lots of fun was had!
The first one was kept simple, by trimming down a white card stock panel so that it showed a little bit of the stripy background around it. On this I used the Father’s Day Fancy Die directly, and popped out the bits and put aside.
The panel was adhered to the background, and then inside the hole I added the actual Happy Father’s Day word. This let’s the stripes show through too, and makes the word die pop!
On the second card I used the outline only, and the little bits, for a super simple card. Father’s Day cards are not usually fussy and full of bling so this felt like it fit really well.
As mentioned I couldn’t stop making cards with these, and I ended up making a third card too.
I used the Father’s Day Fancy Die again, and this time on white, dark grey and black card stock and I layered these up quite high.
So, I couldn’t not use the Mother’s Day Fancy Die so I used it on black card stock too, and adhered this to another striped background. I know, I know.. how many can you make? But it’s so fun!
Once it had dried it made the black card stock EXTRA magic, I love this look!
For my final card, I used the lovely background stamp with some white embossing powder, and on top of this I used Karin Markers to make a soft rainbow.
On white card stock I used the Happy Mother’s Day fancy die and added on top of this background. A few little embellishments, from the kit, were added to the card and that was it.
So, as you can see, I really, really enjoyed this kit plus the add-ons. I hope you enjoyed this post and the hop! Don’t forget that you can win a $25 gift voucher to the Hero Arts shop, by commenting on the stops of the hop! Do so by April 26th, and winners will be announced on the Hero Arts blog on April 27th.
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for supporting me by shopping with these links. I really appreciate it!
There will be no prizes for the hop as it is purely to raise awareness and funds for the awful crisis. I don’t think anyone will be feeling too miffed about this though, as it is for a good cause.
My cards are made with the Ukrainian colours of blue and yellow, and finished off with the Sunshine Of Hope sunflower image on one and a simple sentiment on the other.
The luscious background is made by ink smooshing Bee Sting Yellow and Peacock Blue inks from Inkon3, onto my work mat, spritzing water to active it and then placing water colour paper on top to soak up that colour. It’s such a fun technique as you never get the same results!
Before I did the ink smooshing though, I first treated the water colour paper with my Cottontail Embossing tool from The Rabbit Hole design. Then I popped the panel into my MISTI and stamped up the sunflower from the Sunshine Of Hope set. First with Blackout Detail ink, also from Inkon3, and then on top of this I used WOW! Embossing ink as I wanted to use Clear Gloss embossing powder on top.
Once the ink was dry, and I did help the process along a little by using my WOW! heat tool on them, I used the Cottontail Embossing Tool on the panel again. I stamped the sentiment with Embossing ink and sprinkled Opaque Bright White Super Fine embossing powder on it, and then set that with the WOW! Heat tool.
The second card I simply stamped the sentiment directly in the middle of the panel with Blackout Detail ink, with the help of a Mini MISTI. I also used some lovely Satin Lemon and Satin Aqua pearls around the sentiment, with the help of the Embellishment Wand and the liquid glue from Studio Katia.
That’s it from me for today, but don’t forget to check out the rest of the companies, and their DT’s projects, and treat yourself to a little something along the way with a clear conscience.
Today I am hopping along with the talented peeps of the Pinkfresh DT and friends! You should have come from the amazing Emily, and the next stop is the awesome Heather. You can find the full blog hop list on the Pinkfresh blog and also with the InLinkz link at the bottom.
In this release there is a gorgeous array of washi tapes and hot foil elements, and I barely knew what to do with myself as I was so giddy with excitement!
First up I used the lovely Hibiscus washi and coordinating diecuts, to create a wallpaper kind of look. I puzzled the diecut Hibiscus pieces to a card base, and tried getting them in as close to each other as possible.
I wanted to keep as much of the lovely Hibiscus background visible, so I simply added a stacked Scallop Stitched Rectangle diecut to it. It’s only two layers, but it makes a difference.
Keeping the rest of the design simple, I only added a hot foiled Celebrate word die to it in terms of sentiment, and also some Lavender Jewels to it.
I didn’t stop at just one card with the Hibiscus washi. My second card is also made with it, and some other goodies, like the Geo Tiles Hot Foil plate with Speckled Aura foil.
Here I have diecut lots of the Hibiscus washi pieces out, and stacked them on top of each other, with the biggest image front and centre.
The card is finished off with a gold heat embossed sentiment and Matte Gold Pearls. Quite a few, but whatcha gonna do? I felt like the card needed a little something extra.
GIVEAWAYS! Pinkfresh is generously giving away the entire release, both on their blog post and the release YouTube video on the Pinkfresh YouTube channel. All you have to do is comment on both posts, and you will be in with a chance to win!
There are also TEN $25 gift vouchers up for grabs, along the stops of the blog hop. All you have to do is leave a comment on the posts, and the winners will be announced on the Pinkfresh Giveaway Page, on the 5th of April. Don’t forget that you will have to check the page and claim your prize within two weeks.
You can find the entire blog hop lineup WITH THIS LINK, I swear one of these days I will figure out how to do that InLinkz thingy properly.
Eeeep! It’s absolutely thrilling to be asked! Especially as the challenge graphic is so lovely too. Just look at that pastel yumminess.
This card making hobby has turned into such a big part of my life and I am so grateful for having found a huge community online, especially on Instagram, and made so many friends along the way.
Among those friends are Tasha, Jo and Verity. With the recent crisis in the Ukraine, we put our heads together to do something positive in a terrible situation. We decided to hold a card auction and asked some friends to join in, who also asked some friends, and so on. All of a sudden we had over 200 cards to auction off!!
The response has been so fantastic and overwhelming, it’s just mind-blowing! So far we have raised over nine thousand dollars for various charities working in the Ukraine, and on their borders. If you want to check out that Instagram account, that’s Ukraine Card Drive. There is a third part of the auction coming up, but we are going to take a short break to recover from the whirlwind of the first two, before we go forward with the next one.
For my card today, I really wanted to use the Sunflower washi suite from Pinkfresh Studio. This set is not only fabulous, for the month of March 100% of the net profits from this will go to Save The Children Organization, one of the charities helping children affected by the war. Every little helps, and why not treat yourself to some fun crafting goodies, while also knowing that you are helping?
With the war in Ukraine, we all need to show our support and even if it’s just a card, that can make a small difference for someone feeling lonely. If you post on social media, use the hashtag #cardsforukraine. I have heard from Ukrainian friends that their family and friends there are uplifted by the support.
I decided to use the Sunflower washi tape, and after adhering this to sturdy card stock, I used Neenah #110 Solar White, I also ran a mixed media scraper over it to make sure it was really flat. After cutting out the flowers, I started to work on my background.
The chevron pattern itself was east to get, using the Essentials Nested Chevron cover plate, also from Pinkfresh. I used the cover plate on two different pieces of card stock. On a card panel I glued down the negative pieces and on another card panel, the positive ones. Over these I have ink blended the inks mentioned above, and the reason for ink blending after diecutting and not before, is to add extra colour to edges, to make the pattern pop a bit more.
When I was happy with the colour added, I simply glued in the Chevron diecut pieces to make a whole background again, another reason for doing it this way was to create clean white lines and give me choices. I ended up with two lovely backgrounds but picked the one with more colour on it for my card.
After trimming down the background a little, I adhered it to a card base which gives that lovely white border. On top of this I have adhered the Sunflower washi pieces and finished it off with a diecut ‘you’ and a stamped sentiment to say ‘you make me try better’. Which I am now thinking doesn’t make sense, but I am a foreigner so I will claim language barrier, LOL! I am rather fluent in gibberish after all.
I am also a self-confessed over-sequinizer, so I couldn’t not use some lovely Jewels from Pinkfresh. These are colour coordinated to the area where they are added. Using an Embellishment Wand makes this super easy too.
Using a coverplate to add texture and help you divide up colour areas is a great way to stretch your supplies! Washi tapes are also a fab addition to your craft room, especially if you like the look of water colouring but don’t have the time or the patience to practice.
Well, with that, the card is done and I hope you like it! Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today, and thank you to SCT Magazine for inviting me. Don’t forget to enter the challenge too and if you want to comment on their post, you can use THIS LINK HERE.
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, but bear in mind that the Sunflower Washi suite isn’t affiliate links as the profits from that is going to Save The Children. Which in itself is a great reason to treat yourself to that gorgeous set.
Today’s post is an ode to one of my favorite companies: Pinkfresh Studio. Not only are they a fabulous company to work with, the people behind it are truly kind and have big hearts.
Pinkfresh is known for their innovative washi tapes with coordinating diecuts, layering stencils and stamps. Check out the WASHI COLLECTION here if you are not familiar with it yet. Later this month, the Sunflower Washi set, complete with washi, stamps, diecuts and layering stencils, were going to be released, but the release date has been moved forward and these are now available. For a good cause too!
Here is the message from Pinkfresh Studio: We are gravely concerned for children in Ukraine, who might be caught in the middle of armed conflict, forced to flee their homes and exposed to injury, hunger and sub-zero temperatures. 100% net profits from this product (from the month of March) will be donated to Save The Children organization. We hope that you help us support this cause.
All affiliate earnings have been suspended on this set for the month of March so that ALL net profits go to charity, and to be honest, none of us mind. It’s heartwarming knowing that your purchase will support a wonderful cause AND support your creativity.
I have made a few cards with this gorgeous set, illustrated by the talented Emily Midgett, and I have a couple of reels too, but in this post I’m only going to share the one you can see above.
You can check out my Instagram to see the reel, and don’t forget to check out the rest of the Pinkfresh DT for lots of amazing ideas on how to use this fab set.
To add a Ukrainian element to the card I used Storm ink to ink blend over the Geo Tiles background, I did leave the bottom white, but the foiling is gold. I have used the same Storm ink and also Sweet Mustard to stamp up ‘Never Stop’ from the Chrysanthemum Slimline set in those colours. This was then cut out with the coordinating diecut, and also another two, to make sturdy pieces.
I did add some bling in Sunshine and Sapphire, on the matching side on the card. I might have gone a bit over the top, and I have a great tool from Studio Katia, called a Embellishment Wand that makes picking up those jewels. These are added with Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive, and I used this on the leaves and the sentiment too. The big flower piece was adhered with foam tape, to add some dimension.
That’s it from me for today, thank you so much for stopping by!
There are some affiliate links in this post, but the links to the Sunflower Washi set are not affiliate, they are just direct links. Thank you so much for supporting both myself, Pinkfresh, Save The Children and the people affected by this war.
I’m back on the blog today with some LDRS Creative inspiration! I have been having some fuuuuuuuun with the amazing addition to the flower layering dies: Peony Layering Dies. Oh boy, it’s such a stunner and peonies also happen to be one of my favorite flowers so I went to town!
I have a big stash of this lovely linen textured coloured card stock and I got cutting, and cutting, and cutting and eventually ended up with enough bits and pieces for seven or eight peonies. Yeah, I was on a roll. Get it? LOL. I do love a good pun too!
After assembling the flowers and the buds with the leaves, it was time to actually make a card! For a nice little touch I like using the A2 Diagonal Stitched Layered Card Topper die set, it cuts out the A2 front and adds some lovely stitched detail in one go.
Puzzling the flower pieces took some time, and I ended up trimming a few of the buds and leaves to fit behind the two peonies I wanted to use. When I was happy with the layout, I used some Press’n’Seal to pick up the pieces in exactly the same spot as there were on the card base. This is such a neat and handy trick, but if you can not get ahold of Press’n’Seal you can use very low-tack wide washi to get the same result.
On the back, I used both Nuvo Deluxe liquid glue and foam tape, to add dimension and to adhered the whole shebang to the card base.
I also had a load of ready made sentiments done, as I had stamped and cut up the You’re Simply The Best wave stack sentiments.This set is so clever in that you stamp it up once and get all the sentiments done, and it has a coordinating diecut that cuts out all in one go. One stamp session + one turn through the diecutting machine = TWELVE sentiment banners done! How cool is that??
I picked out the one that says You are truly wonderful in every way, and adhered that to the card. Now, I could have stopped there, but did I? Of course not.. I’m not an over-blinger by name only, oh no.
I added a VERY generous smattering of these Iridescent Bubble Drops embellishments from Studio Katia. Sort of like big water droplets after rain, you know? Finally, after adding at least eight too many, I stopped and stepped back. I have the embellishment wand from Studio Katia too, and it’s fab, as are the Triangle Trays to keep your embellishments tidy while you pick out which ones to use.
I, personally, love the bling, but if you don’t, you can leave them out. Or go less. That’s always an option for some. Not me, apparently but oh well, what can you do?
Thank you so much for stopping by today, I really hope you enjoyed this post and will try these gorgeous Peony Layering dies for yourself. With the code ERICAC15 you can also take 15% off your order until April 11th!!
Hello, hello, and welcome to one of the stops on the Pinkfresh February release blog hop! If you have come here from the amazing Emily Mydlowski, you are in the right spot, and the next stop on the hop is the awesome Heather Hoffman!
I have been really sick with shingles, for the second time in two years!!, for most of February so I haven’t had the energy to make a boat load of cards, like I usually do. However, the cards I have made I really like, and I hope you will too. I did manage a YouTube video too, but just a heads-up, I do look rather sickly still.
Now, let’s get to it! Clean and Simple, or CAS cards, are not something that comes easy to me. I love the look, but yeah, I usually end up over embellishing them to make up for the white space. It was, surprisingly, the look that I ended up with, for both of my first two cards though. Maybe the shingles took pity on my frazzled brain, and I didn’t over-think it even half as much like I normally do. Or maybe I just ran out of steam? Either way, TWO CAS cards coming up!
I started out by heat embossing the lovely Spark Of Goodness Floral Frame stamp on two card panels, one with Opaque Bright White powder from WOW! Embossing powder.
The second one was done with Rich Gold powder, also from WOW! Embossing. The gold definitely stood out more, for obvious reason.
The white embossing one I coloured in with green and fuchsia coloured Copics, and then used the coordinating diecut to cut out the middle. On the back I built it up with spare card stock to create some dimension.
For a bit of extra interest and texture, I used the Color Block Diagonal Stripes diecut on white card stock, and added the pieces to a card base. Probably as zero surprise to anyone, I also added some bling in the form of clear crystals, as well as a straight to the point sentiment.
The second card was also coloured in with Copics, but in peachy/orange tones, and greens. This was also cut out with the coordinating diecut and I did a similar thing to add texture and interest to the background. On this one I used the new Heart and Stars Coverplate, and it’s so sweet!
I also have a little sneaky peek of one of the cards I will be sharing for tomorrow’s Instagram hop, with the absolutely stunning Chrysanthemum Slimline stamp, coordinating diecut and coordinating layering stencils set!
Now for the fun stuff!!
Pinkfresh is giving away the entire release on their blog post and their YouTube post, so don’t forget to comment there! There are also TEN $25 gift vouchers up for grabs along the blog hop, all you have to do is leave a comment to be in with a chance to win, so the more you comment, the bigger chance to win!
Winners will be announced on March 8th, 2022 on the Pinkfresh GIVEAWAY PAGE. Remember that you must check that page and claim your prize within two weeks.
Thank you so much for stopping by today! Lots of love and happy crafting!
Today I’m delighted to be hopping along with the fabulous Hero Arts Global Team.
You should have come here from my little brother from another mother, Daniel Diaz, and the next stop on the hop is the incomparable Ilda Dias!
I have been sick with shingles for the last two weeks so I haven’t had the energy to do much, so making the cards for this hop was the first time I played with the February My Monthly Hero kit. One of my favourite images in the stamp set is the little umbrella. I love umbrellas, which is kind of funny, seeing as I’m not a fan of rain, lol!
The add-on cover plate, Cloud Window Fancy Die, with the gorgeous pattern and swirls, is totally fabulous. I do love a good cover plate!
To start, I stamped up the umbrella five times and coloured them in, each in a colour of the rainbow. I used a silly amount of Copic Markers for this but I love how they turned out! After the colouring was done I cut them out with the coordinating diecut, and set aside.
In one of the previous kits there was a pack of white silver glitter card stock, and I cut the Cloud Window Fancy Die out of that and also white card stock. The glittery one I cut up into four pieces and glued to the back the white one, to make it more interesting. I love the glittery clouds peeking out from behind the white ones.
As I didn’t want to fill the entire panel, I left a hole in the middle, but this of course needed a little something. On a scrap piece of paper I scribbled some blue Copic markers to make a sky looking background. This needed a little something so gold splatters to the rescue!
After all the pieces were done, I stacked and adhered it all to a card base, and the final touch was a sentiment from the stamp set. The one I picked says ‘you’re magical’ and once that was stamped onto white card stock, trimmed down and adhered to the card it was all done.
So that’s my card done for today, but don’t forget to hop along the blog hop and leave comments on all the stops as Hero Arts are giving away a $25 gift card to a lucky winner! You have until the 26th of February to leave comments and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog on the 27th. Good luck!!
CaCaCraft by Erica 