Hero Arts Summer Catalog Release blog hop with the Global Team!

Hi and welcome back to another Hero Arts Summer Catalog Release blog hop! This time I’m hopping with the Global Team and I am also again hot foiling and diecutting letters. Can we all say one-trick-pony??

In fairness, I have actually gotten two cards out of one piece of foil, as I also used the negative foil with the Solid Hot Foil Plate from Pinkfresh Studio. That thing is freaking genius!

The hot foil plate I used is the Large Circle Confetti one, and I adore it! Dots of any kind are versatile, I think. I have now made four cards with this plate, and I am not stopping.

For these I used Spellbinders Rainbow foil, on Matte Gold Foil paper from Concord & 9th, and the negative foil was also done on the same paper. It looks absolutely FABULOUS, but oh man… foiling is so hard to photograph!!

The first card was finished off by spelling out ‘let’s celebrate’ with letters cut out with the Luggage Lowercase Alpha dies. I naturally could not make it easier for myself here, by going for a solid black card stock. Oh no. I HAD to use black glitter card stock from the Basic Glitter pack.

For the second card I went a little smaller on the sentiment, but used the Luggage Lowercase Alpha dies again, to spell out ‘friend’.

The sentiment strips are from the Encouragement Sentiment stamp, and cut out with the coordinating diecut. Super simple, but effective.

My other two cards are also two-for-one with the same hot foil plate, only in black, white and gold, which is a timeless classic colour combo. This foil is the Speckled Aura, and it’s absolutely amazing.

For these I used an older Stamp & Cut set, which I love! This is Happy Thanks Stamp & Cut XL, and it’s so versatile.

I love stacking the diecut words to create some dimension. On these I have also dabbed some embossing ink and sprinkled Rich Gold embossing powder, for a bit of extra sparkle!

All the extra sentiments are heat embossed in Rich Gold too, to keep it cohesive.

I’m not going to keep you any longer, and the next stop on the hop is my friend in real life, Karen Boyce! Don’t forget leave a comment here before hopping along though, as Hero Arts is giving away a $50 gift card to a lucky winner! That winner will be drawn from the comments left on the stops, before June 4th, and announced on the Hero Arts blog!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

PS I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, which means that if you shop using these links, I get a small commission from the company it’s linked to as a thank you for directing you to them. This never, ever increases your cost, ever, but the income I get from this helps pay for blog hosting and all that boring stuff that goes into the behind-the-scenes stuff. Thank you for the support, I really appreciate it!

PSS Don’t forget that there is another Stamp-Along coming soon, and it’s on mixed media with a great lineup of teachers!!

Hero Arts Summer Catalog Blog Hop

Hi and welcome back to my neglected little blog!

Today I am delighted to take part of the Hero Arts Summer Catalog release blog hop, showing off some of the yummy new release goodies. You can find the whole catalog HERE.

As mentioned, this is a blog hop and you should have come here from my dear friend Daniel West and the next stop is the ever so fabulous Jaycee Gaspar. You can also find the entire lineup over on the Hero Arts blog post.

There is also a fabulous giveaway to celebrate the release. Hero Arts will be giving away two $50 gift cards, drawn from the comments left along the hop. Comment on all the blogs for more chances to win! You have until Sunday, May 28 at 11:59pm to enter. The winners will be announced on the Hero Arts blog soon after.

Right, so I have made a few cards with the goodies I got, and let’s get to those right now. My first card was made with the lovely Peony Hot Foil Plate, and I foiled it with Matte Gold which looks stunning.

I added a little bit of colour by ink blending a little bit of Taffy and Key Lime Fizz Reactive Inks, with a lot of masking and puzzling. The ink blending I left quite soft.

I framed this by diecutting the biggest part of the Journaling Photo Frame Infinity Dies, and stacked two of these for a bit of depth. I also finished the card off with the Together Stamp & Cut, by diecutting the Together word and stacked that four times. On white card stock I stamped ‘is the perfect place to be‘ with Black Intense-ified Ink and trimmed it down.

For my second card I also used the Journalling Photo Frame Infinity Dies, but a smaller size. I made a little shadow box of sorts, and created a rainbow by cutting out strips of card stock with the Weaving Fancy Die and ink blending them with Reactive Inks.

I used Lemon Drop, Creamsicle, Taffy, Thistle, Splash, Pool Party and Key Lime Fizz and a bunch of ink blending tools. I have one for each colour, to avoid colour contamination.

The photo frame I stacked four times, with the rainbow in-between layers, and then backed this with some white glitter card stock, from the Glitter Paper Basics pack.

While I had that pack out, I used the black one too, with the Luggage Lowercase Alphabet dies to cut out lots and lots of letters.

I have mixed two different stamp sets for this card, plus the letters to say ‘hey, life is tough, but you’re tougher. We can do anything’ as I made this for a friend going through a tough time right now. The ‘we can do anything’ is from the Together Stamp & Cut set, and the ‘life is tough, but you’re tougher’ is from the Encouragement Sentiment Stamp Set, and cut out with the Sentiment Strips Fancy Dies.

This panel was adhered to a card base, as it was only 5.25″x4″ sized, to give that lovely framed look. As it wasn’t framed enough, lol!

So I had all those extra letters and I couldn’t let them go to waste. These I used on a background I made with the Stacked Circle Stencil and more of the Reactive Inks. It came out super fun, and I splattered some gold watercolour on top for a shimmery fun.

The letters I had leftover from the previous card, I used on this to spell ‘you are fabulous’. I also used the Encouragement Sentiment stamp set, and let me tell you something about this set. It’s a one and done stamp set, you get ALL of the sentiments stamped in one go. If you get the Sentiment Strips Fancy Die, you can also cut ALL of these sentiments out in one go! *mind blown*

I picked a sentiment that worked with the diecut sentiment and boom, the card was done. The thing that took the longest was probably glueing down the letters and making sure they got on straight. It’s nerve-wracking and oh boy, I was sweating!

That’s it for today, but I really hope you enjoyed this post and found some inspiration here with me. I have linked all the products I have used for these with affiliate links, which NEVER cost you anything extra ever. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission directly from Hero Arts, as a thank you for directing you to them. This is the way I earn a little income, and this goes directly back into the behind-the-scenes stuff like web hosting, VPN, equipment and all the extra bits and bobs that goes into card making, filming and editing content. Thank you so much for supporting me by shopping my affiliate link, I really appreciate it more than I can ever express!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Alex Syberia Designs “Time To Choose Magic” April Release Blog Hop and Giveaway

Hello, hello!!

Today I’m super excited to be hopping along with Alex Syberia Designs to celebrate the April ‘Time to Choose Magic’ Release! It’s a really good one and I have some fun projects to share with you, but first I wanted to make sure I covered the amazing giveaway that is part of the release celebrations!

Alex Syberia Designs is giving away the full release bundle, valued at £397 ($493) in total, to one very lucky winner! The winner will be announced on the ASD Release Blog Hop post on May 1st.

Alex Syberia Designs will pick the winner to receive the prize from the comments left on each designer’s blog on the blog hop list below, so the more you hop and comment, the better your chances of winning this amazing and awesome prize!

Blog Hop Order:
Alex Syberia Designs
Jennifer McGuire
Laura Bassen
Alberto
Ashlee
Bobbi
Brenda
Caly Person
Cheryl
Emelie
Erica <—— YOU ARE HERE!
Jessica Frost <—–NEXT STOP!
Lidya
Lien Leysen
Mindy Eggen
Natalia
Nicoletta
Rachel Alvarado
Raquel
Sandi Maciver
Sylvie

Right, with all that out of the way, let’s focus on my projects, shall we? I went straight for the Quirky Rainbow diecut set, and cut the arches out of lots of gorgeous Concord & 9th coloured card stock.

The rainbows were then adhered to the card base directly, and without mixing the colours up, to create a fun textured patterned paper. I finished it off with a black and white Large Hello word diecut on top, and that’s it!

The next card also has the Quirky Rainbow diecut set and the Large Hello diecut set, but with a sparkly twist. The rainbows are cut out of an ink blended panel, that I heat embossed with WOW! Embossing Halo. It makes the prettiest glitter card stock ever!

The background is made by dry-embossing the Glowing Geometry Hot Foil plate, and then I adhered the glittery rainbow and the hello to it. Super simple, yet it packs a punch!

For these two cards I used two small diecut sets as the main focus, yet they are certainly not boring. Plus they are fun to make too!

Making use of ALL THE CARD STOCK SCRAPS, because craft waste is right up there with food waste, I cut out about 3 million little hearts. It took many, many episodes of my latest guilty Netflix pleasure.

These I then glued down, one by one, onto a white card base. That also took absolutely ages, but I had a vision and was NOT disappointed by the results!!

As I didn’t want to cover up that fab background too much, I kept it really simple when it came to finishing the card. I cut out ‘HEY YOU’ using the Foxtrot Alphabet, in Dove C&9 coloured card stock. The only thing I wish I had not done is add the white strip behind the letters. I thought it might help them stand out, but I’m not sure I like it.

I did adhere the letters wonkily, to give it a whimsical look, and again, I think it would have looked better without the white strip behind it. However, I wasn’t about to try removing it. Pretty sure it would have ripped the hearts off too and I couldn’t bring myself to risk that.

I also made a YouTube video and you can find that RIGHT HERE, or click on the thumbnail below.

That’s it from me for today, but don’t forget to check out the rest of the hop and on Saturday there will be an Instagram hop with even more inspiration!!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Pinkfresh March Challenge card | Layers!!

Today’s card is an entry to the monthly challenge hosted by Pinkfresh Studio. The theme for this month is layers and I do love me some layers!! I have mixed and matched some of my fave products, to add colour and texture to this card.

The flower is created with the Blooming Peonies layering stencils, and I skipped using the coordinating outline stamp, to keep the look soft.

The colours I chose are not the ones from the inspiration board. I went for coral pinks and teals, with a touch of yellow, instead. Coral Reef, Passion Fruit and Berrylicious, plus a bit of Sweet Mustard for the middle of the flower and Aquamarine and Tidal Pond for the leaves.

This panel was then diecut with the Simply Diamonds cover plate. This is one of my most loved and most used cover plates from Pinkfresh.

I find it so versatile and lovely, and I reach for it time and time again. After diecutting the panel, I put a piece of Press’n’Seal on top to keep all the pieces in place to make sure that they all stayed where they are supposed to be. Lots of foam tape was added to the cutouts, and none to the frame part.

The effect is really fun as it is, but I took it a step further by adding a frame of vellum to the card as well. This softened the lower part of the pattern, adding another depth to the layers.

To finish off the card I used the Nested Circles Hot Foil and coordinating diecuts to add a sparkly circle to help frame the big bloom. The foil is Speckled Prism and it’s amazing! I also used a pre-foiled and stacked Sentiment Suite Happy Birthday, this one is foiled in Moondust.

The last touch was adding a few Glitter Drops. I was toying with the idea of adding Aqua ones but decided to go with Champagne instead. It was a tough choice though, because the Aqua are so gorgeous.

Well, that’s my card finished! If you want to join in the challenge too, check out the Pinkfresh Studio Monthly Challenge for all the details, deadline and where you can link up your projects!

Thank you for stopping by today, I hope you have enjoyed this post and if you want to see a reel of it, check out my Instagram page.

You can click on the links in this post and it will take you to the products I have used, and if you shop by clicking on them, I get a small commission from the company directly at no extra cost to you! Thank you for shopping with my affiliate links!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Hero Arts Global Team Spring Catalog Blog Hop!

Hi everyone!

Today I’m hopping along with the Hero Arts Global Team to celebrate the Spring Catalog release! I have combined the February My Monthly Hero kit with some of the goodies from previous releases, as well as some of the Spring Catalog goodies.

I did make a video too, and it’s a loooooong one as I ended up with seven cards! I’m hoping to have that up as soon as possible, if you don’t want to miss it, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and click on the bell button to get notifications when I upload new videos.

We’ll be giving away a $50 gift card. drawn from the comments left along the hop. Comment on all the blogs for more chances to win! You have until Sunday, February 26 at 11:59pm to enter. The winners will be announced on the Hero Arts blog.

My first card is made with the components of the classic My Monthly Hero kit. The classic kit, at the time of writing this post is still available. The premium, seen on the right, is unfortunately already sold out. If you don’t want to miss out on any of the kits, make sure to SUBSCRIBE, as once the kits are sold out, they are gone.

MY MONTHLY HERO PREMIUM KIT INCLUDES (Premium elements in bold):

• Clear Stamp Set, 3″ x 4″
• Butterfly Window Fancy Die
• 9 Butterfly Fancy Dies with 9 Frame Cuts
• 4 Color Layering Stencils, 5.25″ x 6.5″
• Butterfly Garden Palette Reactive Ink Pad
• Small Ink Blending Brush
• 4 Sheets of Butterfly Hero Transfers, 6″ x 8″
• Fuchsia & Gold Luster Duo Spray
• 1 Sheet each of Stardream Coral, Azalea, Lagoon, and Amethyst, 5.5″ x 8.5″
• 2 Sheets each of Iris and Mustard Cardstock, 5.5″ x 8.5″

I’ve ink blended the colours from the ink pad, fabulously named Butterfly Garden Palette Reactive Ink Pad (which will hopefully be available to buy separately at some point) over the layering stencils. It takes some finessing to not mix the colours on your brush, but just take your time and go slow. Also, the Small blender brush make this easier. I used my Medium ones, and it was a bit tricky, I’m not going to lie.

On the second stencil I ink blended Licorice in a light hand, to add details to the butterflies. When I had done all four layers, I used the Butterfly Window Fancy Die to cut it out.

I trimmed down on of the sheets of Stardream Coral card stock that come in the kit to a 5.5″x4.25″. This I prepped with the Cottontail Embossing Tool as I wanted to heat emboss the Happy Birthday, from the kit stamp set, in white. With the cut out panel as a guide for sentiment placement, I stamped it with my WOW embossing pad and then used Opaque Bright White embossing powder on top. After setting this with my heat tool, I layered this panel and the diecut panel on top of each other.

A few of the butterflies have been opened up to create a 3D effect. I also added a few little jewels to finish it off.

My second card is super simple! The background is heat embossed, also in Opaque Bright White, only this is with the Fluttering Butterflies Bold Print stamp. The original sized MISTI is a must for me when I do the bold prints.

On top of this I have splattered a little bit of gold, rather than colour in the butterflies. I didn’t want to to over the top with colour… *I swear it really is Erica typing this*… as I had a bright idea for the sentiment.

When I first opened the ink pad I wanted to try the colours, as you do. I simply dabbed it onto a piece of card stock and it looked so fab I had to use it for something! This is where the fun Amazing Fancy Die comes in, as it was pretty much the perfect size for the ink swatch.

I also used a sentiment from the coordinating stamp set, on a slim banner, to make it say ‘Just a little note to say you are amazing’. The shadow part of the diecut is layered up four times to create dimension, and then I added a few jewels to this one too.

The subtle white on white background is lovely as until you look closer, it’s not overly obvious that there is more to this card than you first think.

I will definitely use this background again, and next time I will colour it! Once I get the neon water colours I will go full on Lisa Frank wannabe with this background, LOL! How luscious do they look???

From left to right we have Neon Bright Green, Neon Bright Chartreuse, Neon Bright Yellow, Neon Bright Sunshine, Neon Bright Orange, Neon Bright Red, Neon Bright Pink and Neon Bright Purple.

 *ADD TO CART* Amiright, or amiright??

Ok, that’s it from me for today but don’t forget to check out the rest of the hop!
The amazing Global Team will for sure knock your socks off, it’s such a bunch of talented and kind people. Don’t forget that the more you hop and comment, the bigger your chance of winning that $50 gift card!
Hero Arts
Anna Mahtani
Arjita Singh
Erica (that’s me)
Jen Kray
Karen Boyce
Lisa Tilson
Lounon
Michelle Lupton

As always, I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at absolutely NO EXTRA cost to you. If you shop using these links, I will get a small commission from the company directly. Thank you so much if you shop using my links, I really appreciate the support and encouragement I get from these.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Hero Arts Global Team blog hop and giveaway!!

Hi and welcome back to my blog!

Today is a special day! The 2023 Hero Arts Global Team is being announced and I’m super happy to be part of it, with some of my real-life friends on there too!! It’s very exciting.

Giveaway: We will giveaway a $50 gift card to the Hero Arts website, drawn from among all the comments left across the blog hop. Please comment by Sunday, February 5 at 11:59pm PT.

As this is a hop you can find links to all the team members right here
Hero Arts
Anna
Arjita
Erica (That’s me)
Karen
Jen
Lisa
Michelle
Lounon

Now that all that exciting stuff is out of the way, I’m going to show a few cards I made with this month’s My Monthly Hero kit and the add-ons.

You might already have seen some of these cards, as I shared a photo of all four in my blog post taking part in the release blog hop.

Here you will be able to see some close-ups of the other two cards, and the first one has so much white space I nearly had to sit down!

White space is something I really struggle with, but it makes it slightly easier doing white-on-white with a cover plate, like the Heart Flourish Cover Plate.

Sentiment wise I have used some of the gorgeous stamps from the You’re Mine Bundle, with their coordinating diecuts! I did add the double heart and lips, cut out of Cherry card stock. On top of these I added a little bit of Crystal Clear Lacquer Pen for a glossy finish.

For my final card I have hot foiled the Hearts Hot Foil background with Matte Gold foil on white card stock. This I trimmed down a little and adhered to a panel cut out of Peony card stock, so that the pink would create a little frame.

I created three heart shaped balloons using some of the dies from the main kit. These are cut out of Azalea card stock, and it’s a STUNNING colour! The sentiment is again from the You’re Mine Bundle, with the sentiments stamped up on white card stock with Licorice ink and the diecut out.

Well, that’s it from me for today but I really hope you have enjoyed this post and the hop! Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post, and the rest of the stops, by Feb 5th. The winner of the $50 Hero Arts gift card will be announced soon after!

Thank you so much for stopping by! If you click on any of the links in this post, and buy a little something-something for yourself, I might get a small commission from Hero Arts as a thank you for directing you to them. I say ‘might’ as it’s technology and it hates me…

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

#MERAKIHUGS Crafty Meraki New Release, video hop and giveaway!!

Hi and welcome back to my blog!

I’m popping in today to let you know there is a YouTube hop going on to celebrate the first Crafty Meraki release of 2023!

There is a bunch of adorable new products in this release, and I have had a lot of fun with them. If you want to skip to the new release, you can CHECK THEM OUT HERE.

If you want to skip directly to the video hop, and I don’t blame you if you do, you can FIND MY VIDEO HERE. There is a very generous giveaway over there too, there are TWO $100 gift card to the Crafty Meraki up for grabs for TWO WINNERS! Yes, that’s right, there are two! You can find the instructions on how to enter and when winners will be announced in the description box below the video.

In my video I have used the super fun Capture My Heart 3D diecut, and made a whole load of boxes with it. I had to make a rainbow of them, in fact. I do have some tips and trick on how to make the boxes in my video, so make sure you check it out.

To create these I have used coloured cardstock from both Concord & 9th and Lawn Fawn, the full list of colours are listed in the description box below my YouTube video.

I have also used the Diamond In The Rough hot foil plate, with lots of different foils, including Black, Matte Gold, Speckled Aura and Lavender Petal, as well as using the Solid Hot Foil Plate to foil the negatives. It’s kind of addictive once you get started with foiling. I have the Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil system, which works great with my Platinum 6 diecutting machine.

One of the things I really like doing is mixing new and old products, to show how well they work together.

For this first card I have used two negative foiled panels to make a card. With the Slimline Thanks tag diecut, I used the word die to cut out the Thanks out of one panel, on which I had used the Diamond In The Rough hot foil plate with Speckled Aura foil, and then layered it up to fit into the pattern of the Solid Hot Foiled negative. It gives a really cool, almost optical illusion look!

I finished it off with Ivory Opal gems, and backed on black card stock, and a white card base.

As I had cut this out of another panel, I decided to use that one too, because crafty waste is the worst! This time I used the Thanks diecut with white card stock, and layered it up three times. Between the fourth, and final layer, I tucked in some Canopy Leaf diecuts cut out of satin gold card stock.

If you want to see more work with the Crafty Meraki products, make sure you follow me on Instagram as I share regular reels and posts there with lots of fun projects.

If you want to shop any Crafty Meraki goodies, you can take 10% off your order with the code ERICA10 at checkout!

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have enjoyed this post, and that you get the chance to check out the video too.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

January 2023 My Monthly Hero Kit Blog Hop!

Hi and welcome to my blog, and my first post for 2023! Today’s post is part of a blog hop celebrating the first Hero Arts My Monthly Hero kit of the year, and there is a giveaway!

The next stop on the hop is my talented friend Jen Kray!

This kit is super cute and perfect for those Valentine’s Day projects! Beautiful card stock, sweet stamps and coordinating diecuts, as well as a stencil and a bit of sparkle.

This is what Hero Arts are saying about the kit: With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, the January My Monthly Hero kit celebrates the “perfect match”. The centerpiece of this kit is dies to create a faux matchbox, which lies flat on your card or project and can be decorated and filled with the numerous stamps and dies included in the kit. But don’t stop there, let your imagination go wild with all of the possibilities this kit contains! Use the images on their own, build repeating patterns, or add them to planner pages, journals, and more! There is a beautiful stencil included, perfect for backgrounds or mixed media projects. The kit is rounded out with a pack of fun heart-themed sequins and five sheets of gorgeous cardstock.

If you haven’t subscribed to the My Monthly Hero kit, you can sign up HERE. This is a pre-order, and Hero Arts will start shipping the kits on Friday the 13th of January. If you are not subscribed, and miss out on a kit, that’s it, you can not get it again. They are only available in a limited quantity and once they are gone, they are gone. It’s also a great deal as the kit is valued at $77, but it only costs $34.99!

There are also a bunch of fun add-ons you can get, as usual! There are a bunch of fun diecuts, including one that makes an actual match box. There is also a gorgeous heart cover plate, a hot foil plate, a striped stencil and really lovely sentiment stamps, on their own or with coordinating diecuts!! If you are a subscriber, you can add any, or all of these, to your kit order, before it ships, without having to pay extra shipping.

If you can’t pick and chose which ones to get, you can snag them all RIGHT HERE.

As a self-confessed hot foil addict, I love the option of adding foiling to my projects. It’s such a touch of luxury, and glam, and I will never, ever tire of it. The fun thing with hot foil plates is that you can actually use them as embossing plates AND you can dab ink on them and “stamp” as well. Yep, it’s not just for foiling.

However, for my project today I have used just the main kit, so let’s get into it!

First off I used my trimmer to cut out strips of the card stock included, they are about 1cm wide. I did cut two of each, because I wasn’t sure how many I needed, but I did just use one of each in the end.

To add some interest to the white card base, I have ink blended just a touch of left over pink ink (the colour is Taffy) over the stencil. By not adding more ink, the results are super soft and delicate, but you do have to blend for quite a while. I will say it’s worth it for this sort of result.

My second card is also done with just stamps and dies from the main kit, I did use some Distress Spray in Black Soot and some gold water colours to add some interest to the white background.

I cut out the flat matchbox out of white card stock and heat embossed ‘Valentine’ on it in white embossing powder for a subtle look. The hearts are cut out of satin gold card stock and I also used a few of the little red hearts from the embellishments, that come in the kit.

The little specks of red, matched with the gold, works really well I think!

Next up, I had to use that lovely Hearts Hot Foil plate. But not in red, that felt too on the nose, so I went with Matte Gold instead. It looks gorgeous!

This card is finished off by making a card base of out the Peony card stock that comes in the kit, stamping up a sentiment from the You’re Mine stamp and diecut set, and add some 3D heart balloons made with some of the diecuts from the main kit.

My last, and final card, is way outside of my comfort zone. It has so much white space I’m spacing out…!

I started out by cutting out a panel using the Heart Flourish Cover Plate, out of white card stock, and layering this up onto a white card base.

On this I simply added ‘Sending hugs kisses’ from the You’re Mine stamp and diecut set. Because there is no ‘and’ in the stamp set I used the double heart diecut instead of it, this and the lips are cut out of red card stock. To make these stand out a little I added a lot of Crystal Clear Lacquer Pen and set aside to dry.

That’s it from me for today, but don’t forget to check out the rest of the hop! To enter the giveaway, you only have to leave comments on the stops, and you have until January 15th to do so. The winner of the $50 Hero Arts gift card will be announced on the blog the following week, so make sure to check back to see if you have won!

I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, to Hero Arts, and if you shop with these links I will get a small commission from them directly. At absolutely zero extra cost to you!

Income from these affiliate links are what pays for the boring stuff like blog hosting, internet security, equipment, and other tools for the creative side. I really, really appreciate it whenever someone uses my links, no matter how small the order, every single one helps, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Pinkfresh Studio December 2022 Stamp, Die, Stencil, and Hot Foil Release

Hi and welcome back to my blog for the ultimate Pinkfresh Studio release of 2022!

This post is part of a blog hop, so if you came here from the one and only Emily Midgett you are in the right spot, and the next stop is the marvellous Heather Hoffman! You can also see the entire lineup via this InLinkz link, and in the Pinkfresh Studio blog post.

It wouldn’t be a celebration without some amazing giveaways, and it couldn’t be easier to join in! To be in with the chance to win the ENTIRE RELEASE make sure to comment on the Pinkfresh Studio release blog post, and for another chance, comment on the Pinkfresh Studio Youtube release video.

There are also TEN $25 gift cards up for grabs, and the winners for these will be drawn from the comments from the blog hop stops. So basically the more you hop and comment, the bigger your chance of winning! And who wouldn’t love to win some spending money in the Pinkfresh Studio shop??

The winners will be announced on the Pinkfresh Giveaway winner page, on the 27th of December, and make sure you check that page and claim your prize within 2 weeks. Now with all that out of the way, let’s get to my two little cards.

I know… last month I only had one card, and this month I only have two. I’m still struggling with the after-effects of my bad bout of Covid, and then having to move house before I was even close to recovered? To say I’ve been pushed to my limit isn’t far off. Imagine having to oversee a house being packed up, deep cleaned and inspected before moving out, then doing a long drive to the new house, the next day was move-in day and it was FULL SPEED ahead all day, all while being very sick and not feeling with it? I was pretty much knocked out and the next two days was spent in a foggy haze of boxes everywhere, not being able to find anything, being in pain and feeling extra awful… Even now, a month on, I am still not even close to being 100% and honestly, the fact I haven’t completely and utterly lost my mind in this process? It is pushing this one up there with some of my top achievements ever. Ever.

Now that I have gotten all my ‘woe is me’ out of the way, let’s get to the card making. For my first card I have indulged my love of hot foiling by using the lovely new Detailed Leaf and Happy Birthday pieces. The Detailed Leaf suite has a stamp, a coordinating diecut, layering stencils and a hot foil plate.

I started out by foiling the Detailed Leaf with Polished Brass foil, it comes from the Essential Metallics Variety Pack from Spellbinders, which can be found in the Pinkfresh shop now! Yay!

Let’s talk about this leaf. It is actually so stunning on it’s own, I decided to not use the coordinating layering stencils for this card, and instead went the Solid Hot Foil Plate route and foiled the negative piece as well. Because why not?

I created a white-on-white background for these pieces, to give some interest but not take away any attention from the gorgeous leaves themselves. One of my favorite diecuts for this sort of look is the Simply Diamonds one. I find it versatile and elegant.

Another fab addition to the Pinkfresh range is now word hot foil AND diecuts, oh yes! So they will come in a pack together, the hot foil plate in the gold colour and the diecut in the silver colour. Genius! And who doesn’t need a good Happy Birthday sentiment, right?

For this card I hot foiled the Happy Birthday in Rainbow foil! It looks fabulous. It really does. Much better in real life than in most of the pictures, naturally. I also layered it up with a couple of diecut pieces, to raise it up a bit. The leaves are trimmed and tucked behind the sentiment.

Not that I ever need an excuse, but I finished off the card with lots of Glacier jewels. If you can’t go nuts with bling-a-ling for birthdays, when can you?

So that’s card No1, now onto card No2!

Here I used the Detailed Leaf hot foil again, but added some colour to it with the layering stencils. In a rainbow, of course. As well as another negative foiled leaf.

On this card, I used the negatives from the Simply Diamonds cover plate too, to keep waste to a minimum. Plus it adds a fab element to a background, so win-win. The negative bits didn’t go on perfectly straight, try crafting with a cotton candy brain and cold hands. It’s not easy, nope!

To cover up the wonkiness, I used another new hot foil addition: The Nested Rectangles, and they come with coordinating diecuts too, so you can cut them out and use as frames for your images.

Again, I used the Polished Brass foil for these, to coordinate with the leaves.

I used a sentiment from the Detailed Leaf stamp set, which I heat embossed in gold, to finish off the card. It’s layered up with another two pieces, that I cut out with the coordinating diecut. A tiny… small-ish.. perhaps generous in someone else’s eyes, smattering of Sparkling Champagne pearls were the finishing touch for this card.

With that, I’m done for today. I must mention that I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, for your convenience, at no extra cost to you. If you shop using these links, I might get a small commission from the company directly, and it doesn’t ever cost you a penny extra. Thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with links, I really appreciate the support and encouragement.

The next stop on the hop is the amazing Heather!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica!

Pinkfresh Studio November 2022 Stamp, Die, Stencil, and Hot Foil Release

Hi and welcome back to my blog! Today I’m hopping along with Pinkfresh Studio and friends to celebrate the November release. This is a blog hop, so if you came here from Emily Mydlowski you are in the right spot, and the next stop is Heather Hoffman!

It wouldn’t be a celebration without some amazing giveaways, and it couldn’t be easier to join in! To be in with the chance to win the ENTIRE RELEASE make sure to comment on the Pinkfresh Studio release blog post, and for another chance, comment on the Pinkfresh Studio Youtube release video. There are also TEN $25 gift cards up for grabs, and the winners for these will be drawn from the comments from the blog hop stops. So basically the more you hop and comment, the bigger your chance of winning!

The winners will be announced on the Pinkfresh Giveaway winner page, on the 29th of November, and make sure you check that page and claim your prize within 2 weeks.

For my card, and yes, I only have one card today. I have been very, very sick with Covid for the last 2 weeks and it’s been awful! I’ve barely had enough energy to get through the day, let alone do anything productive like crafting or house move prep. The movers are coming in two days and I have managed NOTHING that I had set out to do before then… but I digress.

I have used the fun Overlapping Geo Leaf set, which includes a hot foil plate, layering stencils and a coordinating diecut.

First I hot foiled a panel with Speckled Aura foil, and on top of this I have ink blended Sunshine, Sparkling Rose, Aquamarine and Grassy Knoll inks with the layering stencils to add some colour.

I added a sentiment from the With Sympathy stamp set, which is heat embossed in Rich Gold and then cut out with the coordinating diecut. There are a bunch of lovely sentiments in this set that have coordinating diecuts, which I love!

There is also a hot foil plate and layering stencils for the With Sympathy suite.

Thanks to the diecut, it was so easy to layer it up with another two pieces to add some height to it.

The final touch was adding some Sunshine and Ocean Breeze jewels to the pattern, because I’m unable to resist adding bling. With that my card is done and I hope you like it!

One of the sets I’m very excited about from this release is the Jeff Alpha Dies, as I LOVE an alphabet diecut set!

Thank you for stopping by and don’t forget to hop along the rest of the blog hop to see what else the design team, and friends, have made!

I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much if you shop using these links, as the income I get from these help keep all this going.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica