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!
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.
I’m back with some more Pinkfresh flowery cards today. For these cards I have used the colour scheme from the December challenge but mixed it with the Blooming Branch set. I’m slightly in denial about Christmas being so close so any excuse to use flowers and blooms, I’m in.
The idea was to get a softer look on the white and more vivid on the gold. The opacity of the ink blending is actually about the same, but it does make the colours pop or soften up, with the different colours. My fave is the Rich Gold.
All of these have been ink blended with blending brushes, because that is the blending tool that works best for me to get a smooth blend.
I wanted a bit of a rainbow look still (surprise, surprise, I know… ) so I started with the Sunshine in the middle, and then went pink and red towards the top and the teal and turquoise towards the bottom.
You don’t actually need that many colours to get a rainbow look, as by blending the colours together you get more than the actual numbers of inks you use. For example, yellow and red/pink, will make orange and yellow and blue makes green, and so forth.
To get this look, you add the colours in the same areas on each layer of stencil. Think in terms of lines across your stencil, if you will. You just keep building it up as you go through your stencils, and eventually you end up with this fun rainbow look.
With the colours all added, I cut them both out with the coordinating diecut and on the back of these, I added foam tape to raise them up on the card. However, I had to make my backgrounds first and the sentiments too, of course.
Luckily for me, it was foiled to the paper, but the Opal hot foil is very subtle. It looks more like an embossing folder, than hot foiling. Which is another use for your hot foil plates! You can actually use them to add dry embossing, and add pattern to your card stock as well as use them for hot foiling.
The background pieces were trimmed down a little and then directly adhered to a card base each. On top of these I added the Blooming Branch pieces, the sentiments and then I just had to add some Jewels to add even more pizzazz! I can’t help myself, I love these Jewels and they are such a perfect finishing touch.
That’s it from me for today, but I hope you found some inspiration here and don’t forget that you can still take part in the December challenge. You can win a $50 gift card to the Pinkfresh Studio shop just by taking part, so what are you waiting for? Go on, have some fun and play along. The deadline is December 28th, so plenty to of time and you can enter 5 projects!
Right, I will stop jibber-jabbering now and let you go. Thank you so much for stopping by, lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
I’m popping in today with a quick card I made with mostly “leftovers” from previous crafting sessions, for the Pinkfresh Studio new monthly challenge. Each month there is a new theme and colour scheme, and this month it’s Fall/Fall Holidays and this is the inspiration graphic.
My interpretation is more based on the colour scheme than the theme, but that’s ok. If you think you have to be super literal with your interpretation, don’t worry. That’s not the point at all. The point is to get your creativity humming and going! Don’t forget to upload your project to the InLinkz album before Nov 2nd, for your chance to win a $50 gift card to Pinkfresh Studios!
While I was preparing to be on the Craft Hour last month, I foiled so many of the Thankful for Friends image. It’s slightly addicting, especially when you have zero willpower like I do.. I really need to get a grip with using up everything I prep and make while on a roll, so this card was an effort to do just that.
Below you can see some of the cards I ended up finishing after the Craft Hour.
I also had an Thankful For Friends image heatembossed, so I thought I’d use that with the coordinating Layering Stencils. That way I could use up one more piece but still add colour to it. Using the stencils I have ink blended a bit of Misty Coast and Rocky Slope with blender brushes, over the stem and for the flowers themselves I used only Tidal Pond. This soft look is achieved by picking up the ink from the lid, where I tap off excess ink and get it covering the brush evenly, rather than from the ink pad directly. It’s one of my better ideas for sure!
The last layer of the stencil I did use, but not with more inks, but rather Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone. I think I did learn something with this though. You see, I did this before cutting it out, which flattened the Glimmer Paste a little. The better way to do it would be to cut it out first, and then add that afterwards. You can use a little bit of washi tape to hold the image in place.
When I was happy with the ink blending and glitz (and that had dried), I used the coordinating diecut and cut it out. Previously, I had cut out a ton of extra pieces for layering up, and I used one of these extra pieces to add some height. I also used one of the Hot Foiled images. This one is done with Matte Gold on Stormcloud card stock.
These pieces I set aside while I decided on the background. I also had a load of Abstract Triangle Hot Foiled panels, and I grabbed one of these. It turned out this is Matte Gold too, so that coordinated perfectly. It did need a little something though, so I added a light touch of Apricot and Clementine ink around the edges. It really made the gold foiling pop even more! The middle was left white so that the flowers would look like they glowed, sort of.
The final thing to do was to heat emboss one of the sentiments from the Thankful For Friends set, in Rich Gold embossing powder from WOW! Embossing powder. This was adhered with a little bit of foam tap and with that the card was done!
So, there is a lot going on with this card, but despite the colours not being my first colour combo choice, I do think it works.
Ok, now it’s your turn. Make a card with the challenge graphic as inspiration and upload it to the album for your chance to win $50 gift card to the Pinkfresh Studios shop!
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you whatsoever. Any earnings I get from these links go directly back into the crafting shenanigans so thank you so much for the support. I really appreciate it!
As some of you might have already seen, or heard about, I’ve joined the Pinkfresh Studio design team for the rest of the year! I’m SUPER EXCITED about this as I’m such a huge fan of Pinkfresh Studio!
Just look at this collection of amazing crafters, and then spot little ole me in there too! It’s such a dream come true!
Pinkfresh Studio run monthly challenges, both for the scrapbooking side of things and the card making side of things, so no matter what your preferred way of crafting and creating is, you can join in!
For the month of July the theme is ‘Butterflies’, and you can interpret that however you like. Below you can see the challenge graphic, maybe glean some inspiration from that or just let your creativity loose and see what happens!
For my card, I decided to first make a flowery background, something for the butterflies to be attracted to, so to say.
The colours of ink used are Lemon Whip, Sunshine and Sweet Mustard for the blooms. On the leaves it’s Ocean Breeze and Aquamarine. At the top of the card I used a little bit of Sky Blue to soften all that white space, and give a summery sky look to the card.
I toyed with the idea of using Black Ink for the outline stamp, but in the end I heat embossed it with Gold Rich from WOW! Embossing. I’m really glad I went this route, as it gives the petals and stems more definition, without being too harsh.
For the butterfly part, I used, no surprise, the biggest from the Butterflies stamp set. I heatembossed it on vellum, again with Gold Rich embossing powder. After using the coordinating diecut, I adhered it to the card with a bit of foam tape to create the illusion of it hovering above the flower.
To keep the card cohesive, I used a heat embossed sentiment from the Perfect Sentiments set. I made a ton of these as the stamp set is so clever, and you get the whole bunch in one go. The coordiating diecut for these is equally brilliant!
That’s my card for the challenge, and over on my Instagram you can find a reel for this card too. Or, well, you would have, if I hadn’t managed to delete it, like a total IDIOT!!!
Now it’s your turn! Hop on over to the Pinkfresh Studio blog and enter your card in the July challenge for a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to the shop!
I have used compensated affiliate links throughout this post, for your convenience, at no extra cost to you. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission from the company it’s linkted to, and it doesn’t cost you a single penny/cent/öre/ruble extra. Any earnings I get from these links go directly towards the running of my blog, YouTube channel and Instagram. If you are shopping anyway, I’d be so grateful if you’d chose to support me by using mine.
Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
PS There is still time to sign up for the Card Maker Success Summit! You can attend it completely free, and watch all the presentations for 24hrs after they have gone live. If you want to get a whole load of extra content, I’d highly suggest you sign up for the VIP All-Access Pass! Currently the total value of the VIP All-Access Pass surpasses $2000, and there is more content being added all the way up until the summit kicks off on July 14th! It’s yours for $59, or if you sign up within 15 minutes of clicking the link it’s only $39!!
It’s four days of Christmas In July EXTRAVAGANZA, you are not going to want to miss it! Sign up now by clicking HERE!
Today’s post is a quick one, as it’s a quick card! I peeked at the MFT Stamps Sketch Challenge for this week and I thought hmm, I can do this one. I did end up flipping the sketch on its side though.
I started by colouring the doggies in the PAWsome Lucky Dog stamp set from MFT Stamps, this one is retired sadly. I used so many Copics for these little guys to created texture, dimension and to bring them to life!
When they were all coloured in, I then cut them out with the coordinating die-namics. How cute is this little gang? As a self-confessed CDL/Crazy Dog Lady I have a weakness for doggie stamps.
As I’m challenging myself to make more CAS/Clean And Simple cards, I wanted to make it very simple and let the doggies take centre stage. So I cut out a scalloped square out of some patterned paper, from the Trail Mix 6×6 Paper Pack. Because I love blue, I used a blue one. This paper pack is also retired, as I have hoarded it for so long, lol!
A quick straight to the point sentiment, You’re Dog-gone Awesome, was stamped up with black ink on white card stock. I trimmed it down a little and then stuck all these bits down onto a white card card base. That was it. Not even a single sequin! Can you believe it??
I’m going to try and remember to submit this to the Sketch Challenge in time, as I usually don’t. Kind of nuts, as there is a $50 gift card up for grabs just to submit the card as the winner is randomly drawn.
Right, I’m done! Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work
Today’s post is based on this week’s MFT Stamps Sketch Challenge #501 and I’ve not done one of these for a while, so I thought why not?
I really wanted to use the cute dragons from the BB Magical Dragons set. With that in mind, I stamped them up on Copic friendly card stock with the PFS Black Hybrid ink, set it with my WOW! heat tool and got to work with Copics. My first dragon was done in what I picture to be a natural colour for dragons: green!
My second dragon was done in more teal-like colours, maybe she’s a girl dragon? The tummies, horns, wings and back scales on both of them were done in lighter, but still matching colours.
There were two fire bursts stamped up too, so I did these in flame colours. Deep reds with some fiery yellow. I’m so glad this set comes with coordinating Dienamics as fussy cutting is not my jam.
The background I did with the Mini Cloud stencil, one of my favourite stencils ever. I wanted a really soft look, so I didn’t add any more ink to my Life Changing Blender Brushes, just used the blues left on them. It turned out fab!
One of my newest purchases is Sparkle Spray by Nuvo Tonic Studios, and I wanted to add some sparkle to the background with this. Buuuuut… I went a little overboard, which left the background COVERED in the sparkle spray. This one is Morning Fog, and wow! I think I will be adding a few more to my arsenal.
To finish off the card, I stamped up a couple of the sentiments from the BB Magical Dragons set with Black Hybrid ink. Then I adhered the dragons and the fire bursts with Lawn Fawn liquid glue, added a little bit of Wink Of Stella to the wings and horns, and with that, the card was done! I was originally only going to add one of the fire bursts but as I went overboard with the Sparkle Spray, and it kind of looked like ash in the air after the dragon had gone to town breathing fire, I added both.
Thanks so much for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed this card and found some inspiration here with me. I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. If you shop via these links I get a small commission from the company directly. Any earnings I get from these go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube and Instagram so thank you so much for supporting me by using these. I really appreciate it a lot!
Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work
Today’s post is a card for this week’s MFT Stamps Sketch Challenge. MFT Stamps run a weekly sketch challenge, which you can read all about on their blog. It’s a great way to juice up your mojo! This week’s sketch, MFTWSC448, looks like this:
If you are more of a video tutorial person, I have a video up on my YouTube channel too. Hop on over there if you want to see the card making in action.
After finishing the colouring I stamped up the super girl on masking paper and fussy cut the image out. With a little bit of finesse, I added the mask to the girl and got a stencil out. The one I picked out is Rays The Roof from Heffy Doodle and it was still tacky from the Pixie Spray I used on it last time so no need to add more!
Once the ink blending was done I trimmed down the panel just a tad. It was 5.5″x4.25″ to begin with but I only trimmed down a few millimetres so that the black card base would frame the panel.
With these done, it was time to assemble! Which didn’t take long actually, lol!
That’s it from me for today. I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, which means I get a small commission from the company directly if you use these to buy yourself a something pretty *wink wink* At no extra cost to you, of course. The other links are there purely for your convenience.
Thanks for stopping by today and I hope I have inspired you to hop on the fun with the Sketch Challenge!
Today’s card is a quick one I made for the very fun Camp Create event MFT Stamps are hosting on the MFT Stamps blog. I’m way behind but Day 1’s prompt is Wonderful Watercolor and I do love a little bit of water colouring so I decided to jump on the fun-waggon!
I’ve also made a YouTube video for this card, so if you want to skip ahead to that, click on the highlighted link which will take you to my channel.
On a panel of water colour card stock, which I had taped down to an old cutting plate with masking tape, I swirled around lots of Gansai Tambi water colours. The object was to create a galaxy background.
When that was done and dried with my heat gun, I used the Shining Stars dienamic (which is apparently discontinued, wahhh), one of my favourites from MFT Stamps, to cut out one each of black card stock and gold mirror card stock. The one I find myself reaching for over and over is Honey Gold from Tonic Studios and the black one I use is Black Licorice from Lawn Fawn. These I layered up with Lawn Fawn gluetube and set aside.
On black card stock I stamped a few sentiments from the Written In The Stars stamp set, another MFT Stamps goodie which has been discontinued, with VersaMark ink and heat embossed them with Metallic Gold Rich from WOW! Embossing. I can’t do any stamping with my MISTI so of course I used that for this part. I also cut out the ‘Good Friends Are Like’ sentiment part out with the Essentials Fishtail Sentiment Strips dienamics. I have so many goodies from MFT Stamps, I’m a proper dienamics fan. Lol!
With all my bits and pieces ready, it was time to assemble the card! After adhering the background panel to the card base, I added the other pieces and finished it off with a very generous helping of Nuvo Drops in Banana Split, from Tonic Studios. They glow in the dark and add such a fun twist to the card!
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post and for my YouTube video. Affiliate links do not cost you anything extra at all, that wouldn’t be cool at all. The company will pay me a small commission directly, at zero cost to you. If I have inspired you today, I would be so grateful if you’d consider using mine as I use anything I make from them to run my blog, my YouTube channel and to create fun content.
Thanks for stopping by today. Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
Today’s post is really short and sweet, just like the YouTube video that’s now up on my channel, for this card. It’s a really quick card and there is only so much jibber-jabbering one can do to fill out a blog post, right? Even me, lol!
This card is based on the current MFT Stamps Sketch Challenge, go to mftstamps.com and click on ‘Join an MFT Challenge’ to see more challenges and to join in yourself!
My interpretation is pretty loose here but that’s ok. The good peeps at MFT Stamps just want us to get going with card making and inspire us. If you link up your card however, you can win a $50 gift card to the shop!
The kitties themselves are coloured in with Warm and Cold Gray Copics in a dotting technique. There is probably a proper name for this but I call it dotting. I like doing this when I want to add texture to images and who doesn’t want that when you are colouring fur?
When it was all done, I cut it out with scissors and set aside. Using my Gemini Go diecutting machine I cut out a white Polaroid Shaker Frame and I also cut out one glitter gold ‘Celebrate‘ word, as well as one in a light gray card stock. That one is Narwhal from Lawn Fawn. The gold glitter card stock is from a shop in Denmark and I’m running low! I am definitely on the lookout for a new one. If you have a good tip on glitter gold card stock, I’d love to hear about it!
The two Celebrate dienamics I layered up, slightly off to create that lovely shadow effect, with the help of the Gluetube from Lawn Fawn. The Polaroid and the kitties got layered up as well and then adhered to a card base made out of Fog card stock from Simon Says Stamp.
As usual I have used some affiliate links in this post, but not to worry, using these links doesn’t cost you anything extra at all. I get a small commission from the company directly if you choose to use these to treat yourself to something.
Thank you so much for stopping by and I’d love it if you checked out my YouTube video too!
CaCaCraft by Erica 