Today I am collaborating with Whimsy Stamp for their annual 31 Nights Of Halloween event, that runs from 1-31st of October.
I have a VIDEO up on my YouTube channel, and you can find more information on the Whimsy Stamps blog, as well as instructions on how to enter the giveaways. There are $300 dollars in gift vouchers up for grabs!
Check out the video for full details, and to see the other card! Thank you to Whimsy Stamps for inviting me for a collaboration, I love how my cards turned out and hope you do too! Thanks for stopping by today and see you soon again!
Affiliate links used in this post, at no extra cost to you! Thank you if you shop using these links as every little helps, and I’m so grateful for the support.
Today’s post is a ‘whatcha wanna do, blog or video?’ post as all the action is over on YouTube, where I’m hopping along with the crafty peeps with the Crafty Meraki team to celebrate the October release! If you want to skip straight to the YouTube hop, CLICK HERE.
If you want to skip straight to seeing all the new goodies, CLICK HERE, but if you want to keep reading, keep scrolling down.
We have more mini slimline diecuts, both actual diecuts and cover plates and I do love me some cover plates. It’s such a fun way to add some interest to a background, I love, love, love doing that as I’m not that great with plain white space. Somehow it doesn’t feel quite as naked when it has texture, you know what I mean?
This is the Parisienne Mini Slimline, it also comes in full-size slimline, but I do prefer the mini-slimline myself. For sure. Here I used the Parisienne Mini Slimline on a white card stock, after using it on a panel created with Distress Oxide sprays. You can see the colours in the pattern, which adds a really cool effect. If you don’t want this extra colour, just make sure to clean your cover plate between using it on ink blended or sprayed backgrounds.
I love that subtle texture and pattern, over these colours. The Hello is the Hello Shadow Word die, and I filled in the hello itself with Rainbow Illusion gems. That part took ages, but it does look so cool!
Here is what it looked like before I added the gems.
Another pattern is the Pagoni Mania Mini Slimline, and it was just begging to be bedazzled. At least that’s what I heard. This is another background made with Distress Oxide sprays, I’m slightly obsessed with them at the moment and have added quite a few to my collection recently. Eh, what’s a girl to do when her ICDQ (Inner Crafty Drama Queen for those of you who don’t speak fluent cray-cray) is screaming she needs more??
Here I was going for a rich brocade fabric look, with blues, red, purples and gold, and then added Blue Illusion gems on the pattern in places where it was practically made for them. How perfect is that? It’s like this holder for gems, isn’t it?
This card was finished off super simple by heat embossing sentiments in Rich Gold embossing powder on vellum strips. These have been wrapped around the panel and secured on the back.
As I have such a hard time with white space, I used the Parisienne Mini Slimline cover plate on the whole thing and it was just what the crafty doctor ordered.
A simple sentiment banner was the final thing for this card, and I’m quite proud of myself for not adding a single gem on this one! That’s hard for a self-confessed over-sequinizer/embellisher.
Not that the lack of embellishment lasted long mind you. I used a fair amount of them on my next card, also done with the Special Delivery stamp set. What can I say? You can only rein in the bling-monster so long.
For this card I stamped the floral image off to the side and coloured it in with a cool colour scheme of pink, grey and turquoise.
It’s finished off with the Hello Shadow word die again, and lots of Sparkle Golden Illusion gems. By cutting out the shadow part of the Hello, which has the stitching to add interest, it helped with the white space for me.
Well, with that I am all done for today. I hope you have found some inspiration here with me today. Maybe you struggle with white space too, and got some confirmation that you are not the only one, or got an idea on how to help your cards feel less “naked” with white space. If you have other ideas on how to help with that ‘my card feel naked and unfinished’ feeling, I’d love to hear them!
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, for your convenience and at no extra cost to you whatsoever. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission directly from the company it’s linked to, as a thank you for directing you to them. It’s a win-win if you are shopping anyway, so thank you for supporting me by using mine. I really, really appreciate it a lot more than I could ever express in words.
If you like colouring, you might have heard of The Daily Marker hosted by Kathy Racoosin. It’s a challenge where she challenges you to take 5 minutes per day to yourself and colour, with whatever medium of your choice. The challenge is running for the whole month of August, and I have been taking part every day.
This is a re-cap of my projects from the first eight days, as it started on a Sunday Aug 1st. My aim is to do a re-cap post every Sunday with the cards and colouring I have done for it.
For Day1 I picked this cute penguin stamp from Mama Elephant. I adore these guys. It’s coloured in with Copics and then I ink blended a background with Squeezed Lemonade, Salvaged Patina and Chipped Sapphire. It’s my current fave combo!
The background is splattered with some gold watercolour from the Starry Night palette from Kuretake. It’s my go-to for gold. The card is finished off with the word die that comes with the coordinating diecuts for the penguins.
On Day 2 and 3 I coloured in this fabulous Botan Peony from Picket Fence Studios, with Fuchsia and pink copics. This card is finished off with a word die from Neat & Tangled (they have sadly closed down) and a generous sprinkling of Clear Sparkling sequins.
There is a reel for this one too, and you can find that HERE.
This card was actually for Day5, but I forgot to post it on my Instagram that day, oops. I have recently joined the Crafty Meraki design team and will be making a couple of videos a month for them. I used the Elegance stamp set and coordinating diecut for my first video, which I coloured in with Ink On 3 Atelier re-inkers mixed with Liquid Pixie Dust to make shimmery watercolour. To get the no-line colouring effect I used the Fadeout ink, also from Ink On 3.
The one below is from Watch This! stamp set, and it´s done with water colours, as well as the same Dienamics to spell out Adoption. The reel for these two can be found HERE.
I am also going to make a little mini-album or something to send to my sister so she can keep a little mini-diary of her journey with Otto.
On Day6 I tried some new-to-me markers, Paint Pens, from Artistro and tried some rock painting! I had never done this before, so this was completely new to me. I did make a big rainbow and then a little heart rainbow on a smaller rock.
I have a reel for the big one HERE, and I think I will share the one I made for the little rock too. If you are interested in trying these, you can get 10% off by using the code ERICAANDERSSONB.
On Day8 I made another rainbow, only this time on paper and completely flat. This stamp set is Rainbows, it´s from Avery Elle and I just adore it. I used a ridiculous amount of Copics for the colouring, but that happens all the time. I always use so many markers to get depth and details.
I finished it with a sentiment from the stamp set, a friend diecut from Mama Elephant and lots of Crystal Clear Fusion sequins from Studio Katia. The reel for this card can be found HERE.
Well, that’s it for me for today, I hope you have enjoyed this little re-cap. I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, as well as some suitable alternatives in the links below, in case you want to snap up a little something-something for yourself. Shopping with these links do not cost you anything extra at all, the company it’s linked to will give me a small commission directly as a thank you for pointing you in their direction. Thank you so much if you use these links, I really appreciate the support!
Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica! If you want to see more of my work, I have linked to my social media accounts below. I’d love it you’d give me a follow there!
It’s the last Friday of the month which means a new Stamp Club release from Tonic Studios! The next stop on the hop is Channin Pelletier and you should have come here from Janette, but if you get lost, the full hop lineup is at the bottom of this post and also over on Maria’s blog.
Another big PLUS with this bundle is that it coordinates with the Backgrounds and Borders bundle! Well, it’s good for those of us who have it already, as it’s sold out… but hold up! This news just in: It’s being restocked today!!
The Stamp Club is not a subscription, it’s simply a small monthly release that contains stamps and dies. These can only be bought together, but there is no pressure to buy it every month, nor will you find money going out of your account automatically if you forget to cancel. You can pick and chose which ones you want to add to your collection.
Of course it wouldn’t be a celebration without a giveaway. One lucky winner will win a £50/$50 Giftcard to Tonic Studios and the Patterns & Prints bundle! All you have to do is leave a comment on the stops along the hop to be in with a chance to win. The more you comment, the better your chances!
As it’s Tonic´s birthday week, you will also get a free gift when you order the Patterns & Prints bundle! Quite appropriately it’s a Happy Birthday set, and this will go out with every order of the bundle, as long as there is stock. Make sure to order quickly if you want this fab set.
For my cards I have channeled my inner CardBomb aka Maria Willis herself! I got some Distress Oxide sprays out and made some colourful backgrounds to begin with. A couple of slim line panels of water colour card stock were placed inside an old box and sprayed with Mustard Seed, Crackling Campfire, Kitsch Flamingo, Salvaged Patina and Salty Ocean.
The two panels are similar to each other, due to the colours and the order of adding them, but I finished them off in different ways. On one I used some Distress Micro Glaze to bring out the colours a bit, and on the other one I heat embossed Halo glitter over the entire thing. Because, you know, sparkles…
Naturally I had to use word diecuts on the sparkly panel and the ones from the Prints & Patterns can spell out different sayings. The ones I picked, put together says You’re an amazing friend. The letters themselves I put aside, for another card.
On the back of this one I adhered a dark grey piece of card stock, this one is Storm Cloud from Lawn Fawn. It gives a softer look than black card stock, and I love it.
Of course I did not waste the letters that were the “leftovers” from the first card, these I adhered to a card base I had used one of the pattern stamps with black ink on. Super simple, yet with that stamped background its so much more interesting that with a plain white card base, right?
When I did the spraying for the backgrounds, I did actually do a really small piece first. Almost like a test-run, you know? It turned out fun too, so I did use that one for a third, bonus card.
This was already the perfect size for an A2 card base, so I simply glued it to a white one. To finish off the sentiment, I popped up the ´amazing´ by cutting out three white pieces and layering these up, and topping it with an amazing cut out of black card stock. I did add a few sequins to this one. Even with the colourful panel, I did feel like it needed a little something else. What can I say? I’m a chronic over-sequinizer.
That’s it from me for today, but before I go I’ll just mention that I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post for your convenience. Shopping with affiliate links does not cost you anything extra ever, the company it’s affiliated to pays me a small commission directly, thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with these links! I really appreciate the support!
Now it’s time to hop on and the full blog hop list can be found below, and the next stop on the hop is the utterly amazing Channin!
Hi and welcome back to a sparkly and glittery post!
Today’s post is all about the newest release from WOW! Embossing powder. It’s been available in the UK WOW! shop for a little while, and is now available across the pond in the US WOW! shop. We are celebrating with an Instagram hop, full of inspiration and gorgeous projects from the design team!
Make sure to join in the hop over there as there are prizes up for grabs, not to mention a ton of inspiration from the design team.
For my cards I’ve used an array of the products, including stencils and stamps designed by my crafty friends! This is super exciting to see, and I’m absolutely thrilled to be showing them off today.
For my first couple of cards, I have used the Modern Winter Forest stamp designed by Verity Biddlecombe. The cards are both heat embossed with Rich Gold, and I’ve used the same colours on them both, with different techniques. Salvaged Patina, Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot were ink smooshed on one, and ink blended with Life Changing Blender Brushes on the other.
I’ve also used the gorgeous big Snowflake Stencil, another of Verity’s designs, in a couple of ways. On the first one, I ink blended some left over ink on my brushes to create a pastel look.
On top of this I stamped up Winter Wishes & Snowflake Kisses in black ink, and then added a generous smattering of clear sequins.
I loved this so much that I did it again on another panel. While I had the stencil in place, I dabbed on Embossing Ink with a foam ink blending tool and used Halo embossing glitter all over.
I did forget to use my anti-static tool on the panel before, so the left-over Pixie Spray made the Halo glitter stick to it. In the end I actually like the results, as it looks like snow falling around the snow flake.
The Merry and Christmas, are from the Merry Sentiment stamp set, were stamped up with the Embossing Ink on white card stock, and then I heat embossed them with Platinum embossing powder. Around the Merry I fussy cut, which I normally absolutely detest, but I didn’t want to cover up the gorgeous snowflake by keeping it on a banner.
The smart thing about this Snowflake stencil set is that you get both the negative and positive cut of the snowflake so I went ahead and used them both. On my third card, I decided to use the positive stencil too, with the help of Pixie Spray. This time I grabbed the Duo Transfer Gel to add glitter. This was more of a test as I had never tried adding glitter this way. I think I jumped the gun with adding the glitter though, I should have waited until it was clear and tacky, but oh well, I sprinkled some Made You Blush from the Pink-a-licious trio and some Icicle Teal from the Winter Dreams Trio, then heat embossed it with my heat tool from underneath.
If heat embossing intimidates you, you can still use the stencils without any of that. I did exactly that with the In The Forest stencils. With lots of green shades of Distress Oxide inks, I blended a big forest and then finished it off with a simple sentiment from the It’s The Season stamp set.
That’s it for me for today, but don’t forget to check out the Instagram hop. There are 2 x $25 gift cards to our online stores (both UK or USA). Leave a comment by Sunday, August 1st 2021 on each stop for a chance to win. Winners will be chosen randomly from the comments left on each participating designer’s post. The 2 x winners will be announced on the post on WOW! Embossing Instagram page on Wednesday, August 3rd 2021.
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you, for your convenience. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission from the company directly. Thank you if you chose to support me by using these links, I really appreciate it!
As much as I love colouring (she says whilst the inner child is jumping around with joy) sometimes I just don’t have the time or the energy to colour, but I still want colour on my cards. What a conundrum, right? This is where ink blending comes to the rescue and oh, how I love that technique too! It’s one of my go-to for a blast of colour FAST!
It’s fun, fresh, and you can mix and match colours to suit occasions, themes and preferences of the recipient of the card. What’s not to love?
If you don’t want glitter card stock, you can add Clear Gloss on top for shiny card stock. Super simple and high impact! Plus it’s quick and easy to make more when you run out. Win-Win!
Other ways of adding interest to an ink blended background is to splatter some water, coloured or gold water colour, shimmer sprays, white paint or something like Distress sprays. I’m particularly loving gold splatters myself. It’s such a simple, yet wow-factor way of adding a little something extra.
These cards in this post are done with Distress Oxide inks, blended with my go-to blending tools: the Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios. I can not stress enough how important it is to have a tool for ink blending that works for you. The brushes might not be for you, you might prefer the Tim Holtz ink blending tool, or the domed version from Scrapbook.com, or maybe the hexagon brush from Honey Bee Stamps. Whatever works for you is what you should stick to, no matter the opinions of someone else, me included. I’m merely saying that for me, the Life Changing Blender Brushes really live up to their name, and they have helped elevate my ink blending game to a whole new level!
As the idea was to have the Scarecrow Cover Plate Die from Picket Fence Studios on top of this, I have gone from light to dark, almost as if there is a fire behind it, or candles in the Jack-o-lanterns.
I didn’t get a photo of that before I cut it up, but here is the second piece I made with Autumn Persimmon Paper Glitz.
When this was dry, I cut out the Scarecrow using my diecutting machine. Depending on your machine and how much Paper Glaze you use, you might need to run it through twice to get clean, sharp lines.
The second card was done in a similar fashion, with the same colours on the background, including the gold splatters. This is the one I used that second shimmer card stock for, and I used the Scarecrow diecut again. I also cut out the word BOO with the Seeing Double Alpha dies.
Instead of gold splatters on the first one, I opted for black and yellow by using Distress Oxide sprays in Mustard Yellow and Black soot. I tried to not overdo it, but I think a few more wouldn’t have been amiss.
Similarly, the shimmer card stock was done with black card stock, and some Ocean Poppy and Lime Zinnia Paper Glaze. These colours are kind of glow-in-the-dark-esque on the black card stock, which looks really quite cool.
Once that was dry, I cut out the scarecrows and again, adhered it straight to the background with the Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive. For the second card, I also cut out the word BOO with the Seeing Double Alpha dies from the shimmer card stock made with the Paper Glaze.
Sentiment wise I used one from the So Franken Cute for the card on the right, but this one was heat embossed in Opaque Bright White on black card stock. It was also adhered on an angle, with more Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive, rather than straight across. The second card was done with the BOO glued down and the same sentiment from A Spooky Day with Black Hybrid ink.
With four cards in total done, all that was left to do was adhered them both to a card base and that’s it. What do you think? Not a bad pop of colour for no-colouring cards, right?
I am working on a YouTube video for these as well, it’s very long at the moment so I’m thinking of doing one full-length version and one more condensed, so you can chose which one you want to watch. Keep an eye out on my YouTube channel and click that notification button so you don’t miss any uploads!
Lots of the goodies for these cards are from Picket Fence Studios, and the rest are from various online shops. I have used compensated affiliate links in this post, for your convenience, at no extra cost to you. Any earnings I get from these go towards paying for things like blog hosting, technology faff-stuff, import duties and new stuff to keep things fresh, fun and free for you! Thank you so much for supporting me while shopping using these links, I really appreciate it!
You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work, click the links below and click follow or subscribe to come along on more crafty shenanigans adventures! Instagram YouTube Facebook
Below you can find affiliate links to Ellen Hutson, as well as some suitable alternatives to the products used for these cards.
In today’s post I’m showing off some new goodies from WOW! Embossing Powder, there is a new release available from the UK WOW! Shop. We have new stamps, stencils and more powders! Hopefully it will also be available in the US WOW! Shop soon.
I also have some brand new to me goodies, that luckily arrived on my wedding anniversary. How fab timing is that?? Amongst other things I finally got my hands on Salvaged Patina!!
All of the panels were trimmed down and adhered to card bases, and then it was time to start working on sentiments.
Another new goodie that arrived was the Big Hugs stamp and die set from Hero Arts. I have lusted after this one since I first saw it. I cut it out of white card stock, many, many times and layered these up with Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive. I also cut out three Big Hugs out of black card stock and added these to three of the stacks.
On top of one of the black topped ones I heat embossed Midnight embossing powder, and it looks FAB!! Those flecks of gold? Oooooooh! Please note that this one comes in a TRIO.
The next one was done with Hope & Positivity, which looks freaking awesome. The photo isn’t great, though, but it really is amazing in real life. That sparkle is off the charts!
I also did one black topped one with two layers of Clear Gloss. I love that puffy sticker look!
The last one has a little of Salvaged Patina blended onto it, and then I added White Glitz on top. You can still see some of the SP under it.
With that, I’m all done for today but I have a reel on my Instagram page for these if you want to check that out. No YouTube video but if you really want one, drop me a comment and I’ll add it to my crafty shenanigans list.
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with these links, it doesn’t cost you anything extra at all, ever. The earnings from these links help keep my blog, YouTube channel and Instagram running, so I really appreciate the support.
Today I’m just popping in with a quick post, the main event is over on YouTube where I’m hopping with a Facebook group called Handmade Happiness. Every month we do a little YouTube hop, with a theme and a choice of techniques. This month we are doing florals, with a choice of alcohol inks or mixed media. You can find the link to my video HERE.
I chose mixed media, and mixed ink blending and heat embossing, and used You Are My Favorite stamps and layering stencils from Pinkfresh Studio. The ink blending was done with some Distress Oxide inks first, on two different panels, as I thought why not do a couple while I was at it.
On the second card I used Speckled Egg and a touch of Peacock Feathers for the flowers, for the first layer. The second layer I did last, but after doing the leaves in the same gold, I decided to do that second layer in gold as well. I was on a bit of a gold craze!
I hope you get a chance to check out the video over on my YouTube as well, but if not, thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed this, and if you fancy grabbing one, or five, of these goodies for yourself, I have used some compensated affiliate link in this post, as well as below. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission directly from the company, at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with these links. Any earnings I get from these go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube channel and instagram, so thank you in advance!
On this panel, I used the Slimline Die Set Scallops and Banners from Trinity Stamps. This set comes with banners as well, but I only used the two scalloped slimline dies.
I was contemplating to only use one of them, but heck, I’m not one to back down from layers. The smaller one got a solid layer of foam tape on the back, and the bigger one was adhered directly to a white card base.
I love the big Happy so that was the ones I chose for this card. It’s also coloured in with Copics. I used one colour, in three different shades, for each letter.
With all the bits and pieces done, I took some time to try out different layouts and this is the one I settled on. Everything is adhered with liquid glue. I did use all the images from the Dandy Day set and think it turned out adorable!
So that’s it, the card is all done. What do you think? Have you tried slimline cards yet? Is the craze here to stay?
Thank you so much for stopping by today, I hope you like the card and found som inspiration here with me. If you want to pick up any of these items for yourself, I have used compensated affiliate links in this post for your convenience. If you do use these, I get a small commission from the company directly, at no extra cost to you whatsoever. Thank you for supporting my crafty shenanigans and I by using these links!
It’s the 14th and it’s time for another release from Picket Fence Studios! This month we are finally getting lots of dies again, yay! Nicole and Matt found another manufacturer to fulfil the orders so we have dies for this month AND some for stamps from previous releases too. As a non-fan of fussy-cutting, I am very pleased about this.
There are some fabu-LEAVES 🍁 🍃 🍂 stand-alone dies in this release: Maple Leaves, Oak Leaves and Ash Leaves. I have, of course, used them all. In my stash of PhDs (Projects half Done) I found a couple of sheets of water colour paper I had done ink smooshing on. With a stroke of luck, the colours were autumnal!
I did my usual thing and cut out loads of them, and then worried about what to do with them later, lol! With these, I decided to simply add them to card bases to create backgrounds. Almost like patterned paper, only with lots of texture. Because I cut out so many, I had enough for three.
One I kept really simple and added an already made word die cut that says ‘I miss you‘. Sometimes simple is all you need.
On the next I added only Oak Leaves to, and then a tray of takeaway coffee cups from the Sponsored By Coffee stamp set. These are coloured in with Copics and also had a little bit of patterned paper paper-pieced on them to add colour.
The final card was done with just Ash Leaves diecuts. These I layered up in rows onto a card base, picked them up with Press’n’Seal, added glue to the back and adhered to the card base again.
A few gold splatters, using a little bit of Golden Rose Paper Glaze mixed with water, added a lovely touch. The final piece was to add a sentiment. I didn’t want to cover up the leaves too much so I stamped ‘We have been thinking of you‘ on a piece of white card stock, with Black Hybrid ink. This was trimmed down to a skinny banner and adhered to the bottom row of leaves.
This month we also have a new Slim Line Rainbow stencil and if we know one thing about me, it’s that I do love a rainbow!
I used it in two different ways, and got some fab results! The first one was done with Moonstone Glimmer Paste from Tonic, over an ink blended background piece. It is a sparkly-licious combo!
The second background was done right after the first one, and I didn’t clean off the Glitter Gel before, in the hopes of getting some of it onto my panel. This time the stencil was adhered, with the help of Pixie Spray, to water colour paper. Using clean water and a paint brush, I got the paper a bit wet before adding shimmery water colours to it.
The shimmery water colour I use is actually Ink On 3 Atelier Ink re-inkers with Liquid Pixie Dust mixed in. In a little 6-piece water colour palette I have these ready mixed and they just need a little spritz of water before use, and they are good to go. By adding the Liquid Pixie Dust into the colour, you get the most amazing shimmer!
When the background was all coloured in, I left it to dry with the stencil in place. This will help keep the actual pattern clear and the colours where you want them. The next day I peeled off the stencil and it was colourful, shimmery and sparkly!
To finish off this card I heat embossed lots of sentiments from Crafty Mail, in Gold Rich embossing powder from WOW! I trimmed these down and adhered quite a few to the background. With that, this card was done and so am I for today!
I have used compensated affiliate links in this post, mostly to Picket Fence Studios. I do receive the products free as part of my design team commitments, but I only do use what I love (and quite frankly, I love most stuff from PFS) as my mojo goes on walkabout when I try forcing myself to work with stuff that does not inspire me. These affiliate links do not cost you anything extra at all, but the company they are linked to might pay me a small commission as a thank you for directing you to them, IF you shop using these links. Thank you so much if you chose to support me this way, I really appreciate it a lot.
Thanks for stopping by, lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
CaCaCraft by Erica 