Category: Handmade cards-Birthday

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!

Slim Line Rainbow Cards with WOW! Embossing Changers

Hello, hello!

Today’s cards are another couple of slim line cards. It seems I can’t stop, and won’t stop, with these for a while. Oh well, things could be worse, right?

To make these I started out by cutting panels of white card stock with the Slim Line Diecutting System from Picket Fence Studios. On the smaller rectangles, I adhered strips of coloured cardstock to create rainbows. The card stock I’ve used for these is from Lawn Fawn, and you can get it in a handy Rainbow Pack if you don’t want to invest in 10 sheets of each colour.

On the right one I’ve used, from left to right, Raspberry, Chili Pepper, Canned Pumpkin, Fake Tan, Sunflower, Cilantro, Peacock, Blue Jay and Sugarplun.

On the left one, I used Raspberry, Chili Pepper, Canned Pumpkin, Fake Tan, Sunflower, Cilantro, Peacock and Mermaid. It gives a more pastely look than the top one with the blue and the purple.

I’ve used a few different diecuts to make the sentiments, and the big Hi Die and Friend Die, are from The Stamp Market. The Happy Birthday is from MFT Stamps. Both the Friend and the Happy Birthday have been cut out of white card stock a few times and layered up.

The Happy Birthday one was then heat embossed with Glisten Changer to make it sparkly. This particular one has been retired, but HERE you can find a really good alternative.

The Friend one I heat embossed with Clear Gloss to create that puffy sticker look. I love doing my word diecuts like this, it just adds something extra!

For the clouds I have used some Stitched Cloud Dienamics from MFT Stamps, on white card stock. For a little while longer you can find the EXACT ONES at Ellen Hutson!

These I have jazzed up by heat embossing them with the WOW! Changers Texture and Glisten. The way these powders work is that you can change your embossing powder to either be sheen, glittery or texture. All you have to do is mix your choice of powder with whatever effect you want.

I haven’t used the Texture one before so I decided to use it for one of the cards! For the second one I used Glisten, which I am obsessed with. Both powders are mixed with Clear Gloss and the pieces were dabbed with the Embossing Pad, covered in the powder mix and then set with the Heat Tool.

With these cloud bits done, I glued them to the rainbow panels. I did have to use both tape runner and Lawn Fawn glue because of the heat embossing, and I also left them under flat weights to make sure they dried flat.

On the first one I glued down the Happy Birthday with Glossy Accents, as I ran out of my Lawn Fawn Glue Tubes!! SEND MORE STAT!!!!

The second card was finished with the big Hi and the Friend diecuts. The Hi I layered up with fun foam, cut with the diecut, to add height. The Friend I added on top of the Hi and with that, the card was done.

I actually managed to make a bonus card with the outline from the Hi die too. It seemed a shame to waste it, when I had a load of rainbow card bases done already.

Using a Nuvo fine tip glue pen, I adhered the outline Hi to a card base and ta-da! Another card done!!

On my YouTube channel you can also find a video of the making of the slim line cards, if you fancy seeing the Changer powders in action.

I’ve used compensated affiliate links in this post. What that means is these links goes to shops I’m affiliated with, and as a thank you for sending you to them, I will get a small commission directly from them if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra at all, but it really makes a difference to me if you do use these links. Any earnings I get from these links go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube channel and keeping my Instagram fresh, fun and inspiring for you, so thank you if you choose to support me like this. I really appreciate the support!

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

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Below you can find affiliate links to Ellen Hutson. Here I have added some good alternatives, when the exact product used was not available.

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Wishing You A Dandy Day Slimline Card

Hi guys!

Today’s card is a labour of love! Or all the things I love more like it. Ink blending, diecutting, Copic coloring and stamping.

Armed with loads of Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios and Distress Oxide inks in so many colours, I got to work on a slim piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth card stock. The stencil I used is my most-used one ever: Mini Cloud Stencil from MFT Stamps.

The colours from top to bottom are Salty Ocean, Chipped Sapphire, Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry, Worn Lipstick, Abandoned Coral, Ripe Persimmon, Wild Honey, Mustard Seed, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon, Broken China, Evergreen Bough and Peacock Feathers.

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.

Now, the question is… what to decorate it with? That was answered very quickly when I spotted the absolutely adorable Dandy Day stamp set from Lawn Fawn. These are stamped up with Blackout Detail Ink from Ink On 3 , on Neenah 110# card stock and coloured in with Copics. Then I used the coordinating diecut to cut them all out.

For a sentiment I used one of my favourites from Lawn Fawn: Happy, Happy, Happy. It’s full of great sentiments and comes with coordinating diecuts too. I turned this card into a birthday one and stamped up ‘birthday’ on white card stock, with black ink, and then cut that out with a banner die cut from MFT Stamps.

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!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

WOW! Embossing New Release YouTube Hop!

Hi guys!

Today’s blog post is going to be quite quick, because the real action is over on YouTube where I’m hopping along with the WOW! Embossing design team to show off a new release of glittery goodness. There are two new trios, Toteally Awesome and Summer Scoop.

As well as two coordinating embossing powders to the new Catherine Pooler inks: Deck The Halls and Cranberry Sparkle.

Oh, and a glow in the dark powder called Galaxy Glitter!

Right, so I’m going to skip to my cards now. I made two, using a mix of the colours in the Summer Scoop and Toteally Awesome trios. On my first card I used a diecut from The Stamp Market called Color Block 1, on white card stock.

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The triangles I popped out and set aside the frame for later. I picked two colours from both trios, as there were eight triangles, and started by covering them with Embossing Pad ink. I did two of each colour, and then set them with the heat tool.

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With all triangles done, I glued down the frame to a card base and then added the triangles in. The background was done, and it was time to add a sentiment. I cut out a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp, that says ‘thinking of you’, four times and layered these up. On top of this, I heat embossed White Twinkle, to make it nice and sparkly, like the rest of the card.

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The second card is done with Painted Dots Turnabout stamp from Concord & 9th, and the same embossing powders as the first one.

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With the help of a MISTI and a Turnabout Jig, I stamped the pattern with the Embossing Pad and did one colour at a time. I only added the powder, I did not use the heat tool in between each one. Not until all of the pattern was stamped and covered with the embossing powders.

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With that background done, I grabbed another Concord & 9th stamp set, All The Birthdays, to create a sentiment. I used the big Happy and stamped it up with the Embossing Pad and used Razzleberry, from the Summer Scoop trio. It didn’t look overly opaque, so I did it again and then covered it with Clear Gloss on top.

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With black ink I stamped up ‘birthday’ on a very slim banner, and this I added to the Happy banner. The final thing to do was to add it to a card base and layer up the sentiment banners, and the card was done.

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With that, I am done for the day but I hope you get a chance to hop over to YouTube to watch the video. There are prizes up for grabs in case you need an extra incentive!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

I have used some compensated affiliate links in this blog post, at no extra cost to you. There are also some links to other products used, that are not affiliate links, for your convenience.

MFT Stamps Sketch Challenge 501

Hi!

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

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Fancy Kaleidoscope Stencil Cards, Multiple Ways!

Today I am back with LOTS of cards using the brand new Fancy Kaleidoscope stencil from Picket Fence Studios‘s June release. I do love a good stencil, and it’s possibly I went a tad overboard here but it just took off. I did ink blending, water colouring, ink smooshing and all sorts went on. Let’s get to it, shall we?

I did do a video too, which you can find over on my YouTube channel. I did forgot to film some of the bits, of course, like a total idiot. Oh well.

First of I sprayed the Fancy Kaleidoscope stencil with Pixie Spray and stuck it down on a big square of water colour paper. Then I grabbed my palette with Ink On 3 re-inkers in them. There are six wells, one each for Bee Sting Yellow, Marigold Orange, Marilyn Red, My Jam Purple, Peacock Blue and Goddess Green. All of these are already mixed with Liquid Pixie Dust, this creates a shimmery water colour, which is fabulous. You can see this in action in the video.

The clean up kitchen roll piece is gorgeous enough on it’s own.

While I was cleaning up after the colouring, I thought, why not try a few things? My first attempt was adding more colour to the stencil and dabbing water colour card stock on top. This turned out fab but there was still colour left on it so I dabbed another piece on it, and this one turned out soft and pretty too. There was STILL colour left so I kept going! I ended up with four pieces in total, as well as a smaller one.

After finally cleaning up the stencil and my table, I did some ink blending as well. Because why not, right?? I used a different Life Changing Blender Brush for each one of the Atelier Inks I used: Bee Sting Yellow, Goddess Green, Peacock Blue, Marilyn Red and Marigold Orange.

With all these backgrounds done, it was time to make them into cards! The ink blended piece was quickly finished off with a sentiment from After The Storm stamped up with Black Hybrid Ink. I then went in with my Embossing Pad and added Glisten Changers embossing powder(this is a premixed powder with one part clear embossing powder to one part Glisten Changer powder) on top.

A lot of the cards were done simply, with sentiments in Black Hybrid inks. The above one is done with More Fancy Sentiments.

This next one is done with Do Not Take Any Shit. Which isn’t for everyone, but it’s solid advice for sure.

Here is More Fancy Sentiments again, only this time it’s heat embossed in gold. This is Metallic Rich Gold from WOW!

This one is one half of the big piece from the beginning. I cut it in half and made two cards out of them. One I adhered to a piece of black card stock, only slightly bigger than the background piece, to frame it. Also to coordinate with the Best word die, that’s also partly cut out of black card stock.

The other half was adhered directly to a white card base. In hindsight, I should have done the black backing card stock too. It just frames the background so well. The sentiments are both from BFF Girl Gang, stamped up with Black Hybrid Ink on white card stock and trimmed down to slim strips.

One final card was done on a background piece done with the Atelier re-inkers as water colours. Here I used the stencil and Paper Glaze in Snowdrop White. The sentiment is from Charles The Chameleon.

Well, that’s it from me but amazing how many different cards you can get out of just one stencil, right? This one, Fancy Kaleidoscope, has quickly jumped into my faves!

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you found some inspiration here and will try one of these techniques for yourself.

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

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Bright, Sparkly Birthday Cards with New To Me Products!

Hi guys! Today’s post is showing off some dies from a brand new company called Everyday Crafting Co. You can find the shop on Etsy and there are four different dies to choose from or grab a discounted bundle.

In order to be totally transparent, I was sent these dies free of charge and have been paid for this blog post. However, I want to reassure everyone that I only ever use products that inspire me. If I try creating with things I feel ‘meh’ about, my mojo packs up and goes on vacation.

I am running low on birthday cards so I decided to use the Happy Birthday dies. First I tried the diecuts on different paper a few times, to get a feel for them, and see what kind of spacing I wanted. The ‘Happy’ and ‘Birthday’ are separate so you can use them however you like!

After playing around for a bit, this was the spacing that I was happiest with. I like that it leaves enough room for a sentiment banner or stamp set to finish off the Happy Birthday.

These I adhered to a couple of my rainbow backgrounds, that I made out of strips of Lawn Fawn coloured card stock. This is a fun way to add colour to a background without having to colour, ink blend or do anything but stick strips of card stock down. So easy and so fun, great to do while binge watching something!

I was a bit worried that the black one would be too harsh but I think it makes the background, and the letters, really pop! On this one I added lots of Colour Wheels (no longer available) and Candy Lane Canes embellishments from Trinity Stamps.

On another black one, I added Wink Of Stella to the background part. It didn’t look overly sparkly when I did it so I was a bit disappointed. At the time, it didn’t feel like it was worth the time invested in doing it. Which was at least a Modern Family episode, lol!

I needed have worried. Once that was totally dry and I took it out into the sunshine, I was nearly blinded!! It looks super cool!

The final card had the white diecut piece added to a rainbow background panel too, but this one is angled. I’m not sure which way I prefer, to be honest. Maybe the vertical ones… This white one also got a HUGE amount of sequins added to it, it felt like it needed it and it’s a birthday card after all.

That space between the diecut words was perfect size for an Everyday Essential Banner with ‘From All Of Us’ stamped up on it. These are from Lawn Fawn, and I use that banner die set all the time! The stamp set is called Simply Sentiments

One of the black Happy Birthday frame cards got the colourful one added to it. I achieved the look by layering the stamp with Atelier Inks from Ink On 3. From left to right I used Bee Sting Yellow, Marigold Orange, Marilyn Red, My Jam Purple, Peacock Blue and Goddess Green. It was easy to get this look with the help of a Mini MISTI and some PostIt tape. For the white card, I decided to layer up two black banners and add a white one on top. This helps create the illusion of a shadow, and brings the eye in.

Well, with that, I’m all done for today! I hope you have found some inspiration here today, and will check out the Everyday Crafting Co shop for the rest of the diecuts available.

Some links are compensated affiliate links, at no extra cost to you whatsoever. The rest are purely for your convenience!

Thanks for stopping by today. Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Concord & 9th Feature Friday part 2!

Hello everyone and happy Feature Friday!

Today I am back with another blog post featuring the February release from Concord & 9th. If you missed the first one, where we focused on the Meadow Blossom bundle and the Brushed Stripes Background Stamp, you can find that post HERE.

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The stars of this post are the Stitched Blooms Bundle and this month’s Turnabout stamp Blooms. The bundle also come as separate pieces, with the Stitched Blooms stamp and Stitched Blooms dies. The dies have a fabulous stitched pattern that is just gorgeous!

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I have made quite a few cards with these goodies so let’s get to it!

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My first cards is super simple and elegant, if I may say so myself. I simply used the Stitched Bloom diecut on white card stock, twice to get a full coverage. After heat embossing one of the sentiments from the Say Hello stamp set on a strip of vellum, I wrapped this around the panel and then adhered the whole thing to a white card base.

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I wasn’t done with the Stitched Bloom diecut, and used it on a piece of water colour card stock. Then coloured it in with Atelier Ink re-inkers I had mixed with Liquid Pixie Dust. It adds sparkle to the colours and look fabulous. It’s not the easiest thing to photograph properly, but I tried.

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The colours I used for the colouring are Bee Sting Yellow, Marilyn Red and Goddess Green. I have a plastic palette where I’ve dripped a few drops of each colour, and into these, I added a drop or two of the Liquid Pixie Dust. By adding in the shimmer into the colours, I kill two birds with one stone and only need to do one bit of colouring! Genius, right??

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This card I wanted to keep quite simple as well, to keep the focus on the pattern and the colouring. I heat embossed one of the sentiments from the Stitched Bloom stamp set. I used Rich Gold WOW! Embossing powder, but heat embossed it twice to get a nice raised texture on it.

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I turned my attention to the Blooms Turnabout stamp next, and I went to town with stamping up some panels with different inks. All the inks I have used are from Altenew and naturally I had my MISTI for this part. On my first one I used pinks and light green. For the green I used only Bamboo, and for the pinks I used all four of the inks in the Cherry Blossom family. I have the Ovals but they also come in Mini Cubes.

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My second panel was bright and vivid, with yellows and light turquoise/blues. The yellows are from the Pocketful Of Sunshine, these also come in Ovals and Mini Cubes as well. The blue/turquoise inks are Sea Glass and Ocean Waves from the Cool Summer Nights. Ovals and Minis as with all of them.

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The last panel is more like a fabric pattern than ‘natural’ colours but I love how it turned out! I also tried something different with this panel and that was embossing three of the turns of the flower part with clear embossing powder.

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The colours are from the Cool Summer Nights family for the leaves, and the flowers are done in grey from the Rock Collection set. I did the three lighter colours of the grey with the clear embossing over them to see what it looked like and it’s a really cool effect!

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I decided to use the yellow and blue panel for the card though. To start with, I trimmed down the panel to 4″x5.25″ and adhered it to a light grey card base. To finish the card I needed something to go on top of it, but what?

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I decided to stamp up some of the flowers and leaves from the Stitched Bloom set on coloured card stock. I used thecoordinating diecut to cut these out and then layered some of them up. I also cut out the ‘LOVE‘ out of coloured card stock, in coordinating colour scheme with the rest of the card.

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With that, I’m all done for today but don’t forget to check out the other guest designers’ work on the Concord & 9th blog!

As always, I have used compensated affiliate links in this post. These do not cost you anything extra at all if you shop using these, but I will get a small commission from the company directly. More importantly though, my work relationship with the companies get strengthened. I greatly appreciate the support and encouragement you guys give me, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!

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

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Below you can find affiliate links to Ellen Hutson

 

Hero Arts 2020 Catalog Release Blog Hop!

Hi!

Today is quite a busy day here on my little blog. This post is part of the Hero Arts 202 Catalog Release blog hop and I’m so excited to be part of it!

You should have come here from Amy Kolling and your next stop is Nichol Spohr.

I have four cards to share today so I’m not going to hang around doing my usual jibber-jabbering. Who’s got time for that when there is a hop in full swing??

My first card is using the lovely Circle Pattern Bold Print and heat embossed it in Platinum. A light lilac ink blending in an ombré way finished off the background. I stamped up the Floral Lavender Bunch and coloured it in with Copics, then cut it out with the coordinating diecut.

To finish off the card I diecut the Thinking Of You four times and layered these up. This I adhered to the card and with that, it’s finished!

The second card is using the Circle Pattern Bold Print again, but this time with three pink Oxide inks in an ombré way. I L-O-V-E ombré if that wasn’t clear, lol.

I also love flowers, and to finish this card off I stamped up several Floral Tulips and water colured these in. The coordinating diecuts save so much time, I love them! While I was on a roll with diecutting, I also cut out some Oval Woodgrain Frames which I used to frame the tulips.

A quick birthday sentiment on a banner, finished the card off.

I have a slight obsession with avocados and lemons, and as there is a fabulously zesty background stamp, Fresh Citrus Bold Print, in the newest release it was a no-brainer to use that one! Twice too, and both are heat embossed with white. One on white water colour card stock and the other on black card stock.

The white one I coloured in using Zig Clean Color markers and the black one I have used paper glazes from Picket Fence Studios! This is the first time I have tried water colouring with them on coloured card stock and I LOVE how it turned out! So cool and shimmery.

The sentiment, Lemonade Message, was perfect for one of them. It’s heat embossed in white on light yellow card stock, this is cut it out using the Square Infinity Dies. I did one size bigger in a darker yellow colour. I also stamped up and heat embossed some of the images from the Orange Blossoms set. These are coloured in using the same Zig Clean Color markers and then cut out with the coordinating diecut.

The sentiment bit is popped up with foam tape, then the branch and lemon were added as a final touch.

With another sentiment stamped up and cut out, from the Orange Blossom set, I assembled the cards. This one I also trimmed down a little, adhered to a white card base and had a lime instead of a lemon.

The yellow one is my favourite though. I love how the colours pop!

Well, that’s it from me! I hope you enjoyed these cards and found some inspiration here. Your next stop on the hop is the amazing Nichol!

Blog hop prizes: We will giveaway 3 $50 shopping sprees to people who comment along the hop. Comment on as many blogs as you’d like – more comments means more chances to win! Comment by Wednesday Feb 19 at 11:59pm pst, we’ll announce the winner on the Hero Arts blog.

Hero Arts has collaborated with My Sweet Petunia to make a black MISTI! It is the original style, not the 2.0, and will be available from March 15th. If you want one, click on the ‘notify me’ link on the product page as it’s displayed as ‘out of stock’ at the moment.

Here is the full blog hop list but if you come across any broken links, the list is also available on the Hero Arts blog.

Hero Arts Blog
Jessica Frost-Ballas
Channin Pelletier
Debi Adams
Michelle Short
Caly Person
Emily Midgett
Janette Kausen
Ilina Crouse
Yana Smakula
Daniel West
Lydia Fiedler
Wanda Guess
Seeka
Laurie Willison
Amy Kolling
Erica A-B
Nichol Spohr
Jennifer McGuire
Libby Hickson

Thanks for stopping by today! I have used compensated affiliate links to Hero Arts in this post, if you shop using these links I will get a small commission directly from them, at no extra cost to you whatsoever. Any money I make from these affiliate links go directly back into running my blog and YouTube channel, so thank you so much for the support!

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

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Ardyth’s 3k YouTube hop!

Hi guys!

Today I’m taking part in a YouTube hop to celebrate my crafty friend Ardyth reaching 3000 subscribers! Congratulations, it’s so well-deserved! If you don’t subscriber to her channel yet, you are missing out. She’s amazing! Check out her video and channel HERE.

There are prizes from some fabulous sponsors too and there are about 20 odd stops on the hop so you have lot of chances to win! All you have to do is leave a comment by the 18th of October.

If you want to skip right to the YouTube hop, go to Ardyth’s blog for the full list of participants, prizes and rules.

For my card, I have used a stamp set from Ellen Hutson called Mondo Peony. I love this big, bold flower! It’s just lovely. It’s stamped up with Inkon3’s copic friendly ink, Blackout Detail Ink on Neenah #110 Solar White card stock. I went dark pink for the colouring and you can see some of it in a time-lapse video in my video over on my YouTube channel.

The background is easy and fun to create. With the help of my MISTI, I stamped up the two leaves from the Mondo Peony set towards the top the panel. Which is Bristol Vellum paper and it’s done with Inkon3’s Embossing ink. Before I did that, I used my anti-static tool very generously all over the paper. After stamping up the first two leaves, I swapped the panel around and stamped them again on the other side. I sprinkled WOW! Embossing powder in Opaque White all over these and set them with the heat gun. After checking the placement of the leaves in relation to my flower, which I should have done before stamping them really, I realised they would not show very well. So I stamped up another two and heat embossed them in white too.

Armed with my Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios and some green Distress Oxide inks, I chose Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio and Mowed Lawn, I went to town with ink blending. I covered both the background panel and the two extra leaves. Once all done, I cut the leaves out using the coordinating diecuts.

These were a bit too big for the background though so I cut the leaves apart and with the flower as a guide, I placed them on the background where they would fill in the gaps. I have finally gotten ahold of Press’n’Seal and used this for the first time to pick up the flower and leaves! With that whole shebang turned over, I adhered a flower sized piece of foam sheet that I had cut out using the coordinating diecut. Once that was secured in place it was easy peasy to adhered that to the background. Which I had also fixed to a card base at this point.

Sentiment wise I used one of my staple stamp sets: Birdie Brown’s Greetings Galore from MFT Stamps. I heat embossed it in Metallic Rich Gold from WOW! On black card stock and cut it out using a small banner die from the Blueprint Dienamic set. This was quickly adhered with more Glue Tube adhesive. If you can’t find that particulate BluePrint dienamic set, I can recommend the Everyday Sentiment Banners from Lawn Fawn instead. They are another staple of mine and I use them all the time.

I could have stopped here but of course I didn’t. I added a very generous sprinkling of Sparkling Clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh with the help of the Glue Tube from Lawn Fawn. I actually toyed with the idea of adding Glossy Accents to the card too but finally managed to rein in myself and step away, lol!

That’s it from me for today. Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the hop!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica