Handmade Cards-No colouring – CaCaCraft by Erica

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

Hi and welcome back to my blog!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Pinkfresh Studio September 2022 Stamp, Die, Stencil, Washi, and Hot Foil Release

Hi and welcome back to my little corner of the blogosphere!

Today’s post is all about the amazing September release from Pinkfresh Studio! You should have come here from Emily Midgett and the next stop on the hop is Heather Hoffman! If you get lost along the hop, you can find the entire lineup HERE.

For my first card I have used the lovely Tidings Of Great Joy suite. First off I heat embossed the outline stamp with gold embossing powder, and after setting that with the heat gun, I got the coordinating stencils out.

I have only used three colours with the layering stencils, Sweet Mustard, Doe and Seaside, to create a Scandinavian look. It came out just as I had hoped and the colours went so well with the gold embossing too!

While I had the gold embossing powder and the Tidings Of Great Joy stamp out, I also did the large sentiment in it, and then I used the coordinating diecuts to cut out the middle of the panel, as well as the sentiment.

The background is done with the Dotted Scallop cover plate to create the look of snowcapped mountains, and this is then all adhered to a light grey card base. This is Soft Stone card stock from Gina K, and I love this shade.
The final touch was a smattering of Matte Gold Pearls.

Next up I have used a mix of fun products to create a couple of pastel themed holiday cards. The Swirl Background stencils and the Brushed Sentiment Holiday suite. It comes with a stamp set, coordinating diecuts, coordinating layering stencils as well as coordinating hot foil plates.

When I ink blend, I tend to make more than one, in case of mishaps or total flops. In this case, both Swirl Background Stencils backgrounds worked out and turned into cards.

On this one I have ink blended all the five Swirl Background stencils with inks, and pastel colours. For the yellows I used Sunshine and Sweet Mustard, for the pink I used Sparkling Rose and Bubble Gum, for the blues/turquoise I used Ocean Breeze and Aquamarine, and for the green I used only Grassy Knoll.

On this background I splattered some gold water colour to create some sparkly details and it instantly made the card even more fun!

I also added a Stitched Scallop Rectangle diecut, cut out of gold mirror card stock, and adhered this to the background. This one is layered up with another two pieces to create dimension.

I have heat embossed all of the Brushed Sentiment Holiday stamps with gold, and then used the coordinating diecuts to cut them out, as well as extras to layer the sentiments up with.

For this card I used Happy Holidays, and adhered these to the card as well as a few Glacier Jewels and then the card was done. Time to move on to the second card. On this one I used Nuvo Glimmer Paste in Moonstone, on the last layer, for a sparkly touch!

This card is finished off with similar elements as the first one, with a Stitched Scallop Rectangle diecut and heat embossed Brushed Sentiments saying Merry Christmas.

I think that Moonstone Glimmer paste is such a fun touch, and love the sparkle! It also goes so well with the Glacier Jewels.

I can’t pick which one I prefer out of these two, to be honest. I love how they came out, and I am definitely a fan of pastel Christmas cards.

I also made a YouTube video, you can find that over on my channel, or by clicking the thumbnail below.

A release celebration is not a proper celebration without a GIVEAWAY:
-We will be giving away the full release on the Pinkfresh blog & YouTube channel.
-We will be giving away a total of TEN $25 gift cards along the hop. As per usual with blog hops – the winners will be picked from the comments, so the more you hop and comment, the bigger your chance to win!

Winners will be posted on September 20, 2022 on the Pinkfresh GIVEAWAY PAGE. You must check that page and claim your prize within 2 weeks, if you are one of the winners. Make sure to mark the date and earmark the page.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed this post and the rest of the hop! I have linked the products used for your convenience, with compensated affiliate links. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission from the company it’s linked to, at no extra cost to you. The earnings I get from these links help keep all of these crafting shenanigans going, as well as going towards the renovations of my future Craft Room that I will hopefully move into by the end of the year! Thank you so much for the support, it means more to me than you will ever know!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

All About Rainbows! Joining Pinkfresh Studio’s June Challenge!

Hi everyone!

Today I’m popping in with a couple of cards that I made for the June Pinkfresh Studio Challenge. The theme for this month couldn’t be a better fit for me: it’s Rainbows!!

How gorgeous is that graphic? And not just because that lower right card is mine!! We are not going to be talking about that one though, we are going to be talking about these two:

I have used the ever-so-lovely Garden Roses stamp set, and the coordinating layering stencils and the diecut for the main focal. I have also used some newer goodies, including the Modern Script Hot Foil sentiments, plus coordinating dies, and the Nested Hexagons Hot Foil with their coordinating dies.

As I was going to heat emboss the images, I started out by using the Cottontail Embossing Tool from The Rabbit Hole Design, all over my card stock. With the help of my Mini MISTI, I stamped up two images to ink blend on. Both of these are heat embossed with Opaque Bright White Super Fine embossing powder from WOW! Embossing, and I also used the WOW! Embossing ink pad.

With the Garden Rose layering stencils, a big bunch of blender brushes (one for each colour, to avoid colour contamination) and inks from the inspiration graphic: Candy Apple, Clementine, Sunshine, Key Lime, Aquamarine and Lavender, I went to town!

This one is mostly done with the leftover inks from the super bright one. Pretty amazing, right? It does help to get more definition and depth if you go slightly lighter than you think you might need to, on the first layer.

The key to the rainbow layering is to ink blend the same colour over the same parts of the stencils, on each and every layer.

With more of the leftover ink, I created the soft background on another panel I had also heat embossed with the Garden Rose image. This one was a bit of a mishap, as I actually forgot to ink up the image before pouring on the embossing powder, so it was only the tiniest bit of embossing ink on the paper.. that’s what happens sometimes when you are engrossed in a true crime podcast and forget where you were in the card making process.

The card with the white background is also heat embossed with the same Garden Rose stamp, with the help of a big MISTI, so I could get the whole piece covered. This one I left white though.

With the floral images and backgrounds ready, I simply puzzled the cards together with the Hexagon Hot Foiled pieces and the Modern Script sentiments, that were all already made.

OK, OK, I did use some bling on each one of the cards too… those Metallic Matte Gold Pearls were the perfect finishing touch as the foil used on that Hexagon, was the Matte Gold Foil.

The Jewels I used on the white card are the Glacier ones, and they are probably my faves out of the entire Essentials Jewels Mix.

Well, that’s it from me for today, but I hope you enjoyed this post and will consider entering the Pinkfresh Monthly Challenge yourself. Just by entering you are in with the chance to win a $50 gift card to the Pinkfresh Studio shop!! Winners are drawn by random so you really have nothing to lose by entering.

I have used compensated affiliate links all throughout this post, for your convenience and they will not cost you a penny extra if you use them to shop. Thank you so much if you chose to support me by using these links, I really appreciate it!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

You can find me on various social media platforms, by clicking the links below.
My blog
Instagram
My YouTube channel
CaCaCraft on Facebook

Join in a card challenge with me!

Hi guys!

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 have used four of the colours from the graphic: Sunshine, Mint, Tidal Pond and Bubble Gum. The fourth colour, Berrylicious, didn’t really fit in I don’t think..

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!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Pinkfresh Studio April 2022 Washi, Stamp, Die, Stencil, and Hot Foil Release

Hi and welcome back to my blog!

Today is a great day because the Pinkfresh design team, and friends, are blog hopping to celebrate the April release! If you have arrived here from the insanely talented Emily Midgett’s blog, you are in the right place. The next stop is the one and only Heather Hoffman!

It’s another fabulous release (duh, what else, right??) and I am crazy excited about the Peony Print suite. Peonies are one of my fave flowers ever, and I have used this suite for an array of cards.

In the suite you have a Peony Print rubber background stamp, a Peony Print Hot Foil plate and coordinating layering stencils for quick and easy adding of colours.

My first card is done with the Peony Print hot foil plate and Rose Gold foil, and then some colour was added with Sparkling Rose, Apricot, Sunshine and Grassy Knoll inks using blender brushes.

The panel is so pretty as it was, so I trimmed it down a little, added it to a white card base. A frame was added using the Stitched Scallop Rectangle die, which has been layered up a little.

The last touch was added in a sentiment using ‘sending hugs‘ from the Phrase Builder: Sending diecut set, as well as some Ballet Slipper jewels.

My second card was done in the same way, only in a rainbow instead.

From top to bottom I’ve used Grassy Knoll, Aquamarine, Summer Shower, Sparkling Rose, Coral Reef, Apricot and Sunshine.

The card is finished off in the same way with the Stitched Scallop Rectangle Die, and the ‘sending hugs’ words. The jewels are also in a rainbow order, and there are quite a few more than on the first card.

I have made other cards with the same Peony Print suite, but I will share those on social media later instead, and move on to some other new goodies.

For this card I have used two new products: the Floral Diamonds cover plate, as seen below. It’s really lovely, and quickly became my favourite out of the new cover plates.

and the Simplest Gestures suite. It has a stamp set, a hot foil plate, a coordinating diecut and coordinating layering stencils.

The Floral Diamonds cover plate was used on black card stock and then added on top of a striped background to make the colours shine through the pattern. The ‘thank you’ is done using the Simplest Gestures layering stencils, which have a different sentiment on each layer, as well as coordinating diecuts in the Simplest Gestures diecut set.

I did use the Stitched Scallop Rectangle Dies for this card too. I love those dies! The final touch was some Stargazer jewels and then the card was done.

My final card was finished without a sentiment on the front, I will keep this one clear until I know who I am sending it out to.

I used the Floral Diamonds Cover plate again, but on white card stock this time. This was added to a white card base, and I used the floral image in the Simplest Gestures set. First I used the Hot Foil plate with gold foil, and then I used the coordinating layering stencils on top, before cutting it out with the coordinating diecut.

This is propped up with foam tape and then I used a few colour coordinating jewels to add to the middle of the flowers.

That’s it from me for today, and now it’s time to hop along. You can find the whole line-up for the hop via the InLinkz link here, if you want to just hop on to the next stop on the hop that’s the fabulous and inspiring Heather Hoffman.

Don’t forget that there are TEN $25 gift vouchers to be won, and all you have to do is leave comments along the blog hop.

The more you comment, the better your chance of winning. Winner will be drawn from the comments, randomly, and will be announced on the Pinkfresh giveaway winner page on May 10th. Please note that you need to check this page and get in touch within two weeks to claim your prize, if you are a winner.

You can also win the ENTIRE RELEASE by commenting on the Pinkfresh release blog post, as well as their release YouTube video, so make sure to comment on those too!

I have made a YouTube video too, and you can find that via THIS LINK HERE. Don’t forget to subscribe to my channel, hit that notification button and the thumbs up button! I look forward to seeing you there.

There are compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting me by using these links, I really appreciate it!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Guest Designing for Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine!

Hi!

Today I’m so excited to be a guest designer for Scrapbook & Cards Today Magazine, for their Spring Issue challenge week!

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.

Right, now that I have blabbed on for quite some time, if you are still here, let’s get down to the card making itself.
As I mentioned, I have used the Sunflower Washi suite, which has a washi tape, a coordinating stamp set, diecut and layering stencils.

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.

In the challenge graphic there is a gorgeous knitted sweater with a chevron pattern, and lovely colours. I tried colour matching that sweater to inks, also from Pinkfresh, and settled on Ocean Breeze, Mermaid Cove, Sunshine, Coral Reef and Sparkling Rose.

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.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

If you want to see more of my work, you can find me on various social media platforms.
Instagram
YouTube
My blog
Pinterest

Peony Layering diecuts bonanza!

Hi guys!

I’m back on the blog today with some LDRS Creative inspiration! I have been having some fuuuuuuuun with the amazing addition to the flower layering dies: Peony Layering Dies. Oh boy, it’s such a stunner and peonies also happen to be one of my favorite flowers so I went to town!

I have a big stash of this lovely linen textured coloured card stock and I got cutting, and cutting, and cutting and eventually ended up with enough bits and pieces for seven or eight peonies. Yeah, I was on a roll. Get it? LOL. I do love a good pun too!

After assembling the flowers and the buds with the leaves, it was time to actually make a card! For a nice little touch I like using the A2 Diagonal Stitched Layered Card Topper die set, it cuts out the A2 front and adds some lovely stitched detail in one go.

Puzzling the flower pieces took some time, and I ended up trimming a few of the buds and leaves to fit behind the two peonies I wanted to use. When I was happy with the layout, I used some Press’n’Seal to pick up the pieces in exactly the same spot as there were on the card base. This is such a neat and handy trick, but if you can not get ahold of Press’n’Seal you can use very low-tack wide washi to get the same result.

On the back, I used both Nuvo Deluxe liquid glue and foam tape, to add dimension and to adhered the whole shebang to the card base.

I also had a load of ready made sentiments done, as I had stamped and cut up the You’re Simply The Best wave stack sentiments.This set is so clever in that you stamp it up once and get all the sentiments done, and it has a coordinating diecut that cuts out all in one go. One stamp session + one turn through the diecutting machine = TWELVE sentiment banners done! How cool is that??

I picked out the one that says You are truly wonderful in every way, and adhered that to the card. Now, I could have stopped there, but did I? Of course not.. I’m not an over-blinger by name only, oh no.

I added a VERY generous smattering of these Iridescent Bubble Drops embellishments from Studio Katia. Sort of like big water droplets after rain, you know? Finally, after adding at least eight too many, I stopped and stepped back. I have the embellishment wand from Studio Katia too, and it’s fab, as are the Triangle Trays to keep your embellishments tidy while you pick out which ones to use.

I, personally, love the bling, but if you don’t, you can leave them out. Or go less. That’s always an option for some. Not me, apparently but oh well, what can you do?

Thank you so much for stopping by today, I really hope you enjoyed this post and will try these gorgeous Peony Layering dies for yourself. With the code ERICAC15 you can also take 15% off your order until April 11th!!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Edge-To-Edge Shaker Card and Solid Hot Foil Plate fun!

Hi guys!

It’s probably my last post before the end of 2021. Before I go into details about the card, I wanted to take this opportunity to say a big huge THANK YOU to Pinkfresh Studio, Kinnari, Lea and Heather for having had me on the Pinkfresh blog team for the last six months! I have absolutely LOVED it, and I hope I have brought some inspiration to you all during this time.

As there are only a few days left of 2021, and I did catastrophically badly with sending Christmas cards, I thought I’d focus on a New Year card today. With sparkles of course. I did turn my card into an edge-to-edge shaker and filled it with some flat-ish sequins, star shapes and glitter, but if you want to keep it simple, just add some Jewels. Or not. Not everyone is as obsessed with the bling and sparkle as I am.

First of all, you are going to want to grab a fun set of layering stencils, I picked the Layered Sunburst Stencils, and your fave colours of ink. I have, probably unsurprisingly, gone for a bit of a rainbow again, with the help of Sunshine, Bubble Gum, Candy Violet, Summer Showers and Aquamarine inks. With these five inks you can get the impression of even more colours, by blending them together.

With the first two layers of the stencils I have just gone around with the colours in the same spot, using blending brushes. With the last layer, I used an iridescent glitter gel to add some fun sparkle. While this was drying I got the Solid Hot Foil plate out and used one of the left over foils I had used with the Perfect Sentiments: Holiday hot foil plate. I couldn’t wait to give this a try, and oh boy, it did not disappoint!

I did the whole sheet while I was on a roll, and then used the coordinating diecut to cut them all out. With a bit of clever placing, I cut out another three pieces of the Happy New Year piece and layered these up. Then I popped the reversed hot foiled Happy New Year on top. This was adhered to the card smack in the middle.

I could have left it here, but did I? Nope. I decided to make it an edge-to-edge shaker and wrapped a Shaker Pocket, from Tonic Studios, around the card, added some chunky glitter, some flat sequins and silver star shapes from Studio Katia to it and sealed it up. The chunky glitter is really sticking to the pocket right over the Happy New Year, so it might be an idea to use an anti-static tool over the sentiment if you decide to try this.

Overall, I love how this turned out, and how fun it is with a shaker card. I don’t make that many, but who knows? Maybe that will change. Need to get my hands on more of those shaker pockets first though!

Thanks for stopping by the blog today, have a wonderful New Years Eve and here’s to a much better 2022!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Pinkfresh Studio December 2021 Stamp, Die, Stencil, and Hot Foil Release

Hi guys! Today I am super excited to celebrate the last release of 2021 from Pinkfresh Studio with a blog hop! The rest of the design team and friends of Pinkfresh have really knocked this release out of the park!

For my projects I have used lots and lots of the gorgeous In The Meadow Washi tape. Oh and the coordinating In The Meadow diecut and In The Meadow stamp set.

It’s such a gorgeous washi, and once I got on a roll with it, I couldn’t stop. Get it? On a roll? *snickers at my own pun* I also made a YOUTUBE VIDEO, showing the entire release and all the projects I made!

I rolled out the washi tape onto wide strips of sturdy card stock, I used 110lb Neenah card stock for this, and then used the coordinating diecut to cut out all the pieces. The coordinating diecut is absolutely genius as it’s all one piece, all you have to do is line it up and it cuts out everything in one go. Same with the coordinating stamp set, so freaking genius!

Once you have your pieces cut out, and why not do a big bunch while you are on a roll? *snickers again, it’s a solid pun* Keep the rest of the pieces in a little storage pocket, either from Avery Elle or the slimline pouches from Picket Fence Studios, and pop that into your Extra Large storage pocket that works a treat for keeping all your coordinating goodies together.

On this slimline card I have used another new fun goodie: The Blanket Stitch Slimline and Mini Slimline Rectangles diecuts. You get the Pinkfresh regular slimline AND mini slimline diecuts in one, and they both have that lovely blanket stitched detail around the edges.

The card is finished off with a sentiment from the Always Uplifting stamp set, and a hot foiled Celebrate that’s cut out with the coordinating diecut.

On the first card I used the slimline size and on the next one I used the mini slimline size, of the Blanket Stitched Slimline Rectangles.

I also heat embossed the sentiment from the In The Meadow stamp set, in Rich Gold from WOW! Embossing. Before stamping up the sentiment I used the new Cottontail Embossing Tool all over the panel, this is a super-duper new anti-static tool from The Rabbit Hole Design, that contains Kaolin clay, rather than baby powder (which I can not stand the smell of, yuk)

The In The Meadow flowers are then arranged around the sentiment, and with that this mini slimline card was done. It really is so quick and easy to make a beautiful card fast with these washi tapes!

Next up, I made a couple of A2/5.5″x4.25″ cards, because I had to make all the sizes, basically.

For this card I used only the big pieces, but one of them I trimmed down to fill out the flower meadow. These pieces are arranged on a slightly smaller piece of white card stock, which is then adhered to the card base with foam tape for some dimension.

To finish off this card I used the Love from the Brushed Sentiment hot foil set. I did it in Rose Gold foil and then cut it out using the coordinating die.

I couldn’t resist adding the new Sparkling Champagne Metallic Pearls, because they are gorgeous! I love them (surprise, surprise)

I used them on my second A2 card as well, because well, I couldn’t put them away. On this card I adhered the In The Meadow pieces from the top, for another look.

This card is done in a similar way, only I didn’t use foam tape for the background piece. On this one I used the foam tape behind the flower pieces instead. I also used the new Heart Grid Hot Foil plate, again with Rose Gold foil.

The sentiment is from the In The Meadow stamp set, and I stamped it up with Black Hybrid ink on a banner that I cut out with the Essentials Slim Stripe diecuts.

Of course I had to use the Sparkling Champagne Metallic Pearls on this one too.

As I had so many flower bits left over, I decided to make a little tag too!

This is the Foldable Shaker Tag, and it’s so clever as you can get two tags out of one diecut. I added a little bit of Key Lime ink by blending it super softly, and then placing the flowers onto the tag.

It’s finished off with a Happy Holidays diecut sentiment, from the Holiday Circle Frames set and a few Sparkling Champagne Metallic Pearls.

That’s it from me for today, but don’t forget to hop along with the rest of the design team and the guests, as there is so much inspiration! Unfortunately I can’t get the InLinkz thingy to work, but the next stop is the amazing Heather Hoffman.

As always there are some amazing GIVEAWAYS:

-We will be giving away the full release on the Pinkfresh blog & YouTube channel.

-We will be giving away a total of TEN $25 gift cards along the hop. As per usual with blog hops – the winners will be picked from the comments, so the more you hop and comment, the better your chances of winning!

Winners will be posted on December 14, 2021 on the Pinkfresh GIVEAWAY PAGE. You have to check this page yourself, and get in touch if you are one of the winners. Do not forget, but you have two weeks to claim your winnings if you are on the list!

InLinkz lineup here.

PS I have used compensated affiliate links in this post, at no extra cost to you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart if you chose to support me by using my links, I really appreciate the support!

As mentioned, there is also a YouTube video for the release and all the projects I made. You can CLICK HERE to watch it.

Happy Holidays card with Blooming Branches

Hi guys!

Today I am popping in with another Pinkfresh card, but not with the new release. Nope, at the time of writing this, that package is still on holiday somewhere here in Spain.

The upside, if there ever was one to not having the new release to work with is that it gave me an excuse to play with the Abstract Triangle hot foil plate and the Blooming Branch set. Two of my faves from the earlier releases! Instead of going summery, even though they are flowers, I went for a red and green holiday card!

First off I have heat embossed the Blooming Branch outline stamp on two pieces of card stock, in gold embossing powder. On top of these I then used the Blooming Branch Layering stencils and inkblended Passion Fruit, Berrylicious and Candy Apple for the flower petals, plus a little Apricot for the middle of the flowers.

For the leaves I used a VERY light touch of Grassy Knoll on the first stencil layer, on the first panel. The second panel got a more rich layer of the same colour. On the second stencil layer I used a very light touch of Olive on the first panel, and Grassy Knoll on the second one again, but a much more intense layer.

When I was all done with the layering stencils, I used the coordinating diecut on them both and set aside. While I had worked on these, my Glimmer hot foil machine had been warming up with the Abstract Triangle hot foil plate on it. I do find that I get much better results when my plate is very thoroughly warmed up, so I pop mine on the platform as soon as I click it on.

I used shiny gold foil on white card stock, and then on top of the pattern, I ink blended more Grassy Knoll ink, but left some white space at the bottom left corner. This panel is also trimmed down to 4¨x5.25¨, and adhered to a white card base with foam tape. On top of this I arranged the two Blooming Branch images to create a thick wreath of sorts, and this is also adhered with foam tape, for that lush dimension.

The final thing was to add a sentiment, and I used the Glimmer hot foil machine again, this time with the Thrill Of Hope hot foil plate that says Happy Holidays. It’s cut out with the coordinating diecut, and I also cut out another two pieces to layer this whole shebang up. Gotta have those layers and dimension, lol!

So that’s the card finished! I hope you like it and found some inspiration with me here today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and see you soon again!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica