Ink blending – CaCaCraft by Erica

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next stop on the hop is the amazing Heather!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

CASE Me A Christmas Card series with Michelle Lupton!

Today it’s my turn to take part in my dear friend Michelle Lupton’s annual CASE Me A Christmas Card Series! Or rather, we thought it was today, it was actually yesterday but both Michelle and I were foiled by time zone converters, lol!

I’m so excited as Michelle and I are rainbow-loving-sisters-from-another-mister, so of course I had to use one of her many, many amazing rainbow cards as my inspiration.

This stunning card was just begging to be CASE’d. In case you haven’t heard of CASE before, it stands for Copy And Selectively Edit. It’s basically what we all do when we see inspiration and then put our own spin on it.

So I took this gorgeous design and put my own spin on it, two different ways. First of all I heat embossed the Holiday Sentiments Strips stamp from Hero Arts in Bright White embossing powder from WOW! Embossing, on two different panels. One on water colour paper, and one on Neenah #110 white card stock.

On the water colour panel, I used my DIY glitter sprays made with Liquid Pixie Dust from Inkon3 and reinkers from Pinkfresh Studios. With sprays you have very little control over where the colours go, and what is going to happen, so it’s best to just spray and let it do it’s thing.

On the second panel I ink blended Inkon3 Atelier inks in Bee Sting Yellow, Marigold Orange, Sweet Petunia Pink, Peacock Blue and Goddess Green. Over this I spritzed a little bit of the DIY yellow glitter spray, as well as gold splatters. Sufficient to say it’s very sparkly!

Because the stamp is perfectly sized for an A2/5.5″x4.25″ card size, I decided to simply add these panels to card bases. One of them isn’t perfectly heat embossed, so I wanted to cover that up.

I did that with Metallic Gold Pearls from Pinkfresh Studio on the ink blended card, and Clear Iridescent Pearls on the glitter spray card. Here I have done my usual ‘Lets. Use. All. Of. The. BLING!’ thing, but I love, love, love how it turned out!

That’s it from me for today but I hope you have enjoyed this post, as well as Michelle’s. Please do give her a follow if you don’t already do so, she’s amazing!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

In this post I have used some compensated affiliate links, at no extra cost to you. What that means is that if you shop using these links, I get a small commission from the company it’s linked to as a thank you for directing you to them. This doesn’t ever cost you, as the shopper, anything extra at all. It comes out of the pocket of the company. These earnings help me keep all of these crafting shenanigans going, as well as pay for things like blog hosting, cost for equipment and replenishing staples. Thank you so much for the support, it means the world to me!

From Crafty Meraki you can get the goodies listed below, and you can also take 10% off your order with the code ERICA10
Peacock Blue
Goddess Green
Bee Sting Yellow
Marigold Orange
Sweet Petunia Pink
Liquid Pixie Dust
WOW Embossing ink pad
Mini MISTI

From Inkon3 you can also get goodies:
Liquid Pixie Dust
Goddess Green
Peacock Blue
Sweet Petunia Pink
Marigold Orange
Bee Sting Yellow

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

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

Hi and welcome to my blog!

Today I am excited to hop along with Pinkfresh Studio and friends, to celebrate the fabulous August release.

You should have come here from the fabulous Emily Midgett, and the next stop is the amazing Heather Hoffman! If you get lost along the hop, you can find the entire lineup via the InLinkz LINK.

I have a few cards for the hop, but I also made a video! Hop on over to my Youtube channel if you want to check that out.

Now, for my actual cards I have used the fabulous Happy Dance suite, which is a gorgeous floral set. I do love my florals, in case that wasn’t obvious at this point, lol!

The first card is very simple, I heat embossed the outline stamp in white embossing powder, and used the layering stencils on top to add colours.

On top of the ink blending, I splattered some gold water colour for extra sparkle.

I also finished it off with a sentiment from the stamp set, and a hot foiled ‘bestie’ from the Phrase Builder: Hello Hot Foil set. It’s foiled with Matte Gold foil, and it worked so well with the rest of the card.

I usually use the coordinating diecut to cut out the images, but here I left it as an almost one layer card.

I did make up for the lack of layers and texture on my second card though!

On this one I heat embossed the outline stamp with gold embossing powder, and then added a rainbow look with the layering stencils.

Once I had used the coordinating diecut on the image, I cut out another two pieces to layer it up. I also used the gorgeous Dotted Scallop cover plate on a piece of white card stock, and I also cut out a Stitched Scallop Rectangle piece too.

The ‘friend‘ is hot foiled with Matte Gold foil too, and the sentiment is the same as the first card, from from the Happy Dance stamp set. Would you believe I stopped myself from adding bling, though?? Say whaaaat?

That’s it from me for today, but I hope you will enjoy the rest of the hop and don’t forget that you can win the ENTIRE RELEASE from Pinkfresh by commenting on their release blog post, and also the release YouTube video!! As always, there are also TEN $25 gift vouchers up for grabs along the blog hop, so the more you comment, the bigger chance to win!

Winners will be announced on Aug 23rd, on the Pinkfresh GIVEAWAY PAGE, so make sure to earmark that URL and the date, as you will need to claim your prize within 2 weeks.

Thank you so much for stopping by today, and have a lovely week!

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

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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