New release – 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

January 2023 My Monthly Hero Kit Blog Hop!

Hi and welcome to my blog, and my first post for 2023! Today’s post is part of a blog hop celebrating the first Hero Arts My Monthly Hero kit of the year, and there is a giveaway!

The next stop on the hop is my talented friend Jen Kray!

This kit is super cute and perfect for those Valentine’s Day projects! Beautiful card stock, sweet stamps and coordinating diecuts, as well as a stencil and a bit of sparkle.

This is what Hero Arts are saying about the kit: With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, the January My Monthly Hero kit celebrates the “perfect match”. The centerpiece of this kit is dies to create a faux matchbox, which lies flat on your card or project and can be decorated and filled with the numerous stamps and dies included in the kit. But don’t stop there, let your imagination go wild with all of the possibilities this kit contains! Use the images on their own, build repeating patterns, or add them to planner pages, journals, and more! There is a beautiful stencil included, perfect for backgrounds or mixed media projects. The kit is rounded out with a pack of fun heart-themed sequins and five sheets of gorgeous cardstock.

If you haven’t subscribed to the My Monthly Hero kit, you can sign up HERE. This is a pre-order, and Hero Arts will start shipping the kits on Friday the 13th of January. If you are not subscribed, and miss out on a kit, that’s it, you can not get it again. They are only available in a limited quantity and once they are gone, they are gone. It’s also a great deal as the kit is valued at $77, but it only costs $34.99!

There are also a bunch of fun add-ons you can get, as usual! There are a bunch of fun diecuts, including one that makes an actual match box. There is also a gorgeous heart cover plate, a hot foil plate, a striped stencil and really lovely sentiment stamps, on their own or with coordinating diecuts!! If you are a subscriber, you can add any, or all of these, to your kit order, before it ships, without having to pay extra shipping.

If you can’t pick and chose which ones to get, you can snag them all RIGHT HERE.

As a self-confessed hot foil addict, I love the option of adding foiling to my projects. It’s such a touch of luxury, and glam, and I will never, ever tire of it. The fun thing with hot foil plates is that you can actually use them as embossing plates AND you can dab ink on them and “stamp” as well. Yep, it’s not just for foiling.

However, for my project today I have used just the main kit, so let’s get into it!

First off I used my trimmer to cut out strips of the card stock included, they are about 1cm wide. I did cut two of each, because I wasn’t sure how many I needed, but I did just use one of each in the end.

To add some interest to the white card base, I have ink blended just a touch of left over pink ink (the colour is Taffy) over the stencil. By not adding more ink, the results are super soft and delicate, but you do have to blend for quite a while. I will say it’s worth it for this sort of result.

My second card is also done with just stamps and dies from the main kit, I did use some Distress Spray in Black Soot and some gold water colours to add some interest to the white background.

I cut out the flat matchbox out of white card stock and heat embossed ‘Valentine’ on it in white embossing powder for a subtle look. The hearts are cut out of satin gold card stock and I also used a few of the little red hearts from the embellishments, that come in the kit.

The little specks of red, matched with the gold, works really well I think!

Next up, I had to use that lovely Hearts Hot Foil plate. But not in red, that felt too on the nose, so I went with Matte Gold instead. It looks gorgeous!

This card is finished off by making a card base of out the Peony card stock that comes in the kit, stamping up a sentiment from the You’re Mine stamp and diecut set, and add some 3D heart balloons made with some of the diecuts from the main kit.

My last, and final card, is way outside of my comfort zone. It has so much white space I’m spacing out…!

I started out by cutting out a panel using the Heart Flourish Cover Plate, out of white card stock, and layering this up onto a white card base.

On this I simply added ‘Sending hugs kisses’ from the You’re Mine stamp and diecut set. Because there is no ‘and’ in the stamp set I used the double heart diecut instead of it, this and the lips are cut out of red card stock. To make these stand out a little I added a lot of Crystal Clear Lacquer Pen and set aside to dry.

That’s it from me for today, but don’t forget to check out the rest of the hop! To enter the giveaway, you only have to leave comments on the stops, and you have until January 15th to do so. The winner of the $50 Hero Arts gift card will be announced on the blog the following week, so make sure to check back to see if you have won!

I have used some compensated affiliate links in this post, to Hero Arts, and if you shop with these links I will get a small commission from them directly. At absolutely zero extra cost to you!

Income from these affiliate links are what pays for the boring stuff like blog hosting, internet security, equipment, and other tools for the creative side. I really, really appreciate it whenever someone uses my links, no matter how small the order, every single one helps, so thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Lots of love and happy crafting from 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

September 2022 Hero Arts Monthly Release

Hi and welcome back to my little blog!

Today I’m hopping along with Hero Arts creative team, global team and friends, to celebrate the September My Monthly Hero Kit release! You can find the whole lineup of the hop HERE, and as I’m the last stop on the hop it takes you back to the first Hero Arts blog post.

The September My Monthly Hero kit is an ode to fall and elegance. Just look at this!

The kit contains :

• Clear Stamp Set, 4” x 6”
• 6 Coordinating Frame Cuts
• Rub-On Transfer Sheet
• Cling Background Stamp, 6“ x 6”
• 2 Sheets Each of Cardstock in Sand & Antique Ivory, 5.5” x 8.5”
• Rose Gold Metallic Floss, 5 yds

You can also pick and chose from the amazing My Monthly Hero Add-Ons. Including new hot foil plates!! Eeeeep! I’m firmly onboard the Hot Foil Crazy Train and do not plan on getting off anytime soon.

The kit description says: Autumn is a whisper in the air, with hints of cooler weather, falling leaves, and rich colors. Our September My Monthly Hero release takes an elegant path into fall, featuring a gorgeous vase of fall blooms as the focal point for your cards and projects. There’s also a fun new element this month – rub-ons! Use them for quick and easy cards; the coordinating die in the kit perfectly cuts out the rub-on floral arrangement as well as the stamped images. Or try the rub-ons on any smooth surface. The kit is rounded out with a gorgeous new cling stamp, metallic floss and the perfect neutral cardstocks for stamping your autumn-inspired creations.

Pre-order your kit today! Hero Arts estimate kit shipping will begin Friday, September 9th and continue throughout the following week. You can also subscribe to make sure you don’t miss out on any of the kits, as once they are sold out, that’s it.

I’m super excited about the hot foil plates, and I don’t think it should come as a surprise that I had to use these for my first card.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I forgot to add a sentiment to this card but the gold hot foiling and heat embossing steal the show, so maybe it doesn’t matter.

I have also used the lovely rub-ons and I was blown away how gorgeous they looked once on paper.

I need more of these for sure! The first one I did on the Antique Ivory and I did this directly on one of the two card bases that come in the kit. This one was finished off with a simple sentiment from the kit stamp set, in Root Beer ink.

The second one I did on the Sand card stock, the second colour card stock that comes in the kit, and it looked beautiful too!

The sentiments on this card is also stamped with Root Beer ink, with the help of a MINI MISTI.

These are super simple cards to make, but that image is so gorgeous they don’t really need much else.

Now for the fun stuff! There is a giveaway to celebrate. Hero Arts will give away a $50 gift card, drawn from the comments left across the hop. Enter by Sunday, September 11th at 11:59pm Pacific, and the winner will be announced on the Hero Arts blog the following week.

Thank you so much for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed this post and the rest of the hop!

Happy crafting and lots of love from Erica

Crafty Meraki Shimmer release!!

OOOOOH, so much sparkle happening today! This is my second post of the day, as it’s also release day from Crafty Meraki. After months of planning and testing, there is now hot foil plates available!!

We are celebrating with a YouTube hop, so make sure you head on over to my YouTube channel to hop along. There is some insane inspiration along the way, and it wouldn’t be a celebration without a giveaway. This is one prize you are not going to want to miss: you can win a Glimmer Hot Foil System!!!

I’m not going to keep you for much longer, as all the action is over on YouTube, but I hope you will join us there! However, if you can’t wait to grab some of these fab products for yourself, you can head on over to Crafty Meraki via this link and use the code ERICA10 at checkout for 10% off your order!

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

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

Today I’m excited to be blog hopping with Pinkfresh and friends! We are celebrating the July release and as usual, there is a load of gorgeous and versatile products coming out.

You should have come from the fabulous Emily Midgett and the next stop is the incomparable Heather Hoffman. If you get lost along the way you can find the entire lineup on the Pinkfresh blog post, as well as via the InLinkz link.

I have mixed and matched some older goodies with the new release. The Stitched Scallop Rectangle diecut is one of my all-time faves from Pinkfresh, it’s so pretty, so versatile and in my opinion it really elevates a simple card design without taking the focus away from the focal point on the card. I also love the Dotted Scalloped cover plate. It’s such a gorgeous pattern and was the perfect thing for this card.

The Go For It suite is new for July, and it’s such a lovely and dainty image, yet packs a punch. How is that for awesomeness? For this card I have used all but the stamp itself, and soft spring colours, despite it being a heat wave right now. I should have gone for fiery colours perhaps but I’m really drawn to yellow on cards.

After foiling the Go For It image with Matte Gold, I used the layering stencils over it to add colour. Don’t try and diecut first and then ink blend, always ink blend first and then cut it out.

I am so happy to have a coordinating diecut for this image as I’d never manage to cut this all out without chopping off a stem or leaf.

The ink colours used are Lemon Whip, Sunshine, Sweet Mustard and Grassy Knoll. I used the same yellow inks for the sentiment, which is from the Fall Leaf Border suite. The sentiments are all ink blended with the Fall Leaf Border Stencils for a really gorgeous look, and they all have coordinating diecuts too.

To put the card together I have layered up a lot of the pieces for that lovely dimensional look. The background is propped up, the sentiments are stacked, the frame is layered with a white one under the yellow, and the flower heads are raised up with foam tape. The final touch were some dainty clear crystals, for a morning dew or raindrop look.

My second card is done in a similar way, with a cover plate to add texture on the background and the Stitched Scallop Rectangles to add in a delicate touch. This cover plate is the Floral Backdrop and I used it on Soft Stone card stock from Gina K Designs.

The pattern in created with the Fall Leaf Border stencils, and bright happy ink colours. Once I had ink blended the pattern, I fussy cut along the border of them to cut off the excess white space.

I picked another sentiment from the set, Thank you, this time and used yellows and apricot colours to create the look before cutting them out with the coordinating diecut. These are also raised, but with foam tape this time.

To keep with the colour scheme I used Sunshine Jewels for this card, and quite a restrained amount, for me.

That is it from me for today, but I hope you have found some inspiration here with me and along the hop. The next stop is Heather Hoffman, and you can also find the entire hop list via the InLinkz list here.

As it’s a blog hop, there are of course giveaways and prizes!

GIVEAWAYS:
-You can win the full release on the Pinkfresh blog & YouTube channel! All you have to do is leave comments on both new release posts, and that’s it!
-There are also a total of TEN $25 gift cards to be won along the hop. Winners are drawn randomly from all the comments left on the blogs, so the more you hop and comment, the better your chances to win!

Winners will be announced on August 5, 2022 on the Pinkfresh GIVEAWAY PAGE. Please note that you must check that page and claim your prize within 2 weeks, so mark your calendars and check back!

For transparency, I have used compensated affiliate links all throughout this post, for your convenience, and at no extra cost to you. If you shop via these links I get a small commission from Pinkfresh directly as a thank you for directing you to them. Everything I earn from these links are currently going to the ‘Forever Craft Room Renovation Fund’ as I have a lot of work to be done on the room that will be my craft room in the house we bought a couple of months ago.

Here is a photo of it, and I will be making sure to share lot of updates as it comes to life. Thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with these links, I appreciate it a lot!!

Thanks again for stopping by, 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

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