Stencils – 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

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 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

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

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

Easy, Breezy Holiday Cards with Pinkfresh Goodies!

Hi guys!

I’m back with some more Pinkfresh flowery cards today. For these cards I have used the colour scheme from the December challenge but mixed it with the Blooming Branch set. I’m slightly in denial about Christmas being so close so any excuse to use flowers and blooms, I’m in.

First of, I heat embossed the Blooming Branch stamp set with Opaque Bright White embossing powder on one panel, and with Rich Gold embossing powder on a second. Both of these are from WOW! Embossing.

First off I used the Cottontail Embossing Tool from The Rabbit Hole Design, all over my card stock. Then I stamped the Blooming Branch outline stamp with WOW! Embossing ink, with the help of my Mini MISTI.

The idea was to get a softer look on the white and more vivid on the gold. The opacity of the ink blending is actually about the same, but it does make the colours pop or soften up, with the different colours. My fave is the Rich Gold.

To add colour I have used the Blooming Branch layering stencils and the inks I used are Sparkling Rose, Berrylicious (the colour in the graphic is closer to Candy Apple, but I went slightly lighter) Sunshine, Meadow and Aquamarine.

All of these have been ink blended with blending brushes, because that is the blending tool that works best for me to get a smooth blend.

I wanted a bit of a rainbow look still (surprise, surprise, I know… ) so I started with the Sunshine in the middle, and then went pink and red towards the top and the teal and turquoise towards the bottom.

You don’t actually need that many colours to get a rainbow look, as by blending the colours together you get more than the actual numbers of inks you use. For example, yellow and red/pink, will make orange and yellow and blue makes green, and so forth.

To get this look, you add the colours in the same areas on each layer of stencil. Think in terms of lines across your stencil, if you will. You just keep building it up as you go through your stencils, and eventually you end up with this fun rainbow look.

With the colours all added, I cut them both out with the coordinating diecut and on the back of these, I added foam tape to raise them up on the card. However, I had to make my backgrounds first and the sentiments too, of course.

I’m totally obsessed with the Abstract Triangle hot foil plate, so I used it on two panels with my Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil system. One with Matte Gold and one with Opal, which I at first thought I might have actually hot foiled the plate with instead of the paper…

Luckily for me, it was foiled to the paper, but the Opal hot foil is very subtle. It looks more like an embossing folder, than hot foiling. Which is another use for your hot foil plates! You can actually use them to add dry embossing, and add pattern to your card stock as well as use them for hot foiling.

While I had the Glimmer Hot Foil system out and hot, I decided to use the Thrill Of Hope hot foil plate for the sentiment. On these I used gold foil, and then I cut these out with the coordinating diecut. I also cut out an extra piece to layering up the hot foiled piece to make them slightly sturdier.

The background pieces were trimmed down a little and then directly adhered to a card base each. On top of these I added the Blooming Branch pieces, the sentiments and then I just had to add some Jewels to add even more pizzazz! I can’t help myself, I love these Jewels and they are such a perfect finishing touch.

The colours I have used are from top to bottom: Ballet Slipper, Sunshine and Ocean Breeze. If you like jewels like these, you might as well grab the Essentials Jewels Mix, which has 12 different colours in it.

That’s it from me for today, but I hope you found some inspiration here and don’t forget that you can still take part in the December challenge. You can win a $50 gift card to the Pinkfresh Studio shop just by taking part, so what are you waiting for? Go on, have some fun and play along. The deadline is December 28th, so plenty to of time and you can enter 5 projects!

Right, I will stop jibber-jabbering now and let you go. Thank you so much for stopping by, 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

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

LDRS Garden Grandeur cards, two ways and DIY mini-slimline.

Hi guys!

Today I’m back with a couple of cards, with the same products, just different colours.

All three pieces: the Garden Grandeur Slimline stamp set, the coordinating diecut and the coordinating layering stencils.

As a summer loving gal, I’m all about the florals and sunshine. Even with it being October. Luckily for me I live in a sunny and warm place, and lots of flowers are still blooming here.

With these fun layering stencils I had an idea of doing a cascading rainbow for one, and more natural looking colours on the other one. Purely for research purposes of course, lol.

Before I did anything else though, I swatched the inks I have. I like my swatches as it’s not always easy to tell what the inks will look like on paper, from what they look like as an ink pad.

Another little quirk I have is that I like to keep brands together, so I used one of the pieces from the Diagonal Stitched Postage Frames Slimline dies to cut out the swatch pieces. On these I then dragged the ink pads to get lots of colour on it, marked it with a label and then punched a hole in it.

So my first card is done with the more natural colours, and I went for Soft Kisses for the bigger flowers, Dan-D-Lion for the smaller and Olive Branch for both layers for the layers. I have only used the layering stencils for these, not the outline stamp.

For the rainbow one, I used, from top to bottom: Dan-D-Lion, Soft Kisses, La La Lavender, Marina Madness and Tropical Sea. I aimed to do the same colours in the same spots on all the different layers, but it wasn’t 100% spot on. Still turned out lovely though!

As I wanted to go more mini slimline for these cards, rather than full-size slimline I did some creative diecutting using the Diagonal Stitched Postage Frames Slimline dies as I wanted some pattern around the edges.

On the back of the flowers, once I had used the coordinating diecut on them, I covered them with foam tape to prop them up and create dimension. Dimension and layers are life, if you ask me.

The last thing needed was sentiments, and I have used the same one from the Garden Grandeur stamp set, stamped up with Raven ink on white card stock. Both of these are trimmed down in different ways, and then adhered to the cards.

Ok, so I might have said the last thing was sentiments, but I did go a bit big on the bling on the rainbow flowers but hey, I had the perfect gems to do it so I had to. HAD to. I couldn’t not do it.

The pink flowers were kept bling free to show that I can go clean and simple too. Occasionally. Mostly with my Inner Crafty Drama Queen kicking and screaming, but still.

I did make a video for these cards too. You can find that over on my YouTube channel, if you want to see more of the process, but if not, thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed these cards and the summer vibes coming through your screen.

Until next time, lots of love and happy crafting from Erica