Happy Halloween!

Boo!

Welcome back to CaCaCraft and Happy Halloween to those who celebrate! Here in Poland it’s called All Hallows Eve and is all about honouring your dead. They do this by lighting up the cemeteries with candles on every single grave and apparently it’s quite the sight so I am going to go by our local one tonight to have a look. I must admit that I am not a big fan of Halloween and scary stuff in general, I’m more of a rom-com, pink fluffy clouds and unicorns gal myself. Many years ago, I was mentally scarred by watching IT and the first Resident Evil movie. I still haven’t quite recovered! Zombies are a big no-no for me, and so are clowns. *shudders in horror and looks over shoulder to make sure there aren’t any here*

Ghosts on the other hand I find quite fascinating, I like the idea of our loved ones having a connection to the living world after they pass on. Evil, scary ones not so much (still a scaredy-cat over here!) but the ones who want to make sure we know they are ok in the after-life, yes.

Oh and cute ones like the ones in My Favorite Things stamp set Fab-BOO-lous Friends are definitely a big fat yes! I tried these stamps at a friend of mine’s house during our last crafty day together before moving away from Denmark and I fell in love on the spot. I got home and ordered my own right away! Sadly I don’t have the coordinating dies for them but that I am hoping will be rectified soon. Christmas IS coming up, right?? (If The Man reads this, please check wishlist for wifey)

This little ghost I coloured using Copic markers, C1, C2 and Colorless Blender. I used both the C markers all over the ghost and then dotted my Colorless Blender all over it to make him speckled sort of. Kind of like his “ghost clothes” were dirty? If that makes sense…? It was also very difficult to photograph it well enough to actually show you properly but here ya go:

For my background I got some dark grey card stock out, this time I used Lawn Fawn Storm Cloud. If I had had a spider web stencil on hand I would have used that but since I don’t (memo to self: find one and add to wishlist) I decided to try out a new stencil I got from Neat & Tangled called Landscape Duo Stencils. Sure, sure, not very Halloween-y but I thought I’d add some Distress Oxide ink blending on it in Halloween type colours. I started with Iced Spruce and then shifted the stencil around before adding Wilted Violet.

Initially I had planned on using some Black Soot too but decided against that in the end. When I do ink blending I use an old, very scratched up, Big Shot cutting plate. It’s sturdy enough to keep the project flat but is too scratched to use as a cutting plate anymore. It leaves too many marks on the paper I cut and I don’t like that but this way I’m not wasting it. Clever, huh? Craft waste is almost up there with food waste in my book.

After I was done with the ink blending I thought it would look nice with some white spatters on it. Instead of using plain white water colours for this, I went with ‘White Gold’ from the Gansai Tambi Starry Colors I’m quite messy when I splatter and I try to remember to cover up anything I don’t want splattered (my iPad keyboard is very shimmery thanks to forgetting this one time)

And whilst this felt like a solid idea, I should have waited until AFTER I stamped my sentiment ‘You’ve been BOOED!’ from the stamp set Booed also from Neat and Tangled. The shimmery white is showing through in some places and the sentiment doesn’t look as solid as I would have liked, even after adding clear embossing powder over it. I used that Black Soot Distress Oxide I got out earlier and stamped it twice using my MINI MISTI (which really is the most incredible stamping tool invented, ever) but still the shimmer showed through so lesson learnt, I guess. Shimmer after, not before stamping sentiments. Again, not the best photo but hopefully you get the picture.

My background panel I cut out using a lovely scalloped die from Winnie & Walter, it’s part of a set called Essentials: Noelle’s cutaways. I adhered it with double sided sticky foam sheet, trimmed to size, to a card base made with Lawn Fawn Black Licorice card stock. I thought it needed a little something else and sequins didn’t quite feel Halloween to me so instead I added some cute little spider webs that I cut out using the coordinating Booed die from Neat & Tangled. I trimmed the cutouts a little to make them fit my card and then added in a little bit of extra spiderweb too.

The little ghost was adhered with a bit of foam tape to raise him up and make him look like he’s floating/hoovering, because that’s what ghosts do. And with that, the card was done.

Now, just because I could and it’s very fun, I played around with some filters and stuff. The photo above has a filter on it called ‘Dramatic’ which I thought was both apropos as I have been known to be a biiiiiiit of a drama queen at times and it added a dramatic flair to the photo. The one below has one called ‘Noir’ added to it and whoa, THAT added some drama for sure! I know the actual card doesn’t show up very well but it’s rather scary looking with that pumpkin stalking it in the background. My scary-levels are probably pretty low compared to most people though.

Almost everything I have used for this card I’ve posted links to for easy shopping, in case you need one or five of them (#enableralert) but I don’t have any affiliate links or anything, this is just to make things easier for you to find what I have used. Just in case… I might have mentioned that Christmas is coming soon?

Take care and see you all soon!

The Ton challenge blog card Oct-17

Hi!

Yep, I’m back already with my first actual crafting blog post even though my blog isn’t even 24hrs old yet. If you were to look up excited in the dictionary right now, I would not be surprised if there was a picture of me there! Very excited indeed!

I am a big fan of The Ton stamps and have been since from the beginning, so it feels very right that my first blog post on my very own blog (I might repeat that a few times, it sounds so great!) is a card made with stamps from them. A few days ago I received a rather large order I had placed and I was absolutely giddy with excitement! There isn’t quite anything like opening a package full of happy mail *cue craft nerd squeak* If you don’t believe me, I have video proof right here. Consider yourself warned though, there is a lot of shrieking and squeaking.

The current challenge over at The Ton Challenge Blog has a gorgeous mood board and using that for inspiration, I started picking out Distress Oxide inks to do some ink blending with.

 

Now, this is a heavily coffee inspired mood board so you’d think it’s right up my alley considering what a coffee addict/snob I am. Funnily enough, I just saw the soft colours like yellows and pinks… nuts, isn’t it? Well, the month isn’t over, I might actually make another card using this mood board.

The stamp set I decided to go with for this post is called Brushed Hello and is a big, bold scripty ‘hello’ and some great sentiment builders which makes this a very versatile stamp set. Using my MISTI I placed the stamps so it wrote ‘It’s been a while, hello friend’ and on Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour card stock I stamped it in VersaMark ink. Then I drizzled a very generous helping of Rose Gold Embossing Powder over it and shook off the excess. Before I had done any stamping I used my anti-static tool all over my panel to avoid any stray bits of embossing powder sticking to it. A quick melting job with my heat-gun later and it was time to decide what colours to use.

Ink wise I used Antique Linen, Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry. I blended these in an ombré way over the panel and then splattered a generous amount of water all over it. Dabbing a paper towel on it I made sure it was all picked up before all the colours were bleached off. I simply love this look with the random droplets on the panel and I do this pretty much every time I do ink blending. I also trimmed off a bit of the panel so it’s now 4” wide. It was 5.5”x4.25” to begin with.

For my card base I used my favorite soft gray card stock from Simon Says Stamp called Fog, it’s a lovely shade of gray and I probably use it too much. Especially for project where I feel bright white is too harsh. I have a load of pre-cut and pre-folded card bases ready to be used as I have a terrible habit of making the card panel but not putting it on a card base if I don’t have one pre-prepared. It sounds silly but it’s one of those things I really don’t like doing… cutting and scoring, cutting and scoring… meh, it’s boring. #firstworldproblems or what??

To add a little bit of height and some dimension to the card, I adhered the panel to the card base using 1.4mm thick foam sheet that I had cut to size.

Now, no card is complete without a few sequins, right? As the sentiment is bold I thought a few clear sequins would be just the thing. Now, I say ‘a few’ but this is my idea of a few. Other’s may have a different opinion on what qualifies as ‘a few’. Seven might, in all honesty, be more than a few… so sue me, I love sequins, lol!

Using my pointy tweezers and some Glossy Accents I got to work adhering my few *cough cough* sequins. As a one last touch, I also drew a curved line with a white gel pen under the word ‘friend’ as it was kind of fading away with it being rose gold embossing powder and having pink inks all around it. With that, the card was done and I have my very first blog post done for my very own blog! I know, I know.. I’m repeating myself over and over! I’m sure the excitement will fade a little… soon.. ish… with time… eh, give me a few months, would ya?? 😉

Happy crafting and thank you so much for stopping by, you have no idea how much it means to me! Mwah!

Erica

 

First blog post and welcome to CaCaCrafts blog

Hi, hi, hello!

Welcome to my brand new blog!!

In fact, it’s so new that I haven’t even gotten any photos uploaded yet apart from a little picture of me to put a face to my name. I couldn’t wait to get it started so I simply dove in the deep end! I’m sure the learning curve will be steep and things will change a fair  few times before I’m happy with the whole set up but it was time to stop thinking about it and, like the good people over at Nike says, just do it.

It is something I have been thinking about doing for quite some time actually, about two years if we are being honest, and today the day finally arrived. I’m here and ready to blog my crafty little heart out.

If this is your first time “meeting” me; hi, I’m Erica and I’m a complete and utter craft nerd. Self-confessed craft-oholic. Obsessed with creating. Give me paper, stamps and pens over a party any day. Unless it’s a crafting party. You get the picture.

I use several different mediums, Copic markers, Zig Clean Color markers, coloured pencils, water colours, inks… you name it, I probably love it. Stamping and colouring are basically the keys to keeping me sane. If I didn’t have a creative outlet, I’m quite sure I’d be a basket case.

I have a sweet, generous husband whom I tend to refer to as The Man and two gorgeous little rescue dogs from Spain called Mar-Mar and Gem-Gem. They go under the nickname The Cheeky Chicas. We are big on nicknames in this house. I will save some of my ego by not mention what The Man calls me, he’s rather mischievous, that rascal!

Well, that’s a little bit about me but I will add more as I go along. I merely wanted to introduce myself and say hi!

I hope to see you soon again!

Erica