Colourful news, collaborations and lots of shenanigans!

Hi guys, how are you today? All good, I hope. I’ve got lots to cover today, so let’s dive right in!

First of all, let’s talk about a fun collaboration between Picket Fence Studios and MFT Stamps! As part of this collaboration MFT Stamps generously sent me some inks to play with, and I mixed these with some fun Picket Fence goodies for a couple of colourful cards.

My first card is super simple to make, I used a small tree stamp from the Joyeux Noel set and on a white card base I stamped this repeatedly using six of the inks: Lemon Chiffon, Limelight, Summer Splash, Cotton Candy, Grape Jelly and Cement Gray.

I did this in three rows and then on top of this I stamped up ‘May your holiday be full of CHEER’ in Black Hybrid ink from Picket Fence.

Naturally, I couldn’t leave it simple, so I practically bedazzled the cards with gems from several gem mixes. Colour coordinated, of course.

For my second card, I used one of my fave stencils from Picket Fence: the Soar Butterfly stencil! I incidentally used the exact colours as on the first card, only this time I ink blended them using Life Changing Blender Brushes.

On the first card you can see how vibrant the colours are, and on the second you can see how easily they blend, for a soft look.

To make the butterfly stand out better, I cut out a mask and ink blended Cement Gray around this. The mask is done by tracing the outline of the stencil on paper, and fussy cutting this out. It was done on cheap copy paper, rather than masking paper. Once cut out, you place the stencil back over the colourful ink blending, making sure it’s in the right spot, then place the mask on top of this and ink blend around.

I have used a white gel pen to add in the antennas, because they did not stay in place. This panel was then trimmed down to 4″x5.25″ and adhered to a white card base with the help of foam tape. On top of this I have splattered some gold water colour, which you can get by mixing a small amount of Golden Rose paper glaze with water until you have a very liquid consistency.

No card is complete without a sentiment, and I used the ‘Friends make the world beautiful’ from the Fancy Friendship Sentiments set. To keep the card looking cohesive, I used Summer Splash ink and then used the coordinating diecut to cut it, as well as another two pieces out. These are layered up and adhered to the card, using Nuvo Deluxe adhesive.

The final touch, because it wasn’t shimmery enough *cough, cough, I have an embellishment problem* I added some gems from the Sands Of Time mix. I love this one!

In other news, it’s also Day 2 of Feature Day for LDRS! The theme is Fall Favorites but as I don’t have much stuff from LDRS yet, I winged it a bit and made a floral card and then plonked ‘Happy Fall’ on it to make it autumn-esque. Typically, I have a package coming next week with the new October Release stuff!! I can’t wait to try out the Perfect Petals layering dies!

In fairness to me, I’m still having summer vibes in my neck of the woods. It’s regularly +25C and glorious sunshine here, and lots of flowers are still blooming so it’s hard to get into ‘fall mode’. Plus I’m a summer gal through and through…

I used the Layered Poinsettia diecut and cut out LOADS of bits, in Bristol Vellum paper as I planned on doing lots of ink blending, with a splash of water colouring/ink smooshing. I wanted to try an idea to add colour to the bits, and that was to basically smoosh the pieces into the ink pads to get them covered with colour. It worked much better than ink smooshing actually, and left the colour much more vivid.

For the leaves I have used a mix of Key Lime Pie, Olive Branch and Evergreen. The little middle pieces for the flowers were done with Dan-D-Lion.

For the poinsettia leaves I did use Life Changing Blender Brushes, and I used Lipstick Jungle and Tickled Pink. I mixed and matched though, so that the layered pieces didn’t have the same colour on them. Hence why I cut out so many.

All the pieces were then layered up together using Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive.

While my flowers and leaves were drying, I cut out a panel of white card stock using the Diagonal Stitched Postage Frame Slimline dies, and this is my base for the card.

To finish it off I stamped up ‘Happy’ using Olive Branch ink on this panel, and I also cut out the word ‘fall’ using the Chloe Lowercase Alpha dies from a piece of card stock I dabbed Dan-D-Lion ink on.

So yeah…. it’s got Spanish autumn vibes, but I did have to use lots to creative discretion here to get it to work with the theme. Maybe it was a bit of a cop-out but hey, it sure made a pretty card!

For Feature Day 1 I made another floral card, only this time I used the Potted Poinsettia stamp set and coloured it in with Copics.

Thankfully this stamp set has a coordinating diecut too, so I used that to cut the image out and on the back of this I used LOTS of foam squares to pop it up.

The background is done by heat embossing the new Luxurious Chocolate embossing powder from WOW! Embossing on strips of Superior Smooth card stock. This is WOW! Embossings own white card stock and it is, as the name says, ultra smooth and crisp white. It’s really great for heat embossing!

On the pre-cut strips I dabbed my Embossing ink really well to make sure they were coated, then I sprinkled the Luxurious Chocolate embossing powder over them, tapped off the excess and then used the heat tool to set them.

These were then adhered to a trimmed down piece of card stock, with the help of my grid mat to make sure the spacing was even. This piece was then adhered to an actual card base, and then the Poinsettias were added on top.

The final touch was to stamp up Happy Holidays, from the Potted Poinsettias stamp set, in black ink on a skinny white banner. This was trimmed down to be even smaller than the background piece and then adhered on top of the flowers.

The last thing I’ve got to share today is a fab promotion from Pinkfresh Studio!

From today until the 4th of Nov you can take 15% off standalone slimline stencils using the code SLIMST15. It’s only valid on in-stock products, while supplies last. Don’t forget to use the code at checkout.

You can see how I have used some of the stencils in the photo below, stencils really are one of my favorite things to work with. They are versatile, great value for money and so much fun to play with!

Well, I think that’s it for today. What do you think? Is this format preferred over separate blog post showing each card on it’s own? I’d love to hear what you think and what you want to see from me so I can provide content that you will enjoy.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Fun collaboration with fun companies and fun products!

Hi everyone!

I’m back, again! This time it’s a two in one, rather than two separate posts. Today I’m taking part in two Instagram hops:

Click on the graphic to go to the post for the Picket Fence hop.

One is Waffle Flower with Picket Fence Studios, you can find my Instagram HERE. If you only want to hop along with one company, keep an eye out for the graphics and check the logo at the top to identify the post you want.

Click on the graphic to go to the post for Pinkfresh Studio

The second is Waffle Flower with Pinkfresh Studios. Both of the PFS teams are collaborating with Waffle Flower in celebrating their new stencilling mat and accessories, now available from Waffle Flower shop.

I got to play with the Stencil Mat, and I was a bit sceptical to be honest. Is this something I would have spent money on myself? Probably not as I already have the Water Media Mat. At least that was my opinion until I tried the Stencil Mat… I am a typical Taurus, and by that I don’t mean The Man’s definition of me as stubborn and bull-headed, both figuratively and literal. He calls my little curly crazies horns, and thinks he’s soooooo funny *insert rolling eyes here* but I digress. My point is that I’m wary of change and I’m sometimes slow to warm up to things.

Turns out it’s actually rather clever… (I also don’t like admitting I’m wrong, which thankfully I don’t have to do very often with The Man, lol) thanks to the silicone it’s sticking down onto your desk and isn’t flopping around, and it also helps keep my card stock in place. Huh. Interesting, right? I usually use lots of washi tape to hold my stencils in place because getting ahold of Pixie Spray in Europe is like finding ice in the Sahara (I’m being a tad dramatic here because I’m all out and I love that stuff) so I think that is a tick in the box for ‘good stuff’.

The Stencil Mat also easy to clean off, which is another tick for good, BUT it needs to be said that it does stain very easily. Not that it hinders the use of it, not in the slightest, but if that’s something that will bug you and you know it, this might not be for you. Be honest with yourself about this before investing in either of the mats.

Accessories wise you can get the stencilling mat in a Mini Stencil Mat size too, as well as Duo Brush Holders, a brush stand and Waffle Flower blender brushes. I also received the Duo Brush Holders and the Brush Stand that I use with my Life Changing Blender Brushes (in rainbow order, of course) from Picket Fence Studios. A clever thing about the Duo Brush holders is that they have big “feet” that slot into the square holes in the Water Media Mat, that I also have and did purchase myself.

Ok, so first off, I made a few cards with the Pinkfresh Studios Holiday Botanical Background Stencils and autumnal colours. I’m a summer gal through and through, but I do love autumn colours. So much so I made two cards, using slightly similar colour palettes.

One is fiery reds and oranges, with a sprinkling of purples. On this one I didn’t use the final stencil, which is the berries, as I felt the autumn vibe didn’t really need it. On this one I added quite a few sequins in a muted rose gold colour. These I got from a haberdashery so I have no idea what they are called, but pretty they are for sure!

The sentiment does say ‘Seasons Greetings‘ and I did foil it in Rose Gold glimmer foil with the hot foil plate. It’s also stacked with two more diecut layers to give it some dimension. As the background was trimmed down a little, I adhered this whole thing to a card base of Sunflower card stock from Lawn Fawn.

The second card is also done with the Holiday Botanical Background stencils, and purples. Here I have also used the browns; Doe, Gathered Twigs and Espresso, as well as Persimmon for the berries.

The berries are also heat embossed with Clear Gloss embossing powder from WOW! Embossing Powder to make them pop a little bit more.

Around the edges I ink blended whatever was left on the brush I had used with Persimmon and Doe, to give it a vintage feel. Having the card stock on the stencilling mat made it very easy to ink blend to do this.

The middle is left completely white to make the sentiment, Happy Holidays from Happy Holiday Circle Frame set, really stand out. This I heat embossed with Rose Gold, used the coordinating diecut on and layered up with another three pieces to give it lots of dimension.

So, that’s it for the Waffle Flower and Pinkfresh Studio collaboration part.

For the Waffle Flower and Picket Fence Studios collaboration, I used the Details Of A Wing stencil, lots of Life Changing Blender Brushes and from top left to bottom right corner inks: Lavender, Summer Shower, Fresh Pear, Lemon Whip, Apricot, Bubble Gum and Berrylicious. I tapped off a lot of the ink on the lids of the ink pads and on the Stencil Mat, then blended with a VERY light hand.

I think this would look so cool with a thin layer of Sparkle Paper Glitz on top, but that could be for another card. *saves idea in head and hopes it will pop up again at a later date*

I also coloured the Capricorn Girl with Copics, and then used the coordinating diecut on it. I coloured her with very dramatic colouring, from the teal ombrè hair, Kim K contoured makeup and coloured contacts, she pops!

While I had my die cutting machine I also cut out the Happy Birthday Word Topper twice out of white card stock and layered these up, with Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive. On top of this I stamped up ‘I hope you have a fantastic day’, from the Word Topper Subtitles stamp set, with Black Hybrid Ink.

These bits were then adhered to the ink blended background, and the card was finished! I’m still toying with the idea of adding some bling to this but I’m trying to resist the urge.

Right, so that’s it for now. I hope you have enjoyed these cards, and get a chance to hop along with us. There is bound to be lots of amazing inspiration along the way because the card makers along the stop are totally amazeballs!

As always, I have used compensated affiliate links in this post and, for transparency, Waffle Flower sent me the Stencil Mat, Duo Brush Holder and the Brush Stand to take part in this hop. Thank you to Waffle Flower for that!

Don’t forget to check out my blog post from yesterday too, about the Picket Fence Studios September Release. If you want to shop the new release, you can hop on over to the Picket Fence Studios shop by clicking HERE. Please be patient though, and see the notice from Picket Fence Studios below:

If you have been eyeing the new Paper Glitz, you can get those in AN ALL-IN BUNDLE, with all of the colours available. This stuff is amazing, I’m already so obsessed with Paper Glaze, and then Paper Glitz came along… and oooooh. I love making my own metallic and glitter card stock, as this is (to me) better value for money AND you can colour match to your project, which is fab.

Ok, I will let you get going now. Thanks again for stopping by, and if you shop with my compensated affiliate links, thank you so much for supporting me this way! Remember that shopping with affiliate links never cost you anything extra at all, but I do have to declare that I use them.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica