Tag: Life Changing Blender Brushes

5K Subscribers Together | Rainbow Hop |video hop winner announcements!

Hi *waves sheepishly*

Back in June my friend Maria Willis, AKA CardBomb, and I hosted a YouTube video hop together, celebrating (a bit early) reaching 2.5K subscribers each. At the time of the hop, neither one of us had actually made it there, and we are still a bit short. We are also very late with the winner announcements. Apologies about that, life happened at a rapid pace for both of us and we couldn’t get it done in time.

If you want to skip straight to the VIDEO CLICK HERE.

If you missed the Rainbow themed video, and the entire hop, you should definitely check it out as we roped in some of our fabulous crafty friends to hop along with us!

For that video I only managed one card, but of course it was a sparkly-licious rainbow card! It was so fun to make and I love that extra pop of the sparkle on the rainbow. If you want to read all about it, you can find that BLOG POST HERE.

I used an array of the companies that sponsored the hop, including Pinkfresh, Picket Fence Studios, Concord&9th, Hero Arts and WOW! Embossing.

For this video I decided to use another mix of sponsors, to highlight them a bit too. They so generously offered prizes and the hop would definitely not have been the same without them.

The first card I made with a gorgeous stencil from Gina K Designs, called Mandala Burst. Stencils are one of my fave items to work with, they are so versatile and affordable! After spraying the stencils with Pixie Spray, I set those aside to cure for a few minutes (this is a critical step, do not skip this!) while I got out the rest of the stuff I wanted to use.

First off I inkblended some Atelier Inks, from Ink On 3, through the Mandala Burst stencil with my Life Changing Blender Brushes, from left to right Peacock Blue, Goddess Green, Bee Sting Yellow, Marigold Orange and Sweet Petunia Pink.

Over this I stamped the Love Is Love Bold Print from Hero Arts, in black ink with the help of my MISTI. Thanks to having just re-inked my Black Hybrid ink pad I only needed to stamp once but better safe than sorry, right??

With the background panel done, I trimmed it down with a stitched rectangle die from Lawn Fawn. While I had my Diecutting machine out I cut out three ‘thinking of you’ out of white card stock and one out of black card stock. These I layered up with Nuvo Deluxe adhesive, and then on the top (black) layer I heat embossed Clear Gloss embossing powder to give it a nice shiny look. I did two layers of it, for that puffy sticker look. I love that, and it’s one of my fave ways to elevate word dies.

A sentiment from the Thinking Of You stamp set, the coordinating stamps to the word die, was stamped up in black ink on white card stock and trimmed down. This was addhed to the card, and the word die right underneath it. With that, the first card was done. Without a single sequin on it too!! Whaaaaa??

The second card was done with a rainbow stencil from Erin Lee Creative. This one was part of a kit, and isn’t available now, BUT she has a load of other super fun rainbow stencils and rainbow dies. You defintely want to check out her shop and support a small business!

Instead of ink blending, I used my beloved Paper Glazes from Picket Fence Studios. I absolutely LOVE these, not only are they fun to play with but they look fan-freaking-amazeballs-tastic too. That shimmer and shine is enough to mesmerize me, every time!

From left to right, I’ve used Agapatha Purple, Peony Pink, Daffodil Yellow, Lime Zinnia, Ocean Poppy and Cornflower Blue. I actually did this right after I had done the ink blending for the first card, and while the Paper Glaze was drying I worked on all the other bits and pieces for the first card. Multi tasking and all that, right?

I used the same stitched rectangle die on this panel and then it was simply finished off with a sweet sentiment in black ink. The one I chose is from a Gina K Design stamp set, called Watercolor Flowers. Super simple, but with a pop of colour and a sweet sentiment, you don’t need much else sometimes.

That’s it from me for today, but don’t forget to check out the WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO to see if you are one of the many winners!! Also, Maria wrote a blog post on her blog and made a video for her YouTube channel, so make sure to check out those as well.

Some compensated affiliate links have been used in this post, for your convenience, at no extra cost to you. Any earnings I get from these links go directly back into the running of my blog, Instagram and YouTube channel so thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with these links. I really appreicate it!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

5K Together YouTube Subscribers Hop!

Hi everyone!

Today’s post is a little celebration for myself and a dear crafting friend, Maria Willis, for sort of reaching a milestone of 5000 subscriber combined. I didn’t quite make it to the 2.5K subscribers as I had hoped, as I haven’t been so active recently due to a stressful family situation. If you haven’t heard anything about it, my FIL is not doing well and will have a very risky operation on Monday, after over a month in hospital. The Man flew out this morning and it was quite stressful and hectic to get it all sorted and organised. Hecking pandemic, eh??

If you want to skip right to the hop, start over at Maria’s YouTube video, and go from there. I am the last stop on the loop, but if you want to go to my video, you can click on THIS LINK to get there.

Life is tough at times and I think it’s important to celebrate and cherish the happy times as you never know when the tide will turn. Hence this little hop! Maria and I roped in some of our crafty friends to make the hop bigger than just two stops, and you are not going to want to miss their projects! The full hop list can be found below, and we also have some super generous companies sponsoring prizes for a massive giveaway to celebrate us.

I have a couple little projects to share today, and as the theme for the hop is ‘Rainbow’ I’ll start with that one:

Out of Neenah Solar White #110 card stock, I cut out two rainbows using the Color Block Rainbow die from Pinkfresh Studio. I did two because I wanted to layer up the pieces for some dimension on the card.

Each ‘ray’ of the rainbow got colour added in a slight ombré effect, with Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios (my go-to blending tools!) and ink colours from Concord & 9th, and also a dab of Ballet Slipper from Pinkfresh. I don’t know why I didn’t use the pink from Concord & 9th. Who knows what goes on in this head of mine at times??

Once they were all colourful and pretty, I glued them down with the Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive onto the second, intact, rainbow, and this in turn was adhered to another piece of card stock for sturdiness. The excess was trimmed off with scissors. I needed it very sturdy as I wanted to heat emboss Halo Glitter Powder from WOW! Embossing on top for shimmer.

This process is very simple: dab your embossing ink pad all over the rainbow, make sure it’s nice and juicy first though. Then sprinkle the Halo Glitter on top and set that with your heat tool. The simmer is insane and I love it!

Sentiment wise I used ‘Believe in yourself, like I believe in you’ from the Hero Arts and Honey Bee Stamps collaboration set Stronger Together. This is stamped directly onto the card base, with Hybrid Black Ink, with the help of the MISTI and the rainbow as a guide where to place the sentiment. I also added lots of hearts from the set, these are also stamped up with black ink.

Unfortunately I made a boo-boo with the hearts, so I HAD TO bring out the sequins to cover that up. Had to. There was simply no other option. I added a few… -ish… to the card, these are Sparkling Clear from Pretty Pink Posh, and they are adhered with Nuvo Deluxe adhesive. It’s become my new staple in liquid adhesives arsenal.

So that’s the rainbow card. The next card is done with one of the new sets from Ellen Hutson, it’s release day today! It’s called Pressing Thoughts and it’s illustrated by Brandi Kincaid. It has a coordinating diecut too! YAY!

It’s coloured very simply with some copics in yellows and greens, and a tiny bit of purple on the stamens. The coordinating diecut was used to cut it out, as well as another two layers. These three pieces were adhered together with more of that Nuvo Deluxe adhesive. This is such a clever way to add some interest to clean and simple cards!

It was trimmed down to a mini-slimline size, this one is just a tad bigger than 3”x6” and the scalloped black card base was cut out using the Scallop Frame Slimline Diecutting System from Picket Fence Studios. I customised the size by running the diecut and the card stock through my diecutting machine twice to get the scalloped frame and the correct size.

The sentiment is from the Pressing Thoughts stamp set, and the ‘thanks’ was stamped directly onto the background and the ‘for everything’ was done on a slim strip of card stock. This was adhered with a little bit of foam tape to make sure it didn’t sag on the sides. And that was it!

Well, that’s it from me for today but I really hope you enjoyed this post and will get a chance to hop along with us over on YouTube! That’s where you need to leave your comments to be in with a chance to win one of the fab prizes. We can not thank the sponsors of this hop enough!

I have also used some compensated affiliate links in this blog post, for your convenience and at no extra cost to you, in case you want to shop! If you shop using my links I get commission directly from the company, and as I mentioned, it doesn’t cost you anything at all. This is a great way to show support for your favorite content creators.

Thank you so much for stopping by, and if you want to get hopping, the full hop list is down below. I’m 100% sure it will blow your mind so don’t miss it!!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Maria Willis

Marie Heiderscheit

Kari

Ardyth

Channin

Jessica

Jen Kray

Carly

Erica (that’s me)

Picket Fence Studios Slim Line Card Bonanza part2!

Hi Slim Line card lovers! Ok, that sounded a bit creepy, let’s just stick to ‘hi’.

So, building on from yesterdays Picket Fence Studios release post, which you can find HERE, if you missed it, today’s post is all about finishing off the backgrounds. Rather than do every single one in this post, I thought I’d focus on two of my faves and two of my least faves, to kind of challenge myself. Funnily enough, all four of these are done with the Slim Line Radial Stencil.

I did actually make a video for this too, you can find that over on my YouTube channel. If you want to skip directly to the video, click HERE.

So let’s start with the two I like the most, these are made with the Slim Line Radial Stencil with two different techniques. This first card is ink blended with Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey, Carved Pumpkin, Abandoned Coral and Barn Door. I did use a Life Changing Blender Brush for each colour.

I recently got ahold of the brand new Distress color from Tim Holtz, Crackling Campfire, and I used it with a sentiment from I Freaking Love you. To get a really intense look, I stamped it twice with the help of a MISTI. I also splattered it with gold and the final touch was some bling from the Screwdriver sequin mix.

On the next card I used the same sentiment, only in an ombré look, using the same ink colours as on the background. This is what I call ‘ink smoosh printing’. You basically ink blend as usual, but rather than cleaning off your stencil, you mist it with water to activate the ink, and then place a bit of water colour card on top and press down. Ta-da! Two in one!

Right, so this one I did horizontally, rather than vertically. With the help of my MISTI, I stamped up the same I Freaking Love You sentiment, and added ‘I’m obsessed with your awesomeness’ below from Favorite Notifications.

This one I kept simple, no bling-bling at all. Because of the way the colours lighter in the middle, I feel like the ombré sentient is drawing the eye in. Also, The Man keeps saying how I “over-sequinizing” on a regular basis *blows raspberries* so I do try to surprise him every now and again, by NOT adding a single one.

The next couple of cards are also done with the Slim Line Radial Stencil, and these were the two that I was the least happy with, as they were.

So, the darkest one, I kept really moody by adding a super snarky sentiment in Black Hybrid Ink. To keep with the moody vibe, I also sprayed a little bit of Nuvo Sparkle Spray in Morning Fog.

On the lighter one I used the Pain In My Ass stamp set, and stamped the sister silhouette image and one of the funny sentiments in Black Hybrid ink.

The sister silhouette I stamped quite a few times with the help of my Mini MISTI and the Black Hybrid ink. Then, on top of that, I stamped it again with VersaMark and heat embossed that with clear embossing powder to make it pop.

The fact that after finishing the cards, especially with the backgrounds that I didn’t really like, and making the backgrounds fit with the sentiment/mood, I actually ended up with cards that are actually send-worthy.

Well, that’s it from me for today. I hope you found some inspiration here and will take this post as some hope that you CAN rescue backgrounds that you don’t like, or use them in a different way. Don’t give up!

I have used compensated affiliate links in this post, for your convenience. These links do not cost you anything extra at all, but if you shop through these, I get a small commission from the company directly. Anything I earn from these links go direly back into the running of my blog, Youtube and Instagram so thank you so much if you choose to support me by using these links.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Picket Fence Studios September Release!

Hello, hello!

It’s the 14th, which seems to come along faster and faster once we pass July. Or is that just me? Well, time travel or not, it is release day from Picket Fence Studios and this month it’s all about the slim line stencils AND our new design team members! We are celebrating with a blog hop to introduce them and this month’s release in on fell swoop.

A blog hop wouldn’t be complete without a giveaway, and there are TWO $50 gift vouchers to the Picket Fence Studios shop up for grabs! All you have to do is leave a comment, and the more stops you leave comments on, the better your chance to win! Winners will be announced on the Picket Fence Studios blog on Monday the 21st. The full blog hop lineup is below:

Picket Fence Studios Blog 

Lydia Fiedler

Lisa Tilson

Ceal Pritchett

Susie Moore

Michelle Lupton

Angela Bode

Sara Sherlock

Judy Rozema

Becky Roberts

Karen Reátegui

Erica A-B <———-YOU ARE HERE

YOUR NEXT STOP——-> Ilina Crouse

Larisa Hohman

I do have a video on my YouTube channel showing the stencils and these finished backgrounds. You can find that VIDEO HERE.

There are five slim line stencils and I did my usual thing where I started playing, and then couldn’t stop! I had so many ideas to try out and some worked better than others, and in the end I had thirteen backgrounds! I’ve used a generous amount of Pixie Spray on all of the stencils to ensure crisp, clean lines.

The ones I am probably the least happy with are these two, below. I tried different ways to use the Slim Line Radial Stencil. On one I did a grey copic background first, then ink blended some Distress Oxides over it with the stencil. It didn’t work as well as I hoped but gave a grungy, dark look which will work well for Halloween cards as the stencil could be seen as spider web. Inks used for both are Mermaid Lagoon, Hickory Smoke and Black Soot.

On the second one I used the left over ink on my Life Changing Blender Brushes to create a less spooky look, by using a white card base. If you stop back in tomorrow, I will show you what I did with these backgrounds. Even though I wasn’t overly happy with them, I made them work!

Another way I used the Slim Line Radial Stencil was to make a sunset/lava heat look, by only using yellows, oranges and red Distress Oxide inks. I started with Squeezed Lemonade in the middle, next was Wild Honey, Carved Pumpkin, Abandoned Coral and Barn Door. It’s so easy getting the smooth coverage and blending with the Life Changing Blender Brushes.

After lifting the stencil off the first project, I spritzed it with water and placed another panel on top to create a soft water colour look with the leftover ink.

Then, of course, I had to do a rainbow colour wheel. Because why not, right?? This Radial Stencil was just begging to be colourful. I used a couple of sheets of acetate and PostIt Tape to mask off the areas I didn’t want to get ink on. Using Distress Oxide inks again, I used from 12 o’clock and clock wise: Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey, Carved Pumpkin, Abandoned Coral, Barn Door, Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Chipped Sapphire, Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron.

I also used two of the new Paper Glaze colours with this stencil! The colours used for both these are Artemisia Silver and Boysenberry Violet. One is done on white card stock and the other one on Black Satin card stock from Tonic. One of my bottles of Pixie Spray was running out and it ended up coming out very thick, which strangely ended up looking like thick spiderweb on the stencils. That made the Paper Glaze go a bit messy in certain spots.

Next up was the Slim Line Leaf Stencil! I used Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn on both these, but in different ways. To create the shine, I used Texture Paste Gloss from Ranger.

On the first one, I ink blended the inks on the whole panel, the used the Leaf stencil and added the paste, to create a shiny pattern.

On the second one, I mixed the Paste with the inks to colour it, and then used that on a white piece of card stock. This would also look fab using the green Paper Glazes.

The Slim Line Floral Stencil is so dramatic and I really wanted to channel that drama, so I used the same Black Satin card stock from Tonic and Boysenberry Violet Paper Glaze. It looks FANTASTIC!!

Next up, we have Slim Line Broken Fence Stencil. With this one, I used a pre-ink blended background I made a little while ago. Inks used are Mowed Lawn, Twisted Citron, Squeezed Lemonade, Wild Honey, Abandoned Coral, Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean and Peacock Feathers. OF COURSE it’s done with Life Changing Blender Brushes.

After cutting down a panel, the same size as the stencil, I used Black Pansy, Artemesia Silver and Snowdrop White on top of the stencil and blended the colours from black to white, with the silver in the middle.

Last, but certainly not least, the Slim Line Dashes Stencil! With this stencil, I did a similar thing to the red Radial backgrounds. I ink blended on one panel first (with the colours in the photo, look above for links) then removed that before I spritzed the stencil with water and placed another panel on top to pick up the leftover ink.

We do have another rainbow, surprise, surprise! However, to take this up a notch, I placed the Dashes stencil back over the pattern, after the spritzing, and added Iridescent Glitz Glitter Gel from Gina K on top! It came out sparkly like a unicorn fart!!

So, whilst I haven’t actually finished any cards with these, I wanted to show the many, MANY possibilities with these stencils. A stencil really is a smart investment as you can do so many different techniques with them!

That’s it from me for today, I hope you enjoyed this very colourful post and found some inspiration here, and along the rest of the blog hop. If you did, and consider treating yourself to a few little things, I would be so grateful if you’d use my compensated affiliate links, in this post. They do not cost you any extra at all, and the company it’s affiliated with will give me a small commission as a thank you for directing you to them.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

You Say Witch Like It’s A Bad Thing! | STAMPtember 2019

Hi guys!

Today’s card is made with one of the Simon Says Stamp STAMPtember set from last year, If The Hat Fits, combined with their Spider Web Background stamp. I’m not much into Halloween and scary stuff, that’s just not my jam at all. Making Halloween cards, however, I for some reason, love making!

I started out by stamping up two of the hats on Neenah card stock with Black Hybrid ink from Picket Fence Studios, as this is Copic friendly.

I used quite a few of the Cool Grey Copics to colour in the hat, but still getting some highlights and contrast to it. Both hats were done in the same colours and the accessories were done in “witchy” colours.

Thankfully for me, as I’m not a fan of fussy cutting, there are coordinating diecuts for this set too, and I used them to cut out the hats.

The background is the Spider Web Background stamp, heatembossed in Opaque Bright White on Eggplant card stock from Concord & 9th. For some reason, despite using an anti-static tool on the card stock first, there was a lot of stray powder all over it and it felt too fiddly to try cleaning that up. The effect was sort of a dusty spiderweb, which actually worked out pretty cool.

To make it look a bit spookier, and also to draw the eye in, I ink blended some Black Soot with a Life Changing Blender Brush around the edges. Doing this works really well with coloured card stock, if you want to add a more dimensional look to your background.

That little piece of acetate with the PostIt tape is a clever little tool I use to keep my fingers off my project, both to avoid finger prints on my ink blending and smudging the ink. It’s super inexpensive and works a treat. After doing the ink blending, I splattered some gold water colour on it and set that aside to dry.

I also heat embossed one of the funny sentiments, from If The Hat Fits, in white on black card stock. This piece I cut out with the Stitched Circle dies, and did another one in white card stock, in the next size up.

To finish off the card I adhered all these bits and pieces to the background with Lawn Fawn glue tube. For an extra pop, I added some Glossy Accents to the green ribbon hat and to the buckle and the moon, on the other hat.

The last finishing touch were some matte black and iridescent black sequins, which I adhered with more Glossy Accents.

With that, I’m all done! I hope you found some inspiration where with me today. If you did, I’d be ever so grateful if you would use the compensated affiliate links provided in this blog post. Using these do not cost you anything extra at all, the company the links are affiliate to, pay me a small commission directly as a thank you for directing you to them. These earnings, however small, help keep my little blog, YouTube channel and Instagram feed fun and fresh for you, so thank you if you use them! It means a lot to me.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

PFS August Release | Stella Puppy Cards

Hi guys!!

Where are my fellow crazy dog people at? In this month’s Picket Fence Studio release there is a super cute puppy stamp called Stella Puppy.

It looks so much like my sweet Lab boy Hercules, who we lost back in 2016 after a very short, but ferocious health issue battle. Less than six weeks after that, we lost our remaining Lab, called Molly, in a tragic accident. The cards I got from friends after we lost them meant the world to me, because losing a fur baby, never mind two, is one of the most gut wrenching things you can ever go through.

I’ve made two card, doing my thing where they are similar but slightly different. On the first card I stamped the Stella Puppy up with my MISTI and Black Hybrid ink directly onto a card base of Neenah card stock. After setting the ink with my WOW! Embossing heat tool, I got to work with Copics. I don’t have a photo of the first one, but here is the second one I did.

I wanted to add a rainbow on the background but I don’t have a rainbow stencil *insert shocked gasps and wide-eyed looks here* I know, it’s shocking. So, what to do? Well, I made my own! First I cut out a mask and added over most of the doggie, then I used a small bowl to cut out a curved shape out of card stock. This I used as a stencil/mask and ink blended Ink On 3 Atelier Inks in Bee Sting Yellow, Goddess Green, Peacock Blue, My Jam Purple and Marilyn Red with Life Changing Blender Brushes.

My brushes are a little bit over-saturated and need a spa day, and I should have used a new mask for each colour, as they blended into each other BUT it did also give me an extra teal colour between green and blue. The last bit, in the top left corner, I should have skipped because I feel like it got too dark, but oh well.

On white card stock I stamped up some sentiments from the Stella Puppy set with Black Hybrid ink. These I trimmed down as much as I could and then added over some areas where I wasn’t happy the colouring and ink blending had overlapped.

The final touch was to add some Glossy Accents to the little nose and set it aside to dry.

On my second card, for which there is a video on my YouTube channel, I tried applying what I learnt from the first card. With some success and some more issues. Card making is never straightforward in my craft room, lol!

For this, I decided to stamp up the Stella Puppy on a separate piece of Copic friendly card stock, with my Mini MISTI with the Black Hybrid Ink, colour it in and then fussy cut it out. I used slightly different colour Copics on this one and I think the depth is better, than the first one, so that was good. You can see the difference in the photo above.

Second, I used a sheet of acetate to make my “stencil”, instead of card stock. The reasoning for this is that with acetate I can just wipe off the ink, and have less contamination. Good start. Less good execution. I used a, what I thought was, permanent marker to draw the shape of the curve of the rainbow. Well, it was less permanent and more smudgy than I realised, which led to a slightly dirty looking yellow bit. I trimmed off the part with the marker on it, and carried on.

I used the same Atelier Inks on this one, in the same order, after wiping my Life Changing Blender Brushes on kitchen towels. I also used a lighter hand with the inks.

With the negative part of the stencil/mask I was able to add more green to the background, without mixing in the blue. This is better explained in the video, but I didn’t add enough green or moved the stencil/mask too far when I did the blue, which left a gap. By covering up the blue with the negative bit, I was able to add the green without contaminating the blue. Pretty smart, huh?

On this card, I stamped up the sentiments, again from Stella Puppy, directly onto the card base with Black Hybrid ink. Then I adhered the fussy cut puppy with liquid glue and added the Glossy Accent to the nose.

There is another sweet pet stamp in the release called Your Friend Dear. I’ve done the same thing with this stamp: basically the same layout, but different looks.

This was the one I started with, and I actually stopped midway because I was not very happy with the colouring of the dog. I couldn’t make it work!

In order to get me out of that funk, I stamped it up again and tried another colour combination, this time with Warm Greys. This worked better and I finished off the card with a very colourful girl, and a simple sentiment from Levels Of Friendship. And the Glossy Accent again.

With this one being a success, and also my meh-ness about the first one having died down a little, I thought I’d give it another go. I’m very glad I did because I did actually manage to turn it around!

To make sure this one was different than the first one, with all that white space, I cut a mask out and placed over the image. Over this I used the Fancy Kaleidoscope stencil and Distress Oxide inks in Wild Honey, Worn Lipstick and a hint of Abandoned Coral. They created this gorgeous glow around the image and I love how it turned out!

The final touch for this card was to stamp up the sentiment that comes with Your Friend Dear, in Black Hybrid ink and with that, it was all done. The last two cards are not in it, but there is a video for one of the rainbow puppy cards on my YouTube channel.

The August release from Picket Fence Studio is now available and if you shop any of these links, which are compensated affiliate links to various companies, I will get a small commission directly from the company it’s affiliated with. It won’t cost you anything extra at all, but the potential earnings from these links will keep my blog, YouTube and Instagram fresh and fun. Thank you so much if you choose to support me this way.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work

My blog (that’s right here)

Instagram

My YouTube channel

CaCaCraft on Facebook

Catherine Pooler & WOW! Embossing Collab!

Welcome to a fabulous blog hop! Both the Catherine Pooler Designs & WOW! Embossing Powder Design Teams have joined forces to bring you some stamping & heat embossing fun. Some of the design team are using some fabulous new products from both Catherine Pooler Designs & WOW! Embossing Powders stores.

You should have come here from the one and only Catherine Pooler’s blog, and your next stop is the talented Chrissie Tobias! I have included the full blog hop list at the bottom of this post and if you get lost along the way you can find it on the Catherine Pooler Blog as well as the WOW! Embossing blog.

A blog hop wouldn’t be as fun without some prizes up for grabs and this one is no different! Both companies are giving away a $25 gift voucher to their stores and all you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be in with a chance to win. The more comments you leave along the hop, the more chances to win! Not to mention, inspiration to collect along the way!!

Right, with all that out of the way, let’s get to my cards, shall we?

I decided to CASE one of my cards from the Forever 13 release, but put a sparkly twist on it. This is the original card. The stamp set is called Beautiful Sentiment.

I picked out the same colours of Catherine Pooler inks: Limoncello, Orange Peel, Rockin’ Red, Grape Crush, Suede Shoes, Aquatini and Lime Rickey. I also picked out matching, or as close as possible, glitter powders from WOW! Embossing: Sorbet, Tangerine Dream, Rockin’ Red, Tickle, Something Blue, Curacao and Lime Rickey. Oh and the Embossing Pad, of course.

With MISTI in one hand and inks in the other, I was just about to go to town when I had an idea. As it would no doubt be a bit fiddly to get it done without getting the glitters mixed up, I thought why not mix some clear embossing powder with the new Changers and add sparkle like that. In a little tub I mixed some of the Glisten powder with clear embossing powder and violá! Glitter added without much fiddling and colours getting mixed up.

It turned out fabulous, if I may say so myself. Due to some miscalculations where to stamp the Smile bit, I had to skip out on the purple one though. Oh well, it left space for the rest of the sentiment to be added without overlapping so it worked out ok anyway.

On my original card I did this in black ink and clear embossing powder over, but on this one I used the Glisten powder over the sentiment once stamped in black.

It almost took on a violet hue after I set the embossing powder with my heat tool! So cool!

While I had all the inks and glitter powders out, I thought, why not make another one? This time I used the Beautiful stamp from the Beautiful Sentiment.

First I stamped it with a colour, then I cleaned it off with my Stamp Scrubber, then dabbed the Embossing Pad on it and sprinkled the coordinating glitter powder over it.

I again miscalculated the spacing and ended up stamping the Limoncello and Sorbet combo twice. Once at the top of the card and once at the bottom.

On this one I stamped up You Are, Inside & Out as well as a heart from the Beautiful Sentiments. This time I stuck to black ink and clear embossing powder.

With that, I’m all done for today! I hope you like these cards as much as I enjoyed making them. Now it’s time to hop on to the next person on the list and don’t forget to leave comments along the way to be in with a chance to win the prizes! Winners will be announced the week of May 11th!

I have used compensated affiliate links in this post, which means I get a small commission from the company directly at no extra cost to you whatsoever, if you shop using these links. Any earnings I get from these links go back into keep up with the craft shenanigans I get myself into on a daily basis. If you enjoy my work and jibber-jabber, I’d be so grateful if you choose to support me this way. Thank you in advance!

That’s it from me, below you will find the entire hop list! Have fun and be inspired! Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica!

Catherine Pooler Blog
Erica A-B (You are here!)
Chrissie Tobas
Heather Mitchell

Karen Baker
Ashlee McGregor
Susan Powell
Verity Biddlecombe
Ilina Crouse
Jenny Colacicco
Daniel West
Jo Herbert
Wow! Embossing Blog

Below are affiliate links to Ellen Hutson shop

Solar White – 25 pk, Neenah Classic Crest Cardstock

Solar White – 250 Sheet Ream, Neenah Classic Crest Cardstock

Limoncello, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Orange Peel, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Rockin Red, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Grape Crush, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Suede Shoes, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Aquatini, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Lime Rickey, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad

Lime Rickey by Catherine Pooler – WOW Embossing Powder, Regular

Something Borrowed by Catherine Pooler – WOW Embossing Powder, Regular

Rockin’ Red by Catherine Pooler – WOW Embossing Powder, Regular

Dual Speed Heat Tool, WOW

WOW Embossing Pad, Ultra Slow Drying – Clear

Embossing Magic Bag, Inkadinkado

World Card Making Day!

Hi guys!

Today I am popping in with a card I made for Catherine Pooler’s Stamp Nation’s celebration of World Card Making Day 2019.

I was challenged to use the Swedish Midsommar (as in Midsummer) as inspiration to create a collage and use that for my card. Here is my collage:

And here is my card:

To create this I used a whole array of luscious inks from Catherine Pooler, as well as a stencil called Twisted Sunburst. I used my Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios for the ink blending part, and I also created a negative mask to make sure I didn’t muddle up the colours.

The inks I have used are shown here:

However, before I got to this stage I stamped up all my inks on strips of paper to make swatches. This is great to have when you need to know what a colour will look like when it’s dry. Creating swatches is also relaxing and fun so win-win!

Something I use all the time now, when I do ink blending over stencils, is the brilliant invention of Pixie Spray. It’s so great and it makes such a difference! If you struggle with stencils flapping about when you try doing ink blending, this stuff is for you.

As I mentioned, I created a negative mask of sorts, to keep the areas of ink blending from getting muddled. To create this “mask” I used a thin sheet of printer paper and rubbed a pencil over it, with the stencil under, so it created the same pattern.

With the help of a small pair of scissors and a scalpel, I cut out a hole big enough for two of the rays. Then I erased the rest of the marks with an eraser.

I had to repeat this process four more times to make sure the ink that got on the paper, didn’t transfer to the area I was working on. And I used a different Life Changing Blender Brush for each colour family to avoid colour contamination.

When all the sections were covered with ink, I dabbed a VersaMark inkpad ALL over the panel. Not just a little, but a lot! After removing the stencil, I sprinkled Clear Embossing Powder from WOW! Embossing Powder all over it and made sure it was very well covered. I used a cork mat to spare my fingers during the heat embossing part as it took a little while to melt it all.

Well worth the effort though, right?? I love how it turned out! To finish it off, I heat embossed a round sentiment from the Happiness Enclosed stamp set, in Opaque Bright White embossing powder, on black card stock. Using scissors I fussy cut this out and added it to the card with foam tape. With that, the card was done!

What do you think?

Well, that’s it from me for today. Thank you for stopping by and don’t forget to check out Stamp Nation for giveaway and prizes! Affiliate links supplied at no extra cost to you, throughout post.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Ardyth’s 3k YouTube hop!

Hi guys!

Today I’m taking part in a YouTube hop to celebrate my crafty friend Ardyth reaching 3000 subscribers! Congratulations, it’s so well-deserved! If you don’t subscriber to her channel yet, you are missing out. She’s amazing! Check out her video and channel HERE.

There are prizes from some fabulous sponsors too and there are about 20 odd stops on the hop so you have lot of chances to win! All you have to do is leave a comment by the 18th of October.

If you want to skip right to the YouTube hop, go to Ardyth’s blog for the full list of participants, prizes and rules.

For my card, I have used a stamp set from Ellen Hutson called Mondo Peony. I love this big, bold flower! It’s just lovely. It’s stamped up with Inkon3’s copic friendly ink, Blackout Detail Ink on Neenah #110 Solar White card stock. I went dark pink for the colouring and you can see some of it in a time-lapse video in my video over on my YouTube channel.

The background is easy and fun to create. With the help of my MISTI, I stamped up the two leaves from the Mondo Peony set towards the top the panel. Which is Bristol Vellum paper and it’s done with Inkon3’s Embossing ink. Before I did that, I used my anti-static tool very generously all over the paper. After stamping up the first two leaves, I swapped the panel around and stamped them again on the other side. I sprinkled WOW! Embossing powder in Opaque White all over these and set them with the heat gun. After checking the placement of the leaves in relation to my flower, which I should have done before stamping them really, I realised they would not show very well. So I stamped up another two and heat embossed them in white too.

Armed with my Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios and some green Distress Oxide inks, I chose Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio and Mowed Lawn, I went to town with ink blending. I covered both the background panel and the two extra leaves. Once all done, I cut the leaves out using the coordinating diecuts.

These were a bit too big for the background though so I cut the leaves apart and with the flower as a guide, I placed them on the background where they would fill in the gaps. I have finally gotten ahold of Press’n’Seal and used this for the first time to pick up the flower and leaves! With that whole shebang turned over, I adhered a flower sized piece of foam sheet that I had cut out using the coordinating diecut. Once that was secured in place it was easy peasy to adhered that to the background. Which I had also fixed to a card base at this point.

Sentiment wise I used one of my staple stamp sets: Birdie Brown’s Greetings Galore from MFT Stamps. I heat embossed it in Metallic Rich Gold from WOW! On black card stock and cut it out using a small banner die from the Blueprint Dienamic set. This was quickly adhered with more Glue Tube adhesive. If you can’t find that particulate BluePrint dienamic set, I can recommend the Everyday Sentiment Banners from Lawn Fawn instead. They are another staple of mine and I use them all the time.

I could have stopped here but of course I didn’t. I added a very generous sprinkling of Sparkling Clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh with the help of the Glue Tube from Lawn Fawn. I actually toyed with the idea of adding Glossy Accents to the card too but finally managed to rein in myself and step away, lol!

That’s it from me for today. Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the hop!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Picket Fence Studios | SSS Stampteber Collaboration Card | 12 Weekends Of Christmas

Hi guys!
Today’s card is a quick one featuring the exclusive Picket Fence Studios Stamptember stamp set, Shake Your Flake, from Simon Says Stamps!

SSSStamptember

Unfortunately, due to the postal force not being with me or on my side, I didn’t get my stamp set in time to participate in the festivities on the day it was launched. So I’m making up for it now instead! I will also put this card in with my 12 Weekends Of Christmas Series as I’m scrambling to make up enough Christmas cards in time for the holidays! Even though technically it’s not the weekend.. unless we pretend it’s a really long weekend this week? Yep, I’m gonna go for it.

I stamped up the cute snowman with the kitty, as well as the dog, on Copic friendly paper and coloured them in. Once all done, I fussy cut them out and set aside while I worked on the background.

Armed with my Life Changing Blender Brushes and Distress Oxide inks in an array of colours, I blended a northern lights inspired night sky. On top of this I also splattered lots of gold for stars and then white paint for snow flakes.

As the scene was featuring snow falling, I thought it would look cute for the snowman and the dog to sit on top of a snowy hill. I cut one out of vellum and another one out of hammered white card stock. This was done with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Border die.

I layered these up and trimmed them down before adhering them to the background, which I had adhered to a card base. Then I glued down the snowman and the doggie too. As a last flourish I thought I’d add some snow around the bottom of them, but I had a little bit of a mishap with my 3D snow. It flowed out far too quickly and soaked my snowman!

After drying, it looks a bit better but if you look really close, you can see the 3D snow has ‘crawled’ up the snowman a little. Oh well, I will have to remember that for next time I use that stuff. Or go straight to Puff Powder from WOW! Embossing instead.

The sentient I chose from the stamp set is ‘you are my favourite reason for the winter season’. I heat embossed this on a piece of vellum, with Antique Gold embossing powder from Altenew. This is trimmed down and wrapped around the card at the top. With that the card was done!

I’ve used some compensated affiliate links in this post, mostly to Picket Fence Studios, at no extra cost to you. Any links that are not affiliate links are there for your convenience. Happy shopping!

Thank you for much for stopping by today. Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

If you want to see more of my crafty shenanigans, come find me on social media

YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCLI_WLw9Et5Zd-DONeY5XDg

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My blog https://cacacraftblog.wordpress.com