Tag: Picket Fence Studios

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

Ink Blending Extravaganza + Paper Glaze + Diecuts = Fun, colourful cards with NO colouring!

Hello, my colour-loving friends!

As much as I love colouring (she says whilst the inner child is jumping around with joy) sometimes I just don’t have the time or the energy to colour, but I still want colour on my cards. What a conundrum, right? This is where ink blending comes to the rescue and oh, how I love that technique too! It’s one of my go-to for a blast of colour FAST!

It’s fun, fresh, and you can mix and match colours to suit occasions, themes and preferences of the recipient of the card. What’s not to love?

Dab your panel with Embossing Ink and sprinkle a bit of Halo embossing glitter on top and you have homemade glitter card stock too!

If you don’t want glitter card stock, you can add Clear Gloss on top for shiny card stock. Super simple and high impact! Plus it’s quick and easy to make more when you run out. Win-Win!

Other ways of adding interest to an ink blended background is to splatter some water, coloured or gold water colour, shimmer sprays, white paint or something like Distress sprays. I’m particularly loving gold splatters myself. It’s such a simple, yet wow-factor way of adding a little something extra.

These cards in this post are done with Distress Oxide inks, blended with my go-to blending tools: the Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios. I can not stress enough how important it is to have a tool for ink blending that works for you. The brushes might not be for you, you might prefer the Tim Holtz ink blending tool, or the domed version from Scrapbook.com, or maybe the hexagon brush from Honey Bee Stamps. Whatever works for you is what you should stick to, no matter the opinions of someone else, me included. I’m merely saying that for me, the Life Changing Blender Brushes really live up to their name, and they have helped elevate my ink blending game to a whole new level!

Now, let’s get to some of the cards: On a piece of cardstock I blended Mustard Seed, Ripe Persimmon, Fired Brick, Wilted Violet and Black Soot with Life Changing Blender Brushes. On top of this I splattered some gold using the Kuretake Starry Color palette, becuse of course I cannot resist gold splatters. You can make your own by mixing some Golden Rose Paper Glaze with water. This is a second panel done, with the addition of Wild Honey, without Wilted Violet, and taken before gold splatters were added.

As the idea was to have the Scarecrow Cover Plate Die from Picket Fence Studios on top of this, I have gone from light to dark, almost as if there is a fire behind it, or candles in the Jack-o-lanterns.

The scarecrow herself couldn’t be plain, nope. I wanted a little wow-factor for that too, so I made some shimmer card stock by spreading some Black Pansy and Golden Rose Paper Glaze, one of my top three fave products EVER from Picket Fence Studios, on black card stock. On top of this I also added a tiny bit of Fall Gold Paper Glitz.

I didn’t get a photo of that before I cut it up, but here is the second piece I made with Autumn Persimmon Paper Glitz.

When this was dry, I cut out the Scarecrow using my diecutting machine. Depending on your machine and how much Paper Glaze you use, you might need to run it through twice to get clean, sharp lines.

This was adhered directly to the background, with Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive and then a sentiment from the So Franken Cute stamp set was stamped with Black Hybrid ink on it, with the help of the Mini MISTI. When you stamp your sentiment last thing, it’s better to be safe than sorry, to avoid hiccups, hence the Mini MISTI.

The second card was done in a similar fashion, with the same colours on the background, including the gold splatters. This is the one I used that second shimmer card stock for, and I used the Scarecrow diecut again. I also cut out the word BOO with the Seeing Double Alpha dies.

The sentiment on this one is from A Spooky Day, and it’s stamped up with Black Hybrid ink with the help of the Mini MISTI. The BOO was adhered with Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive, as was the Scarecrow.

Seeing them next to each other is fun, because you can see the similarity and where they have their own little unique touches.

The next two cards are pretty much the same, only different colours. Naturally, it’s still ink blended but the colours used are Squeezed Lemonade, Salvaged Patina, Salty Ocean, Chipped Sapphire, Wilted Violet and Black Soot. I’m LOVING this blend! So much so, I made two of these as well.

Instead of gold splatters on the first one, I opted for black and yellow by using Distress Oxide sprays in Mustard Yellow and Black soot. I tried to not overdo it, but I think a few more wouldn’t have been amiss.

Similarly, the shimmer card stock was done with black card stock, and some Ocean Poppy and Lime Zinnia Paper Glaze. These colours are kind of glow-in-the-dark-esque on the black card stock, which looks really quite cool.

Once that was dry, I cut out the scarecrows and again, adhered it straight to the background with the Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive. For the second card, I also cut out the word BOO with the Seeing Double Alpha dies from the shimmer card stock made with the Paper Glaze.

Sentiment wise I used one from the So Franken Cute for the card on the right, but this one was heat embossed in Opaque Bright White on black card stock. It was also adhered on an angle, with more Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive, rather than straight across. The second card was done with the BOO glued down and the same sentiment from A Spooky Day with Black Hybrid ink.

With four cards in total done, all that was left to do was adhered them both to a card base and that’s it. What do you think? Not a bad pop of colour for no-colouring cards, right?

I am working on a YouTube video for these as well, it’s very long at the moment so I’m thinking of doing one full-length version and one more condensed, so you can chose which one you want to watch. Keep an eye out on my YouTube channel and click that notification button so you don’t miss any uploads!

Lots of the goodies for these cards are from Picket Fence Studios, and the rest are from various online shops. I have used compensated affiliate links in this post, for your convenience, at no extra cost to you. Any earnings I get from these go towards paying for things like blog hosting, technology faff-stuff, import duties and new stuff to keep things fresh, fun and free for you! Thank you so much for supporting me while shopping using these links, I really appreciate it!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

p.s. I’m speaking at the Card Maker Success Summit tomorrow about ‘Adding Shimmer With Paper Glaze’. You’re invited! Get all the details and grab your free ticket here!

You can find me on various social media platforms if you want to see more of my work, click the links below and click follow or subscribe to come along on more crafty shenanigans adventures!
Instagram
YouTube
Facebook

Below you can find affiliate links to Ellen Hutson, as well as some suitable alternatives to the products used for these cards.

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)

Mental Health Awareness Month | My Story

Hi, and welcome to my blog!

May is the month of Mental Health Awareness and it’s high time that the stigma around mental health is removed, so that everyone who has been affected, and WILL BE affected, can get treatment.

Unfortunately mental health issues are so very common, as many as 1 in 5 are suffering from some form of if, from phobias, to anxiety, to eating disorders, to panic attacks, to OCD, to chemical imbalances just to mention a few. The umbrella that covers mental health issues is a very, very big one and it’s sadly very underfunded.

Over on Instagram there is a hop going on now, where lots of crafty people are banding together to spread awareness and hopefully help others feel less alone in their struggles with mental health. You can find the hop by following this graphic.

Today’s post is very uncomfortable, probably for you as a reader and me for talking about difficult stuff and I’d like to make a trigger warning announcement right now: I’ll be talking about bullying, and the resulting issues that comes with that. I’ll also be talking about my struggles with depression and obsessive compulsive tendencies. As I have never been diagnosed officially with OCD I’m going to call it ‘my obsessive compulsive tendencies’ rather than actual, diagnosed OCD.

I also made a video, and I ask that you be kind when you watch it. Anyone who leaves a negative or derogatory comment will be permanently banned from my YouTube channel. It took a lot of courage to share all this, and it’s only part of it. There is so much more, and I simply will not let anyone shame me, or anyone else, for sharing what they have/are going through.

My story is complicated, and long. So long. From almost as early as I can remember I have felt anxious, painfully shy and different. As I started school, I almost immediately was singled out by ‘the popular girl’ and she made my life hell for nine straight years.

I made these grungy backgrounds to sort of illustrate how I feel sometimes, on the inside. Outwardly colourful, as I’m also a very positive person (which is such a juxtaposition at times) but with a dark and messy side inside and underneath.

When I look back now, I realise that she wasn’t popular because she was nice, fun to be around and a lovely person. She was popular because of her family’s social standing in the village I grew up in, and she based her own self-importance on that, and she thought she was VERY important. In actual fact, she was mean, spoilt and downright nasty.

So much so, that one day her best friend decided to give her a taste of her own medicine and banded all of the other girls in the class together to freeze her out, like she had done to so many of us. I vividly remember that day, and when I was told she was crying in the bathroom after one day of being treated like i had been treated for years, I finally found the courage to tell my other classmates that I had spent many, MANY days crying in the bathroom because of her and her behaviour towards me. Clearly having had no idea about this, some were sympathetic but things didn’t really get much better after that. She got her power back and she kept on misusing it, even after feeling as bad as she made me feel. Even though for her, it was just for one day.

Having seen this, I shrank back even more and tried to make myself so small that she wouldn’t notice me, because surely she wouldn’t pick on me if she didn’t notice me? I also started having thoughts like ‘if I can make it to that spot before that car passes me, it will be ok today’. It’s funny when you look at things from an adult perspective, on things you didn’t understand as a child. Now it’s very obvious to me where a lot of my anxiety, insecurity and impostor syndrome come from, but back then? Those weird thoughts could induce a full-on panic.

On the way home from school I had to cross a river, and there were times I stood on that bridge watching the water flow wondering how long it would take to drown. Looking back on those days I am full of rage that someone managed to make me feel so worthless that I actually were thinking along those lines. The only reason I never did anything stupid like jumping the railing, with the intent of not coming back up, was fear it would hurt, love for my little sister, who was also bullied, and my cat.

It wasn’t until I started at a new school, and met new friends (who actually wanted to be friends with me!) that I started to find some confidence in myself and believing that maybe everything she had told me, sometimes on a daily basis, wasn’t true. I wasn’t stupid, I wasn’t fat and ugly, I wasn’t a waste of space, the clothes I wore didn’t reflect my value as a human being, etc etc.

I decided to use this word die because it says it all, and it’s layered up with white and black card stock, as well as heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

It took a while, but as I spent a year in the US working as an au pair, I really found my feet and let my personality blossom. It turns out that I wasn’t half-bad, after all, people wanted to be friends with me and thought I was fun! Imagine that. After having spent so many years feeling so small and insignificant, it was truly wonderful and that year I spent in the US is still one of the best ones of my life.

After I got back to Sweden, my family unexpectedly imploded. I was 20, but all of a sudden I felt like I was 5. My father walked out on us, with very little indication of what he had planned, and left us in the dust to pick up the pieces. That was extremely traumatic and left us all shell-shocked. I didn’t know how to deal with the onslaught of emotions and responsibilities, so I ran. I’m not proud of it, but I ran. I packed my bags and left, never to move back to Sweden, ever again.

This sudden departure of my father left me with trust issues and a lingering depression, but luckily for me I met The Man that very same year and he did everything in his power to prove to me that he was staying, he was supportive, understanding and patient. Most of all, he simply loved me. Still to this day, some 20+ years later, he’s the same. He’s stood by me through all of my emotional wobbles, my manic cleaning and tidying episodes, all of my depression lows, all of my obsessive tendencies.

The cleaning thing he never really understood, and I have hidden some of the worst from him, which was easy at one point as he worked away from our home during the week and was only home on the weekends. As my trust in him was growing, I entrusted him with more and more of ‘my crazies’ as I call them. Whilst he doesn’t fully understand how cleaning and order could make me feel calm, and would mess with me by moving stuff, he accepts that it’s part of me.

I also added sparkles to the card to represent all the different facets of our personalities. The black sentiment almost disappears but the whole point is that it’s supposed to be a bit difficult to see it. It IS difficult to see that we are loved, especially when we feel unworthy of love.

When I have my depression lows, the first thing that goes is my personal hygiene. Gross as that is, it’s the truth. The next thing that goes is the need for cleaning. As I mention in the video, at one point the cleaning and the cleaning routines were almost the very thing that structured my day. I could feel it getting worse, but I also couldn’t see what the problem was with me wanting to have a clean and tidy home. As my compulsions grew stronger, my lists grew. I had one for things I had to do daily, another for weekly tasks, a third for things that needed to be done once a month, and lastly a list for things that only required doing every three months. These lists were laminated and I’d obsessively tick off the things I had done, and then calculate how long it would take me to achieve the rest. There were days where I had to stay up late to get it all done, but going to sleep without having ticked off all the things? Close to impossible.

My obsessive compulsive tendencies started out with a traumatic incident in my life, and ironically, it was another major tragedy that helped me overcome some of it. When we lost both of our dogs within six weeks of each other, I stopped functioning for a while. All I could do to get through the day was by one breath to the next, the grief was so bone deep and devastating that I felt like I was drowning in it.

It took me a little while to get my head above water again, and when I surfaced I realised a lot of time had passed and I had done absolutely no cleaning whatsoever. That need for it had disappeared almost like a switch had been flicked. Like my brain had short circuited and been somewhat reset. I couldn’t hear those voices telling me I ‘had to do this or that, this way, not that way’, over the deafening roar of heartache and grief. Those very voices that had made me believe that if I did what they said, nothing bad would happen. Well, talk about a wake up call that that was a big fat lie.

Don’t give up on someone who’s resisting your love and support. Even when someone says ‘I don’t want it’ on the inside they could be screaming ‘please don’t go, don’t leave me alone, I need love but I’m scared’.

I still have some of these obsessive compulsive tendencies today, I’m not going to lie. I am a bit of a basket case some days, for sure. If I’m feeling stressed, anxious or sad I will very often clean and tidy stuff. I think the difference now is that those voices aren’t telling me something bad will happen or someone will die if I don’t do this, it’s almost like a trade ‘if you do this, I will tamp down on those anxiety feelings for you’. I don’t even know if that makes any sense to anyone other than me, but there you have it. It does help most of the time, and those times it doesn’t help, at least I will have accomplished something. That’s how I try looking at it these days.

For instance, recently I have had a lot of stress from a family situation, and at first it left me feeling like nothing matters so why bother? I spent three days on the sofa with my chicas and books, and then all of a sudden, I cleaned the kitchen until it was spotless. The next day I moved on to the bathrooms. We have two, so there is always something that can be done there. Admittedly, the levels of anxiety I have had about filming the video for this Mental Health Awareness hop, meant I needed to clean those bathrooms two days in a row, but ok. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the physical, as well as mental, tiredness I need, rather than the order? It’s really too bad I’m not focusing these energies on doing squats. I’d have buns of steel!

Like everyone else, my issues are very personal to me, and everyone is affected differently. Just because someone else has the same issue as you do, doesn’t mean it affects you both the same way, which is why understanding and acceptance are so important. By sharing my story, and opening the door to my inner crazy, I’m hoping that it will help someone out there feel less alone. Know that there are people out there who know what you are going through, and how you feel.

If you are struggling, please know that there is help. Know that people care. You are NOT alone. Ignore those voice that tell you it’s not worth it, why bother, nobody cares etc. They are wrong, they lie and they do not get to tell you you are not worthy, loved and needed in this world. You are not alone.

So much love, and big hugs if you made it all the way to this point.

Erica

YouTube Hop with Handmade Happiness FB Group!

Hi guys!

Today I’m just popping in with a quick post, the main event is over on YouTube where I’m hopping with a Facebook group called Handmade Happiness. Every month we do a little YouTube hop, with a theme and a choice of techniques. This month we are doing florals, with a choice of alcohol inks or mixed media. You can find the link to my video HERE.

I chose mixed media, and mixed ink blending and heat embossing, and used You Are My Favorite stamps and layering stencils from Pinkfresh Studio. The ink blending was done with some Distress Oxide inks first, on two different panels, as I thought why not do a couple while I was at it.

On the first one I used Kitsch Flamingo, Picked Raspberry and Dusty Concord. I blended these with my Life Changing Blender Brushes from Picket Fence Studios, to get some dimension on the flowers. The leaves were heat embossed with Rich Gold embossing powder from WOW! Embossing, and I added the embossing ink with a Ranger Ink blending tool, to get it into the nooks and crannies. Check out the video for a little hack I learnt from my friend Daniel Diaz, who learnt it from Yana Smakula.

On the second card I used Speckled Egg and a touch of Peacock Feathers for the flowers, for the first layer. The second layer I did last, but after doing the leaves in the same gold, I decided to do that second layer in gold as well. I was on a bit of a gold craze!

Both cards are then diecut with some Slim Stitched Rectangle dies from Pinkfresh Studios, to add some details and interest. Sentiment wise I used the Phrase Builder Hello die set to make a ‘hello’ and ‘friend’, and for the pink one I stamped up one of the sentiments from You Are My Favorite stamp set on a pink banner so it would say ‘Today it’s all about you, friend’.

I hope you get a chance to check out the video over on my YouTube as well, but if not, thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed this, and if you fancy grabbing one, or five, of these goodies for yourself, I have used some compensated affiliate link in this post, as well as below. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission directly from the company, at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much if you chose to support me by shopping with these links. Any earnings I get from these go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube channel and instagram, so thank you in advance!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Alex Syberia March Release! Copic coloring on vellum.

Hi guys!

Today is release day for Alex Syberia’s March release of digital stamps, and as always, she has some amazing designs for us!

I started out with the Fabulous Floral slim line flowers and printed it on vellum. The upside with having a laser printer is that I can foil the images, which always looks fab! This one I foiled with white Minc foil, using my Minc machine.

To add some colour, I turned it over and used Copics, on the back. When using this technique, you do have to add quite a lot of colours, or strong ones, in order for it to show through the vellum.

When the colouring was done, I gently wrapped the vellum piece over a white slim line card base, and glued down the sides to the back so it wouldn’t show.

To finish this off, I used a discontinued, but loved, word die from Neat & Tangled that says ‘love you’ in a gorgeous font. The paper I used is homemade shimmer paper! You can make your own by smearing Paper Glaze from Picket Fence Studios on card stock, let it dry and voilá!

I cut out another two layers and added these together with liquid glue, before adhering the whole thing to the card. Layering word dies up is such a simple but effective way of taking your card designs up a notch, with little effort. This word die is sold out in a LOT of places, and the only shop I found it actually in stock is Foiled Fox, so if you want it, GRAB IT FAST!!

To celebrate the release the design team are doing an instagram hop, where you can see some fantastic inspiration and hop along for a chance to win a gift voucher to the Alex Syberia shop! I have seen some of the cards, and they are AH-mazing! You are not going to want to miss it.

You can of course use skip straight to Alex’s shop if you already know you are going to want to get some of these for yourself.

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed this post and will enjoy some of these new stamps for yourself.

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Christmas Card Collaboration with Courtney Kroeber

Ho, ho, ho, my merry peeps!

Today’s post is the corresponding blog post for a YouTube video that’s up on my channel today. I’m collaborating with Courtney Kroeber for her 25 Days Of Christmas Cards series and we decided on Copic coloring for our cards.

Now, this might come as a shock as colouring is basically the theme of this card, but I have not used a single stamp set here!! Not a one! Say whaaaaat? I decided to use the Strings Of Lights diecuts from Lawn Fawn and cut out lots of the baubles out of Copic friendly card stock, and these I have coloured.

To get these looking as lifelike as possible, I have used quite a few markers on each one. Going from dark at the edges and lighter and lighter towards the middle.

The screw tops I had to play around with several tries before I was happy with the look. I thought blending the colours would give the most realistic look, but I was so wrong! In the end, what I liked best was using C4 with light flicks, and then going in with C5 to add depth and the illusion of the curve.

With a huge selection of baubles coloured, it was time to think about the actual card base. I had an idea in my head, and went about trying to make it come to life but man… it was a bit more trouble than I thought! The idea was to use the Take A Bough Encore dies from Concord & 9th and create a Christmas tree look. Sounds cool, right? Whilst I got there in the end, it ended up being a very heavy card! This is not one to be sent in the mail, unless you are happy to pay a lot extra for postage.

First of all I cut out a slim line panel using the Slim Line Diecutting System from Picket Fence Studios. Using this as a guide, I then absolutely COVERED it with the Take A Bough Encore pieces. These, and the background panel, are all cut out of Evergreen card stock, from Concord & 9th. When I had a good coverage around the edges, I covered them with a strip of Press’n’Seal and picked them all up. To make sure all of them would stick to the background panel I used Pritt-stick glue. Yep, very old school indeed!

When the edges glued down, I just had to cover the middle with the larger boughs. To make sure the tree looks lifelike, I didn’t cover the backs of the bough dies with glue, only the middle part.

With my “tree” done, I could start the decorating with the baubles! I cut out lots of extra string from the diecut set and then got puzzling. What I realised here though, is that I should have coloured up more of the smaller baubles, instead of going to town with the bigger ones. Admittedly they were easier to colour.

As it’s pretty obvious what occasion this card is for, I didn’t add a sentiment to the front of it. The Man actually said ‘Nobody is going to look at that and think Happy Easter’, lol!

Well, that’s it from me but I hope you get a chance to hop on over to my YouTube channel to watch the video, and then drop by Courtney’s channel to see what she made.

I have used some compensated affiliate links in this blog post, at no extra cost to you, for your convenience. Thank you so much if you shop using these links, I really appreciate the support!

Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica

Slim Line Rainbow Cards with WOW! Embossing Changers

Hello, hello!

Today’s cards are another couple of slim line cards. It seems I can’t stop, and won’t stop, with these for a while. Oh well, things could be worse, right?

To make these I started out by cutting panels of white card stock with the Slim Line Diecutting System from Picket Fence Studios. On the smaller rectangles, I adhered strips of coloured cardstock to create rainbows. The card stock I’ve used for these is from Lawn Fawn, and you can get it in a handy Rainbow Pack if you don’t want to invest in 10 sheets of each colour.

On the right one I’ve used, from left to right, Raspberry, Chili Pepper, Canned Pumpkin, Fake Tan, Sunflower, Cilantro, Peacock, Blue Jay and Sugarplun.

On the left one, I used Raspberry, Chili Pepper, Canned Pumpkin, Fake Tan, Sunflower, Cilantro, Peacock and Mermaid. It gives a more pastely look than the top one with the blue and the purple.

I’ve used a few different diecuts to make the sentiments, and the big Hi Die and Friend Die, are from The Stamp Market. The Happy Birthday is from MFT Stamps. Both the Friend and the Happy Birthday have been cut out of white card stock a few times and layered up.

The Happy Birthday one was then heat embossed with Glisten Changer to make it sparkly. This particular one has been retired, but HERE you can find a really good alternative.

The Friend one I heat embossed with Clear Gloss to create that puffy sticker look. I love doing my word diecuts like this, it just adds something extra!

For the clouds I have used some Stitched Cloud Dienamics from MFT Stamps, on white card stock. For a little while longer you can find the EXACT ONES at Ellen Hutson!

These I have jazzed up by heat embossing them with the WOW! Changers Texture and Glisten. The way these powders work is that you can change your embossing powder to either be sheen, glittery or texture. All you have to do is mix your choice of powder with whatever effect you want.

I haven’t used the Texture one before so I decided to use it for one of the cards! For the second one I used Glisten, which I am obsessed with. Both powders are mixed with Clear Gloss and the pieces were dabbed with the Embossing Pad, covered in the powder mix and then set with the Heat Tool.

With these cloud bits done, I glued them to the rainbow panels. I did have to use both tape runner and Lawn Fawn glue because of the heat embossing, and I also left them under flat weights to make sure they dried flat.

On the first one I glued down the Happy Birthday with Glossy Accents, as I ran out of my Lawn Fawn Glue Tubes!! SEND MORE STAT!!!!

The second card was finished with the big Hi and the Friend diecuts. The Hi I layered up with fun foam, cut with the diecut, to add height. The Friend I added on top of the Hi and with that, the card was done.

I actually managed to make a bonus card with the outline from the Hi die too. It seemed a shame to waste it, when I had a load of rainbow card bases done already.

Using a Nuvo fine tip glue pen, I adhered the outline Hi to a card base and ta-da! Another card done!!

On my YouTube channel you can also find a video of the making of the slim line cards, if you fancy seeing the Changer powders in action.

I’ve used compensated affiliate links in this post. What that means is these links goes to shops I’m affiliated with, and as a thank you for sending you to them, I will get a small commission directly from them if you buy something. This doesn’t cost you anything extra at all, but it really makes a difference to me if you do use these links. Any earnings I get from these links go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube channel and keeping my Instagram fresh, fun and inspiring for you, so thank you if you choose to support me like this. I really appreciate the support!

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

Below you can find affiliate links to Ellen Hutson. Here I have added some good alternatives, when the exact product used was not available.

E