OOOOOH, so much sparkle happening today! This is my second post of the day, as it’s also release day from Crafty Meraki. After months of planning and testing, there is now hot foil plates available!!
We are celebrating with a YouTube hop, so make sure you head on over to my YouTube channel to hop along. There is some insane inspiration along the way, and it wouldn’t be a celebration without a giveaway. This is one prize you are not going to want to miss: you can win a Glimmer Hot Foil System!!!
I’m not going to keep you for much longer, as all the action is over on YouTube, but I hope you will join us there! However, if you can’t wait to grab some of these fab products for yourself, you can head on over to Crafty Meraki via this link and use the code ERICA10 at checkout for 10% off your order!
It’s a busy day on the blog today, this is one of two, and this one is all about the newest release from Trinity Stamps! I was delighted to be asked to guest for this release, as I was on the design team when Trinity first started and I am friends with several of the design team members in real life.
In fact, last year after Creativation, Tanesia, Katie and I got together at Room To Craft in Bothwell, Washington, for an afternoon of crafting, chatting and general catching up! It was so much fun and went by way too fast.
Ok, enough reminiscing before I get all emotional about how hard it’s been since Covid hit. So, the new release is amazing and I have some fun things to show off, as well as a couple of cards.
The first thing that grabbed me, which should surprise nobody at all, is the Rainbow Layering Stencils! Ok, these are rather genius and so easy to use! There is also a coordinating stamp set AND diecut set for these, but they work really well on their own as well.
My first attempt I might have been a little bit too gung-ho on, and I didn’t line up the bottom of the rainbow arches perfectly, but eh, it still turned out fab.
The banner itself is propped up with some foam tape and that was that. No bling, if you can believe it!
On the second panel, I went in with a very light hand for a more pastel look. I also added some clouds before, which I didn’t do on the first one. When I was happy with this one, I stamped the Awesome Human stamp in the middle of it, with black ink.
All around it I used the Summer Sparkles embeltiments that comes in the Summer Blooms kit, which is still available in the shop!
There is also a YouTube hop today, celebrating the new release, so hop on over to THE VIDEO HERE, if you want to check out some more fun inspiration and the rest of the goodies I got. You can also win a $25 gift voucher to Trinity Stamps shop if you enter the giveaway over there, all the info can be found in the description box under the video.
For the YouTube video, click on, or look for, this thumbnail. If you are not into videos, you can hop along on Instagram where we are doing a hop as well. You will be totally spoilt with inspiration and amazing projects, so make sure not to miss it! You can find my Instagram page here.
Right, that’s it for this post. I will be back later today with another blog hop. Please don’t be mad, sometimes it can’t be avoided that there are lots of posts on the same day.
If you shop the new release using the compensated affiliate links I have sprinkled all throughout this post, I will get a small commission from the companies directly, at no extra cost to you. All earnings from these links go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube channel and instagram, and now also towards the ‘future crafting shenanigans forever craft room’ as hopefully we will buy a house in the next few months! Keep your fingers crossed for us as we have put in an offer on one and are waiting to hear back, so it’s a super exciting/anxious time.
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:
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.
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!!
Today’s blog post is going to be quite quick, because the real action is over on YouTube where I’m hopping along with the WOW! Embossing design team to show off a new release of glittery goodness. There are two new trios, Toteally Awesome and Summer Scoop.
Right, so I’m going to skip to my cards now. I made two, using a mix of the colours in the Summer Scoop and Toteally Awesome trios. On my first card I used a diecut from The Stamp Market called Color Block 1, on white card stock.
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The triangles I popped out and set aside the frame for later. I picked two colours from both trios, as there were eight triangles, and started by covering them with Embossing Pad ink. I did two of each colour, and then set them with the heat tool.
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With all triangles done, I glued down the frame to a card base and then added the triangles in. The background was done, and it was time to add a sentiment. I cut out a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp, that says ‘thinking of you’, four times and layered these up. On top of this, I heat embossed White Twinkle, to make it nice and sparkly, like the rest of the card.
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The second card is done with Painted Dots Turnabout stamp from Concord & 9th, and the same embossing powders as the first one.
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With the help of a MISTI and a Turnabout Jig, I stamped the pattern with the Embossing Pad and did one colour at a time. I only added the powder, I did not use the heat tool in between each one. Not until all of the pattern was stamped and covered with the embossing powders.
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With that background done, I grabbed another Concord & 9th stamp set, All The Birthdays, to create a sentiment. I used the big Happy and stamped it up with the Embossing Pad and used Razzleberry, from the Summer Scoop trio. It didn’t look overly opaque, so I did it again and then covered it with Clear Gloss on top.
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With black ink I stamped up ‘birthday’ on a very slim banner, and this I added to the Happy banner. The final thing to do was to add it to a card base and layer up the sentiment banners, and the card was done.
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With that, I am done for the day but I hope you get a chance to hop over to YouTube to watch the video. There are prizes up for grabs in case you need an extra incentive!
Lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
I have used some compensated affiliate links in this blog post, at no extra cost to you. There are also some links to other products used, that are not affiliate links, for your convenience.
Today’s post is part of a fun YouTube hop, Hobbies and Pastime, where we are sharing videos of our hobbies with you guys. You can find my video HERE.
I have focused on coloured card stock and diecutting for my video and this post, as I love using coloured card stock for a pop of colour and texture.
Here are a few cards made with coloured cardstock for another blog post.
Because I absolutely detest fussy cutting, I consider die cutting one of my favourite techniques ever. For these fun bits I have used every single colour from the Assorted Cardstock pack and a sweet word diecut. This Happiness die is from Neat & Tangled, it is sadly no longer available *insert dramatic wailing here*
The coloured card stock is from Concord & 9th, and I used all the colours in different ways. A fun and quick way to add card stock to your backgrounds is to simply cut strips of it and adhere to your card base. A little hack to get the rainbow sun rays look, is to use PostIt tape, washi or other low-tack tape to keep the strips in place while you add your liquid glue to them. In the video you get to see how I do it.
One of the die cutting sets are also from C&9th, called Hexagon LabelDies and I used it here to add both some dimension and a sentiment, without stamping, to the card.
I made two cards with the rainbow sun rays look, one on a white card base and one on a black one. On the white one I didn’t manage to fit all the colours in, but on the black one I did. Every single colour in the card stock pack.
Each one got a Happiness worddie added to it, as well as a coordinating sentiment. This stamp set is also no longer available from Neat & Tangled, but you might get lucky and find it somewhere else. The sentiments are stamped up with Mushroom ink to keep the look soft.
I have also added a generous amount of sequins, even for me, to each card. These are from Studio Katia and are called Crystal Clear Fusion.
I have listed all the products, and some coordinating products, I have used for these cards with compensated affiliate links below. If you shop using these links I get a small commission directly from the company it’s affiliate with, as a thank you for directing you to the shop. Any earnings I get from these go directly back into running my blog, YouTube channel and keeping the content free and fun for you!
Thank you so much for stopping by today, I hope you found some inspiration in this post and video and will try some of these for yourself. Don’t forget to check out the video and the rest of the hop!
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
Today I’m participating in a very special blog, YouTube and Instagram hop, organised by the fabulous Justine Hovey, you can find more information on her blog. The goal of this hop is to come together to stand in union with our black and brown friends to show solidarity and stamp out racism. Not just for crafters, but for everyone who’s experienced racism. The fight to end racism and bring equality to every aspect of life is so important and we can not stop until it is reality!
I have used the BFF My Tribe stamp, from Picket Fence Studios, for my card and I think it’s so perfect as you can basically go a rainbow of skin tones. A different one for each arm, to make sure all your friends are included. I have a YouTube video too.
I used sooooo many Copics to colour in the image, to make sure I covered as many skin tones as possible. I’m not very good at skin tones with Copics, I definitely need to practice a lot more with that. Time to crack open the Human Rainbow colouring chart from Sandy Allnock and get it down.
The top part of the card I had kept free for a sentiment and I wanted to diecut letters in skin tones and pastels to spell out ‘Better Together’. I used my long-term fave Stitched Alphabet Die-Namics from MFT Stamps. I use these so often and have loved them from the start! I used a pastel card stock from a DCVW paper pack as well as coloured card stock from Lawn Fawn. The ones from Lawn Fawn are Vanilla Malt, Paper Bag, Chocolate Bar and Ground Coffee.
To line up the letters straight, I used the grids on my work mat, a ruler and PostIt Tape, or use purple tape or even washi. I also have a magnetic work mat that comes in handy for this sort of thing. Then I glued them down with the glue tube from Lawn Fawn. I also added some gold details with a gold gel pen, to things like brackets and rings.
I almost left it like that but then I had a last-minute idea! I added a black heart with BLM, for Black Lives Matter, heat embossed in white, on top of the hands. Sort of like an extra strong message of unity.
Now it’s time to hop along, and the next stop is Angie! The full list of the hop can be found on Justine’s blog RIGHT HERE.
Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you enjoyed this post and the rest of the hop. I have linked most of the products used for this card with compensated affiliate links for your convenience. If you shop using these links, I get a small commission from the company directly, at no extra cost to you.
Today’s post is a quick one as it’s mostly about the YouTube video I made for it. I’m participating in a little video hop today with a twist! The participants are using a video of one of the fellow hoppers as inspiration and making projects with their take on it. The lady before me does a lot of work resin, which has been on my want-to-try-that list for ages as it looks like a lot of fun!
As I don’t have any resin, nor could I get any in time to make a video with it, I decided to do a fake resin look using Glossy Accents instead. I have seen loads of tutorials with alcohol ink tiles and coasters made with it, so my idea was basically to create alcohol ink pieces and turn them into cards as I am primarily a card maker.
On the first piece, I used some light blue and warm grey Copic refills to create a fun background. This is Yupo paper so the magic practically happens by itself. It’s so fun to do!
I cut the panel down using a stitched rectangle die from Lawn Fawn, and I also cut out the word Thanks using a die-namic from MFT Stamps. This exact one is retired but there is a very similar one from Flora & Fauna. I also cut out four more Thanks out of white card stock, and layered these all up with the glue tube adhesive from Lawn Fawn.
This whole shebang was added to a card base and a very generous layer of Glossy Accents was added to the Thanks. This was then set aside to dry overnight.
The second card is SUPER Clean And Simple. So much so I kind of feel it’s a bit naked!
I used the same Thanks and cut out loads of them out of white card stock and once out of a already made alcohol ink panel. This one is also made with Copic refills. B91 to B99, my favourite blue Copic combination.
These letters I adhered directly to a white card base, with the help of a ruled taped down to make sure they went on straight. Then another generous helping of the Glossy Accent. I tried making sure to pop all the bubbles in the Glossy Accent on both cards but a few managed to survive.
That is basically it for these! So simple but I’m rather pleased with my take on this challenge. Not to mention very proud of myself for not adding sequins to the white one! I almost had to sit on my hands to avoid it, lol!
Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you get a chance to watch the video and found some inspiration here.
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. I have also used some compensated affiliate links in this post. If you shop using these links I get a small commission directly from the company, at no extra cost to you whatsoever. Thank you for supporting me by using these links if you shop!
CaCaCraft by Erica 