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!
As a summer loving gal, I’m all about the florals and sunshine. Even with it being October. Luckily for me I live in a sunny and warm place, and lots of flowers are still blooming here.
With these fun layering stencils I had an idea of doing a cascading rainbow for one, and more natural looking colours on the other one. Purely for research purposes of course, lol.
Before I did anything else though, I swatched the inks I have. I like my swatches as it’s not always easy to tell what the inks will look like on paper, from what they look like as an ink pad.
Another little quirk I have is that I like to keep brands together, so I used one of the pieces from the Diagonal Stitched Postage Frames Slimline dies to cut out the swatch pieces. On these I then dragged the ink pads to get lots of colour on it, marked it with a label and then punched a hole in it.
So my first card is done with the more natural colours, and I went for Soft Kisses for the bigger flowers, Dan-D-Lion for the smaller and Olive Branch for both layers for the layers. I have only used the layering stencils for these, not the outline stamp.
As I wanted to go more mini slimline for these cards, rather than full-size slimline I did some creative diecutting using the Diagonal Stitched Postage Frames Slimline dies as I wanted some pattern around the edges.
On the back of the flowers, once I had used the coordinating diecut on them, I covered them with foam tape to prop them up and create dimension. Dimension and layers are life, if you ask me.
The last thing needed was sentiments, and I have used the same one from the Garden Grandeur stamp set, stamped up with Raven ink on white card stock. Both of these are trimmed down in different ways, and then adhered to the cards.
Ok, so I might have said the last thing was sentiments, but I did go a bit big on the bling on the rainbow flowers but hey, I had the perfect gems to do it so I had to. HAD to. I couldn’t not do it.
The pink flowers were kept bling free to show that I can go clean and simple too. Occasionally. Mostly with my Inner Crafty Drama Queen kicking and screaming, but still.
I did make a video for these cards too. You can find that over on my YouTube channel, if you want to see more of the process, but if not, thanks for stopping by today. I hope you enjoyed these cards and the summer vibes coming through your screen.
Until next time, lots of love and happy crafting from Erica
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.
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 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.
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.
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!
Today’s post is for a collaboration between Inkon3 and My Sweet Petunia, the company behind the MISTI. If you know me, you know I’m useless without my MISTI, I’m a forever fan, that’s for sure.
For the stems and leaves I used Goddess Green with a touch of Trinity Teal and Bee Sting Yellow. I’m not 100% happy with the result though, I should have just used the green and teal I think.
After letting this dry a little, I used an anti-static tool all over the panel before popping it into my MISTI. As I wanted to heat emboss the My Sweet Petunia stamp over it, I am so glad I had the MISTI on hand. NO waaaaaay I would have been able to get it right with a stamping block.
That gold goes so well with the colours, but then it does work with everything in my opinion. I love this gold, it’s so classy and elegant. Apparently there wasn’t enough gold on it already though, so I splattered some gold water colours, from the Gansai Tambi Starry Colors palette, all over it as well.
Sentiments wise I didn’t want to take away too much from the flowers, so I kept it simple with a sentiment from the Here For You set, stamped up in Sweet Petunia Pink, on a slim banner.
I have a video on my YouTube channel too, as well as a reel for almost the same card, but with different colour ratios (and no yellow on the stems) as well as Platinum embossing powder, on my Instagram, if you want to see snippets on how the card was made.
Well, that’s it from me for today but I hope you enjoyed this and if you wanted to get a few of these yummy goodies for yourself, I have used compensated affiliate links in this post. If you shop using these links, I will get a small commission directly from the company at ZERO extra cost to you! Yes, that’s right. It’s basically a win-win! Any and all earnings I get from these links go directly back into the running of my blog, YouTube channel and Instagram, so THANK YOU if you chose to support me by using these links. I really appreciate it so much!
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!!
The ink-oholic Erica here with a very colourful post! I have had the total delight of being sent the entire range of luscious big ink pads from PinkFresh Studios and I HAD to swatch them before doing anything else! Ok, so in all honesty, the first thing I did was dance around like a dizzy emu, whilst clapping like a demented seal and squealing like a happy pig rolling round in mud! Now, that’s a mental image for you, isn’t it?? LOL! Sufficient to say, I was A TAD excited.
Ok, so the swatches are not perfect but, as mentioned, I was a bit excited. And I was still excited while I was stamping them up. I mean, the idea is to see the colours, these are staying in my craft room so I’m not sending these to anyone.
I do love all shades of blue but these have me swooning: Sky Blue, Summer Shower, Seaside and Storm. These I could easily have in both big pads and Mini Cubes, Morning Sky, just because I love them.
More of a spring green kind of person? Don’t feel left out, as these will surely give you your green fix: Fresh Pear, Grassy Knoll, Key Lime and Olive. Do KNOLL worry, these come in Mini Cubes too, Over The Hill.
With all the swatches done, I added them to a ring binder to keep them all in one place. I have already consulted them to make a card, actually. Thanks to the swatches it was super easy to pick out some bright and happy colours for the Pop-Out Rainbow stamp.
With the help of the Mini MISTI, this card took less than 10 minutes to make. SO easy, and cheerful!
I finished it off with a sentiment from the Floral Notes stamp set, stamped up with Black Detail ink. That sentiment was just perfect for a rainbow card! And perhaps a sequin… or ten. Eh, I might have gone a little bit overboard but hey, it works.
Well, with that, I’m all done for today but I do have an unboxing (I bought a LOT of stuff) and ink swatching video over on my YouTube channel as well, if you want to see the swatching in action.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, PinkFresh very generously sent me the entire range of inks to play with but I purchased a huge amount of stuff from them as well. Including that adorable Pop-Out Rainbow stamp, which I have had my eye on for so long! I want to reassure you that I will only ever create with stuff I love and that inspires me. I don’t know about you, but I can’t work with stuff that I don’t like, it just dries up my mojo.
I have used some compensated affiliate links to (mostly) PinkFresh Studios in this post, for your convenience, at no extra cost to you whatsoever. Any earnings I get from these affiliate links go straight back into stamps… erm… (if The Man reads this, that was an auto-correct! I swear, baby!!) the running of my blog, YouTube channel and Instagram. Thank you so much if you choose to support me by using these links, I really appreciate the support and encouragement!
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’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!
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!
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.
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
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.
CaCaCraft by Erica 