Crafted by Nicole LeBlanc

Spreading happiness... one card at a time.

The Latest

Boo to you! – Let’s make a cheery Halloween card

Hi friends! Halloween is almost here, so I thought it was time to share this fun, easy, happy Halloween card. Honestly, I am not big on the spooky and scary things for this holiday, so I went cheery and bright for this card.

Halloween card featuring the ghostly treats stencil – a scrapbook.com exclusive product.

To begin this project, I used the Ghostly Treats stencil from scrapbook.com to ink blend in some happy CP ink colors: it’s a girl, bellini, garden party, sixteen candles, cummerbund, and chiffon. I used blending brushes to get a light layer of ink and tried to create a gradient in the larger images. I also used some bits of mint tape to mask off any shapes that I did not want to accidently get ink into. For this project, I decided to color in each set of shapes its own color. When I was done with the inking, I wiped of my stencil and used an embossing mat to emboss the image into my inked background. Then I trimmed the panel down so that it would leave a border on an A2 size card base.

For the sentiment, I swiped some sixteen candles ink onto a piece of white cardstock and used some bold alpha dies to cut out the word boo. For the “to you” portion of the sentiment, I just used a black pen and a scrap of white cardstock.

Embossing a stencil adds some fun interest to the background. It also helps to define white areas like the tops of the candy corns!

I stacked up some “boos” for my sentiment and adhered all of the pieces to an A2 size card base. And, voila!! My card was done!

Special thanks to scrapbook.com for generously providing the stencil used in this project.

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links. They are at no cost to you and they help to support this site. Thank you so much to scrapbook.com for generously providing the dies and stamps used in this project!

Let’s make a Fall Rainbow Wreath card – featuring scrapbook.com exclusives!

Hi Crafty Friends! I am so excited to be back with another fun crafty project to share today. If you would like to see a video tutorial for this project, please click here:

https://youtu.be/QD9YeeH5nwo

I began this project by die cutting about a dozen small leaves from the autumn leaves die set from scrapbook.com. Any of the leaf dies in this set would do, I just picked my favorite one. These dies are really small, so I found it pretty quick to cut them out using my sidekick. I then took a rainbow of Catherine Pooler Inks and used a blender brush to apply ink to the leaves. I tried to add more color to the tips of the leaves and less near the stems. I also went ahead and die cut a narrow circle frame approximately the size of my wreath to use as a guide.

For the stamping, I used the hi fall set from scrapbook.com. I am really loving the set. In the video, I used the cummerbund ink to stamp the hi on a white card panel just slightly smaller than an A2 size card base. In my other cards below, you will see that I also made this card using some CP ink colors. The colors I used included it’s a girl, do si do, bellini, catching rays, chiffons, melon ice, garden party, minted, cummerbund, serenade and sixteen candles. I used the MISTI to stamp the hi so that I could go ahead and double stamp to get a nice solid sentiment. Next, I took the word fall from the stamp set and layered it on top of the hi and stamped it in black.

I prepared an A2 size card base and now had all of my card parts ready for assembly. First I added my background panel to the front of my card using some liquid glue. To build the wreath, I used the circle die cut as a guide and adhered the leaves in rainbow order, with slight overlap, using some smart liquid glue. Once all of the leaves were glued on, I flipped it over and used some foam squares on the back. I tried to overlap the foam on both the frame and the leaves to add some stability to the wreath. I centered it around my sentiment and adhered it to the card.

To finalize my card, I added some fun Honey Bee rainbow gems to add some fun sparkle.

Take a look at these other fun cards that I made using the same products:

Rainbow leaf wreath card with focal “hi” stamped using the color sixteen candles
I made this same card for an occasion other than to welcome fall.

Special thanks to scrapbook.com for generously providing the stamps and dies used in the project.

In this example, I stamped the hi using the color minted. Also, I changed it up and used a different die from the autumn leaves set.

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links. They are at no cost to you and they help to support this site. Thank you so much to scrapbook.com for generously providing the dies and stamps used in this project!

Ombre butterfly card using a Brutus Monroe stencil

Today I am sharing this fun butterfly birthday card. It features a few different cardmaking techniques including ink blending, stenciling, glitter paste, heat embossing and die cutting. Let’s get started.

Happy Birthday to you card

The first thing I did was grab a white piece of cardstock and this Brutus Monroe butterfly heart stencil. I pulled out four Catherine Pooler mini inks in an ombre order. The ones I picked were pucker up, flirty fuchsia, grape crush and drive in. Using Catherine Pooler blending brushes, I applied the inks in rainbow order through the stencil. I took a cloth and lightly wiped any extra ink off of my stencil. Next I applied a thin layer of nuvo glimmer paste through the stencil, right on top of the stenciling. This gel can be tricky to clean up, so I quickly removed and washed my stencil in some soapy water.

For the sentiment, I used white embossing powder to stamp out the Happy Birthday to you sentiment from LDRS special occasions stamp. I then used the same CP inks to ink around the sentiment. When I was happy with my blending, I buffed the excess ink off of the embossed sentiment to make it pop. Then I used a coordinating die to cut out the sentiment.

All that was left to do is assemble my card. I grabbed a piece of purple cardstock from my stash and used it to create a standard A2 size card based. I trimmed down my butterfly panel slightly smaller than the size of my card front. I adhered the card front to the purple cardstock and used some foam tape to pop up my sentiment. I finished the card off by adding a few Pinkfresh Studio iridescent clear drops.

I think this project would be really fun to repeat using some other fun color combinations. It would also be a great one if you need to mass produce a lot of cards really quick.

Thanks so much for checking out my project today!

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links when possible.  Affiliate links are at no additional cost to you and they help support this channel. Thank you so much for shopping using my links!

Just Fur You Card – card making with Altenew Layering Stamps

Today’s crafty project is a cat card that features some fun layered stamping and ink blending with stencils. Honestly, I am a dog person, and even I could not resist these cute stamps! If you would like to check out a tutorial video, please click here.

To start off this project, I stamped out the largest image from the Altenew Cat Life layering stamp set using some black ink. I then colored in the cats using the layering stamps from the stamp set. The inks that I used today were chiffon, Bellini and it’s a girl (all CP inks). I decided to use CP inks today because they give a nice, solid impression with stamping and they also blend beautifully. After I stamped out the cats, I cut out the image with the coordinating die set. I also used the die to cut out a few extra layers from some plain white cardstock, to add some dimension to the cats.

Just Fur You – handmade card using Altenew Cat Life stamp set and Catherine Pooler Inks

Background panels were created using a small brick stencil from My Favorite Things. I used my make art stay-tion to hold my stencil in place. I used some scrapbook.com mint tape to mask off a few rows of the stencil. I then used some CP blending brushes to apply the inks in rainbow order, using the same ink colors I used earlier.

I trimmed down the panel with my paper trimmer and also cut out a panel from black cardstock that was slightly larger than my card panel. The finished card will be an A2 size card. The sentiment “Just Fur You” was stamped using some versamark ink and heat embossed in white.

I used a combination of bearly arts liquid glue and foam tape to adhere my card together. To finish the card off, I used a glitter brush marker and a black gel pen to add some fun detail.

Here are some of the other cards that I also made, using the same products.

Card set made using Altenew Cat Life Stamp Set

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links when possible.  Affiliate links are at no additional cost to you and they help support this channel. Thank you so much for shopping using my links!

Let’s make a Fabulous Slimline Card

I am back to share another fun, craft card project. To make this card, I began by stamping out some branches from the natural flourishes stamp set with versamark ink on some Blue Raspberry cardstock from MFT. I then sprinkled on some white embossing powder and heat set the images. The fun technique that takes this basic card up a level is inking on the colored cardstock. To do this technique, you want to choose a dye ink that is a few shades darker than your cardstock. I took one of my CP blender brushes and inked on some All that Jazz ink. I tried to focus the ink near the base of the leaves to give the image some dimension, leaving the edges of the leaves un-inked. I then wiped off the embossing with a dry cloth and cut the branches out using the coordinating dies.

Make Today Fabulous Card

Next up, I cut out the fabulous word die three times from black cardstock and stacked them up using some liquid glue. I also stamped out the “make today” from the just plain fabulous stamp set and white heat embossed the image on some black cardstock. I then trimmed out the make today sentiment.

The combination of ink blending and curling the leaves helps these images have dimension.

For my card base, I trimmed down a piece of heavy weight cardstock to 7*8.5 inches and scored it along the 7 inch side at 3.5 inches. I die cut out a blanket stitched panel and trimmed it down slightly to fit the card base. This made a slimline cards. Before assembling the card, I bent my branch die cuts to give them some more dimension. I also lightly inked the background of my card base using the same dye ink in the areas underneath my branch die cuts. All items were adhered using some liquid glue. Finally, I added some Pinkfresh Studio jewels to finish my card. Thank you so much for checking out my project today!

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links. They are at no cost to you and they help to support this site. Thank you so much for shopping using my links!

Hot foiling and ink blending – Let’s make some birthday cards

Today I am sharing how I made another card project. This project uses the songbirds on branches suite from Pinkfresh Studio. I absolutely fell in love with these products and ended up making a ton of cards. To see the bonus cards that I made, scroll to the bottom of this post. Better yet, check out my YouTube Tutorial and I will be sure to talk about the bonus cards at the end of the video!

To start the project, I am pulling out some hammermill 100lb cardstock and my Gemini Hot Foil Press. Since the foil plates I am using today are quite large, I will set them to the medium heat setting for 30 seconds. The foil plates that I am using today are the songbirds on branches and brushed sentiments, both from Pinkfresh Studio. I used some gold foil for both the birds and the sentiments.

Happy Birthday card with songbirds on branches and brushed sentiments hot foil plates

After my hot foiling is completed, I set up the songbirds on branches panel on my Wendy Vecchi Make Art Station. I used the songbirds on branches layering stencils to apply ink to my image. For the birds and flowers, I used a combination of lemon whip, sunshine, ballet slippers and sparkling rose. I tried to blend the yellows and pinks together to create a beautiful orange transition color. For the leaves, I first applied a base layer of ocean breeze (the lighter aqua color) and then used aquamarine to add shading to the base of the leaves and the leaves detail layers. I also trimmed down a cardstock panel to 4×6 inches and applied the aqua inks around the edges, leaving a white center .

Once the images were colored, I used the coordinating dies and cut out the birds, leaves and sentiments. I also cut out an extra layer of the sentiments from some white heavyweight cardstock to stack up the sentiments for dimension.

Handmade birthday card with hot foiled details and ink blending

I prepared a card base by cutting a piece of cardstock to 10×7 inches and scoring along the 10″ side at 5″. Next, I adhered the birds and leaves directly to the inked panel. I kept the birds close to the left side of the panel to leave room for my large sentiment on the right hand side. I then trimmed off any leaves that were hanging over the edge of the panel. I then mounted the panel to my card base using some foam tape. At this point, all that was left to do was add on my sentiment and my card was done.

Card Collection made using the songbirds on branches product suite from Pinkfresh Studio

Now for the bonus cards. This first card is fun because I made it without using the coordinating dies. In this product suite, the stamps, dies, foil plates and stencils are all sold separately. I wanted to show you that you don’t need the dies to make a beautiful card.

Birthday cards with songbirds on branches Pinkfresh Studio products

For this bonus card, I wanted to make a standard A2 size card. I though that the brushed sentiments were too large for this size of card, so I pulled out a hot foil plate from my stash called Yana’s sentiments and used that instead. The smaller sentiment and only 1 bird were enough to fill the card nicely. I also added a scalloped frame die cut from foil cardstock to add even more shine.

Happy Birthday A2 card

This one is very similar to the one that I created in the video, but I made it in the A2 size.

This card turned out to be one of my favorites! I didn’t want to waste the remaining hot foil, so I used a solid hot foil plate to create the reverse images of the birds. I then die cut them out and made a 5×7 card very similar to the one I made today. For the 4×6 panel, I used a scrap of cream colored cardstock to add some interest to the background.

Getting the reverse images with solid hot foil plates!

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links. They are at no cost to you and they help to support this site. Thank you so much for shopping using my links!