Crafted by Nicole LeBlanc

Spreading happiness... one card at a time.

The Latest

Christmas Shaker Cards with stencils and heat embossing

I am so excited to share this card project with you today… Not to be dramatic, but it is my favorite Christmas cards that I have made this year.

Handmade Christmas Tree Cards featuring Under the Christmas tree products from Pinkfresh Studio

You can check out a video tutorial for this project by clicking here:

I began this card by gold heat embossing some stamps from the Under the Christmas Tree stamp set from Pinkfresh Studio. My final card will use the Falalalala sentiment, the tree and the gifts. Once I completed my embossing, I moved on to some ink blending to color the images.

This stamp set has coordinating stencils, which helped move the coloring process along quickly. I started by adhering my stamped panels to my Make Art stay-tion using some mint tape from scrapbook.com. I then used a Catherine Pooler blender brush to add the layers of ink through the stencil. For the ink today, I used a combination of Pinkfresh Studio inks. The aquas are ocean breeze, aquamarine, and mermaid cove. The pinks are ballet slipper and sparkling rose. The browns are warm buff and doe. Finally, the yellow ink is in the color sunshine.

Shaker Christmas tree cards – filled with Tim Holtz Mica Flakes

Once the ink blending was complete, I cut out the images and sentiment using the coordinating dies. I also was sure to die cut out 3 additional layers from plain white cardstock to stack up behind the images to give them more dimension.

To create the window on my shaker front, I used a blanket stich oval die to cut out an oval from a 4.25×5.5-inch piece of cardstock. I also trimmed down a piece of acetate to slightly smaller than A2 size.

Aqua, Pink, & Gold Christmas shaker card

To assemble the card, I used a combination of liquid glue and foam tape. The shaker bits are a combination of Tim Holtz mica flakes and some large chunky glitter. To finalize my card, I used a glitter brush marker from scrapbook.com for some additional sparkle.

I also made some additional cards, using the same design but instead of using a shaker window, I just adhered the elements onto some stacked stitched ovals.

I also made a traditional, non-shaker Christmas card. I love the aquas and pinks with the gold embossing powder.

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!

To shaker or not to shaker? Let’s make a set of unicorn holiday cards with distress oxide inks & stenciling

This project today is extra exciting because not only did I make 2 different cards today, but this project is also a collaboration with a fellow crafty YouTuber. Jess Crafts and I each used the same stamp set and the same color combination to make some very different cards. If you are interested in seeing the video from Jess Crafts, click here.

To see the video tutorial for my project, you can click here:

I started my project by pulling out some bristol smooth white cardstock trimmed down to 4.25×5.5 inch panels. I then used some blending foams to apply a mix of salvaged patina, peacock feathers and chipped sapphire distress oxide inks. I then layered on top one of the gorgeous Lawn Fawn background stencils. This stencil set is fun because it gives you the option of layering snowflakes, or you can just use one of the stencils like I did. I then used some Catherine Pooler blender brushes to apply the same distress inks through the snowflake background stencil.

Let it Snow cards featuring Lawn Fawn stamps, dies, and stencils

My sentiment was made using the Giant Let it Snow die also from Lawn Fawn. I cut this out 3 times from heavy weight cardstock and stacked them up using some Tombow Mono Multi Liquid glue.

Now for the star of my card, I stamped and die cut the cute unicorn from the Lawn Fawn winter unicorn stamp set. I absolutely love these mini stamp sets from Lawn Fawn. I like that they are pretty inexpensive and usually come with an image and a sentiment. I stamped my unicorn using some black ink from My Favorite Things. After letting my ink dry, I colored my unicorn with a combination of copic markers. If you would like to know what markers I used, please check the video.

Honestly, I consider myself a beginner when it comes to coloring. I tend to get overwhelmed with large images or shading large areas. Most of the coloring I do is very basic, and as you will see in the video, often I don’t shade at all. I also like to stick to smaller images so if I am unhappy with how they turn out, I can easily start over.

Once I had all of the parts prepped for my card, I began the assembly phase. Both cards are size A2 (4.25×5.5 inches) and have side folding card bases. For the first card, I trimmed down my background using a stitched A2 layers die and adhered it the card base using some foam tape. I then adhered my sentiment and popped up my unicorn with some foam squares.

For my second card, the infinity shaker, I tucked my card inside of an inexpensive cellophane bag. These are actually the same baggies that I use to store my finished cards in. I used some scrapbook.com double sided adhesive to create a snug pocked for my background panel. I then scooped in a mix of glitter and sequins before sealing up the plastic pouch. Next up, I adhered the panel to an A2 card base using some more scrapbook.com double sided adhesive. I added on the sentiment to the front of the card using some very thin 1/8″ scrapbook.com adhesive. The unicorn was popped up with some foam tape.

Let it snow infinity shaker with lawn fawn dies, stamps and stencils

Both cards were finished with the a glitter brush marker on the unicorn hair, horn, scarf and sentiment. I just love adding sparkle to cards especially holiday ones!

Thanks so much for taking a look at my card 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!

Using a Foilpress to make handmade cards with beautiful ink blended and foiled butterflies

Slimline butterfly card featuring hot foil and ink blending

Hi Crafty Friends! It has been far to long, but I am glad to be back! Today, I am sharing a super fun project that uses a mix of hot foiling and ink blending. This was my first time using hot foiling for a project and I was blown away by the results. If you haven’t tried it yet, I hope you get a change to check out hot foiling.

To see a video tutorial, please click here:

https://youtu.be/rnlToa-Aylc

To begin this project I used my Gemini Foilpress to hot foil some Pinkfresh Studio small butterflies and a Spellbinder’s hello sentiment in some gold foil. I then used some Catherine Pooler blender brushes to color the butterflies using a combination of fairydust, yellow, and rise & shine. Pinkfresh Studio mini ink cubes and the coordinating layering stencils. I loved using my Wendy Vecchi stay-tion to hold all of my stencils in place.

I then used my Gemini Jr and the Pinkfresh coordinating dies to cut out the images. I also used the slim Moroccan tiles die from scrapbook.com to to cut out 3 slimline backgrounds.

Today’s card is a slimline, and the card base was made from a piece of 110lb white cardstock trimmed to 8.5×7 and scored in half at 3.5 inches. This results in a finished card of 8.5×3.5 inches. For my background, I masked off the front of my card base using some mint tape from scrapbook.com and blended on a combination of lemon whip, peach fuzz, and ballet slipper inks using the same Catherine Pooler blender brushes. I then layered up the Moroccan stencils on top using some Tombow liquid glue. The butterflies and hello sentiment were adhered using distress collage medium. And voila, this card was done!

I love the added dimension from folding up the butterfly wings!

I had some leftover butterflies, so I made this card an A2 size twin. All steps for this card were the same, except I used an A2 size card base and the Pinkfresh Studio Geofloral background die instead. It looks like this background die is no longer available, but you could try any background dies that you may have for a similar look!

A2 card with foiled and ink blended butterflies

Disclaimer: This post features affiliate links when possible. All products used in this project were purchased by me for my own personal use. Affiliate links are at no additional cost to you and they help support this website. Thank you!

Using layering dies to make mini slimline cards

The project that I am sharing today is this beautiful mini slimline card I made using a combination floral layering dies and mini slimline dies.

I do have a coordinating video for this project that you can find by visiting here:

I began this project by doing a bunch of die cutting. The floral dies that I used are the Climber Flowers die set from Altenew.  For my floral images, I decided to use the floral smooth cardstock from scrapbook.com. In particular, this cardstock paper pad features a beautiful assortment of floral tones to layer on my images. I really like the idea of using these coordinated cardstock paper pads instead of purchasing a ton of different colors of cardstock individually.

The most difficult part of the project was looking at the die set and deciding what dies needed to be cut from which colors. I found the guide on the front of the package to be very helpful with both choosing the right colors and layering up the images.

I then did a bunch of die cutting for mini slimline using the mini slimlines essential bundle from Pinkfresh Studio. I decided to cut 2 of the stitched rectangles from gold foil cardstock and the 2 coordinating basic rectangles from white cardstock.

hello mini slimline card

For my sentiment, I selected a small hello sentiment which is from SSS. I did go ahead and cut the hello sentiment once in gold as well as a couple times from white so that I could layer it up and give it some dimension.

For my card base, I trimmed a piece of heavy weight white cardstock to 6×6 inches and scored it at 3 inches to create a side folding card. Once all of my card pieced were prepared, I began to assemble my project.

I used tombow mono multi liquid glue to adhere my die cuts and sentiments together. I like using liquid glue for small die cuts so that I have a few moments of “wiggle room” to help me get the best placement possible. For the rectangle layers on my card, I used a combination of foam tape and tape runner.

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!

Fun Paint Swash card | How to use Concord & 9th Turnabout Stamps

Today I am sharing how I made this fun, graphic card using stamping with turnabout stamps from Concord and 9th in my MISTI. If you would like to see a video on how I made this card, please visit my YouTube channel by clicking here:

To create the background I used the Paint Swash Turnabout stamp set from Concord and 9th with a combination of distress oxides in Salvaged Patina, Peacock Feathers, and Iced Spruce. I then used some Pinkfresh Studio’s detail black ink to fill in the empty space with one of the fun lines stamps from the set. I trimmed this panel down to 4.00 x 5.25 inches using my Tim Holtz 8.5 inch trimmer.

Love You card ft. Concord & 9th’s Paint Swash stamp set with distress oxide inks

To create my sentiment, I used the Big on You stamp set from Concord and 9th to stamp the large love you sentiment using the detail black ink. I cut this sentiment out using the coordinating die set. For the sentiment strip, I stamped out the phrase “you’re an absolute dream” using some clear Versamark ink and heat embossed the sentiment in white. I then used the coordinating die to trim out the sentiment strip. I used some mint tape from scrapbook.com to hold my dies in place as I ran them through my Gemini die cutting machine.

I trimmed down a piece of black cardstock to 5.5 x 8.5 inches and scored it as 4.25 inches.

To assemble the card, I used some foam adhesive to layer up the sentiment. I like the ergonomic reverse grip tweezers to help me get the best placement of my die cuts. I finished up the card by adding some fun Honey Bee Black Gem Stickers with the assistance of the Tim Holtz retractable craft pick.

This card came together so quickly, that I also made it a “twin” thank you card.

Disclaimer: Whenever possible, this site uses affiliate links. I appreciate when you visit my affiliate links, as that helps to support this site and is of no additional cost to you. Thank you!

Make your own Slimline Card with washi tape and dies

Last week, I shared a video where I showed you how I made some beautiful A2 size cards with the Anemone washi tape and coordinating die from Pinkfresh Studio. After that project was complete, I had some extra images that I had cut out from the washi tape that I hadn’t used in that project. In particular, the largest floral images were left. I decided that it would be a shame to not use them in a project, so I came up with this card project.

Slimline card with scrapbook.com exclusive Moroccan tile slimline die and Pinkfresh Studio’s Anemone Magic washi tape and coordinating die.

There is no video for this card project, but if you haven’t seen the previous video where I show you how I used the same washi tape in a previous project, I would invite you to click that here.

I began this card project by preparing my card base. For my card base, I trimmed a piece of heavy weight cardstock to 7.0 by 8.5 inches and scored it in half at 3.5″ to create a slimline card. For my card background, I die cut a couple of the Moroccan Tile slimline die from scrapbook.com. I stacked them up using some Tombow Mono Multi Glue to give my background some fun interest and dimension.

For my sentiment, I used the stamp “The littlest things in life are where we find true joy” (from the Indigo Vines stamp set, which also has a coordinating die and washi tape). I stamped the sentiment using some Versamark ink onto some vellum and used some gold embossing powder to heat emboss the sentiment. I then trimmed down the sentiment into a long narrow band.

Slimline card with Pinkfresh Anemone Magic washi tape and dies, and scrapbook.com exclusive Moroccan Tile slimline die

At this point, all that was left to do is layer up my diecuts and adhere them to my card. Once my die cuts were added to my project, I took a pair of scissors and trimmed off all the floral edges that were hanging off the edges of the card.

I just love the Moroccan Tile Slimline die and I am sure you will see this beauty in action on future card projects.

Disclaimer: Whenever possible, this site uses affiliate links. I appreciate when you visit my affiliate links, as that helps to support this site and is of no additional cost to you.