Kennedy Grace Creations

Hello everyone! Erica here with a bitter-sweet post, it is my last one as a DT member for Kennedy Grace Creations. I have decided to step down from the team to focus on my own blog, which is called CaCaCraft by Erica  and some exciting future endeavours coming my way. More will be revealed later this month and I’m so excited about it I can barely contain myself! Anyway, as this is my last post I thought I’d go out with a super, simple card focusing on an important message: Instead of going for something floral (big shocker, I know!! The flower mad girl ISN’T using a flower stamp?! Whatever next?) I used the sentiment ‘Sprinke each day with Kindness’ from the stamp set  Kindness Medley  and heatembossed it on black card stock with rose gold embossing powder. My idea was to create a shower of sequins falling over the sentiment to tie in with the ‘sprinkle’ in the sentiment. The sequins I used are from the fusion mix called  Unicorn  and I picked ou...

Hello, hello! Erica on the blog today with my last post for October. I can't believe it's nearly November, this year has seriously just whooshed past! My card today is a bit of a "I'm in denial it's almost winter" card, using bright summery colours. It turns out I seem to have also used the colours of our October mood board on closer inspection. Maybe my subconscious is actually more onboard with the changing seasons than my conscious self? Who knows? Anyway, let's get to it shall we before this get's all psycho-analysing, shall we? I started by cutting out an A2 stitched panel in Copic friendly card stock before stamping up the flowers from the  Kindness Medley  stamp set. One bunch of flowers in the bottom right corner and one in the top left corner. Then got my copic markers out, I used various yellow and orange ones to give my flower petals depth and highlights. For the leaves, I use a few different green ones to make sure they didn't end...

Hello! Erica back on the blog today after a few weeks hiatus due to a house move. Nothing as dramatic as a hurricane thank goodness for me, but still very disruptive. I hope everyone affected by hurricanes, storms and floods are getting things sorted with cleanups, insurance claims and rebuilding. I've not had much luck getting my craft room sorted after the move but I managed to make a card and write this blog post, which feels like a major win. It's only been 2 weeks since we moved in after all. Right, well, seeing as I still have stuff all over the place I should try keeping this short and sweet so I can keep organising the house. I started out with stamping the  Splendid Roses  on Copic friendly card stock and coloured that with bright pinks and fuchsia markers. I must admit this is not my finest colouring job but it sure is bright! Once I was done colouring it, I fussy cut the image out and set it aside. For my background, I used a Hero Arts stencil and some...

Hi, hi, hello! Erica on the blog with another super simple, but rather eye-catching, card. Recently I got the second lot of Distress Oxide inks and ooooh, that Picked Raspberry... L-O-V-E!! Well, I simply had to use it on several projects right away because #lovepink, am I right? Getting a piece of smooth water colour card stock out, as well as arming myself with Worn Lipstick, Wilted Violet and Fossilized Amber in the Distress Oxide inks too because options. Right-o, I basically went to town with blending and adding colour as I wanted the background really, REALLY vivid. Once I was happy it was colourful enough, I spritzed some water drops on it and lifted that off with a piece of kitchen roll. To hurry up the drying process, I used my heat gun on it until it was bone dry so I could run it through my Big Shot with a stitched die. Then it was time to add images and sentiments. As my plan was to heat emboss the image in white on vellum I picked the one I think makes the bigges...

Hello there! Erica here with my last blog post for July. Today I'm steering away from both birthday and thank you cards if you can believe it..! Yep, today's card is a simple 'hello' one. With some water coloured flowers of course. Because why not? I didn't really have a design in mind when I started this card, I just wanted to do some colouring and have some me-time. Right now, we have hydrangeas blooming all around our neighbourhood and one of my favourite colours is the one that is blue/purple. I love that deep, intense colour and tried replicating that on my flowers here. Sure, it's not a hydrangea stamp but just work with me for a minute ;-) I picked out one of the little flower stems in the  Grace's Happy Heart  and heat embossed it in white in a pattern on my water colour card stock. I stamped it in such a way that I didn't need a mask as it doesn't overlap anywhere. Usually when I colour with my Zig markers, I use them directly on t...

Hello everyone and hello July! Yikes, who else is in total disbelief that we are over halfway through 2017 already?? Come on now, show of hands, I can't be the only one surely? This month I'm going to focus on Thank You notes as we will be moving next month and I want to make sure I say a proper thank you to everyone that already has and those who will be giving us a hand with various tasks as well as have made our time in Denmark lovely. One of my favourite flowers are dark pink peonies and I used these as a colour reference when I did the colouring for this card, even though the stamp itself if technically a rose. Just bear with me on this. As I planned on using my Zig markers again I got my Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour card stock out and cut a smallish rectangle using a die from Avery Elle which has a cute stitched pattern around the edges. I dusted it generously with my anti-static tool and then stamped the  Just a Rose  on the left side in VersaMark ink ...

Hi guys! Erica here with my last post for June. Honestly, where is this year going?? I'm scrambling to remember the date with the days just whizzing by...! As I mentioned in my first post for June, I have a friend who's going through a bit of a hard time and I made this card with her in mind again. She lives on the other side of the world from me and sending cards and little presents is our way of staying connected the old-fashioned way. Chatting via Skype or Messenger is fab as it makes the distance between us feel shorter but we both enjoy sending little surprises to each other to brighten the other's day. She is one of my biggest card fans too so that helps! She loves yellow so I decided to make a simple but bright card for her today. This month I have kept my focus on the Splendid Roses  stamp set and ALL my cards are made using this stamp, this one is no exception. I do like showing different techniques and looks you can get from one single stamp set which is a...

Hello, hello! Erica back on the blog today with a card you might recognise a little bit. If you don't, check out my last couple of cards over here on  this blog post  and you will see how one stamped panel has now ended up being three different cards. This card is basically the coloured version of those two cards. If you don't have time to check out my last post I stamped up lots of  Splendid Roses  on a slightly larger than an A2 panel and then I foiled it as well as used the negative piece for a second card. As I had a big stamped panel ready to go, I decided to colour it in using my Zig markers. To make it really colourful, I used a different colour for each one of the flowers. It's only the small buds that are the same colour. Oh and the leaves too. I managed to smudge the colours a little bit in the space between the flowers and leaves so I thought I'd colour that too to make the coloured blooms really pop. At first I toyed with the idea of startin...

Hello, Erica on the blog today, May 25th, which also happens to be my Mamma's birthday! So happy birthday to Mamma!! She's been here visiting since last Friday and is here for another week so I've not been on top of my blogging game *insert shame filled face here* and today is no different BUT I thought I could turn it into a challenge: make a presentable card, from idea to finished product, in the least amount of time. I'm not neglecting my Mamma though, she's having a lie-down after a little celebratory lunch with a few friends. Yet another reason to try and make this card, photograph the card and write the blog post in the least amount of time as to not spend too much time away from her. With that in mind, I grabbed my iPhone and started the stop clock. Then it was time to scramble the brain and get something going! Looking through my stamp sets I went, not totally unsurprisingly, with the  Beautiful Bloom-Sweet Rose . It is one of my faves after all. On an...

Hello and welcome to the Kennedy Grace Creations blog this fine day! Today I have a fun and different card for you as I tried something out with my new Distress Oxide inks and I thought I'd share it with you. I have been playing with different ways of using them and this was a successful attempt, it's a back-to-front distress ink blending thing... ish... sorta. Right, let's get to it! First off I die cut a panel in Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour card stock which was going to be the front part of the card. Then I got the  Just A Rose  stamp set out and stamped it on a large piece of masking film, using a craft scalpel I cut out the rose part only. Are you getting where I'm going with this? Yeah? Can you see it? As I was doing a flower I decided to use Worn Lipstick and blended it over the "flower hole". I thought the flower needed a little bit of detail so I dabbled a little bit of Burnt Brick using a brush to created tiny...

Hello everyone and hello to May! Erica on the blog today with a birthday card, which seems rather appropriate as it May is my birthday month. I absolutely love birthdays and celebrations, not just my own as I think it's a great reason to make someone feel extra special and treasured. The age doesn't really matter. Just take me, I will be 25 on the 11th, for something like the 13th time... details, details. I'm not into the whole 'ageing gracefully' thing, nope. Not me. Noooooo, Siree! But birthday cake? Oh, count me in! Right, all this talk of ageing is giving me wrinkles and grey hairs so let's get to the card instead. I have a penchant for flowers so it should not come to any surprise I decided to use the lovely Just A Rose  and my beloved Zig markers for this card. I wanted a bit of a frame for my sentiment so I stamped the flower slightly off frame in three places, with a little bit of help of a mask, in black ink and then heat embossed them with clear...

Hello! Erica on the blog today with my last card for April. Honestly, time is just whooshing past, or is that just me?? Today I thought I'd try something that I find quite hard when it comes to card making and that's monochrome. Yep, black and white. This is my Everest in card making and colouring. I'm usually all about colours, colours, colours!! Especially with the stamps from  Kennedy Grace Creations  as it's mostly flowers. Well, not one to shirk away from a challenge (even one self-imposed) I had one idea that I pretty much scrapped right away. Mostly because I stamped a flower in the wrong spot on the second stamp so it went into the 'I might look at that later and see what happens' pile. Moving on, as my idea evolved from the mishap, I cut up a square measuring 5"x5" in white card stock. Then I covered the middle with a circle I cut out of masking film. This was more as a guide than anything else though. Once I was ready to start stamping ...

Hello, hello, hello! Erica on the blog today, how are we all doing? Excited about Easter and having a few days off? We don't really do anything special for Easter in our house apart from having some chocolate Easter eggs and I do decorate a little bit. The decorating is more for a spring-y feel as I adore spring with all the flowers that pop up, buds on all the bushes and trees, warmer and longer days. It all makes me happy. Today's card is yellow and green, which are in my mind typical spring colours. I started out by stamping the  Beautiful Bloom-Sweet Rose  flower stamp on Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour paper, I heat embossed it in white as my plan was to use my Derwent Inktense pencils for the colouring. I have neglected these watercolour pencils for a while and thought it would be nice to change things up a little from the Zig markers and Gansai Tambi watercolours I have used a lot recently. I started with the leaves and with a water colour brush dropped g...

Welcome, crafting and cardmaking friends!!! This is a Kennedy Grace Creations blog hop, and it's Erica here for this second post. We are debuting our newest 4"x6" clear stamp set - Sweet Baby Mine! (PLUS- we have some new sequins to coordinate with this set, called Baby Blanket). Please hop along through to see out talented design teams creations! You should have come here from Michelle and after this post, you should get to the lovely Patricia. BONUS GIVEAWAY TIME: hop through each person in the hop and leave comments on everyone's post. Randomly, we will have TWO winners - you have to comment on everyone's posts in order to be entered in the giveaway. Generic, one word comments will NOT count toward the giveaway. Must be genuine and kind. Winners will receive a $15 gift certificate to the Kennedy Grace Creations shop! Winners will be announced on the KCG blog on Friday April 7, 2017. Thank you for hopping along with us! Inspiration, here we come! I...

Hi everyone! What did I tell you about my next card being pink in my last blog post? Would anyone be shocked that this card is in fact pink? And very pink at that! No? No, I didn't think so, lol! Well, I went for the  Splendid Roses  again but just a single bunch this time and I used Zig markers instead of Copics. Blending together 2 different shades of markers for each flower and bud I made them all look slightly different but still pink to keep it cohesive. The leaves got coloured using a single green marker but lots of water and swish-swooshing to create some texture and different vibrancy. A light blue shade was added around the bunch of flowers as I seem unable to leave too much white on a card. Something to work on perhaps. When the colouring was done and dry, I trimmed the panel until it was quite slim. This I adhered to a pink gingham card stock with foam to raise it up a little bit and finally added that to a pink card base. This card is slimmer than my usua...

Hello! Erica back on the blog today with a card that's completely out of my comfort zone colour scheme-wise. I had several 'yikes' moments while colouring this one! Purple is one of those colours that I'm not a fan of personally, I can't wear it without looking like I'm on my way to my own funeral. It sucks any rosiness right out of my face and I look pale and grey. Not the best of look, is it? I'm not that good at using purples when it comes to colouring either but this year I'm making an effort to step out of my comfort zone and trying things I tend to stay clear of. It can be a painful process and often my husband will know when I'm doing it as instead of a serene and happy wife colouring away, he has a grumpy and grunting red-faced grizzly bear impersonator..! This card was no different but I think it turned out very pretty in the end as I kept working on it for a couple of days without throwing it in the bin (this is huge progress for me) ...

Hello, Erica on the Kennedy Grace Creations blog today. I reached for my favorite stamp,  Beautiful Bloom Sweet Rose , it is such a stunning flower and I absolutely love it. On a panel I had previously cut out using a stitched rectangle die in Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour paper, I dusted lots of anti-static powder all over it and with VersaMark I stamped the first image just off the top right corner. I covered it with white embossing powder and used the heat gun to set the powder. Then I covered it with a mask and repositioned the stamp to add lots of the little blooms that poke out from the big flower. I did this twice on my main flower and then finally added one last one in the top left cover, this one I only stamped to show about half. Once they were all stamped and heat embossed, I got my Zig markers out and chose Light Pink and Blush to create a soft, vintage look for the blooms and some greens for the leaves. When I colour with Zig markers, I always keep one...