Sending Rainbow Hugs

Happy Thursday 😃

Today I was in the mood for rainbow colours, it literally hasn't stopped raining all day. Coincidently this weeks Card Of The Week products include Sunshine & Rainbows and BIG & BOLD Hugs, which I have used on my card today. 

I started by stamping the rainbow, making sure I had room for the hugs sentiment. And to make sure I had the rainbow nice and centred I started with the inner arch, working my way out to the biggest. I used Concord & 9th Inks in Poppy, Marmalade, Buttercup, Parsley and Oceanside. 

For the clouds I used Dove and a little fussy cutting before adding a tiny little heart enamel to one of the clouds. 

I finished with a combination of sentiments. The Sending and Rainbow from Sunshine & Rainbows and the Hugs from BIG & BOLD Hugs. I masked off the 's' from the end of the rainbows sentiment.

Both of these sets are 15% off this week in The Card Of The Week section on the website. 

I hope you are staying warm and dry where you are. 

Crafty Hugs

Hugs

Hello & Happy Thursday,

Although this week has gone quicker than the last two, January already feels like a year! I don't know about you, but personally I have sought out hugs this week for warmth (it's cold with minus temps) and for comfort, for those January blues.

This in turn has inspired my card...

Sunshine & Rainbows has been on my list for a while as a stamp set to give some fresh inky love to, so that's what I reached for first. I went for some non traditional rainbow colours, Peacock, Stardust and grapefruit and a non white card base, Dove. 

Back to some fussy cutting again, but the rainbow arches aren't as difficult as they look. I did some tone on tone stamping for the clouds before adhering the rainbow.

The BIG & BOLD Hugs is stamped and embossed in white before I fussy cut the word out. I adhered using foam tape and then finished with the Sending sentiment stamped in a slightly darker grey, VersaFine Clair Morning Mist.  

So if you are in need of a hug, this ones for you.

Crafty Hugs

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Background Builders: Hearts

Morning All, 

Steph here today. How is 2023 treating you so far? I feel like it's going too fast already and with that in mind I've turned my thoughts to Valentine's Day cards using Uniko Background Builders: Hearts stamp set. These background builders sets are always so versatile as you can create backgrounds (as per the stamp set name!) or just use individual elements to create beautiful cards. I have shown both in today's post.

For my first card I was very much thinking of Valentine's Day and went with the reds and pinks. The heart I have used here is my favourite from the set as I love the 'sketchy' effect and it is also present in other Uniko sets so mix and match away! (Sunshine & Rainbows & Mid Century Modern Florals). The sentiment (XOXO) is from the Uniko Always & Forever stamp set. 

I stamped and heat embossed the hearts and sentiments onto scraps of red, pink and cream card before die cutting into squares. I then added in further squares and rectangles of card to create a patchwork effect. This is a great way to use up card scraps, of which I have far too many!

My next card uses one of the strips from the stamp set to create a heart covered background. I used my stamping platform and placed the stamp to the right hand side (when shut) so I could leave the stamp in place and simply shift the cardstock to the left each time I wanted to stamp a new column. I then used one of the other heart stamps from the set to create the teal and olive  hearts before fussy cutting and laying on top. I added a lovely large sentiment from the Uniko BIG & BOLD - Hugs stamp set and a simple small heart from the Uniko Flower Power #3 stamp set to fill the gap in the bottom right hand corner. 

Finally I wanted to use the most popular product from the recent Uniko Jan mini release; Background Blocks Linear. I can see why this stamp was so popular as it was so brilliantly showcased during the product introductions but also because it is so versatile. I simply stamped the BB Linear in dark grey, at an angle, and to this I added the outline heart from the Background Builders: Hearts set. Once again I have fussy cut the hearts, both inside and out (I'm a bit of a fussy cutting fan!), before placing them on foam pads and adhering to the card front. The sentiment is from another one of the Jan mini release sets called Mid Century Modern Frames. 

Thanks for joining me today and hopefully I've given you some inspiration for your Valentine's makes, or not, as you can see that two out of the three are not actually for Valentine's Day!

Much love

Steph x

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Creative Christmas

Good Morning all, 

Steph here today. For my Uniko Brand Ambassador post I thought it would be quite nice to showcase a different way to use some Uniko non Christmas stamps mixed with the traditional Christmas sets for creative Christmas projects. 

My first card uses Uniko Background Blocks Doodle Flower stamp teamed with the more recently released Uniko Doodle Flowers stamp set. I have used red and green for the petals to resemble a Poinsettia. The sentiment is from Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas stamp set. 

My second card uses the foliage silhouette from the Uniko Just Because stamp set and I have teamed it with some white berries to create a hanging stem of mistletoe. I have used chalk ink over the black card in order for it to show up. The sentiment is a mixture of Uniko Christmas Sentiments stamp set, Uniko Most Wonderful stamp set and Uniko Big & Bold Hugs stamp set.

My final card for today uses Uniko Flower Power #3 stamp set. I have stamped the solid floral in two shades of green before fussy cutting and turning upside down to build my Christmas tree. The decorative elements have all come from the recently released Uniko Pattern Building Christmas Tree stamp set teamed with a sentiment from the Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas stamp set.

I hope you like my three cards today and that I have got you thinking about different ways in which to use your stamps. 

Much love

Steph x

DT Inspiration - Pretty Butterflies

Hello there, it's Sarah P sharing some butterfly DT inspiration today.

Despite having nothing in particular to inspire me in creating these cards as my mojo is a little lacking at the moment I decided to simply grab my Uniko stamps and flick through to find any sets I didn't feel I'd shown enough 'love'!

I didn't need to flick very far through them to reach the English Country Garden Butterflies set.

It's an older one but totally classic so first up 2 very similar cards using simple stamping of the 2 mini butterflies, using both the outline and block images although slightly off-set with the embossed outline stamping on the first one.

I've teamed both of these cards with sentiments from one of the brand new sets; Wonderful Day, released just before Christmas.

The stamping on this next one uses both outline and block images but with a tone on tone effect, which isn't showing up too well in the photo. I've also applied some tonic shimmer to the butterflies and IRL I can assure you it really does shimmer!

To create a completely different look with the same set I've used the Emboss Resist technique for the next 2. 

First up the butterflies are stamped with Versamark ink before heat embossing with white embossing powder from Hero Arts. Once the embossing was cool I've blended Distress Inks over the top in probably my favourite colours (Mustard Seed, Fossilised Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon, Picked Raspberry and Wilted Violet). 

To finish I white heat embossed a collection of sentiments from the BIG & BOLD Hugs and BIG & BOLD Hello sets

I was having so much fun with the resist technique with inky blended background that I decided to make another card, this time using the larger butterfly stamp and blending the colours in reverse. 

Hopefully you'll feel inspired to have a little crafty play time with your own stash. Have a fabulous weekend and thanks for calling by the blog today!

Sarah x

DT Inspiration - One year

Bonjour !

Izzy here. Today it's been just a year and a month since I joined the wonderful Uniko team. In fact I wanted to do this post a month ago but it was the day of the new release.

To celebrate this I revisited some products that I particularly love and that were released in this period of time.

I'm starting with my favourite one I think the Kindness Bloom combined with the Birthday Sentiments set.

I played with the smaller stamps of this set, inking them randomly in different colours all over the double card front. I stamped the bold birthday wished on a die cut scalloped white square. This was then foam mounted onto the double card.

On a separate white card stock I stamped the blooms and I fussy cut them. Then I foam mounted them on the scalloped square corner. To finish, I glued some jewels.

My next card uses the marvellous Bee Happy stamp paired with the Beautiful stamp set and the Stylised Floral stencil.

On a square white card stock I used the stencil with Twisted Citron Distress ink that I blended softly to make a gradient. Once done I cut a part of it and I matted the two parts onto a black double card in order to reveal a black stripe. 

I stamped the adorable bees on a separate card stock, I coloured them with colour pencils and I fussy cut them. I assembled the Bee Happy and the Beautiful sentiments together in order to make one single sentiment. Finally I stamped the dotted spiral to give mouvement to the foam mounted bees. 

For my third card I used the Doodle Flower stencil together with the BIG & BOLD Hugs stamp set.

As you know, Distress Oxide spread like butter and blend so beautifully together that it is a pleasure to play with them ! That's what I did with this lovely stencil on top of a square white card. Then I stamped and heat embossed in black the sentiment on a white card stock and I fussy cut it.

I love how the black bold sentiment pops up on top of it with the stitched scalloped frame.

The fourth card is in fact a twofer of the third card...

I've seen in different blogs how to use the Distress oxide inks left on a stencil after blending them through. I wanted to try and I LOVE the result.

They give a much softer look and the negative of the stencil. When I saw the result I immediately knew that I would combined it with the Sweet Baby stamp set.

I also used the Distress Oxide inks to stamp the bold sentiment and the adorable bear. I fussy cut them and foam mounted them on the card.

My final card today uses one of the gorgeous stamp from the Pure Florals collection, the Rose. I love to combine it with the Lattice stencil.

On the card base I used the Lattice stencil in Spun Sugar distress ink. Then on a separate white card stock I stamped the outlines of the rose and of the leaves. I then coloured them with Promarkers and I fussy cut them.

I die cut a stitched border that I matted onto the card base and I adhered the leaves and the rose on top  with glue dots. A lovely sentiment from the Flower Power #1 set is black stamped to finish the card. 

And voilà ! That's all for me today. As you can see, Uniko products all go pretty together, you can combine them in such different ways. There have been many other products during this period of 1 year that deserve your attention as well, so stay tuned, I'll be back soon ...

Thank you for stopping by and have a great crafting day !

Izzy xx

DT Inspiration - Using those little stamps ...

Hi! It's Deborah here with you today. When I booked today's slot, I had something completely different in mind - I was going to use stencils, but after Sarah and Izzy posts, I thought I'd do something different. 😊

I didn't quite know what to do, but I was watching Jennifer McGuire's video about stamp and ink layered backgrounds on Monday and decided to base my cards on her technique.

I made a set of four very clean, simple Christmas cards - it's never too early to get started on your stash!

I started by stamping the Falling Snowflakes Background Block in white pigment ink all over several pieces of white card. I heat set them all, inked the backgrounds with Distress ink and heat set them again. I made panels in green, turquoise, pink and purple. I used a die to cut Christmas trees from each panel and then used lots of the little images from my Christmas stamps sets to overstamp the panels using white ink - if you watch Jennifer's video you'll see the technique. It's very easy and lots of fun. I added dimensional foam to the back of each tree and adhered them to the cards. I stamped a Christmas greeting on two of the cards and on the other two, I added little sentiment strips. I finished all the cards by adding lots and lots of clear gems. I've not done the insides yet. Here's a close up photo of the stamping and inking on the purple tree:

The next two cards have a more 'loving' theme. They're not strictly Valentine's cards, but they will be going to some special folk. The first card is probably more a traditional Valentine as it's pink, red and features lots of hearts:

I kept it simple to allow the stamped and inked heart to be the main focus, along with the lovely sentiment 'hugs' from Big & Bold Hugs.

Next is another heart card, but this time in shades of green. The words are from Pure Florals Rose. I tied the two words together with the addition of the hand-drawn heart so that I could cut it out with my Scan'N'Cut:

As before, I've not completed the inside yet. But here's a close-up photo of the green heart and embossed background:

I hope you've enjoyed my take on Jennifer's technique. I had so much fun playing will all the little stamps from many different sets.  Thanks so much for stopping by.

Introducing... BIG & BOLD Hugs and Large Background Scattered Polka Hearts

Hey!

Welcome back to Day 3 of the product introductions for the December release. This is the exciting bit where you get to see the sneak peeks in action!

Today myself and my awesome Design Team  are introducing a couple of clear stamp sets, first up is another addition to the BIG & BOLD series, BIG & BOLD Hugs. The second product we are introducing today came about following the Large Background Scattered Polka Dots, which we introduced on Tuesday. This time I went for hearts, Large Background Scattered Polka Hearts!

Here is a look a at both the stamp sets combined onto one card...

A classic CAS style card with a bold statement, perfect to send to a friend, loved one or even someone you have never met that might just need that hug.

The Large Background Scattered Polka Hearts is stamped inVersaMark and heat embossed in Gold onto some Melon Berry (Papertrey Ink) card before I die cut a heart shape using the Sizzix Framelits Hearts. I've then mounted the stamped and embossed heart onto the same size black die cut heart to give a shadow effect. 

The 'hugs' is stamped, fussy cut out and adhered using foam adhesive. A simple heart enamel finished the design off.

That's all from me here today, but be sure to hop around the Design Team blogs and leave comments along your way to be in the chance of winning some random prizes! 

CLICK HERE to see more from Beverley

CLICK HERE to see more from Carol

CLICK HERE to see more from Deborah

CLICK HERE to see more from Izzy

CLICK HERE to see more from Jane

CLICK HERE to see more from Lindsey

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah P

I hope you enjoyed the hop and getting to see these two new clear stamp sets in action? That's all for today, but be sure to pop back tomorrow for more product introductions and inspiration.

Release Schedule...

Sneak Peeks 10th - 11th December, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing 12th - 15th December, here you will see a closer look at the products being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Saturday 16th December 9am GMT you will get to see the products in their entirety and purchase them HERE on the website! As usual there will be a Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

Thank you for stopping by today and I'd LOVE to hear your initial thoughts on these clear stamps!

Hugs