Hello everyone!

Happy Tuesday and Merry Christmas Eve!

Vinita here! Did you see Uniko's Christmas release last month? I loved everything in it. I spent a whole day creating Christmas cards! I picked a few items from this release and mixed and matched them with old ones!

 

I started by stamping the mehendi mandala design in Jet black archival ink at the top corner representing the Sun in festive colors. I watercolored it with my brush pens. At the bottom corner, I stamped the solid Christmas tree in ombre green DI with its outline image using Jet Black ink.

Then, I added some gifts with a Merry Christmas sentiment. I colored the gifts using acrylic markers. I quickly applied some Bronze Perfect Pearls to the Christmas tree, gifts, and sentiment; it was all magic. The black ink turned into bronze, and I added some bronze splatters.

Here is a close-up image:

I hope I have helped with ideas. This is such a fun way to gift someone. 

Will come back again tomorrow!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy crafting!

Mixed Media Monday - Alumni Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe

Hello & Happy Monday! 

Today I am delighted to be back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am honoured to have our Alumni Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe joining us again.

Lindsey Bowe

Blog / Instagram / Pinterest

Hello everyone, I am delighted to be back today to share a Journal front cover  with you.

To start I stamped and white embossed the mandala from Marvellous Mehndi on watercolour paper, followed by Dylusions spray inks.

I then added gold acrylic paint with an old bottle top & picked up the surplus ink & paint on a piece of white card - an easy way to make a coordinated piece of coloured card stock. 

I used the white “mop-up” card to cut out a background circle for my focal point and picked up the gold theme with some thread.

For my focal point I chose the sweet flower from You Are, Yes You clear stamp set & coloured it with pastels.

Here is the final piece, embellished with sequins, my usual stitching & an off cut of some gold ribbon. Bling bling!

Wow! Such a beautiful and inspiring piece. I do love the idea of decorating a journal cover in this way. I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Lindsey for inspiring us all Gin.

Crafty Hugs

 

Mixed Media Monday - Guest Brand Ambassador Camilla

  Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have another guest joining us please give a warm Uniko welcome Camilla Nordqvist. 

Camilla has been a customer of Uniko since opening day. How do I remember this? Well, Camilla was the first customer to order all those years ago and as a small business owner, it's kinda one of those things you never forget! 

With age my short term memory might be a little wooly here and there, but as each order that comes in gives me this warm fussy feeling and I do a little happy dance inside, names of customers (usually) stick with me. 

Anyway, enough of my rambling, let me hand you over to Camilla...

Hello,

A few weeks ago Beverley kindly asked if I wanted to create a mixed media project for Uniko. So I decided to pull some prints from my gel printing plate and make some colourful tags. 

The gel plate is a super versatile tool that you can use with different kinds of mediums and tools. You don’t even need special tools, some of my favourite things to use are bubble wrap, cardboard and different caps/lids. If you’ve never worked with the printing plate, it’s very addictive and an afternoon passes quickly when you’re building up texture, playing with different techniques and colours. I recommend to go to YouTube and let yourself be inspired by the many talented artists there.

I normally use acrylic paints on my gel plate, but I’ve recently started playing a lot with alcohol inks. Some of you might have a gel plate in your stash but don’t want to buy new inks, but maybe you have refillers for your alcohol markers? They work very well on the gel plate. For my tags today, I have only used Copic refillers. They work the same as alcohol inks. 

Another great thing with the gel plate is that you don’t need yupo paper to pull a print. You just add a layer of acrylic paint on top of the alcohol inks; this will ‘lift’ the alcohol inks off the plate and transfer them to your choice of paper. I use a smooth, thick white paper (250 g/m2) to pull my prints.

Add your colours to the gel plate. Use a brayer to spread them a bit or use a straw to blow them around (don’t suck in!). Let dry. If you want, you can create your own pattern with stamps (the tags with arrows, flowers, leaves and paisley patterns were all stamped directly on the gel plate). Let dry. Then apply a thin layer of acrylic paint with the brayer and pull your print.

My final tag is a bonus tag, made from all the colourful scraps that were on my desk. Shame to throw them away! The flower is made with a Tim Holtz die.

Thank you Beverley, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to create a mixed media project for you!

Uniko Clear Stamps Used:

Accent Essentials: Arrows (sadly retired)
Explosion!
Explosion! Additions!
Flower Power #7
Marvellous Mehndi
Paradise – Leaves
Simply Said Birthday (sadly retired)

WOW! 

I for sure am inspired. Mainly I want to go and get me a gel plate - haha! As would you believe I don't own one. I am really enjoying seeing Uniko clear stamps used in different ways and with different media. It's also been a delight to see some loved but sadly retired clear stamps still being inked up.

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Camilla for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Partially colored Mandala - BA Inspiration

 Hello friends Rahmat here today with my inspiration .

I am showcasing the Marvelous Mehndi set today.

I have kept the color scheme simple with just 2 colors, and only colored it partial for fun.

The sentiment is from Uniko but a retired set and smaller part is from another current one.

     Thank you for stopping by, I really appreciate your kind feedback. Have a great day!     

                                                       

DT Inspiration - layered combinations with Stencil and Stamp

Time is running and and we almost reached the center of September!

Has Friday 13th in your cultural estimation a negative character? Do you believe in superstitions, bad omens or auguries?
I don't! - So today is a perfect day for me to present you my new DT-Inspiration Post!

I made two different cards for different occasions with the same combination of Stencil and Stamp Sets: the popular Mandalas of Uniko. Yes, there are two different products with Mandalas in the Uniko range of products available:

• the Mehndi Mandala Stencil and 
• the Marvellous Mehndi Stamp Set

They have almost the same outer shape, but the details are a bit different and even more important: they have different sizes! Great preconditions to give this idea a try, right?

The sentiments are both part of the Wonderful Day Stamp Set.

 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

For the first card I added Oxide Inks with my blending brushes over the Mandala stencil.
I used a bright yellow and orange colour scheme - squeezed lemonade, mustard seed, dried marigold, carved pumpkin and ripe persimmon. The blending brushes make it so easy to get a nice and smooth colour gradient without hard edges!
I started with the light yellow and then got darker with every new layer of colour in the order of the listing above.

Detail of the yellow layered Mandala

After I had cleaned the stencil, I replaced it on my paper, added the stamp (the stencil helped me to get the stamp in the perfect place!) and put all together in my stamping tool, closed the lid and the stamp was on its place!
To fix the paper, you can add temporary adhesive before you put it into the tool or you can fix it carefully with the magnets while you remove the stencil. Try out what works best for you!

Then I simply stamped the smaller Mandala and then also the sentiment in black Ink.
To put some special accents on this simple one layer card I added half-pearls in two sizes (2 mm and 4 mm).

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

For the second card I used almost the same supplies - just changed the colours into another colour family: blue - tumbled glass and salty ocean.

Again I started to add the colours with the blending brushes, beginning with the lighter tone, tumbled glass, all over the stencil and then darkening the center with salty ocean.
I rotated the combination of stencil and stamp this time a bit. The 'petals' of the stamp are placed now in between the 'petals' of the stencil.

The rest was easy going! I layered the paper on top of two slightly bigger blue papers to get a nice two-coloured frame (yes, it's a heavy card now!). Then I added the heat embossed sentiment with thin 3D pads and embellished the Mandala with some nice rhinestones. There are some round 4 mm gems in an opalescent clear-blue colour and also some tiny little drop-shaped gems in clear and in blue.

Detail of the blue layered Mandala

* ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

To see the full list of all used supplies, please hop directly to my blog.

* ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Which combination of stencil and stamp do you prefer? The yellow on top-combination or the more masculine blue offset-combination?

I looked through my Uniko stash and found some more combinations of stamps and stencils to give this technique-mix another try.
Would be great to read in the comments which combinations you found and tried!


Have a great and creative day!
Greetings from Wiebke

Uniko Sponsors "Less Is More"

Hey & Happy World Card Making Day!

I'm super duper pleased you have popped by this morning as today the countdown to the October Release starts, it's Happy Stampers Festival Day AND myself and Uniko are proud to be sponsoring the challenge over at "Less is More" this month  - YAY!

Being the first challenge of the month, it's a colour challenge and it's all about Hot & Spicy colours. When I thought of these colours I thought of the Middle East designs and Marvellous Mehndi...

I used my MISTI to stamp the large mandala on both the square layer and base card in Stampin' Up! Poppy Parade ink and then over stamped them in VersaMark ink, to heat emboss them with clear EP. I then went in and selectively coloured the mandala on the top square only.

The sentiment is a peek at one from a NEW clear stamp set being introduced this week and will be available to purchase on Monday 16th October! I've embellished it with some smaller stamps from Marvellous Mehndi and my favourite Stampin' Up! enamel dots!

I hope I have inspired you to join in on the fun?! 

That's all from myself for now, but be sure to head on over HERE to see what the "Less is More" Design Team have created to inspire you and to join in on the fun too. I hope to see you in the gallery!

I'll be back AGAIN soon with the first of the October Release Sneak Peeks! 

Hugs

Yin & Yang

Hello!

It's Lindsey here with a couple of cards using the Marvellous Mehndi stamp set:

 

I wanted to make a masculine and a feminine card using the same stamp sets and same colour backing card.

Marvellous Mehndi is a very versatile stamp set you see!

 

I hope you can tell my masculine card from my feminine card!

I left the large mandala image and concentrated on the smaller paisley style stamps in the set.

Two of these smaller stamps have a leaf motif and the other two have small flower motifs.

I love how the different stamps swirl and fit together - a bit like yin & yang!

 

A simple black and monochrome scheme for my masculine card and a jazzier colour combo for my feminine card, complemented with some fuschia and gold bling.

Thanks for popping by.

CAS Colours & Sketches #231 - Sketch!

Hey!

Welcome to another challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches and this month Cathy is our hostess. Last week we had a wonderful fresh and vibrant colour combo to inspire you and this week we have a sketch designed by Cathy...

Argh! Ovals! You might know already that I don't reach for ovals very often. It's a shape that just doesn't sing to me design wise, so it always gets me out of my comfort zone. 

Anyway, this is what I came up with...

I now own some oval dies, so that was one hurdle I have overcome! My design was a spin off from my Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY card seen HERE (the hop started today too, so there is plenty of time to hop along and comment to be in the chance of winning).

I already had Marvellous Mehndi on my desk, which is the clear stamp set the Uniko DT and myself are revisiting. So it seemed appropriate to give it another outing ;) I used the same colours, which are basically all of the Gansai Tambi Starry Watercolours! 

I stamped and heat embossed the paisley design, as this helps keep the watercolour in place. I just LOVE the sparkle of these watercolour paints. The sentiment is from Simply Said and I added a few sparkly glitter enamel dots to compliment the design.

That's all from me today using the sketch, but if you need some more inspiration using the sketch be sure to pop by the CAS Colours & Sketches blog HERE and see how the DT and Guest Designer have used it.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hugs