BA Inspiration: Mixed Media Christmas Tree Trio

Hello everyone!

Happy Thursday!

Vinita here! Recently I was going through my stash and rekindled my interest in Silver glitter paste. Because of the paste opacity, a thin layer makes it more opaque and visible the underneath color. Talk about the drama! 

So I thought it would be the perfect use for a new stencil release Christmas tree trio recently at Uniko.

It looked complicated but was easy to make. 

Here are step-by-step instructions with pics:

On a white panel, I placed my Christmas Tree trio stencil and drew the outlined trees one by one as shown in the above pic.

Once again, I put my stencil to ink my solid outlined tree using mowed lawn DI in between all these trees one by one.

It appeared like this as shown in the above pic.

I ink-blended the rest of the space using forest moss, crushed olive and mowed lawn DI. I outlined my trees using a green acrylic marker for more interest.

Now it's time to decorate my trees and the background. I added some confetti using DI.

I used my beloved Posca white pen for snowfall in the sky. Stamped the sentiment from the Pure Florals Poinsettia stamp set. To finish it off I wrapped a thread around the trees. 

Hope you all enjoyed this!

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 - Alumni Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe

 Hello & Happy Monday! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have our Alumni Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe joining us again. If you missed Lindsey's first projects, be sure to hop on over HERE.

Lindsey Bowe

Blog / Instagram / Pinterest

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

On watercolour paper (requisite sorry - ordinary card will warp!) I painted several squares, letting the colours run a little, added some paint splatters & sprinkled over table salt in a couple of areas.

To finish the project off, I added some machine stitching and iridescent sequins. For my focal point, I chose a couple of blooms from the « Beautiful » stamp set.  These were stamped on tissue paper stuck onto card to make them more manageable.  

I shaded around the bottom RHS of the flowers with a soft graphite pencil to make them more grounded - no need to shade around the whole shape just think of where 5 is on a clock face!  

If you want a hint with your final composition, remember the rule of thirds and triangle placement. The flowers were placed in the bottom RHS third where the eye is automatically drawn to and my sequins were placed in a triangle to encourage the eye to move around the finished piece.  

Try positioning your pieces in different areas on a project & hopefully you’ll see what I mean. You need to entice the eyes to keep moving around your project and you can manipulate this with strategic placement of your focal piece and embellishments!  

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

Crafty Hugs

 

Mixed Media Monday - Guest Brand Ambassador Sally Holmes

 Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have our guest Sally Holmes joining us again. If you missed Sally's first projects, be sure to hop on over HERE.

Sally

Blog / Instagram 

Hello Everyone, today I have a couple of mixed media projects to share with you using Uniko's Background Builders: Seeing Stars and Reach For the Stars clear stamp sets and Stencil Wonky Stripes.

Journal page

For the background I used distress oxide sprays in Wild Honey, Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet. I used the same colours in oxide inks for stencilling down each edge of the page. I used the same inks and some Versafine Clair Twilight ink to stamp the stars and borders. I stamped the words and three more stars onto snippets of black card and embossed with fine detail white embossing powder and gold embossing powder. I stuck these on with matte medium. Finally, I splattered a small amount of water and a little of each spray across the whole page.

Card

For the background I sprayed a piece of mixed media paper (180gsm) with Distress oxide sprays in Peacock Feathers and Brushed corduroy. When this was dry, I stamped the star strings in Versafine Clair Acorn. 

I mixed about a teaspoonful of Pretty Gets Gritty Clear Get Crackled gel with a few shakes of Mars Pretty Gets Gritty explosion powder. I applied it with a palette knife through the stencil and left it to dry.

I stamped and embossed the sentiment into the space and the star onto a scrap of card sprayed with the oxide sprays. I used Versamark ink and copper embossing powder. Finally, I added a few extra stars in the Acorn ink and cut out and stuck on the star with some 3d glue.

I hope you have enjoyed my projects today? I look forward to sharing more with you later this month. 

Sally

Star Struck! 

I am so inspired to have a go at a journal page, it is something I've never done myself. Such beautiful colours and placements of images & stencils. So many new ways to use Uniko products.

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

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

 

Mixed Media Monday - Alumni Guest Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe

  Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and today I have another guest joining us who is also a Uniko Brand Ambassador Alumni.  Please give a warm Uniko welcome to Lindsey Bowe.

Lindsey Bowe

Blog / Instagram / Pinterest

Hello Everyone, Lindsey here and it's good to be back at Uniko. Today I have some watercolour, stamping & stitching mixed media projects to share with you.

And here is how I made them. I started by painting random stripes of harmonious watercolours on some straightforward copier paper. I often paint a couple of shapes at the same time (you never know if they’ll come in handy later on 😊)

I then stamped on top of the strips with the Background Blocks Mid Century Modern and Background Blocks Mid Century Modern II, using similar ink colours to the watercolours.  As you can see my stamping wasn’t perfect but usually with mixed media projects you end up adding lots of different media as you progress,  so I wasn’t overly worried!

I tore the strips apart (again, there’s no need for precision!) and decided on those that I liked the look of best & glued them to a piece of A6 card. 

Then it’s a case of starting to tie everything into one harmonious whole 😊. I do love using machine stitching for this. Paint splatters are also good, as is doodling with paint pens or felt tips. I’m also rather fond of gold or silver acrylic paint!  I’ve used a small lid here to stamp & link the strips together. 

To give the whole piece a final focus I added a stamped flower using the Mid Century Modern Florals clear stamp set, sequins, a spot of glitter and one of the aforementioned little hearts!  The sentiment is from the Pure Florals Peony clear stamp set. 

If you’ve never dabbled with mixed media before I wholeheartedly recommend it. It can be absorbing and lots of fun. It can also help free up your style.  You really don’t need to splurge on lots of new materials (unless you get the bug that is!). If you’ve got children you can probably find crayons, felt tips, poster paints & glitter lurking somewhere in your house.  I’ve even been known to use emulsion paint before!  It’s just a case of starting with some sort of colour on paper and taking it from there, one different sort of media after another. If you don’t like something, just collage another piece of paper on top or paint over it. 

Have fun!

WOW! Are you picking your jaw up off the floor like I am right now? 

I love the soft subtle colours Lindsey has used for her projects today. AND what I especially LOVE is how Lindsey has shown that Mixed Media doesn't have to be complicated and you don't need a lot of specialist supplies.

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

Crafty Hugs

 

Introducing... Stencil Pure Florals Rose

Hello & Happy Thursday!

I am delighted you have stopped by today as the fun begins and myself and the Uniko Brand Ambassadors  get to show you the new stencils in action. I'm over the moon to be adding these NEW Uniko Stencils to the growing collection. If you missed the peeks and news about the release/s I shared yesterday, be sure to catch up HERE.

Let me introduce you to the next in the Pure Florals collection, Stencil Pure Florals Rose...

This is a 6 x 6 inch stencil, so the bloom is beautifully large like the Chrysanthemum and the Gerbera. And like the others this stencil coordinates with the previously released and popular Pure Florals Rose clear stamp set.

So lets see this beauty in action, from what I have seen from the Brand Ambassadors this little blog hop will leave you feeling super inspired! 

Bev

Hannelie

Izzy 

Jane 

Julie

Rahmat

Steph

WOW! 

What a wonderful hop, I sure hope you enjoyed it? This stencil along with the others being introduced over the next couple of days will be available for purchase HERE on the website Sunday 20th June at 9am BST. 

That's all the fun for today, but be sure to stop by tomorrow for the next introduction.

Crafty Hugs