Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Holly

Morning! 

Steph here and I welcome you to my Nov Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration post. This month I wanted to focus on Holly.

My first card uses Uniko Framed Holly stamp set and Uniko Most Wonderful stamp set for the sentiment.

I stamped the large frame stamp using very light ink and drew over the lines with an alcohol marker, colouring in the leaves as I went. I have coloured the background in light grey and added Wink of Stella all over for sparkle. I used the extra stamps in the set to stamp individual holly leaves, fussy cut and adhered these to the card front using foam pads. 

My second card uses Uniko Snowflake Serenade stamp set and inked it in light blue. I then used alcohol markers to draw in the holly and berries. The sentiment for this card is from Uniko Christmas Sentiments stamp set. Again I added some Wink of Stella to the holly leaves for sparkle. 

Finally I have used the holly stamps from the Uniko Winter Foliage stamp set and Uniko Festive Sentiments stamp set for the lovely large sentiment. I have added snowflakes from the Uniko Stunning Snowflakes stamp set and used the Wink of Stella on these. 

How are you all getting along with your Christmas crafting? The final card here today is very quick and easy to make if you need to get a few cards done in a short amount of time. 

Much love

Steph x

BA Inspiration - Technique Tuesday, Using Sentiment Stamps For Backgrounds

 Good morning Uniko fans, Julie here with another BA post using sentiment stamps in a background. I love using sentiments for a background and have shared many ideas over the years such as here, here and here but this time I've been inspired by Jennifer McGuire to use a turnabout jig to create one.

Here's my first idea, using English Country Garden stamps and dies and some birthday themed sentiments.

I started with an A6 panel of white card and using a freehand cut shape to match my jig middle, I glued it temporarily onto the center of my panel and secured my jig into my MISTI. To get a feel for my layout, I started with the largest sentiment stamp and set off, turning the panel after each time I stamped. Once I could see where the gaps were, I used smaller sentiments to infill and repeated the stamping and turning. 

I stamped my butterfly on one of 3 white butterfly die cuts and coloured it with Copics. From the remaining die cuts, I removed the antennae and lower half of the body and folded them in half down the middle. These were then glued to each wing, meeting at the center and the other flaps were glued over the turnabout panel.  My panel was trimmed and added to an A6 white note card.

I rather liked the effect of the dancing butterfly over the sentiments, so tried another idea out, this time using the Sparkling Snowflake die and some appropriate sentiments.

This time I used Altenew Iceberg ink for the stamping, some of which I double and even triple stamped to increase the saturation of colour. Instead of using all 8 points of my stamping jig, I just used every alternate one, it gives a slightly different effect and I was able to use more sentiments.

The main snowflake was cut from holographic silver card and two others from matching white card folded down the middle and attached the same as the butterfly. One of Bev's sentiments describes the effect perfectly, Snowflakes are winter's butterflies!

So that's all from me for the moment, hope I've given you some inspiration for you to give it a go

Stay safe and keep crafting!

Merry Monday, BA Inspiration with Winter Foliage Stamps and Matching Dies

Good morning, Julie here with some more ideas and inspiration to encourage you to make a start on your Christmas makes. Today I'm using the Winter Foliage stamps and matching dies and a new to me technique I stumbled across on You Tube recently. Here's a look at the three designs I came up with.

I was looking at a Marion Emberson video and she was raving about a video of a technique she'd just seen, so I went to look too. In the You Tube video, Ann Melvin uses Kitchen paper to die cut foliage to give a 3D effect. You Tube also suggested another video here that pre dates the first by the Memory Box guy. Thinking this looked something I could use for my post I had a play. 

I wont go into the process of making the die cuts as the video does it much better but I will explain how I made each card!

My first card uses a couple of the pine branches and pine cones, together with a text panel I made a couple of years ago.

         

Once I had cut out my elements, I added some water colour paint to the die cuts and left to dry. Using the left over from the die cutting, I placed it in my MISTI to use as jig to stamp my elements with the matching stamps. The boughs I stamped with Evergreen Bough DI and the cone with Ground Espresso DI. Now in the video there was no mention of the layers parting from one another which happened to mine, but a little dab of glue secured them back together! To make it more Christmassy, I added in some Inka Gold wax watered down with a little plain water, with a fine paint brush.

My panel was made for this BA post a couple of years ago, the process is quite involved so I made a load at the same time and kept them for use later! I trimmed the background panel, clear embossing on kraft, then added stamped and die cut elements. The finished panel was finished with a twine bow and added to my off white, A6, base card.

This second card uses two of the holly leaves and one of the berry clusters over another sentiment stamped background. This time I kept it very simple and just added a circle from the bits box, stamped with Season's Greetings from Christmas Sentiments and the holly and berries. 

My text panel was slightly too small for an A6 base card, so I trimmed it down to leave a thin, white border down both sides. The holly was painted as before with watercolour, then stamped in Pine Needles DI and the berries I left unstamped, just watercoloured and a few dots of white gel pen. This time I added some Wink of Stella to the die cut and stamped elements.

My final card uses the last of the holly leaves and berry cluster in a more contemporary slimline design.

After adding water colour and stamping the leaves as before, this time I added some Versamark and clear EP and heat embossed. It took a couple of goes as the paper towel is very absorbent. The definition on the leaves was lost in the embossing process, so I scored in the veins carefully, with a craft knife.

On a panel of white card I stamped the large sentiment from Festive Sentiments in black and added the embossed leaves and berries. A doodled border using a black fine liner completes this element. 

When I'd finished the panel and placed it on the plain white card, it looked a bit uninteresting, so I stamped a couple of the Background Blocks Wonky Stripes in black on another piece of card, then added that to my base card before the top panel.

Well I hope I've given you some ideas to kick start your Christmas makes, so for the moment, thanks for stopping by.

Stay safe and keep crafting!!   

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

Festive Friday - Brand Ambassador Inspiration

Good morning all, Julie here with another Festive Friday post featuring three cards on the same colour theme.

I'm still determined to get ahead with my Christmas makes in the hope that I wont need to be in a rush later in the year and this month I've been inspired by the colours over at CAS Christmas, so why don't you grab yourself a cuppa, sit back and check out these makes.

This first card uses the Christmas Pop trees as well as BB Falling Snow and a freebie snow stencil from a magazine. 

The two Christmas Pop trees were stamped and heat embossed with white EP before trimming down and edging them with red ink. The third snowflake one was made by tracing the shape of one of the others, cutting out from kraft card, then stamping with BB Falling Snow and embossing in white EP. On a scrap panel of kraft, I stenciled the snow using some Ranger Texture paste over the top 2/3rds and when dry added the strip of red, white and kraft coloured DP to the bottom. Arranging the trees over the DP, the finished panel was popped up on pads over a kraft base card, a trio of red gems complete. 

You can't get much simpler than this one layer card. Festive Sentiments Outlined and a holly sprig from Framed - Holly, stamped and embossed in white EP, 3 tiny red crystals for the red berries all on an A6 kraft base card. You could use any large sentiment here, such as Festive Sentiments, or even stamp it in black. A great design for mass production?

I've used Background Builders Christmas 2018 before to make a plaid pattern before, here and here. This time I've used a panel of kraft card, red ink, a white gel pen and a black fine liner to make a panel to cut my letters from. The kraft is obviously darker and very absorbent so the red is not as bright as it would be on white, but using my Misti I was able to go back a couple of times to deepen the colour.

You can see that I made a couple of mistakes with the stamping and line drawing but there was still enough left for me to cut out all the letters I needed, waste not want not!

The Wishing You is from Festive Sentiments and Christmas from Most wonderful were stamped onto the off white base card in black before the die cut merry was added on matching red foam letters.

So that's all from me for the moment, hope I've given you some ideas to get your Christmas stash rolling!

Stay safe and keep crafting 'til next time.

Festive Friday - Get more from your sentiments, some BA Inspiration

 Good morning, hope you are well and keeping safe and sane! Julie here with a little bit of Festive BA Fun this Friday. 

I have made a resolution to make Christmas cards all through the year, so that I'm not rushing around at the end of November making them like I was last year! Hopefully I won't have as much time on my hands this year, meeting up with friends and relatives will be at the top of my agenda, so I need to use this 'free' time to get ahead. So far I've made four!

So for my first Festive Friday post, I am concentrating on SENTIMENTS. Yup those little stamps that come with the more interesting stamp sets or the fab sentiments sets such as Festive Sentiments and Most Wonderful. 

Another resolution I made towards the end of last year was to use up my scraps and backgrounds that I have accumulated and it was after rummaging through these, that I got the idea for my theme for this post.

My first card uses a LOT of sentiments that I got together from my Uniko sets, some old and some new, some current, others sadly retired. I made them way back in 2019 but didn't use them all and in the spirit of waste not want not, here is my card design.

To make the panels, I started by laying an A5 panel of card in my MISTI, then arranged the stamps to cover the whole area. When satisfied with the arrangement I closed the MISTI door and inked up the stamps with Versamark and then stamped on to the card panel, added clear EP and heat embossed. I didn't remove the stamps and used a selection of different coloured card in festive colours to create multiple backgrounds which I can use later. A selection of little stamps were used to fill in any gaps too small for a sentiment.

For this card I took a bright red stamped panel and added it to an A6 card base, trimming off any overhang. The snowy landscape was cut twice using a Marianne die and added to the bottom of the card and excess trimmed away. A little Wink of Stella adds a bit of sparkle. No need for a sentiment as they are there in the background!

Here are a couple more ideas using the same technique that I made with the first of my panels, you may recognise them. 

   

Just click the image if you want to find out more.

Of course sentiments aren't just for Christmas, you can use any of your sentiments to create a background!

Keeping up the theme of making sentiments center stage, here is my second card. 

This uses a few sentiments in different fonts and sizes that I stamped onto card, heat embossed with fine white EP and trimmed down. The colour of the strips were chosen to match my backing which I stamped using Background Blocks Falling Snowflakes and the separate snowflake stamps from Snowflake Serenade in non traditional colours. I used a die cut funky Christmas tree as a template to create the centerpiece, adding each trimmed down strip starting from the bottom. A star punched from holographic card and a holographic gem on the red pot complete. The completed panel was then added to a red A6 note card. 

Here is the same idea from 2019 using a more traditional colourway.

So that's about it from me for today. I hope I've given you a few ideas for using those very useful sentiment stamps.

Stay safe and keep crafting!

More Ideas using Sentiments as a Background - Brand Ambassador Inspiration

Good afternoon folks.
It's Julie here with a few more ideas using sentiments as a background.

On Saturday I shared a card using a panel created with lots of sentiment stamps. As it takes awhile to lay all the sentiments out, it made sense to stamp a load on different coloured card for use later. I even had another go at creating a slightly different one whilst I listened to the footy on a wet Saturday afternoon!

My first card uses one of my first layouts. As you can see there are lots of different fonts and sentiments which I laid out on my MISTI before stamping with Versafine and embossing with clear EP. This example was done on white card and inked over with Salty Ocean DOx in a resist technique.

I used the idea of a bauble, cutting out a circle from the inked panel and the slipped the large Sparkling Snowflake, die cut from holographic card, behind. A little bit of thin silver ribbon and a bow completes. The finished panel was popped up on foam over a white base card.

My second card uses a different layout, this time it has a more horizontal design to accommodate a landscape design.

I used the trapped colour technique to create this background, stamping and embossing as before but this time on a panel of watercolour paper previously inked with Salty Ocean DI that was left to dry well before stamping. After heat embossing, I spritzed the blue panel and then wiped off the ink leaving behind the colour trapped behind the embossing. The top panel was cut with a scalloped edge die and some snowflakes from Stunning Snowflakes were stamped in Salty Ocean and Blueprint Sketch DI. Finally, I popped up the white panel on pads over the inked one on a white base card.

Finally I went all silvery for a change!

This panel was stamped and embossed with clear EP before cutting out the central NOEL with an alphabet die set. After cutting, I added Weathered Wood to the base but left the letters clear. I glued my panel onto a base card then added some grey foam letters and then the white ones on top. To complete I added a small die cut snowflake from the new Big n Bold Snow dies and a few diamante gems.

Three different looks, all from the same starting point. Hope I've given you a few more ideas for your Christmas card making, I've still got a load more to make but I still have plenty of backgrounds to use!

DT Inspiration - stenciled resist technique

Hello, Wiebke here to share some inspiration with you!

For today I made a colourful "sound card" with a stenciled resist technique.

The Uniko products I've used are the Equaliser stencil and a combination of the stamp sets Life is a Song & Most Wonderful.

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Magic of Music

Magic of Music - Detail

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About this card & technique:

For the stenciled resist technique I first applied a clear embossing paste through the Equaliser stencil onto the paper. After it was complete dry I started adding the colours - this time I used Zig Clean Color Real Brushes and blended them with a moisturised cloth and a brush and some water.

(When you don't have clear embossing paste you can also use clear embossing powder - apply the embossing ink through the stencil and then add the powder - don't forget to use a antistatic powder tool before!)

The embossed areas will stay white / in the colour of your paper and pop out of any colourful background!

Some colours tint clear products - if you want it really clear you need to check the combination of your materials before!

In this case it was ok for me to get some staining, it reminds me more to the old "Winamp Music tool"! ;-)

I cut down my paper in the shape of the equaliser blocks (with a similar edge around) and adhered it to my cardbase. The sentiment is a combination of two different Uniko stamp sets - Life is a Song & Most Wonderful,

To repeat the clear part of the background I used clear embossing powder for the first part of my sentiment "believe in the magic of" and white powder for the "music" and the note.

To add some sparkle, I drew a slim line around the sentiment with the amazing Sakura Gelly Roll - clear star pencil.

The headphones are a die cut (sorry, I have no brand name). I combined a normal black and a pearlescent black paper to get some optical dimension. The shells are adhered on the card with some 3D pads, for the rest I used a strong fluid glue.

To get the full list of all used supplies please hop to my blog.

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Musical greetings from Wiebke.

Introducing... Background Blocks Falling Snowflakes

YAY!

I'm SO happy that you have stopped by today, as here at Uniko preparations for the October 2017 product release are well underway. We have had all the sneak peeks and we are now onto day 3 of the product introductions. You can catch up HERE and HERE with day 1 and 2.

Today the Design Team and I are introducing the next stamp in the Background Blocks series, called Falling  Snowflakes.

How about a little festive scene to show off these falling snowflakes...

I love white embossing on kraft card and it seemed the perfect opportunity when I was putting this little scene together. I've combined a couple of previously released Uniko clear stamp sets on this card. Firstly the tree and little bird is from Rustic Christmas and the sentiment is from Most Wonderful. 

That's all from me here, but be sure to hop along all the Design Team blogs and leave a comment along the way, as you never know you might just win a random prize! I know for sure that you won't be disappointed the Design Team have created a bountiful wealth of inspiration :)

CLICK HERE to see more from Beverley

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 Rahmat

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah P

I do hope you have enjoyed the hop and seeing the possibilities this clear stamp set has? This set along with the four others we are introducing this week will be available HERE for you to purchase on Monday 16th October at 9am GMT.

Release Schedule...

Sneak Peeks 7th - 10th October, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing 11th - 15th October, here you will see a closer look at the products being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Monday 16th October 9am BST 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 this new clear stamp :)

Hugs

Happy Mother's Day!

Hey!

Today is Mother's Day here in the UK and I have enjoyed some lovely quality time with hubby and the beans :) To top it off the weather has been glorious this weekend and we have managed to spend time outside enjoying it. 

I've been longing to spend some time in the garden, the previous owners had let it get very overgrown and seemed to like a lot of greenery and not a lot of flowers! So, I spent some time clearing one of the borders to create a blank canvas to plan my plants/shrubs for all year round colour. 

Anyway, we did pop round to see my Mother In Law this morning and this is the card I made...

I couldn't resist inking up Originally Organic Additions again! This time I went for some fussy cutting. I started by stamping the heart wreath and a trio of flowers. I then cut the flowers out and adhered them into place on the wreath, I then stamped some smaller buds to the wreath before cutting it all out. This added a little more interest and depth to the design.

The sentiment is from Simply Said and I added a few tiny rhinestones and some clear Wink Of Stella for a little subtle sparkle. Inside the card I combined a sentiment from Most Wonderful and Celebrate with Cake, stamping another of the stems and flowers from Originally Organic Additions.

Before I go today, I also have the WINNER to announce for the Uniko March 2017 Design Team Blog Hop & Giveaway....

MirellaMarch 13, 2017 at 3:50 AM

This is such a sweet card, and I love that stampset!

Congratulations Mirella! Please send an email along with your postal address to bev@uniko.co.uk by Sunday 9th April 2017 to claim your prize.

Thanks for stopping by today and enjoy the rest of your day and weekend!

Hugs

Uniko Sponsors Less is More & Guest Designer!

Hey & Happy Weekend!

Uniko is super happy to be sponsoring the challenges over at "Less is More" this month - YAY! I was also asked to join as a Guest Designer for todays challenge - double YAY!!

This is colour week and they would like to see Clean and Simple (CAS) Cards using ONE or More Primary Colours.

This is what I came up with...

I'm totally in Christmas mode now and it is full steam ahead on the Christmas Card making train! So I opted to mix a newly released Uniko Christmas sentiment from a clear stamp set called Most Wonderful and paired it with an older Uniko clear stamp set Stunning Snowflakes.

Who doesn't LOVE blue snowflakes?! If you are a regular follower of Uniko, you will already know that this is my favourite trio of snowflakes ;) I simply stamped them in Stampin' Up! retired Ballet Blue ink, added a little clear Wink of Stella and a rhinestone to each centre. 

Be sure to head on over to "Less is More" HERE for more inspiration from the LIM Design Team and link up you creations in the gallery. I hope to see you there ;)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Hugs

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