Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Snowflake Serenade

Good morning

It's Anita here and today I'm sharing some cards using a great Christmas set, Snowflake Serenade Clear Stamp Set.  The main image has so much movement and you also get some extra snowflakes and some fab mixed-font sentiments.

Ok, here's my first card, and my favourite of three I'm sharing today...

I started with a piece of green cardstock, very unusual for me not to reach for white!  I then stamped and embossed the main large image in gold, before then filling in some gaps to create a full background.  I then ink blended in from the edges of the green panel and faded it out toward the centre.  I then grabbed a green marker and coloured in all the holly images, just to add some tone on tone detail.  I then finished with a gold embossed sentiment from the Rustic Christmas Clear Stamp set, on a black die cut.

My second card...

Directly on the card base I stamped the main focal image in blue dye ink.  I then ink blended in from the edges using a few shades of Distress Oxide ink.  Next I 'painted' the holly leaves with water and blotted with a paper towel to remove some colour, this works well with blended Distress and Distress Oxide inks as they react with water.  I also used a wet paint brush to add the 'snow' dots which were also blotted away.  The sentiment, also from the set, was stamped in black ink and I finished with some smooth gems in the centres of the snowflakes.

And my final make...

I kept this one fairly simple, just ink and glitter.  I used an angled panel die cut with a stitched border and stamped the main image in black ink.  I adhered this to my card base and then used a glue pen to add glue, first to the holly leaves, which I sprinkled with super fine green glitter, and then added some touches to the snowflakes and sprinkled with pale blue glitter.  I then finished the card by stamping the sentiment, from the Background Builders: Winter Wonderland set, along the edge of the panel.

So there you have it, three very different cards using the same focal image.  I'm still way behind with my Christmas cards this year so I hope this has provided you with some inspiration if you are too!

Thanks for taking a look, I hope you have a wonderful week! 

 

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Water Coloured Stencilled Christmas Trees

Good morning, Julie here with few festive ideas for quick Christmas makes using the Christmas Pop Trio stencil and the Christmas Pop stamp set.

I've rediscovered my love of water colour these past few weeks as the days shorten, temperatures drop and gardening is on the back burner. It's great to get lost in You Tube and then have a play!!

Here are three cards that started out as three outlines made using the open tree stencil.

In theses two examples, I traced the outline of the tree using the basic outline from the stencil without the trunk, one onto card the other onto watercolour paper. I wanted to see if the technique worked on card and it does! Can you pick out the w/c paper from the card? The one on the right is the one using w/c paper.

The answer here is to be prepared before you start painting. I used water colour paint but I could just as easily have used DIs or reinkers. I made up pools of three shades of green and then painted the outline triangle all over with plain clear water. YES you read correctly WATER! Not too much if you are using card though. 

Before it dried, I dropped drops of colour randomly in the triangle and let the water do it's thing. You don't do the mixing, the water does, no two will ever be the same. This is great for mass production as each one will be drying whilst you do the next! 

I could have stamped the pot from Pattern Building Christmas tree but used a pencil and ruler to draw mine. I filled in the shape as before first water then some red in a couple of shades. The painted panels were then left to completely dry.

When dry I needed to decorate them and decided to use the elements from Christmas Pop with gold embossing powder. To complete, I added stars from the same set and the first tree I stamped the sentiment from Christmas Sentiments in Jewelled Gold EP to match the tree.

For this last card I drew the triangle using the same stencil but this time placed Washi tape around the outline. I used a slightly textured card for this panel and the same pools of green from the other two cards. 

Starting with a pale green, water added to the strongest one, I painted across with size 6 watercolour brush in various thicknesses and angles. When dry I repeated using progressively darker greens, waiting for each layer to dry. Again this would work well for batch making. When dry and before removing the tape, I splattered some Inka Gold over the paint for a bit of festive sparkle. I hadn't used it for awhile and it was set solid in the pot but I broke a few bits into a dish and added some water to make a thin paste for splattering! The pot was done the same as before.

I didn't add a star this time but added the same Christmas Sentiments sentiment in plain gold EP.

So that's it from me, hope I've inspired you to get a little arty but still keeping the designs clean and simple!

Keep safe out there and happy crafting!

Festive Friday!

Happy FriYAY! 

I'm jumping on the early Black Friday bandwagon with our best discount code of the year. Save 30% on all orders of £10 or more, plus shop the sale and save up to 40%. Code is valid until Midnight GMT Saturday 26th November 2022. 

Royal Mail have planned postal strikes next weekend, so get in early to (hopefully) receive your order before then! 

Now onto my inspiration for the day...

Can you tell I am starting to panic that I've not made nearly enough Christmas cards, as usual?! I really need to get the international ones posted and probably the ones for family & friends in the UK ;)

Anyway, back to what I have made today. It's been ages since I inked up Winter Foliage, it's an oldie, but still a firm favourite.

I started off by stamping the holly leaves in Concord & 9th Clover ink. I then stamped the berries in Cranberry ink. The holly leaves are really easy to cut out, so I created a mask for each of them from Eclipse paper, so that when I stamped the pine branches they appear behind the holly leaves.

The pine branches are stamped in Evergreen ink and my chosen sentiment is from Christmas Sentiments and adhered to the card using foam adhesive. 

As I had all the colours and supplies out, I decided to make another quick and simple card using them. The layout is roughly the same, but I started by stamping the sentiment first and then building the cluster around it.

This time I started with the pine branches and I stamped them in both Evergreen and Altenew Espresso ink. The holly leaves and berries are fussy cut and adhered to the card using foam adhesive.

That's all from me today, I am sure you will be seeing more of this set in the coming days/weeks! 

Crafty Hugs 

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Warm Christmas Wishes

Bonjour !

It's Izzy here. I echo Bev's post (see HERE) with 3 hot drink inspiration cards. Coffee being also the theme of the last challenge at The Day of the Month Card Club, I had to make a card for my reminder post. So I pulled out Uniko's I LOVE COFFEE stamp and made this card. 

For the background, I used the gorgeous Framed-Holly stamp. I first stamped it with a no-line colouring ink and I coloured it with colour pencils. Once finished, I stamped on top with black ink.

 

I used the I LOVE coffee stamp set to make the cup. I stamped it in red, the sticker in black and I masked the edges to stamp some holly leaves from the Framed-Holly stamp set. I fussy cut it and I foam mounted it on the holly background. 

As this card was originally intended for my reminder message for DotMCC, I added a holly leaf and changed the berries to coffee beans. And to finish, on a black strip, I stamped and I white heat embossed the sentiment coming from Christmas Sentiments set.

While making this first card, another idea came to me and I couldn't help but put it into action by making this second card.

To be honest, this is the first cup I made, but I didn't like it with the holly background. I still found it pretty so it would have been a shame not to use it. To decorate this card, I used the Quilted stencil with a red mechanical pencil. 

This pattern is reminiscent of Nordic Christmas decorations, so I used the set Background Blocks : Scandinavian Christmas to make the background. I simply stamped and white heat embossed it on a die cut red card stock. To remain in the Scandinavian style, I used a double kraft card. The sentiment comes from the Simply Said Blocks Christmas set.

To tell you the truth, the irony is that I never drink coffee. So I also wanted to highlight the very pretty I LOVE TEA stamp set with this last card.

On a slimline white card and using masks, I stamped the cup several times in rainbow colours. Still with masks, I decorated each cup using the Scandinavian Christmas stencil. And I used the Christmas Sentiments set to finish this card.

Having used Uniko's wonderful products for these three cards, I then decided to share them with you in this inspiration post and I finally made another card for the DotMCC reminder post. 

And that's all for me today. I really enjoyed making these cards and above all they come to complete my Christmas cards batch which is still poor at the moment. What's about yours ?

Have a lovely day and thank you so much for stopping by.

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Foiling - failure or fancy project?

 Hey there

Most of us crafters love a clean card as result of our crafting process. Even most of the things we buy as 'wonky' have clear and straight lines and we can work in a clean style with them.
What are we doing with shifted or slipped stamp or stencil impressions? With a bit of luck it is a small failure and we can put something on top to cover it or there is a part we can use from bigger impressions. But often such a failure is going directly into the trash.

Right now, there is a hype to foiling.
It looks so amazing, when you have details with this special kind of 'bling' on a card!
Sadly, the machines for this technique aren't cheap, the supplies you need in addition also cost their money... Until now I wasn't sure if I want spend as much for this technique as it would need.
I found some simple sheets of foil with an easy instruction to use. Just for a first try.
The instruction said, you simply have to add heat and a little bit of pressure and the foil will be transfered! Sounds simple, right?

For my very first try I planned to use a more simple shape without too many details.
I took the Christmas Pop Trio Stencil and used one of the trees.
Plastic Stencils and direct heat aren't a good combination, so I decided to use Embossing Ink and Heat'n'Stick Powder to fix the foil on my paper. This powder is used like Embossing Powder, but at the end you have a sticky area, not an embossed one. Perfect idea so far!

But then something went wrong!
I used my laminator to reheat the Heat'n'Stick Powder with the foil on top to optimize the transfer of the foil, waited a moment to cool it down and removed the sheet of foil - and there wasn't only foil in the areas of the tree, but also everywhere around!
I finally recognized right now the foil is covered with a temperature activated layer!

Next try with a second paper, another foil and the same technique, but with less heat in the laminator.
The result was a bit better, but still not what I expected!

Disappointed and also a bit angry about these failures, both sheets went to my paper-trash-box.
After a while I took them out again, cause the shimmer of the foil on the papers was so beautiful!
Maybe I can cut or punch out some embellishments?!
The longer they were laying on my table, the more I liked them!

At the end I used them both as they were!
One has exciting pattern around the tree so I let it, the other one I cut out close to the edge of the tree.
I added some metallic rivets as ornaments (to cover some small areas without foil) and a sentiment of the 'Simply Said Christmas' set with Heat Embossing on both cards. (This set is retired but you can add any Christmas Sentiment you love!)

 

 

What do you think? What's the solution - trash or create something fun & a bit fancy?

Have a creative day!

Greetings from Wiebke

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Background Blocks Scandinavian Christmas

Morning all, 

Thanks for joining me, Steph, today as I showcase another great festive stamp from Uniko. For this month I decided to use Uniko Background Blocks Scandinavian Christmas because it has been sat in my stash unused and I just knew it would look great with some heat embossing. 

So straight on to my first card:

Who doesn't love a bit of gold and blue?! Here I have heat embossed the stamp using gold embossing powder on dark blue card. I have picked out the details by colouring in shades of blue which has given a really lovely elegant look to the card. The sentiment, from Uniko Festive Sentiments stamp set, is also heat embossed in gold and adhered over the background. I have used a mat of gold mirror card to frame centre panel and I felt a Kraft card base would look rustic, although a white one would work too. 

My second card is similar in layout however I went for red card and clear embossing powder this time.

To add some variety I use various colours for the details this time and felt the sentiment would be better in white.

Finally I had a little play about with my third card.

I heat embossed the Background Blocks Scandinavian Christmas using clear embossing powder on white watercolour card (my original plan was to use watercolour paints but I changed my mind). I then stamped Uniko Background Blocks Diagonal Stripes over the top alternating the colours between red and green ink. I was aiming for a candy cane look! Again the sentiment strip was added and the panel was framed with green card before being adhered to a red card base. 

So, which is your favourite?! 

Hope you are all getting along ok with your Christmas crafting and maybe I just inspired you to dig out the Background Blocks Scandinavian Christmas stamp (or stencil!) and have some fun! 

Much love

Steph x

Merry Mid Century Modern Monday!

Hello & Happy Shiny New Week.

I thought I would kick off the week with a festive Mid Century Modern make. I've had this sparkly Mid Century Modern Squares background made for a while and it has just been sat waiting for the perfect addition.

Then on Saturday it came to me that I hadn't inked up Season Of Beauty for a while and that the layered poinsettias and foliage would look lovey against the dark sparkly background.

It's a little busier than my usual CAS style, but I think the sparkly background adds to the festive feel. What do you think?

I used Gina K Glitz Glitter Gel through the Stencil and I used Concord & 9th inks in Cranberry, Poppy, Honeysuckle, Evergreen & Wheat for the stamping. I kept the card sentiment free as I felt that would have been a bit much, instead I will stamp the sentiment inside the card.

It's a fun and busy week in the studio, lots of designing new products for 2023 and so many exciting things happening for Uniko next year too ;) That's all I can say for now! 

I'll be back later this week.

Crafty Hugs