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

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.

Countdown to Christmas Day 19 - Sparkle Saturday

 Happy Sparkle Saturday!

I'm a little later than I originally planned, but didn't want to get behind again. This evening we had a family film night and I introduced the boys to Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder) the classic. It started off well, then they got a little bored! BUT then they loved it, but the chocolate factory is the best bit! 

Anyway, the card I am sharing today is one I really had to get out of my head! Occasionally I will envision a card idea in my head, often when I am designing stamps, but this time probably about a week or so ago. So while the boys were watching something on You Tube before bed I sat down to make it.

Who remembers and even owns Christmas Sparkle? 

This little gem of a set retired a few years ago now, as much as I love all the stamps I design, a few years ago I needed to make room for newer designs and unfortunately this one got the bench. 

As it's retired I haven't used it for a very long time as I try to use just current and in-stock products. Anyway, today I am making an exception and as you have seen in the recent past, some retired stamps get a little re-introduction ;)

Anyway, how beautifully ornate does this gold beauty look?

Doesn't the Sparkle bauble pair with Framed - Holly wonderfully? Like it was designed to ;) I dusted off my Encore Gold pigment ink and also added gold heat embossing to add to the shine of these stamps. 

I really love how this turned out. 

That's all I have to share with you all today. I will be back tomorrow with another Stencil Sunday instalment, but until then, thank you for stopping by & I hope I have added a little sparkle to your day after the devastating news we were issued regarding Christmas. 

Sending Love & Crafty Hugs Bev x

Countdown to Christmas Day 10 - BA Inspiration with Julie

Good morning folks, Julie here with a little bit more inspiration for a quick one layer, post friendly, Christmas card using the brand new Framed - Holly and two different mediums to colour.

The card on the left is coloured with watercolour pens and the righthand side one is coloured with Copic markers.

I've tried this design before with other frame style stamps so thought I would see what it looked like with this fab new stamp.

Using my Misti, I positioned my A6 base card in the left hand corner and placed the bottom half of the frame stamp to the top edge. Closing the MISTI to pick up the stamp, I then added a strip of masking tape across the top of the frame to create a border. For the watercolour method, I stamped and embossed with Versamark and gold EP, the Copic one I used a pale grey ink, Altenew's Limestone in this case. More of that later! DO NOT remove the stamp from your MISTI.

With the second card, I used Copics (other alcohol markers are available) to colour the stamped area and then replaced it in to the MISTI and stamped again with Versamark and gold EP. As you haven't moved the stamp, you should be able to stamp in exactly the same place as before. You have to do this if you want to colour with alcohol markers as they don't play nicely with EP! You end up with manky pens and a tatty looking coloured image. I know it seems like a bit of a phaff to do it but this way you achieve a nice crisp finish.

Now turn your card around and repeat the process for the unstamped end of your card. I now notice that the cards I made have two different stamped images, this is because I did the watercolour one before I decided to make the second, removing the stamp from my MISTI in between, I must have altered the way I laid the stamp down on the second card!

Once I had embossed the rest of the design on the first card, I used Zig watercolour markers in a couple of shades of green and red to colour in the leaves before adding the sentiment with gold EP.

                                       

The Copic coloured one was completed using a flat green colour, G46, not my usual shading style but I wanted to keep the design simple and my base card wasn't particularly Copic friendly. 

Embossed gold sentiments complete the design. These sentiments are from the super new Christmas Wishes set. This was my first play with this set but it wont be the last, love the script and the way you can make your own sentiments up with the mix of large and small words.

That's it from me for today, but there's going to be much more Christmas fun over the next few days. 

Enjoy the season as best you can in the circumstances.