Friday Focus - Natures Treasures

Hello & Happy Friday

Today I was inspired to ink up a much loved older favourite, Natures Treasures. It's been a while since I used this clear stamp set and I had so much fun. Instead of just one card, I ended up making three. Let's have a look...

For my first card I decided to pair a cluster of fussy cut foliage with the Background Blocks Splatter. I seem to be on an ombre kick at the moment, so inked up the background with Pebble, Wheat and Nutmeg. 

I then stamped and fussy cut the foliage, layering it up in a cluster and using foam adhesive to adhere it to my card. My sentiment choice is from Floral Vines and I also added some enamel dots to finish.

I kept with the spray of foliage for my second card and opted for some Kraft card stock which I think pairs lovely with the greens. I've used Evergreen, Parsley and Avocado and Sprout, plus Wheat. 

Again I used a sentiment from Floral Vines, however I stamped it on two lines instead of just one onto a wheat circle die cut. 

Lastly for today I continued the Kraft card stock theme and decided to stamp two of the leaves directly onto my base. 

I then added another spray of foliage, this time I decided to adhere it with the leaves hanging down, I secured it with some bakers twine from my stash and again added a sentiment from Floral Vines.

It's been fun inking up this set again and pairing it with some newer products. I highly recommend having a look through your stash and using older supplies to create with. I've more ideas and can't wait to get them out onto a card. 

Anyway, that's all from me today. Now time to go and watch The Beans swim! 

Crafty Hugs

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Organic Wishes

Morning all, 

Steph here today and I am using Uniko Organic Wishes stamp set for my Brand Ambassador post this month. I have used it in both a light and dark setting to see what difference can be created. 

Firstly my ‘light’ card. I have teamed Uniko Organic Wishes with Uniko Natures Treasure stamp set. I have used chalk ink on both cards for better comparison.

My second ‘dark’ card uses the Uniko Organic Wishes stamp set as fireworks in the night sky. I have teamed it with Uniko Big & Bold Wish stamp set. 

So which do you like best?

Much love

Steph x

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Techniques with Embossing Glaze

 Hi there,

 do you love Embossing Powders as I do?
Have you ever heard of the special one called Embossing Glaze?
If not - it's a translucent but colourful Embossing Powder with some more special effects.

In the first card I made for you I created amore or less translucent rainbow with the "Rainbows & Clouds" Stencil over a very soft pastell blue background.
But first I had stamped and heat embossed the "Large Background - French Script" in white.
After the melting process of the powder I used the Stencil again and added some fluffy clouds with white Embossing paste.
The sentiment "Time to celebrate the good times" is one of the "Birthday Sentiments", heat embossed in a fitting light blue.
For some more interest I added some clear little rhinestone drops as raindrops.

The second card has a very similar layout, but I stamped the script background in gray (without embossing), just added the rainbow with the same Embossing Glaze colours as before.
I planned to add embellishments in the same colours, so I took twelve white sequins, added sticky ink to them, dipped always two of them into one of the powders and heathed them up. Then I put a drop of clear glitter glue to them.
The sentiment of the "All Occasions Set #3" is stamped with the same Ink I used for the background on Vellum and then I added the same colour of Embossing Glaze to it (hickory smoke).
I glued the edges of the Vellum on the backside of my layer and embellished it with my "special gems".

For the next card I created a blended Sunset scene and added plants and shadows with different stampsets - "Just because", "Happy Days" and "Natures Treasures I".
The lighter shadows of the black embossed plants are made with the Glazes.

For this glazed "Pure Florals - Peony" I added several times Embossing Ink with a Dabber and then thin layers of Glaze.
I was able to mix and match the colours with every layer and then melted every one on top of the black stamped flower.
With every layer it went darker and more intense! So beautiful! Love this kind of "watercolour look".

 

 

The last card is a bit different to the peony. I used the "Pure Florals - Gerbera Stencil" and one of the Peony sentiment stamps.
This time I didn't add the embossing Ink with a dabber (I tried, but it was too much ink for a stencil and turned out in a mess!), instead I used a pen and "coloured" the areas very quick and in a distressed way. I added and mixed the red and orange Glaze powder for the petals and the yellow for the center.
Melted every layer and as a last step I added black Embossing Powder to get some wild and dramatic lines to the flower.
Love this big and bold flower!

Hope I brought you some ideas to use the Glazes in different ways... there are many more to try!
For those of us who love Embossing Powders they are a very "nice-to-have" and "test and try" medium to play with.

Greetings from Wiebke

No Tricks, Just Treats - Happy Halloween!

 Happy Weekend 

&

 Happy Halloween!

I know not everyone celebrates the occasion, but with the way 2020 has panned out so far, I think we all deserve some treats ;) So in celebration I have a couple of offers on the Uniko website...

FREE Worldwide Shipping is usually only on orders of £50 or more, so I've reduced the minimum spend by half. Also, if you spend over £30 you can choose an in stock Uniko Stencil for FREE! 

What's not to love about these treats?! 

Be quick as they end tomorrow Sunday 1st November 2020 at Midday GMT.

I managed to squeeze in a little creative time too and made this Autumnal card using Natures Treasures II and my all time favourite Happy Birthday from Simply Said Blocks.

I'm still crushing on these Concord & 9th inks and used a couple more colours I'd not tried yet. The layout of my card is also inspired by the current CAS Colours & Sketches challenge seen HERE and below.

I did mark out the centre of my card & a line at the top to leave a border and then just stamped the leaves in various Autumnal colours. I decided to add a few berries in Cranberry ink using the trio of berries from Rustic Wreath.

A quick & simple card, that I am rather pleased with. Plus, it was nice to get inky and creative too ;) I hope you all have a lovely fun, chocolate, sweet filled day! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Crafty Hugs Bev x

DT-Inspiration: Card with a rotating Stencil

Hello and Happy weekend to everybody!
It's time for another DT-Inspiration!

As always I made a card with a stencil for you. This time it's a quick one-layer card with a special "twist"!

 

 

For this design I thought a square card would be a perfect frame.
I marked the center of the card front, then placed my Nature Treasures II Leaf-Stencil.
The end of the stam I placed on the mark and fixed it with a fine needle - later I rotated the stencil around this needle, so I was sure to get the end of the stem always on the exact same spot!

I blended the three Oxide Inks with my blending brushes, beginning with the lightest one. When the first leaf was finished, I repeated the process on the opposite side. So it was easier to place the other 4 leaves without any exact measuring between these two leaves (eyeballing was enough).

Cause I liked the pattern in the center I used Vellum to create the circle with the heat embossed sentiment to keep it in sight. The two parts of the sentiment are from the set Simply Said Birthday. I cut the original sentiments with my scissors and combined them differently. Don't be afraid to stretch your stamps this way! If you cut them, you can always re-arrange them on an acrylic block with the help of the cutting line to the original form!)

To avoid any see-through glue I adhered the three sequins-flowers with a strong liquid glue on the edge of the Vellum and then I adhered the sequins with dimensional glue-dots on the card. The centers of these flower sequins I decorated with yellow Stickles (also to avoid any dust sticking to the glue dots behind later).
To finish the card I added some party pink Nuvo drops and some more yellow Stickles dots on the leaves as kind of buds.

I was surprised how quickly this card was finished! You needn't do many fancy things around your rotated stencil, cause this is the focal point!
This technique offers so many possibilities! I think I'll try some more of them soon - with different stencils and maybe also with a rotation-point outside of the coloured stencil-area (the center will be blank then).

I hope I could inspire you to stretch your creative muscles to try something new with your stencils!

You are invited to tell us in the comments which Uniko Stencils you used or want to use to give this technique a try!

Have a great and creative day!

Greetings from Wiebke

DT Inspiration - Inky Foliage Silhouettes and Resist

Hello there, it's Sarah P here with my June DT Inspiration post.

I've spotted some gorgeous inky backgrounds with silhouettes on Instagram recently and I couldn't resist having a go myself, especially as those Distress Oxides blend so beautifully and they are always my Go-To product if I'm stuck with Mojo!

The first 2 feature a Heat Resist technique where I've stamped the images with Versamark ink then heat-embossed with Hero Arts White powder before inky blending over the top.

The Uniko sets are: Just Because, Natures Treasures I and Pure Florals: Cosmos for the 'May all your birthday wishes come true' sentiment. The Celebrate die is from Sugar Pea Designs

These next 2 use the same colour combos and same 'Just Because' set but adding 'Home Sweet Home' for the sentiments. 

I hope you like my cards and thank you for stopping by the blog today.

Stencil Sunday... Guest Designer Ruth Andrews

Welcome to another Stencil Sunday!

This month I have a wonderful Guest Designer joining Uniko for our 7th Birthday & February Release celebrations AND also for this months Stencil Sunday feature.

Please give a warm welcome to Ruth from Crafting While The Baby Naps...

I first met Ruth at Stamp Magic in Doncaster when I had my Uniko stand and we got to chatting like I do with every one I can at the shows!! 

Along with following Ruth on Social Media I was lucky enough to meet up again last May the night before Happy Stampers as she was staying over to help Dies to Die For on their stand. It was lovely to get to know her over a couple glasses of Prosecco and she is a real hoot and genuinely lovely person as well as being an awesome card maker & talented seamstress. 

Ruth has her own little business too called Bagagaddon and you can check out her Etsy shop HERE. 

Now I have introduced you to Ruth her is a look at the project she is sharing over on her blog HERE for Stencil Sunday. 

Be sure to head on over & leave Ruth some love. Ruth has used Uniko's Natures Treasures II Stencil and a sentiment from So Much clear stamp set (links below).

Thanks for stopping by today & joining in on all the fun this month.

Hugs

CAS Colours & Sketches #275 - Colours

Hello June!

A new month means a new hostess over at CAS Colours & Sketches and Wei is our hostess for June. As usual we are starting things off HERE with a colour combo...

Summer is starting to bloom and these colours scream florals to me, so that is exactly what I reached for! I decided to reach for a trio of clear stamp sets I've not given a lot of inky love to for a while, Beautiful Blooms II, Flower Power #6 and Natures Treasures II.

I did some fairly simple masking and stamping, along with some generation ink stamping (stamping off), to achieve the lighter shades of the colours. The sentiment is from Simply Said Blocks II. Once I had created my cluster of flowers and leaves I fussy cut them out and adhered it to my base card using foam adhesive. 

That's all from me today, I hope thatI have inspired you to join in on the challenge?! If you need a little more inspiration, pop on over HERE to see what the CC&S Design Team have created.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs

May 2018 Release In Review Day 3

Hey!

Welcome to the May Release in Review Day 3.

Yep! I'm behind schedule again :( Good job I have a wonderful Design Team who continue to post and inspire :)

Anyway, as a couple of the Design Team didn't receive their goodies in time for the countdown and release day festivities, I thought it would be nice to have them be in the limelight and have a release in review week.

For day 3 they created some more inspiration using the Uniko Stencils released this month...

And here is some new inspiration using them from Carol and Rahmat. Be sure to click on their links for all the details and more inspiration on their blogs....

Click HERE to see more from Carol

Click HERE to see more from Rahmat

As you can see the Stylised Floral stencil was a popular hit among the Design Team and on Release Day too! Both Rahmat & Carol have made more wonderful inspiration using the stencils, so be sure to check their blogs out and leave some love.

I will be back soon to share links to Day 4!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Hugs

Introducing... Simply Said Blocks II and Natures Treasures II Stencil & Mask

Hey!

Welcome to the first day of the May 2018 Release product introductions.

This is the fun part, you now get to see all the sneak peeks in action. The Design Team and our Guest Designer for May Anna have worked their socks off and created an abundance of inspiration to share with you over the coming days :)

Today we are introducing 2 products. Simply Said Blocks II a mini clear stamp set with additional popular sentiments in the same style as Simply Said Blocks. And we are 'officially' introducing Natures Treasures II Stencil. This stencil was part of the Uniko Stamping Retreat goody bag in Dec 2017. It has proven popular with those that attended, myself and some of the DT, that it was time it was made available to everyone :)

Here is a simple card using both of the new products. I simply chose one Distress Oxide Ink (Peeled Paint) to use through my stencil. There are 2 sizes of leaf on the stencil and I chose to use the smallest, which is the same size as the clear stamps from Natures Treasures II, which I have also used on this card.

I've stamped the leaf image from the clear stamp set in Altenew Olive ink, fussy cut it out and adhered it using foam adhesive. The sentiment is one of the new ones from Simply Said II and again, fussy cut out and adhered using foam adhesive. I layered my card with some SU! (Old Olive) card stock and added some enamel dots to finish the design.

That's all I have to share here, but there is plenty of inspiration from our Guest Designer & Design Team...

Anna

Bev

Carol 

Deborah 

Izzy 

Jane 

Julie

Linda

Lindsey

Rahmat

Sarah G

Sarah P

 Wiebke

Hugs

Release Schedule...

Sneak Peeks 1st - 4th May 2018, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing... 5th - 11th May 2018, here you will see a closer look at the products being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Saturday 12th May 2018 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!

Extra PRIZE Info! Alternative prizes will be offered to those that may already own the prize offered. Winners will be announced on Saturday 11th on the Winners Page HERE.