Simply Cards & Papercraft Feature Plus FREE Digital Downloads.

Hello & Happy FriYAY 🎉

Earlier this week I was delighted to receive my copy of Simply Cards & Papercraft issue #244 in the mail. I am always excited to see Uniko in print and again I have designed a fabulous collection of FREE digital images for you all to use.

If you love Uniko's Paradise Collection as much as me, then I think you will enjoy this Tropical Bouquets digital collection too.

Here is a peek at the feature in the magazine and a full look at one of the cards I have made for the feature using the images. 

The FREE Digital Collection can be downloaded by visiting CraftWorld HERE. I hope you enjoy using them and if you are on social media, please tag @unikoltd so I can see them or why not join Uniko's Facebook Group Uniko Ltd and share your makes in there. 

And how about a little Giveaway. 

I've an extra copy of the magazine to give to one lucky comment left on any of Uniko's posts across all social media, sharing the news about this collection. So if you follow Uniko on Instagram and Facebook as well as the blogs, you have even more chances to win! 

Simply leave a comment before midnight Friday 19th May 2023 and I will randomly select a winner and announce Monday 22nd May 2023.

Crafty Hugs

 

Flower Power Mix Up

Hello & Happy Thursday.

How are we almost mid May already? My focus this month, that I mentioned HERE is breathing new life into the Flower Power Collection, so I'm back today with more Flower Power inspiration. 

Today I wanted to show how the stamp sets can be mixed and matched.

Surprisingly I opted for pastel shades for the flowers, Flower Power #8, Flower Power #7 and Flower Power #1 from left to right. The stem is from Flower Power #7.

I decided to keep this card sentiment free and let the flower trio really take the centre stage. I hope you are staying dry in the UK with all these thundery downpours. I've been caught this week, luckily with an umbrella as they always seem to hit during school pick up times! 

Crafty Hugs

 

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Bokeh Layering Hearts

Good morning, 

Steph here today to showcase the Uniko Bokeh Layering Hearts stencil set which was released earlier this year. Unfortunately I didn't have time to use them during the Release in Review so I have made three cards today to show the different ways in which they can be used. 

There are two stencils within the Bokeh Layering Hearts set. Here I have used one single stencil featuring just hearts:

I have kept this card very simple and added detail with a shaped die cut. The heart containing the sentiment and the small one to the right of it are fussy cut and applied with foam pads for added interest. 

My next card uses the other stencil from the set featuring the word 'love' in the shape of a heart.

Again the background was simple to create and I chose to use blue to imitate the sky and clouds. I then added the hot air balloon and sentiment from the Uniko Up & Away stamp set. 

My final card uses the two stencils together:

I wanted to make an impact so I chose to layer black and white onto the green hearts. I felt the colours were striking and needed a statement piece as a topper which I found from the Uniko Mid Century Modern Frames stamp set. 

Hopefully that has given you some ideas for using the stencils separately or together. 

Much love

Steph x

Brand Ambassador Inspiration using Fun Flowers Spray mask and stencil

Good morning, Julie here with a little bit of BA Inspiration on this Coronation weekend, hope the British weather hasn't put too big a dampener on your celebrations.

We had a bit of a disaster at home over the May Day Bank Holiday, our newly installed fibre optic broadband stuttered and finally failed. According to BT we had a signal to the unit but we needed a technician to visit, they should have it fixed by May 5th!!! Panic ensued as I thought about all my DT posts in the pipeline, a new month is a busy time for me and then, what do I do with all the free time?

So on Sunday, after doing as much housework as I wanted to do on a BH, I went to my room to have a play and ended up with this card.

I created some masks from Post It paper and got inky! I used a range of Altenew inks, Bamboo and Olive for the foliage, Eastern Sky and Azurite for the blue flower, Puffy Heart and Purple Wine for the pink and Fresh Lemon and Honey Drizzle for the yellow one. Each section was inked with the main stencil before the mask was placed in the stencil and the darker colour added. Masks, made by stencilling onto Post its and fussy cutting each element allowed for a neater finish.

The center of each flower was added freehand with a brown Copic marker, E49 and white gel pen. I also added some detail to the leaf spray with Copic marker YG17. Each spray was then fussy cut and added to an A6 panel of white card. I was unsure whether to add this panel to a white 5 x 7 base card but decided in the end to go for a bright turquoisey blue, trimming off the over hang.

The sentiment was stamped in black on white then the happy was die cut and mounted onto a gold mirror card happy shadow before I added it to the card.

Anyway as you can tell from this post, the man from Open Reach came, removed DUST from the optical connection, drank a cuppa and left, 30 mins max! Full high speed broadband resumed but the new phones are still pants! Apparently our hub is too far away from the phones for them to work on the WiFi, our old phone line was cut when they installed the fibre cable, not that they were great when it rained, damp in the line apparently. It certainly showed us how reliant we are on the internet these days, even watching TV was curtailed, no Prime or Netflix or iPlayer for us until service was resumed. When I turned on my computer, my inbox was full of rubbish that had accumulated whilst we were offline, stuff I usually delete when I turn it on in a morning!

So have a good rest of the Bank Holiday and get crafting!

BA Inspiration cards using English Country Garden Butterflies set!

 Hello everyone!

Vinita here!

Today I wanted to showcase the English Country Garden Butterflies stamps and challenge myself to use the same color palette on both cards using Distress inks and oxides!

I used scattered straw, squeezed lemonade, carved pumpkin, dried marigold, stormy sky, salvaged patina and forest moss inks.

For my first card, I started by blending a white panel using salvaged patina DO and the stripes were stamped using forest moss inks. I blended stormy sky ink on another panel too and cut them into a strip.

Then stamped the butterfly on a white scrap piece using jet black archival ink and colored it with ZIG water brushes using the same color palette and die-cut it. On my white card base I stamped the sentiment from You are, Yes you stamp set. Added the stripe panel along with blue inked stripes. Adhered that flutterby with another inked butterfly for more interest and dimension. Compliment it with some sky blue and sea green pearl dots.

For the second card, I started with a white panel and placed my stylish floral stencil and inked it with the same color palette. After removing my stencil once again I lightly inked the panel using the same colors.

To be honest, the blending of this floral background was a kind of experiment. I wasn't sure how it would be turned out but I am loving it!

On a white scrap paper, I stamped the little butterflies 4 times and blended some DI and die-cut them.

In the centre, I stamped some tiny hearts and love sentiments from the Big & Bold Love set.

Adhere to that panel on my card base with a black panel underneath.

Compliment it with a ruffled shimmery ribbon and enhance the beauty of butterflies by adding some Nuvo crystal drops for some shimmer to match my gorgeous ribbon.

Hope you enjoyed today's inspirations!

Happy crafting!

Happy weekend!

Happy FriYAY 🎉

Hello & Happy Friday! 

What a treat, another long Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK as we celebrate 🎉 the Coronation of our new King 👑  Hoping the weather holds out for those celebrating & having street parties. Our close is hoping to have a party on Monday, so 🤞🏻 the rain blows over before then! 

I'm also hoping to spend more time in the studio tomorrow, while The Beans are out with grandparents. I've so many card ideas in my head that I want to make. Which leads me onto today's cards that I've been wanting to make and share since before the Designer Dies Natures Treasures II were released.

This first card uses the dies only and has lots of options. 

I decided to uses strips of 'scrap' card to create a colourful focal point behind the die cut. But you could easily use a stencil, like our Wonky Stripes or even a stamped design, like one from our Background Builder collection.

For my second card today I wanted to show how the smallest leaf from the Stencil - Natures Treasures II works with the dies.

Another quick clean & simple design.

That's all the creativity I have to share with you today. But before I go, how about the winner of the Designer Dies Natures Treasures II Release Day Blog Hop, we had HERE. 

Random Number Generator selected no.8 as the lucky comment...

Lucy E.22 April 2023 at 19:29

What a sweet die set! So many great ways to use this!

Congratulations to Lucy 🎉 

Please send me an email and I will reply with your £15 eGift Code to spend in store. Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments & support. 

Crafty Hugs

 

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Hello & Happy Thursday! 

It's a late one for me in the studio tonight as I finally get round to sharing one of the cards I created today. 

Since coming back from the show I have been inspired to dust off some older clear stamp sets and products and breathe some new inky life into them. I love new products, but I know from speaking to crafters at the shows these past weekends and for myself, it is easy to get caught up in the constant flow of using and buying new and neglecting older stuff we once loved.

One of the collections I have neglected is the Flower Power clear stamps. So with it being May and as the saying goes, 'April Showers Bring May Flowers'. I thought I would start with these sets.

Today I started with Flower Power #8, the newest of the collection to create this fun and colourful card.

I started by stamping a cascade of the line flower in black ink across the diagonal of my card panel. I then used a trio of Stampin' Up! Blends in each of the colours to colour the flowers. I also coloured and fussy cut 3 flowers to add after I had decided upon the sentiment.

For my sentiment choice I finally decided upon Alphabet Outlined, of which I created the HAPPY. I stamped each of the letters in black and then coloured them with a fine liner. Each of the letters are fussy cut and adhered using fine glue. The birthday part of the sentiment is from Birthday Sentiments and again I have stamped and fussy cut the wording. It is then adhered using foam adhesive. I finished the card by adding the individual flowers with foam adhesive and some tiny sparkly rhinestones. 

So what do you think of this fresh inky creation? 

I sure had fun playing with this set and enjoyed pairing it with some other clear stamps that haven't seen much ink lately! 

This is all I have to share today, but I will be back on the blog tomorrow with more creativity and a winner from the Designer Dies Natures Treasures II blog hop.

Until then, thank you for stopping by.

Crafty Hugs