Goodbye 2013!

Hey!

Well, for some of you I know that 2014 has already arrived, but for us in the UK we still have a few hours of 2013 left. As many of you know 2013 has been an AMAZING year for me as I got married to my FABulous husband in the most magical of places and had an adventure that will be hard to beat! As much as I am apprehensive of what 2014 will hold I'm sure it will hold more adventures & memories. 

This year however saw 22 new clear stamp set designs released at Uniko Studio AND the introduction of Designer Dies. I wonder what 2014 has in store ;) With all that I thought it would be nice to take a look back at the last 12 months and I've chosen a few of my favourites to share with you...

This first card I chose from the February Release & Reveal post HERE as it combines 4 FABulous Uniko Studio stamp sets and really shows how they are all designed to work with one another. 

Crazy for circles & a new love for gold in 2013 made me choose this creation plus Background Builders: Round In Circles was the TOP selling set for this year too...

Another come back & trend for 2013 was the use of vellum and so sparked another favourite creation...

My next favourite uses a Super FREE Saturday collection Simple Bloom which I paired with FONTiment Fancies - Swirls & Flourishes...

It wouldn't be a favourites post without a Flower Power #2 card and I couldn't  just choose one...

Another favourite flower of 2013 is Beautiful Blooms...

I think this might be a favourite of 2014 too with the introduction of matching Designer Dies for this set coming soon ;)

Well it wouldn't be a favourites post without a few snowflakes! After all they were the top selling items for October & November.

And one last favourite which wraps up 2013...

Anyway, 2013 has been a FABulous year here at Uniko Studio. Non of this would have been possible without ALL of you my friends. Without your custom, support & friendship in this wonderful hobby of ours. You have ALL helped me to fulfil my dream of running this little business, so THANK YOU.  

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart & heres to a FABulous, Happy & Healthy 2014. 

The Saturday Show!

Hey!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas & still enjoying the festive season as we head towards celebrating a New Year? I've certainly been enjoying this mini holiday & break, I've been totally lazy & relaxing lots, hence the lateness of this post! Anyway, I'm back today to share the last 'The Saturday Show' of 2013 and I'm looking forward to many more of these posts next year.

First up are a few cards I received via email from Valerie...

I was never a lover of gold until recently when it began to trend again in the paper crafting world and this card above really shows the elegance of using gold and WOW the doily from Decorative Doilies - The Hands Of Time looks stunning embossed in gold.

This next card also by Valerie uses Peace On Earth paired with Wonderful Washi Christmas and sentiments from Pure Florals: Poinsettia. I love the sentiment stamped inside the washi ribbon and the flocking added to the dove.

Thank you Valerie for sharing these creations with me and for taking the time to email me the photos :) I look forward to seeing more of your beautiful creations in 2014.

Next I have a few festive cards by Deborah...

This first card uses the santa from Jolly Christmas and I just love the glittery beard and trim plus the background paper is such a jolly & perfect pairing. Next are a couple of snowflake cards also by Deborah. I've said this before and I don't think I will EVER tire of seeing snowflake cards even if it's the middle of summer!

Grey is one of my current favourite colours and seeing the snowflakes on both these cards from Stunning Snowflakes and the Designer Dies Snowflakes has me swooning!

Be sure to stop on by Deborah's blog HERE for lots more inspiration, you won't be disappointed. Switching gears from snowflakes to this stunner of a card by Sarah over at Sazzle Dazzle Crafts...

The colour of those Beautiful Blooms and the layered cluster of them against the die cut background is perfect. Be sure to stop on by Sarah's blog HERE to see more wonderful and cheery creations.

How about one more CAS perfection Beautiful Bloom creation, this time by Carole over at Card & Cake...

I love the bloom inside the punched aperture paired with the bold sentiment from All Occasion Sentiments #3. A perfect card and easily mass produceable design for all those Christmas Thank you cards I need to write.

Ok, that's all I have to share with you today. I've probably missed out loads of FABulous creations to share with you all, but it's hard to find you all out there in blog land! I'd LOVE for you to share them with me either by popping them into the Uniko Studio Flickr Gallery or sending me an email with photos or a link to your blog :)

I'll be back again on the 31st December with my 2013 favourites to share with you all as I wrap up a FABulous year here at Uniko Studio, until then, thank you for stoping by today :)

Merry Christmas!

Hey & Merry Christmas Everyone!

It's here at last it's Christmas Eve and the festivities are truly underway. I wanted to stop by & thank you all my dear friends, I truly appreciate all the friendships I've made, all the comments you leave and all the support & custom you each give to me & Uniko Studio. Without you I wouldn't LOVE the my job and this hobby of ours as much as I do.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas & Holiday Season filled with Peace, Love & Joy. 

Just a little close up of the card I made for my husband & one last snowflake for you all to enjoy! I'll be back on Saturday with the last 'The Saturday Show' of 2013. Until then, eat, drink & be merry!

With Love to You ALL

Countdown to Christmas Day 23

Hey!

So,  I am almost ready for Christmas now, just the last few trimmings to be done and a little bit of baking tonight. I'm looking forward to a much needed rest & few days off with my husband :) As it is out first Christmas as a married couple I wanted to make it a little more special and put a little more effort into the decorations this year. Also we tend only to buy each other little gifts that often look lost under the tree so I decided to dust my sewing machine off and make us some stockings to hang on the fireplace...

They were really quite simple to make and I'm rather chuffed with myself as I didn't use a pattern, I just made it up as I went along!

To add a little Uniko Studio to them I added a felt snowflakes, a pre made ribbon bow and a trio of jingle bells. I was going to personalise them with our names but didn't get round to doing it, maybe next year!

That's all from me today, I'm off to the kitchen to bake a yummy chocolate cake & some gingerbread dinosaurs (Mr Brown's choice!). Then it's a cozy night in & a movie or two! Thanks for stopping by today, I'll be back tomorrow with more to share :)

Countdown to Christmas Day 22

Hey!

Still not quite done with the Christmas cards! This one is for Karl's Mam & Dad and I'm pleased with the way it's turned out.

I started out by printing the 'Mam & Dad' sentiment onto some white 160 gsm paper and trimmed it to size. I then stamped the snowflakes from Background Builders: Christmas in silver and set it aside to dry. 

I then die cut a medium Designer Die Snowflake & added some Cosmic Shimmer silver glitter. The 'Merry Christmas' label is from Label Love: Thank you stamped in silver & embossed with star dust EP and I used a 1 3/8" circle punch to punch out just the middle circle of the label. As this is a hand delivered card, I added LOTS of dimension to the layers using foam adhesive! 

It's easy to personalise a card using your computer and a nice font, there are tons of free fonts for personal use available on the internet. A few key points to help you with this that I used are firstly design a card layout where you can add the sentiment as a small panel or die cut. This is useful for a couple of reasons, firstly if your printer doesn't like heavy card (like mine) you can use a lighter weight card stock or like I have 160 gsm paper. Secondly, if you make a mistake or it doesn't turn out the way you imagined you haven't wasted good card! 

That's all from me today, short & sweet as I've a dinner to cook! I'll be back tomorrow with more to share, until then thank you for stopping by today :)

Supplies

Card Stock: White from stash. PTI Hawaiian Shores

Ink: Colorbox Silver. VersaFine Onyx Black

Stamps: Uniko Studio Background Builders: Christmas, Label Love: Thank you & Label Love: Christmas

Accessories: Uniko Studio Designer Dies Snowflakes, Cosmic Shimmer Polished Silk Glitter (Silver), Star Dust EP, PTI Hawaiian Shores Bitty Dot Ribbon & Foam Adhesive.

Countdown to Christmas Day 21

Hey & Happy Weekend!

Today is a chill out day for me & my husband as we've done our Christmas shopping present wise and we don't have Christmas dinner to cook as we go to his Mam's to be fed over the festive days! Though we will have a walk to the supermarket to buy food for Sunday dinner as it has become tradition for us to host Sunday dinner the Sunday before Christmas Day. 

This year as I now have a lovely wreath centre piece on the table which I shared with you all HERE, I thought it would be nice to make a little more effort with decorating the table and made these little whine glass charms...

Yep, I haven't quite finished with the Designer Die Snowflakes yet! I had to have a go at die cutting some shrink plastic and it worked a treat. I used the largest snowflake die for the charms and added a few silver seed beads to the wire loops. The medium snowflake would shrink to a nice size too if you wanted to fill the charm a little more. 

After I had put the jump ring through the hole in the snowflake I covered one side of the snowflake in stickles to add that much needed sparkle before assembling the charm. Just another quick and easy way to add some Christmas cheer. 

Ok, I had better go and make a little shopping list so I don't forget anything! I will be back tomorrow with more to share, until then THANK YOU for stopping by today :)

Supplies

Accessories: Uniko Studio Designer Dies Snowflakes. Shrink Plastic (White). Wire Rings, Jump Rings, Seed Beads & Stickles. 

Countdown to Christmas Day 20

Hey & Happy Friday!

Are you all set for Christmas Day? I'm not quite done yet, I've still a few bits and pieces to do, I don't seem to be in a huge rush to get everything done as we don't go over the top at Christmas on presents or buying in food like the apocalypse is coming! 

Tonight I have my last Christmas party to attend which is a sit down meal at a carvery and like I said earlier in the week I do love a dinner and a Christmas dinner is on the top of my list! Anyway, like most people I assume, I am accessorising with red. I am wearing a blue dress with red shoes and a red cardigan. My dress and cardigan are both plain and so I got thinking as to how to dress it up a bit without going OTT and so I decided to make a little felt poinsettia brooch to pin to my cardigan...

I used the Designer Dies Graphic Flowers from Time to create my brooch using just the two largest dies. I die cut 2 loopy flowers from Pure Poppy felt and then sniped the loops off and then die cut the large solid flower from Pine Feather felt. 

A simple bit of hand stitching and a few white seed beads to the flower centre and it was done. I think it took me about an hour max to make this little brooch and they would make a lovely little last minute gift too or stocking stuffer.

That's all from me today, I am off to start getting ready to go out, even though I've 7 hours till the meal! I'll be back tomorrow with more to share, until then, thank you for stopping by today :)

Supplies

Accessories: Uniko Studio Designer Dies Graphic Flowers from Time, PTI Pure Poppy & Pine Feather Felt. White Seed Beads, Brooch Fixing & Embroidery Floss.

Countdown to Christmas Day 19

Hey!

So I am a little more organised today & the Christmas craziness is slowly calming down as the day approaches. I've had time for a little self indulgence and 'crafty play' time this morning and I was itching to have a go at these FABulous paper snowflakes...

My friend Jackie from college had made some large snowflake decorations like this which were hanging in her hallway on Monday when I popped to her house before our trip to York. We were all so curious as to how to make them that she gave us a little tutorial and then I came across a pin on Pinterest to THIS video tutorial!

 I decided to make a mini snowflake and my squares of paper are 160gsm so they are a little more sturdy than copy paper and they are 10 x 10 cm in size. I then stamped both sides of the squares using Stunning Snowflakes and I chose to work with the Curtain Call Challenge colours again seen HERE and below. There is still plenty of time to play along in the challenge :)

Just think of all those double sided scrapbook papers you are hoarding that can be put to good use to make lovely paper snowflakes! Admit it you're like me and have tons of them ;) The photos don't really do it justice, it looks SO much better in real life, though I wished I'd added some glitter to the stamped snowflakes so it will glint & glimmer when the lamp is on which it is hanging from! 

Ok, that's all from me today, I'll be back tomorrow with more to share. Until then thank you for stopping by & joining me in my countdown to Christmas :)

Supplies

Paper: Staples 160gsm White

Ink: VersaMagic Sea Breeze. VersaColor Cinnamon, SU! Crumb Cake

Stamps: Uniko Studio Stunning Snowflakes

Accessories: Sissors, Double Sided Tape & String 

Countdown to Christmas Day 18

Hey!

I've just about made it in time to share my Countdown to Christmas Day 18 project with you all, I simply ran out of time this evening before another Christmas party! This evening it was my local card club party, we meet twice a month to do paper crafts and generally chat about the hobby among other things ;) 

Anyway, so I made them each a card and put together a little gift for them all & thought I'd share them with you...

As you can see I am still on my snowflake wagon! I decided on a negative die cut card and the red card stock in the aperture is stamped with Background Builders: Round In Circles in white. I also added some glitter around the edge of the negative die cut for that Christmas sparkle.

Along with the card I wanted to give them each a little gift so I used some little acetate favour boxes and filled them with three mini Toblerones which fit just perfectly inside. I then wrapped ribbon around the boxes like you would a present, super simple, cute & most importantly well received by my friends :)

That's all from me today, but I will back again tomorrow at a more reasonable time ;) with more to share. Until then, thank you for stopping by :)

[Uniko Studio Challenge] No.5 Winners!

Hey!

What a lot of inspiring entries, it looks like this challenge helped you along with your Christmas card making and it was SO lovely to see the October Release products in action too :)

Here the winners for this challenge are...

The winner of the Uniko Studio Challenge #5 is....

by Anita (in France)

Congrats, Anita (in France). We love your CAS style and the beautiful white, gold and glitter colors. So festive. Great use of some Uniko Studio stamps! Please contact [beverley at unikostudio.com] to claim your £10 Gift Certificate and please contact [renyi.lo at gmail.com] to arrange for your Guest Design Spot! :)

And as always, we have our top 3 honourable mentions.

by Camilla

by Deborah Frings

by Sue W

Thank you so much to everyone who inked along with us! I hope you'll be able to stop by in January for our next challenge. The Uniko Team is taking a much needed break during these busy days. Enjoy the holidays, and check back on January 18 for a new challenge.