Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Peace on Earth

Hi all, 

Thanks for joining me, Steph, today for my Uniko Brand Ambassador inspiration post. I seem to be on a roll with Christmas cards at the moment so I have chosen to use the Uniko Peace on Earth stamp set. I have however, made one card that isn't a Christmas card with this set...read on! 

Here I have kept to a very traditional layout, stamping one of the doves and fussy cutting. I stamped the olive branch twice and fussy cut also before layering them and the dove onto a navy blue die cut circle. The sentiment is also from the Peace on Earth set and is heat embossed using white embossing powder. 

For my next card I have white heat embossed the edges with snowfall from the Uniko Background Builders: Winter Wonderland stamp set. I then heat embossed the two doves onto navy card and fussy cut. The olive branch is stamped directly onto the card using green ink as is the sentiment using navy ink. 

For my final card I wanted to show how this stamp set could also be used for a congratulations (or wedding) card. I stamped and heat embossed the doves using black ink and fussy cut. I then used the outline heart from the Uniko Background Builders: Hearts stamp set and heat embossed in clear before infilling with glossy accents. (I think it looks a bit like the middle of a jammy dodger!!). I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment from the Uniko Flower Power #3 stamp set before adhering all the elements to a green die cut stitched rectangle and then onto the card front. 

Hoping I have given you some useful inspiration today and that you are where you want to be in terms of your Christmas crafting!!

Much love

Steph  

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Zesty Birthdays

 Bonjour !

 Izzy here. In recent months I haven't been much present on blogland neither in my craft room. So after this involuntary break, it is quite hard to find inspiration. And that's where I bless all blogland challenges because that's where I draw my inspiration from.

Today I'm going to show you how I've been inspired by several challenges to use the Organically Zesty Clear Stamp set and the Layering Stencil Zesty.

 

The last Color Hues and Seize the Birthday challenges inspired me for my first card : Navy & Green Lime. 

The word Lime was enough for me to use this beautiful set and to stamp the lemon on white paper , to colour it in lime shades with colour pencils and to fussy cut it. To finish my card, it was easy to choose a double navy card to adhere it on top and to stamp the sentiment with Distress Oxide.

For the final touch, I put some glossy accent on the lemon drops.

For my second card, I've been inspired by the sketch of the Freshly Made Sketch challenge and the colours of CAS Colours & Sketches.

Here is my card

For this one I used the Layering Stencil Zesty in two ways. I first used the four layers with the colours Grape, Mango and Pink to make the foreground panel. Then I used only the "drops" layer stencil as an embossing folder to make the white background panel.

To finish my card I die cut two slices of lemon and coloured them with the same inks and I stamped and black heat embossed the sentiment on a strip of paper that I fussy cut.

So that's it from me for today. I really love these two products. They both match very well together but at the same time they are versatile so that you can use them separately. 

I hope I've encouraged you to have a look on the current challenges and to give some love to your Uniko's products. And thanks for visiting Uniko today !

Two For Tuesday

 Hello & Happy Tuesday.

It's been a while since I did a Two For Tuesday post and it just so happened I made a couple of one layer cards using a mix of Flower Power and Sentiments Outlined. I kept the layout the same for both, but just switched up the flowers and sentiments.

I started by stamping the sentiment in black ink from Sentiments Outlined and then scattered the solid flower from Flower Power #7 in Sorbet and Honeysuckle C9 inks. 

The leaf is from Flower Power #6 and stamped in C9 Parsley. I finished the design with some Gloss Dandelion Yellow Nuvo Drops to the centre of the flowers. I also coloured the sentiment with an aqua shade of Copic Marker.

For my second card I used the rose from Flower Power #6 and this time stamped them in Poppy and Honeysuckle C9 inks.

I thought the 'Have a Perfect Day' sentiment was a nice choice and this time I stamped it in turquoise and coloured in the closest match of Copic Marker.

Two fairly quick cards and wonderfully mail friendly! 

That's all from me today. Thanks for stopping by.

Crafty Hugs

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - A Heat Embossing Technique

 Hello!

I have three cards to share with you today using a really cool heat embossing technique.

This technique works best with solid stamps. Here's the lowdown on how it's done:

1. Ink all over a piece of card with some bright colours.

2. Stamp all over and heat emboss using clear powder. I used Background Blocks Layered Modern Floral.

3. Ink over the top in a darker colour - I used villainous potion. It's best to choose a contrasting colour for the darker shade to allow the background colours to shine through really well. See where I used the wilted violet with villainous potion on top? Not so good.

4. Polish off the darker colour using a cloth to allow the underneath colours to stand out even more.

5. Use the panel to create a card. Because the wilted violet didn't stand out so well I decided to cut my panel down for the front of my card. I then had enough left over to cut a tag as well.

I finished off the card with a greeting from Birthday Sentiments stamped onto vellum.

The next two cards were created using the same technique. This one uses Framed Florals and a greeting from Simply Said. 

I masked off round the frame of the stamp before adding in the darker coloured ink so that the outside frame just shows the bottom colours.

I selected blues and greens for my final card and used Background Blocks Cogs. I then die cut the panel into a banner and added some ribbon and enamel dots as well as a greeting from Everyday Sentiments.

Thanks so much for looking today. 

Remember to share anything you make using Uniko products on social media using #unikoltd.

Stay sae and keep crafting!

Jane

x

Friday Focus - Wonderful Day

Happy Friday!

I have survived the school holidays - haha! It's actually been alright and we have had some fun. The weather could have been a little sunnier, but we can't have everything.

Today I have a trio of cards using Wonderful Day. 

This clear stamp set recently came back in stock and I was immediately inspired to create a card using it with the recently released Background Blocks Rays. I've also used a sentiment focal point from Sentiments Outlined.

I started by stamping the 'Have a Wonderful Birthday' sentiment central on my card base. I then positioned the Background Block Rays in my stamping tool so that I could stamp it in opposing corners on my card base in a soft yellow ink.

I then stamped the flowers and leaves from Wonderful Day in black ink. I used a little bit of simple masking to have the leaves pop out from behind the flowers. I finished off with some glittery enamel dots from my stash.

My second card uses just Wonderful Day. 

I stamped and fussy cut two flowers and a selection of leaves from the set, which I have arranged around one of the sentiments stamped in black on a white mat layer.

I've then used the larger of the outline circles, intended for flower centres and stamped it around the edge of my base card in black ink. I then adhered my mat layer to the base using double sided tape and added some Nuvo Drop accents.

The use of the circle stamp on my second card inspired my third! I love it when creativity flows like this.

Here I started by stamping my sentiment. I then selected 5 colours to stamp both the large and small solid dots. I also added in some black ones to tie in the outline circles, which I stamped overlapping each other and some of the coloured dots. The smaller trio of dots is from Floral Vines to fill in a few of the gaps.

Wonderful Day is such a fun set to let your creativity flow and it pairs wonderfully with the Background Blocks. I've also shown, that even though it is a floral set, you can achieve masculine one layer makes too.

That's all from me today.

Crafty Hugs

Hello September!

 Hello & Happy September!

I can't believe we are in September already. The summer seems to have flown by in a flash. It is back to school chaos as The Beans return on Monday AND luckily they get to celebrate their 8th Birthday tomorrow with no school! 

In between baking cakes today I managed to squeeze in a little crafty time. As much as I have enjoyed the summer, I have missed my daily routine in the studio and getting creative. So as much as I would happily have the school holidays last a little longer, I will be glad to get back in the studio!

Todays card was a fairly quick make as I had already stamped and fussy cut the leaves from Natures Treasures II a few weeks ago. They've just been sat waiting to be used! 

I decided to pair them with BIG & BOLD Hello. Mainly as I wanted a Hello September / Autumn inspired card with a modern twist of using neutral tones, but not just browns. I added a little bit of dimension with the fussy cut hello and the upper most leaf using foam adhesive.

September is an exciting month as next week we have another batch of requested clear stamp restocks arriving next week. These include, Background Blocks Halftone, Background Builders Squared, Pure Florals Gerbera, Pure Florals Peony and Snowflake Serenade. These are all available on backorder over on the website and any orders containing a backorder will be posted 7th / 8th September. 

Orders over £25 are being posted via Signed For Delivery at no extra cost to you, due to the postal strikes. As well, please allow extra time for your orders to arrive due to the strikes. I have no control over this and if I used a courier I would have to increase postage costs and I don't want to do this. 

In other news, Uniko is super excited to be in Harrogate on the 10th and 11th at the Crafterama show. This will be our first time in Harrogate AND doing a two day show! You can purchase tickets HERE.

Before I go I have one more little announcement. I know times are hard right now and we are all feeling the pinch. So in celebration of The Beans 8th Birthday tomorrow I am offering 10% off all orders from today, until 10am Monday 5th September. 

That's all from me today! 

Crafty Hugs

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Holiday Memories

 Bonjour !

Izzy here. In order to make the holiday longer, in my mind at least, I made three cards representing what they looked like.

I'm not wrong if I say that for everybody, this summer has been very hot and sunny. And we were lucky enough to spend our holidays far from all the fires that occured. We were on a little island where the bicycle is a principle. So we parked our car when arriving and we used only our bicycles for the rest of the week...

For this card I used the Background Blocks Rays from the last release for the sun rays. Then I used the Background Builders Arts Décoratifs to represent the blue sea and the grass.

We cycled between the vineyards and the salt marshes and we visited the small villages full of flowers, and among other things with magnificent passion flowers...

For this second card I used the beautiful set Passiflora. I stamped the leaves and the different parts of the flower on white card stock and I cut them with the matching dies.

Paddle, walks and ice creams were also part of our daily life...

I used some of the images of the Block Party Summer to make this last card. I stamped and white embossed them on white card stock and I coloured them with colour pencils. I also used the Background Blocks Nautical Stripes that I stamped in blue shades. I foam mounted it on a white card. To finish I fussy cut the images and I adhered them on top.

I hope that you too enjoyed your summer break as well as these inspirational cards.

Thanks so much for visiting Uniko !