Color Hues #131

Afternoon all.

We are over halfway through April so it's time for a brand new colour pairing from Color Hues. 

This time I've gone with a floral themed card using the colours and Uniko's Pure Florals Peony. What do you think?

To start, I used Altenew's Limestone ink stamped onto Mixed Media paper, to create a no line look, then I smooshed some of their other inks onto an acrylic sheet to use for a watercolour technique. I used Coral Berry, Grapevine and Coral Bliss for the petals and Olive, Moss and Evergreen for the stem and leaves.

Each petal was painted separately, first with plain water then with the paler Coral Bliss and darker Coral Berry, allowing the water to blend the colours. It's best to paint sections that don't touch one another to reduce the risk of colour bleeding until each section has dried. Some of the lightest areas had virtually no colour and the off white paper showed through to suggest hilights. I repeated the technique for the leaves, using first Olive then Moss.

To create an even greater sense of depth, I went back into the bloom, first with a damp brush, I wet the areas that needed to be in shadow before going in with the Grapevine ink. For the green shading I used the Evergreen ink. Once dry, I fussy cut it out and concentrated on my background. 

A Mama Elephant die was used to cut an eyelet panel from white card, then I removed the center with a rectangle die to create a frame. Using the magnets in my Misti, I held the frame and bloom down whilst I placed the greeting from Uniko's Originally Organic. Once happy with the placement, I removed the frame and bloom and stamped it in Memento London Fog. The frame and bloom were then glued to my A6 white base card.

That's all from me but please check out the rest of the team and our GD over on the Color Hues blog for more fab inspiration. As usual you have up until the 29th April to link up your green and coral makes, have fun.

I'm joining in over at:-

In the Garden or AG

Simple or Fussy 

I've never been happy throwing on the fripperies and embellishments, so this is as fancy as I go. I'm a simple girl at heart!!

Color Hues #130

Afternoon. It may be April Fool's Day but here in the UK it's after noon so if you do trick me it's all on you! Any how, it's also the start of a new colour duo from Color Hues.

Here's my take.

Stamping Bella's Edna was another from my to colour box and I thought she would look great in the new colours! For those of you who are interested I used Copics RV02, 04, 06 and RV17 for the fuchsia element and B34, 37 anf 39 for the navy. 

After colouring and fussy cutting her out, I stated on my background. A freebie EF sorted out the wave effect and an OI die, a bargain from a local shop that was closing down, supplied the frame, which I popped up on foam pads. 

My sentiment is from Uniko and the PPP sequins, which started off as clear, were coloured with B39 to match her outfit.

So that's about it from me but please check out the rest of the girls over on the Color Hues blog.

You have until the 14th April to enter BUT please stick to the rules, use only the colours given plus the usual neutrals, please note GREEN is not a neutral, we wouldn't want to disqualify your entry after all your hard work!

Uniko Product Revisit

Morning, there's no March release from Uniko, so Bev and the other Uniko Brand Ambassadors are revisiting the two releases from earlier in the year.

I've chosen the fabulous Bauhaus Blocks Spring Layering Stencil for my focus, here are couple of ideas.

I started by covering an A6 panel of white card with the various elements of the stencils, using Cracked Pistachio, Picked Raspberry and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxides. When I had covered the white  panel, I realised that I had made an error in one of the flowers, so it stood out like a sore thumb, so not wanting to waste the panel I cut it up and made two cards!

This first card uses a part of the panel.

Another error was that my A6 panel wasn't, about 5mm too narrow! I had to make a decision and decided to use it, trimming it down so that it fit an A6 topfold note card, with a white border showing. To emphasise the gap, I added a panel of paper inked on my Gelli plate. I used the Squeezed Lemonade and Cracked Pistachio to give a kind of speckled effect. The Oxide inks blend so well like this, I prefer it to straight inking. The combination of yellow and the soft green gives a lovely spring feel to the card. A stamped and embossed sentiment completes.

Remember that error on my original panel, well here is what I made with that.

The error was front and central, so I just covered it with the sentiment! More of my Gelli plate paper and some Greetery dies complete.

I wonder what the rest of the team have been inspired to create? Why not pop along and check their blogs and Instagram accounts out to find out?

Don't forget to comment as you go for a chance to win some Uniko goodies.

  Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie - that's me

Natalie

Steph

Vinita

 Hope you left some comment love along the way, Bev will randomly select a comment to win the £20 eGift certificate to spend in store.  The winner will be announced on Monday 13th April 2026. 

Happy crafting!

Under the Bonnet

 Good morning and happy St Patrick's Day to those who celebrate it.

We have a new challenge for you from Cardz4Guyz where our theme this month is :-

LIGHT BLUE and BROWN

Here's my take after a bit of head scratching!!

I've known about the challenge for quite sometime and had lots of ideas buzzing in my head but I couldn't quite settle on just one, so this card was made a bit last minute! It nearly didn't get made at all as when I started to colour my LOTV digi image, my E57 Copic marker decided not to play. Perhaps I had neglected it and it had dried but all it did was leave a blotchy mark. So I abandoned it and went to watch the new Scarpeta on Amazon Prime. It's base on the books by Patricia Cornwell that I've read, about an ME in the USA, a bit gory and the stream played up, but overall I quite enjoyed it. Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis were great as Kay and sister Dorothy but Lucy, not what I had pictured in my mind's eye. Benton wasn't quite as suarve as I imagined but Marino is OK. Anyway, back to my card!

Coming back to the image the next day, I thought I could rescue it, waste not want not, and I think I have, adding some white gel pen to create a tweed cap which I then coloured over with a blue marker.

After finishing the rest of the colouring, I fussy cut it out, printed off some matching DP from NitWits and got ready to assemble.

Textured shaped panel on foam pads over DP onto a card base and a stamped Uniko sentiment, the image was also added on pads. 

There are a couple of other challenges around that are featuring blue and brown, so I will join in there too.

If you need more inspiration please check out the rest of the Cardz4Guyz team here. Looking forward to seeing your makes in our gallery.

Color Hues #129

Good afternoon. 

As we whizz through the month of March its time to start a new colour challenge at Color Hues.

This time Marcia has chosen a fun and cheery colour combination, here's my take.

First of all I thought of crocus with purple petals and rich yellow anthers as they were dancing in the longer grass in the garden but I couldn't use green for the leaves, so abandoned that choice and went for this Gorjuss image that was another from my to stamped but not colouired box. It's an old one I stamp sometime ago when an old friend was visiting for some crafty time. 

The girl was coloured with Copics and fussy cut. I usually have the light coming from one side or the other when colouring but this image had shadows already quite prominent to suggest front on light and so I went with that, not as much option for shadows that way though, but the hair was quite a large part of the image!

My background DP is from an old magazine and the white panel was an equally ancient EF that matched. Another elderly item was the purple ribbon on which I perched my girl. A couple of sentiment banners were stamped and added under the edge of the embossed panel, the layout an other oldie from Sketch Saturday (on pause).

That's about all from me but please check out the rest of the team and our GD here for more colourful  inspiration.

The first signs of spring in our fields, who doesn't love a cute lamb?! The mum's started coming home from the lambing sheds last week with their little ones.

Joining in over at:-