Uniko Introducing... MOD Background Builder Stencil

Morning all!

The first of our November release at Uniko features a very versatile background stencil. Here's how I used it.

Trying to think outside the box, I decided to use my new WOW embossing pen I picked up from Lavinia Stamps shop in Ruthin, where the OH took his car for a recall from Subaru. He just happened to mention that there was a craft shop around the corner so I 'volunteered' to accompany him on his hour and a bit journey!!

I first drew around the stencil with a pencil on a panel of MM paper, then painted the opening with Zig watercolour markers. I tried using the WOW pen alone but was more successful following the soft pencil outlines!! After embossing with some white EP, I spritzed the panel with water and dabbed the excess inky water with some kitchen paper. I think I ended up with more on the kitchen paper than the MM panel!! I do like the mottled effect I got though, even if there was a little leakage.

The panel was die cut using a stitched rectangle die, mounted on a matching base card and the sentiment added. The sentiment was made up from words from the Doodle Flower set, stamped on a matching card circle, mounted on a die cut vellum one.

 That's all from me for today but why not check out what the rest of the Brand Ambassadors have been up to? I'll be back tomorrow with another stencil introduction.

 Anita

Bev

Hannelie

Izzy

Jane

Julie - that's me

Steph

Wiebke

Uniko's Stencil Release Sneak Peeks

Good morning, hope the weather is better with you than it is here today, a little dreek as they say in Scotland!

Just popping by with a few sneaky peeks of the new stencils from Uniko.

 

What do you think? Intrigued? Well you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see what Bev and the other Brand Ambassadors and I have done with them.

They will be available on the Uniko website from Thursday 3rd November 9am GMT. I do hope you will stop by tomorrow.

Uniko BA Inspiration and a Paper Players Sketch

I'm up on the Uniko blog with some BA Inspiration using the latest challenge at The Paper Players.

Here are a couple of cards I made.

I love a sketch, they are a great way to get inspired when your mojo is not quite working as it should!

For this I started by stamping the small outline rose and two of the leaflets from Pure Florals Rose, in Versamark and embossing with gold EP. Using some Candied Apple, Mowed Lawn, and Pealed Paint DI smooshed onto my craft mat, I water coloured before fussy cutting out. A little shadow was added using one of my Zig watercolour markers.

The central strip was stamped using a selection of Simply Said sentiments in Altenew Evening Gray on a strip of paper, before adding to an A6 base card. A piece of textured white card from my stash was mounted onto some gold card and the Floral Vines sentiment stamped and embossed with the same gold EP. The rose spray was then added to the top panel and attached over the central strip.

My second card uses the poinsettia from Season of Beauty, Christmas Sentiments and the Winter Foliage stencil.

Details of this card are over on the Uniko blog.

 

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In the Woodland Thanks

Good morning.

Just popping by to share a card I made for a couple of challenges. I don't do it as much as I used to, DTs take precedence but after having my COVID booster on Tuesday, I decided to have some quiet me time. I love a bit of watercolouring to escape , so I looked out these In the Woodland beauties from Altenew and sat down to play. It didn't quite go to plan but here is the end result, finally completed last night.

I used a no line technique, stamping with Altenew's Morning Frost then colouring using DIs in a mix of Kitch Flamingo, Mowed Lawn, Lucky Clover, Mustard Seed and a couple of Zig markers for detail.

After cutting the blooms out, I decided to add an embossed panel background, not used before and a die cut sentiment. A few PPP sequins complete.

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Listen to the Trees

Good morning folks.

It's time for a new challenge at Cardz4Guyz and it was my turn to choose the theme. I went pretty simple with the theme of:-

AUTUMN COLOURS

So a pretty wide remit, just use oranges, reds, yellows and browns in your makes!

Here's my take using a Crafty Individuals stamp from their Listen to the Trees set, that I bought quite a few years ago from Port Sunlight and it was in the bargain bucket!!

This uses the ink, spritz, stamp method to create the panel before I upped the design by chopping the panel into inch squares. You have to bite the bullet and just go with it sometimes! The inking was done with a mix of DI ink pads and Zig watercolour brush markers for the smaller areas and the area beneath the trees.

When dry, I trimmed the panel down to 4"x5" then used my guillotine to chop it up.

I labelled each square A1 to D5 so if by some awful chance I dropped them I could easily put them together again!

Each piece was lifted up on brown fun foam over a panel of brown card, leaving a slight gap between each square. A simple strip of card is helpful in lining up the pieces. The finished panel was trimmed where necessary before being added to an A5, off white card base. My sentiment from Uniko, was stamped in Memento Espresso Truffle on a matching die cut card panel, then added to a slightly larger panel of the same light brown card.

So where will the theme take you? We'd love to see your autumnal coloured projects in our gallery but if you are in need of some inspiration why not check out the rest of the DT here.

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Autumn Colours

All things Autumn

Anything Goes Fall

Color Hues #51

Good afternoon, hope your weekend has been a good one so far.

It's the middle of October so time for a new colour combination at Color Hues. Cindy has chosen a lovely pair for you to play with this time.

Here's my take.

I chose to use my other set of Sizzix leaf dies that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. This is their first outing as I wasn't sure what to do with them, typical I fell in love with them in the catalogue then when I got hold of them I struggled for inspiration!!

Anyway, I decided to use the die that cuts out an opening as each leaf in the set has a pair, the other cuts out the whole leaf shape, inspired by the leaves in the mood board from SSS. From my bits box, I found a gelli plate panel in shades of orange, added some Peeled Paint DI in various places and then placed the die cut panel on top. Love the textured effect you get with gelli plate pulls, in contrast to a simple blended panel.

My finished panel was added to a dark green slimline base card and my sentiment was added to complete.

So where will the colours take you? There's lots of inspiration over at the Color Hues blog where the DT have a varied gallery of inspiration along with out GD Bobby.

That's it for now but why not share your makes in the Color Hues gallery.

Joining in over at:-

Autumn or Halloween

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Good evening folks. Just popping by to say that there is a brand new challenge over at Perfectly CAS.

As it says in the title, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so I've used the theme to create this card.

As some of you may know it is a cause close to my heart, it was why I started making cards. Whilst recovering from surgery, my friends decided I needed an outlet so we got together to create cards to sell to raise funds for Breast Cancer Care. The bug bit, so to speak and I haven't stopped. My style has evolved and my stash has grown exponentially! 

The cute die cut ribbon was cut from the original die that one of my friends found from Provocraft, we used it to mark the back of all our cards that went to raise funds. We sold them at work but since we have all retired, moved away it doesn't get as much use as it once did, but I dusted it off and cut one more ribbon from white card, which I then coloured using Copics.

The pink base card was in the stash, as was the panel of textured card. I cut it to allow my sentiment, STAMPlorations, to be stamped and embossed in white and placed the ribbon across the gap.

So how will you be inspired by the cue card? If you are in need of some more inspiration why not check out the rest of the DT and then join us, why don't you.

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Fizzy Moon Goes Fishing

Good morning. It's time for a new challenge over at Cardz4Guyz. This time our theme is:-

TEDDY BEARS

Tricky to make teddy bears masculine, babies are easy but for a more mature recipient? Well I thought straight away of my collection of Fizzy Moon stamps. I've used most of them before but I had one that hadn't been inked up before, so thought I'd use that.

Here Fizzy is fishing with his young pal.

So after stamping, colouring with Copics and fussy cutting, I put him to one side and cracked on with the layout. It's one I use a lot, uses very little DP but packs a punch.

This time I cut a panel of copy paper to A6 but trimmed off 1/2 inch from the long side. From the bits box, I found some NitWits DP, last used for a card about 6-7 years ago and cut two strips, adding them to the edges of my copy paper. The sky for the background was also in the bits box but a lot newer and glued it between the orange strips and then my DP panel was glued to an A6 base card.

The top panel was cut from an A6 panel of card to match my base card, some textured card I bought in bulk from Craftzone in Pontefract now closed I think, for my daughter's wedding invites over 15 years ago!!! You know, it was too good to use and you save it for a special occasion LOL. Anyway, in my efforts to use my stash rather than buy new, it was pressed into service. Using an MFT die I cut my opening and created the frame at the same time, however I wanted the central panel to be slightly smaller so had to cut it down. As a result of that I was left with two separate pieces, top and bottom. I solved this by putting the die cut frame back into the larger bottom half and secured with low tack tape. I then added the smaller top piece and secured the same way. Flipping it over, I attached the frame using tape and placed the fussy cut bears behind. The finished panel was then added to my card on foam pads. The sentiment was stamped onto one of the cut off strips from the top panel, trimmed to fit and added flat.

That's about it, but how will you interpret the theme? If you haven't checked out the rest of the team why not pop over, then join in.

We have my Sister in law and husband stopping with us for a couple of days so I'm off out later for a bit of retail therapy and sight seeing with them and the OH, hope the weather is better than it has been!

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hobbies/pastimes

Summer's Last Hurrah

Good evening.

A new month so a new challenge at HLS Birthday where it's always Anything Goes!

There has been a decidedly autumnal feel these past few days but there are still a few flowers in the borders valiantly shining forth. After the dahlias and zinnia's there are a few wild ox-eye daisies that must have grown from seed set earlier in the year to flower this late! They are very welcome as the days shorten and the leaves begin to fall.

Here is my take using an old STAMPlorations set Bloom Sketches and Brusho.

The flower heads were stamped in Memento London Fog and then masked before the Brusho was added after the card panel was wet with water, a mix of Leaf Green and Prussian Blue. Before removing the masks, a few freehand strokes were added with a strong mix of the green to create stems and grass. 

The masks were removed and the flowers shaded with a grey Zig watercolour brush marker. The flower centers were coloured using more Brusho sprinkled on damp centers.

Finally the panel was trimmed down and added to a white base card and the Wplus9 happy die cut added, along with the black birthday banner embossed with white EP.

There's lots more birthday inspiration on the HLS Birthday page so why not check them out and join in?

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Gardener's Delight

Color Hues #50

Good afternoon, a new month so time for a new colour combination at Color Hues. This time Carol has chosen a fab one with spooky overtones, should you wish. Here's my take.

The image is a digi from LOTV called Abracadabra which I coloured with Copics and fussy cut.

Covered my A6 base card with some NitWits DP, it's more orange in real life, and added a die cut panel in white linen effect card over the top before adding my little chap on pads. A few freehand marks were added to replace the ones I had to cut away, with a black fine liner. My Uniko sentiment was stamped over the DP and a few punched stars and dots were added to complete. 

Another card to donate to my Grandson's birthday card stash, I filled it up last weekend as he's only been in school 4 weeks and he's been invited to loads of parties!!

So where will the colours take you? The DT have some fabulous ideas for you over on the blog, so why not check them out and then add your takes to our gallery.

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