Color Hues #122

Afternoon peeps.

Can you believe we are already halfway through NOVEMBER!! Christmas will be upon us before we know it. Well over at Color Hues, Nancy has chosen a colour duo that might help with those Christmas makes, here's what I made.

My wonderful bloggy friend Loll, one of our GDs, and her group of 7 cardmakers are using textured tissue paper and hilighted embossing for their technique this month, so I thought I would have a play.

I found some white, thickish tissue in my tissue drawer, yes I do have such a thing, you never know when you are going to need it!

On my craft mat I smooshed some Galactic Stream and Teal Cave inks from Altenew with a spritz of water and added my square of tissue. It proved to be quite strong so I could move it around to get good coverage. When dry I added it to some white card with PVA then when that panel was dry, I embossed it with an EF. The technique works best with a deep embossing folder but this was a freebie, Crafters Companion I believe, just a plain old EF.

It says to use a brayer but I used some Inca Gold silver wax which I added carefully with my finger tip to the raised areas.

The panel was then trimmed and added to an A6 top fold, white, note card and finished off with a couple of strips of silver glitter card from some crackers from a couple of Christmases ago and a Uniko sentiment stamped in more Galactic Stream.

So what will you make with these colours? If you need more inspiration, please check out the rest of the team here as well as our TWO GDs Loll and Joanne, then why not join us?

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Uniko VIP FB Challenge - Christmas

 Morning all. Uniko is launching their November VIP FB challenge today, where the theme is 

ANYTHING GOES CHRISTMAS

This is a great chance to crack out those Uniko goodies and get some Christmas cards made! Here's one I made after seeing a reel on FB over the weekend.

The actual card was fully freehand but I loved how the artist used a simple triangle which was then filled with festive foliage to suggest a tree. For my take I used an assortment of sets but mainly Season of Beauty and Winter Foliage. I'm also linking up to a few other challenges, Time Out where my favourite Holiday to celebrate is Christmas. The Male Room want a floral masculine card, I think that Christmas cards are a perfect way to incorporate that theme. Allsorts are focusing on Christmas cards and Simply Clean & Simple want winter/holiday cards.

To begin I took a panel of Mixed Media Paper and masked off a simple triangle with masking tape. I made sure that it was low tac and that it was pressed down onto the paper, no leaks wanted here! Then using the poinsettia stamp I inked up with Altenew's Heart Beat and then stamped again with just water to blend out the colour. Before it dried too much I added the second layer with Altenew's Vineyard Berry. I did get a bit of bleed but it didn't bother me too much! The green sepals were stamped with the reverse of the stamp in Fresh Leaf and then again with the detail in more Fresh Leaf.

Next I added some holly leaves from Winter Foliage and Altenew's Evergreen ink, followed with the berries in more Vineyard Berry and a few evergreen boughs in Altenew's Moss. Using a smaller cluster of berries stamp, I used Altenew's Coral Bliss to fill in some spaces, finally filling in with some small freehand leaves in gold paint. After leaving it to dry while I made tea, I then carefully removed the masking tape and stamped the star from the Pattern Building Christmas Tree in Wild Honey DI, then painted it with more gold paint. 

My pot/trunk sentiment is from Peace on Earth, which I cut in half to create the stacked look. Don't panic I can still use it as it was intended!! I embossed it with some gold EP. Once trimmed down my panel was added to a red panel and added to an A6 top fold note card. MM paper is the whitest w/c paper I've found but still looks awful on white or sometimes even on off white cardstock so a coloured background works best.

So that's all from me but please join us over on FB for a chance to win a little gift from Bev and of course just have some fun!

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#836 Christmas Cards

  

Holidays or Winter

Featured Artist at Color Throwdown #844

Good morning. I'm here bright and early for a post for Color Throwdown.

I'm the Featured Stamper for this challenge after my poinsettia card here was picked out.

So without further ado here is my make!

I thought for a long time about what I should make for this challenge and as my bestie's birthday has crept up on me, I thought I would make her a birthday card in the colours! Two birds with one stone, so to speak!

I chose to use DIs for my inked background panel, Salty Ocean, Kitsch Flamingo and Mustard Seed, adding patches of colour to a panel of white card. To create some texture, I spritzed the surface with water along with a few more larger drops, that I then mopped up with a paper towel. I tried not to overlap the colours so that there wasn't too much colour mixing!

My snarky sentiment is an old one from a DoCrafts set from over 15 years ago, Nostalgia High Heels, which I stamped onto a circle of white card, leaving space for my Copic coloured Ai lady.

She's from their Sassy Laugh Lines set, which after colouring, I fussy cut and added with foam pads. A few Pretty Pink Posh sequins complete the panel, which I added to a white 5 x 7inch base card.

So there you have it, please check out the team over a Color Throwdown for some fabulous inspiration and then why not join in?

Color Hues #121

Afternoon, hope your weekend is of to a fine start!

As it's the start of a new month, we have a new colour duo from Color Hues chosen by Sheri. It's a fab autumnal palette that I'm sure will have your creative juices flowing. Here's my take.

I've used Stamping Bella's Quinn and her boots, together with some DPs.

After stamping, I used Copics to colour and for a change didn't fussy cut her but cropped the panel instead. A sentiment from my favourite Uniko sentiment set was stamped in black.

On an A6 beige card, I added a panel of diamond DP, NitWits and below some hessian DP from LOTV.  I found a small piece of orange check DP from another project in the bits box to cover the join but it was a tiny bit too small, so I cut it in half, the gap was conveniently covered by the image panel!

So that's it really, but please check out the rest of the team here for more fab orange and brown inspiration!

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#835 Autumnal Colours

Orange Purple Black use 1 or more

 Morning all, time for a new challenge from Cardz4Guyz which I'm also sharing over at Uniko.

This time we have a colour challenge for you:-

USE one or more of ORANGE, BLACK or PURPLE

Here's what I made using Uniko's Nature's Treasures Stencil and all of the colours.

CAS is a great way to make a masculine card and as flowers are a bit of a no no for them too, I turned to leaves. In this case I used Nature's Treasures II stencil, some DIs,Wilted Violet, Black Soot, Ripe Persimmon, Carved Pumpkin, Dried Marigold, Ripe Persimmon, Spiced Marmalade and a sentiment from Organic Wishes.

I mostly used the smaller of the two stencils moving it around to create the look of an autumnal tree, inking onto an A6 top fold white card. I wasn't sure how the purple element would work out but I quite like it. Where it overlays the orange it gives a shade of brown but the purpley hues suggest depth and the black stencilling, shadows. The sentiment is quite ambiguous and could be used for a variety of occasions, including sympathy.

You don't have to use all of the colours like me but at least one has to feature prominantly. You could go down the Halloween route or perhaps like me autumn is more your vibe, the choice is yours, just make it masculine. The team have a few ideas should you need them here.

As I've use orange and purple in my design so I can share it over at Color Hues, The Paper Players are all for foliage and the mood board at JUGS has an autumnal feel too!

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Color Hues #120

Afternoon folkls, as we are mis way through October it's time for a brand new colour combo from Color Hues. This choice is very of the season, so to speak, here's my card.

You don't have to go down the spooky route but I sort of went down that avenue, using this new to me digi from LOTV, isn't she sweet?

After printing her off, I coloured her with my Copic markers and fussy cut her out. Her wand was originally coloured orange but then I went over it with some gold paint! 

On an A6 note card I created the background using a homemade stencil for the circle and a Tim Holtz star one and some Wilted Violet DI. I'd seen a pic of the spooky background and decided to have a go at creating my own with some scrap card, a circle die and fussy cutting. The shading on the masked area was done with a little bit of Weathered Wood DI.

So where will these colours take you, as always my teamies have come up with some fab inspiration here, alongside our GD Bobby, should you need it.

Looking forward to seeing your makes in the gallery.

For those of you who can remember back to my saga with my faulty washing machine back in August, the manufacturers, Bosch, finally decided that they would replace the faulty machine after nearly 2 months and 5 engineer visits. My new replacement is not the same model as that is no longer in production, wonder why? Three loads in it's working fine but I'm too scared to use the iDOS system in case it goes wrong again. At least they have added my extended warranty to my replacement machine if I pluck up enough courage to try it out!!

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#79

I choose Autumn - Halloween

#503

World Card Making Day

 Morning peeps, happy world card making day!

It's a been a hectic week for me, with visits from one lot of grandkids mid week and another visit today, Flu jabs, dog at the vets for teeth removal, hairdessers appointment, catching up with my bestie, and trying to get my washing machine sorted. As a result I've been absent from my craft room and have only just got around to sharing this card I finally completed last night after the flu jab, 10 to 8 at night! Can you believe it? So here it is.

Bev said I could share an older make for World card making Day, but when I went to look I saw one using this fab stamp and decided an afternoon painting would be just the ticket after a hectic few days, then my bestie rang for a catch up after her month in Portugal. You know what it's like, an hour had sped by and the painting had barely started!!

So down to details. Pure Florals - Poinsettia stamped in Versamark on an A6 panel of plain white card then heat embossed with gold EP. A mix of DIs for the painting, along with a pale orange for the central flowers. My aim was to use the colours from Color Throwdown, hope that tiny nod to orange is sufficient! To fill in around the flower head, I sketched in some foliage with a WOW embossing pen and more gold EP.

The sentiment is from the same poinsettia set and the Christmas from Cheistmas Sentiments.

To celebrate Bev, is having a little competition

Simply make a card that uses a Uniko product. You could use a stamp, stencil, designer die or even a digital product. There are some free downloads HERE. 

Next, share it on social media (Instagram, Facebook or even Pinterest) and be sure to tag @unikoltd so we see it! You can even link up your card up at Uniko here. If you don't do social media or have trouble linking up, email me your entry to bev@uniko.co.uk

You have today and tomorrow (Sunday 5th) to get your entries in.

3 winners will be randomly selected from those entered across all platforms to win a Uniko prize bundle. Winners will be contacted and announced here on Monday 6th October 2025

So what are you waiting for?

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Color Hues #119

Good afternoon and welcome to a new colour duo from Color Hues. This time teamie  Marcia has chosen an autumnal duo for you or perhaps you think it evokes something else. Anyway here is what I came up with.

Sadly I needed a sympathy card last week and they are never easy cards to make, but the image I chose evokes a calm feeling when used with the colours.

I used a Creative Expressions/Chocolate Baroque red rubber stamp that I picked up in the bargain bucket at Port Sunlight a few years ago. It came without packaging, hence I'm unsure of the brand. To create the soft water colour effect I used a mix of DIs and water colour markers and water spritzing onto MM paper. A mixture of Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey and Barn Door DIs created the tree with a dark brown marker for the branches. Some of the ink was also smooshed onto a craft mat and added with a damp brush to the base of the tree to ground it. 

The frame is MFT and the sentiment Crafters Companion, stamped with Memento Espresso Truffle. The layout a nod to the one at Paper Players.

The trees here are not quite in their autumnal pomp yet but it wont be too long now I don't think, love the colours of autumn.

So where will these colours take you, we're looking forward to seeing your makes in the Color Hues gallery but if you should need more inspiration please check out the rest of the DT here.

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Uniko BA Inspiration and a Challenge reminder

 Good morning and welcome to a post to remind you all about the ongoing Uniko FB VIP Challenge. Here's my take on the colour challenge.

My starting point was this card made by my Color Hues teamie Bonnie. She used a background stamp but as I don't have that exact stamp, I thought I could use Season's of Beauty to create a similar feel.

I started by embossing the poinsettia and foliage with white EP on an A6 panel of Mixed Media paper. I smooshed some of Altenew's Desert Night ink onto a kraft mat then wet the whole MM panel with water and added the ink with a brush and some smooshing. The water makes the ink lighter than the original, literally diluting the colour. To achieve the patchy look, I removed some of the ink with a piece of kitchen roll before it dried. I haven't used Altenew's ink like this before and it is not as forgiving as Distress Inks, which I usually use but the colour was a better match to the swatch.

On some scrap white card, I stamped the poinsettia with Carved Pumpkin and Ripe Persimmon DI for the 2 top layers. I filled in some of the white around the sepals with more Carved Pumpkin. The foliage and green sepals I inked with Forest Moss and Peeled Paint DI, adding water to blend out the lines.

My yellow flowers we originally stamped with Wild Honey DI but they got a bit lost, so I added some dots of white gel pen over and a touch of a yellow Copic marker.

On a circle of white card, I used the Desert Night ink to stamp the sentiment and on a slightyly larger one, I added some of the same ink to create a matte. The elements were then fussy cut and added to my sentiment panel. Meanwhile, I added my inky background to a 5 x 7inch white base card and then placed the layered focal point on to that.

That's it from me for today but please consider joining in over on Facebook for a chance to win an e-voucher worth £10 to spend in the Uniko store. You've got until October 10th to play.

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Color Hues #118

Afternoon, time for a brand new colour challenge from Color Hues. 

For this challenge Jules has selected a calm colour pallette of soft blue and green but for me this was a challenge, the colours are a bit tricky to replicate in Copics but I hope I've managed to get as close as possible with this little chap, neutrals are always welcome!

 

This is a digi image from Lili of the Valley which I printed off onto some Copic friendly card before colouring. For the blue I went with the grey blues of the B90 set and for the sage green I used mainly BG90s with a touch of YG63, E71 for shadow.

The sentiment is from a magazine freebie, which I stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black. The finish panel was trimmed down to just under A6 and then mounted on some really old DP from the stash before being added to a 5 x 7inch white base card.

So there we have it, but there's plenty more fab inspiration from the rest of the girls over on the Color Hues blog, along with our GD Birgit Looking forward to seeing all your makes in the gallery.

Have fun!

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CAS

Sept - Birthdays

Make it Cute

CASEing me

Morning all.

As it's well over halfway through September we have a new challenge from Cardz4Guyz. Rather appropriately our new theme for you is:-

AUTUMN/ FALL

So here is my take.

Simple, no fuss design, perfect for a bloke.

As well as a couple of challenges, I had a trawl through my old cards to see if I could come up with some inspiration for this challenge and found this card from 2014!!

Using the idea of leaf openings on a square to show the colours underneath, I created the panel. My original was a square so I went with a rectangle. The background panel was one I found in my stash, Brusho in autumnal shades, which I cut down to size before adding the punched squares. The punch is an ancient one and I was surprised it actually worked! Do you remember those days when dies were few and far between and punches ruled. I tried to alter the angle of the openings but with a punch you are limited!

Once I had my central panel, I added it an A6 base card on pads and then the gold embossed sentiment from LOTV mounted on a slither of linen effect gold card.

That's it from me but please check out the rest of the team over at Cardz4Guyz. Looking forward to seeing your makes in the gallery.

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Trees, Leaves and Plants

#317 Fall

Uniko Non Release Month Blog Hop and GIVEAWAY!

  Welcome to the September 2025 Non-Release Uniko Brand Ambassador Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

After a hectic couple of months over the summer, there's no release this month. So on non - release months like this, Bev likes to challenge the Brand Ambassadors to look back at a previously released product and give it some more love, it's always nice to revisit older sets and provide more inspiration don't you think?

This month the Brand Ambassadors have been set a difficult challenge, to choose a favourite or favourites from one of the 2025 Releases! 

So far in 2025 we have had the following products released...

January 2025

Background Builders Flower Power

Flower Power #11 

Simply Said Blocks Occasions

Sparkle Sentiments

Stencil - Ink & Flip Layering Flower 

Stencil - Ink & Flip Geometric Gem

Stencil - Layering Picked Posies

February 2025

Alphabet Solid

Background Blocks Waves

Bright Butterflies

Stencil - Layering Bright Butterflies

Stencil - Layering Organic Blooms

Organic Blooms

Spring Botanicals Primrose

Stencil - Geometric Happy Birthday

April 2025

Butterfly Serenade 

Originally Organic Flower Garden

Stencil - Layering Flower Fusion

Stencil - Layering Spring Blossom

Stencil - Ink & Flip Diamonds

July 2025

Background Blocks Merry Christmas Scramble

Background Blocks My Favourite Colour

Flower Power #12

Stencil - Layering Bauhaus Christmas Blocks

Stencil - Ink & Flip Christmas Tree Pattern

Stencil - Ink & Flip Snowflake Pattern

August 2025

Background Blocks Bauhaus

Background Blocks MOD Builder Circles

Background Blocks Swiss Dots

Background Builders Mid Century Modern

Stencil - Ink & Flip Mid Century Leaves

Stencil - Layering Retro Lines 

Wow, that's a lot of products to choose from, so which to choose, anyway here's what I came up with.

As you can see I chose Spring Botanicals - Primrose and I usedmy favourite technique too!

For this card, I stamped the image onto watercolour paper with a pale ink and then masked it with liquid masking fluid. Once dry and FULLY covered, I added some spray starch then sprinkled some Brusho crystals over and watched the magic happen! then added some scrunched up cling film over the whole panel and left it to dry. I usually use watercolour for this technique but in a craft group I've just joined we have been playing with this exact technique, so thought I would do it this way. 

Having left the panel to dry overnight, I carefully removed any Brusho from the masking with a piece of damp kitchen roll. If I hadn't done that I would have risked the ink transfering to the image when I removed the masking. As it was Imust have left some and ended up with a few smears of blue green on my image. Not to worry I just used a colour for the blooms that would hide it!!

Once the masking was carefully removed, I set to work colouring in the image. The Brusho had dried with a paler section to the top left so decided to have the light coming from that direction. So with a photo off t'internet as reference, I used water colours to fill in adding shadows where necessary.

For a bit of a change I used a couple of Hero Arts rounded edge rectangle dies to create a frame.

This was then added to my coloured panel, now to the card.

I wasn't sure how to go with this , where should the sentiment go? In the end I decided, appropriately, to make an easel card and put the sentiment on the inside raised on pads as a stop.

A 5 x 7inch base card was scored on the front and folded to create the easel and a panel of matching 5x7 card with the framed image on pads was then added to the front edge of the fold.

So that's all from me but why not check out what the rest of the team have been upto and which product/s they chose.

 Don't forget to comment along the hop for your chance to win a £25 eGift code to spend in store. 

Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie - me

Steph

Vinita

I hope you left some comment love along the way, Bev will randomly select a comment to win the £25 eGift code on Monday 29th September 2025. So be sure to comment before then.

Have you joined the Uniko VIP Facebook group? A new challenge starts today with a colour theme and by entering a card there you have the chance to win £10 to spend in store! 

Happy crafting!

Color Hues #117

Afternoon all.

Can you believe that it's already September?! Mind you it's looked a lot like autumn around here for a couple of weeks, the apples are ready for picking and the hedgerow trees are laden with berries. Anyway as it's the 1st of the month it must mean a new colour combo from Color Hues. Here's my take on an autumnal colourway.

To be fair this challenge crept up on me and I needed a quick make. Life has been hectic, our 17 month old washing machine did a weird thing, a full program but the washing was completely dry at the end! That was nearly 3 weeks ago, we've had one visit from the Bosch repair man but he couldn't fathom it out so another spare part ordered and he is due this morning to see if this works. He looked completely baffled when he left last time so I'm not holding my breath! I'd forgotten what hard work hand washing was!! Just the essentials, the linen basket is over flowing with towels and sheets which I couldn't do anything about.

 

Update - Washing machine now running but error lights flashing on dosage monitor!! :( 

Update update - Man coming on Thursday!!

Update - It was as I suspected, a loose cable after all the new parts were fitted, touch wood we are go!

5/9 Update - How wrong was I! New fault on the display now, engineer here Wednesday, I'm not a happy chappy. Good job it's still under warrenty!!

So back to my make. After a hunt through the stash I remembered this dahlia layering stamp set from Altenew and luckily it had an ideas leaflet in it too. These layering stamp sets are great for including shades of the same colour, hence perfect for a Color Hues challenge! I had my DIs out from a previous attempt on a card that ended up in the bin, so went with them, Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, and Carved Pumpkin for the petals and Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron for the leaves. A little bit of Vintage Photo was used for the center.

The set came with matching dies so no fussy cutting required. After die cutting, I assembled the spray and stamped a background with Uniko's Background Block Mid Century Linear in black. I didn't use the sentiment from the dahlia set but another Altenew one from I Adore You, white heat embossing on a black panel. A very quick and simple design with a little help from Altenew!

So where will the new colours take you? If you need some more inspiration please check out the rest of the team and our GD here. We'd love to see your takes in the gallery.

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