Uniko February Birthday Release and Giveaway.

It's finally release day at Uniko and as is customary we are hosting a Blog Hop and GIVEAWAY of a £25 eGift Code! 

But before the details, grab a cuppa, settle in and check out the complete release and a few more ideas of how to use them.

First off is this masculine card using some of the letters from the Solid Alphabet set.

Alphabet Solid Clear Stamp Set £16

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

I used a selection of DIs and the MCM Shapes stencil to create a background for my # sentiment.

When I'd finished adding that, I thought it needed something extra, so stamped over it with the BB MCM in Blueprint Sketch DI.

My next card combines the new Background Block with the Bright Butterflies stamp set.

Background Blocks Waves Clear Stamp Se £6.50

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

Bright Butterflies Clear Stamp Set £6.50

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

On intro day, I used BB Waves as actual waves but it also reminded me of long grass moving in the breeze, add in some butterflies and off I went. I started off with an other idea but it wasn't working but once I saw the sketch from CAS on Friday I ran with that layout.  I'd earlier created a panel by stamping the BB Waves twice onto a panel of white card with Mowed Lawn and then blended more of it over the inked panel to make it look more like grass waving in the breeze. From this panel, I die cut a tag and two banners. The butterflies were stamped and fussy cut before adding to a circle of card from the bits box to which I'd stamped a sentiment.

This next card uses the two stencils, the floral to create the background and the butterfly was cut from a panel made using the butterfly layering stencil. The sentiment is from the Organic Bloom stamp set.

Stencil - Layering Bright Butterflies £10.75

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

Stencil - Layering Organic Blooms £13.75

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

      

My next idea uses the Organic Bloom stamp set. 

Whilst walking the dog in the field earlier in the week, I saw that the blackthorn was in flower and on closer inspection the blossom reminded me of the flowers from this set, so here is my interpretation!

Organic Blooms Clear Stamp Set £11.50

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

I stamped the smaller of the two flowerheads and coloured them with Copic markers using a photo I found online to inform my colouring. After fussy cutting them, I used a ball tool to give them some shape and added them to a die cut panel of white card to which I'd added a brown, branch die cut from Memory Box. I stamped the sentiment from the set and embossed with gold EP.

Next my personal favourite of the release, Spring Botanicals- Primrose.

Spring Botanicals Clear Stamp Set £11.50

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2012 - To Date

www.uniko.co.uk

The image is another of my masking fluid resist panels which this time I've framed simply with circular aperture. Compared to my intro post, I kept to the wild primrose for my inspiration. One of our fields has a large patch of them that have crept through the fence from the railway embankment and make a fab sight, if the rabbits and sheep leave them alone. I decided to leave the frame without a sentiment so as not to detract from the central image.

Finally we have the Happy Birthday stencil.

This stencil is FREE with all Release Day orders of £15 or more while stocks last.

Also, why not take advantage of FREE Worldwide Shipping on Orders of £40 or more 

until Midnight Sunday 2nd March 2025.

Now that we've formally introduced the new products and before you run to the website, how about some more inspiration from Bev and the rest of the Brand Ambassadors. 

Be sure to comment along the hop for your chance to win a £25 eGift Certificate to spend in store. Winners of this giveaway and the stencils from the first couple of days introductions will be announced here on the blog, Saturday 8th March 2025, along with all the other 13th Birthday Celebration Winners.

  Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie - me

Steph

Vinita

Happy hopping!

Joining in over at:-

 

Introducing Spring Botanicals - Primrose

Good morning.

It's the final of my introduction posts for Uniko's February release. I think we have kept the best to last with this fab addition to Bev's Spring Botanicals series.

When I saw the stamp I couldn't wait to get my paints out and get all arty!

The main focus of the set is this primrose image with assorted sentiments. 

As always when doing a botanical card, I look for photos to aid the painting process. I suppose for this I could have gone outside to see the real thing but it is rather cold out there in the wind swept garden!! Anyway, I noticed that over at The Flower Challenge , damn missed it!, they would like pink to feature, so I turned these primroses into polyanthus! I love this type of bloom and often make up an arrangement with some bulbs to bring indoors and then I can plant everything in the garden afterwards.

As you may be able to tell, I used my favourite masking fluid resist and clingfilm technique with watercolours. If you are interested in the technique here is a link to the process. 

Normally I keep the background to green but for this I added some Burnt Umber and Prussian Blue to the right to suggest soil. Once the masking was removed, I used a Zig watercolour marker to colour the petals and three shades of green watercolour for the leaves. The leaves of primroses and polyanths are quite crinkly, so I layered up the greens using a swirly action and my rigger brush. The rigger has long thin bristles that can form a point but you can be quite loose with the mark making as the tip is flexible and difficult to be tight with the addition of the paint. I used a photo to show me where to put the colour on the flowers, especially around the center.

When dry I framed it with an MFT rectangle frame and added a sentiment on a banner glued down the side.

That's all from me for today but why not check out the rest of the team to see how they've used the new set.

  Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie -me

Steph

Vinita

See you back here tomorrow for the big release day blog hop and GIVEAWAY!

Introducing Layering Organic Bloom Stencil and Organic Bloom Stamp set

Good morning.

Today we are introducing a stencil AND a stamp set. The layering stencil echoes the stamp set as you can see from the card below.

I used all 4 layers of the stencil to create an all over pattern on A5 panel of white card with Picked Raspberry and Seedless Preserves DI for the blossom and Twisted Citron and Mowed Lawn DI for the leaves and stems. I cut an A6 panel from the larger one and put to one side for later use ;)!

Using the stamps, I stamped a one of each of the blossom flowers and coloured with matching Copic markers before fussy cutting out. I added a few dots of white gel pen to the centers of all the flowers as well as some around the anthers of the stamped ones.

I had a panel of linen effect card that had managed to get some ink on it and as I can no longer get it from my supplier I wanted to use it up, so cut away the marked section and created two strips. On the reverse of the marked strip, I inked with a mix of the pinks to create a couple of strips which I stuck along the edge of the textured white panels. 

To put the card together, I glued the textured panels over the stencil one, adding the Copic coloured blooms to cover any open areas. A simple sentiment strip using the stamp set completes. 

Here is a card I made using my masking fluid resist and snappy wrap technique.

Bev has designed these blooms to be used with stems but for this I just used the two flower heads.

I saw a video on You Tube one wet Sunday afternoon and now I can't stop making cards this way, this time I've turned the flowers into crab apple blossom! I stamped and masked the two blooms, then added a couple of buds and sketched in some branches. Watercolour was used to create the background and the detail in the blossom but you could use Brusho for the background and DI for the detail or even a mix of all three! 

My panel was mounted behind a die cut woodgrain frame, a pressie from Santa and it's first outing, and then onto a matching textured off white card base.

For more inspiration why not check out what the rest of the BAs have been up to.

 Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie -me

Steph

Vinita

Back again tomorrow for the final day of intros, hope to see you then.

Joining in over at:-

                                             #71 

Introducing Solid Alphabet Stamps and Background Block Waves

Good morning and welcome to another post for the Uniko February release. Today we have a couple of new stamp sets to introduce. My first example uses the new Background Blocks Wave and the older Nautical Treasures.

When I first saw the new block, it reminded me of the sea so that's why I hunted out this boat image to use with it. I wanted to stamp it onto a coloured background to suggest the sea, so rooted through my box of inky backgrounds and found a very old panel made with Brusho and some silver wax. I didn't want too much of the silver so trimmed down my panel before stamping the block with Blueprint Sketch DI and over stamping with Versamark and heat embossing with clear EP.

Once my panel was trimmed, I stamped the yacht onto a scrap of white and fussy cut it out. I cut away most of the rigging, drawing it back with a black fine liner once it was glued to my panel. 

On a strip of white I stamped the sentiment from Simply Said Sentiments, all panels were popped up on pads to complete.

Next up is the Solid Alphabet Stamp set, where I've used most of the set!

For this card, I started by inking a panel of white card with a rainbow of DI ink and when complete stamped the alphabet with Versamark and heat embossed with clear EP, except the HI which I stamped in black and then embossed with clear EP. The beautiful from Beautiful, was stamped on black and heat embossed with white EP before fussy cutting, I chopped off the trailing lines for this example. A trio of daisy flowers were stamped and fussy cut, using Copic to colour the centers and added. The beautiful word was popped up on foam pads before the completed panel was added to a 5 x 7 white base card with foam pads.

That's it from me for today but be sure to come back tomorrow for more introductions. In the meantime, check out what the rest of the girls have been up to with these stamps.

  Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie - me

Steph

Vinita

Introducing Layering Bright Butterflies Stencil and Re introducing Bright Butterflies Stamp set

Morning, time for another intro from the Uniko February release. 

Today we are introducing a butterfly stencil and re introducing the Bright Butterflies stamp set.

Here's my take on the stencil incorporating an older stencil and English Country Garden Butterflies Stamp set and matching Dies.

This is a 3 part stencil that allows you to build your own butterflies, so endless possibilities.

When faced with a new set I always struggle to decide on the ink colours to use, a bit like an artist faced with a blank canvas! For this panel I eventually went with a naturalistic colourway, reminding me of the small brown butterflies that I see flitting across the long grass at the edge of the fields, filling the gaps with silhouetted small butterflies from the Bright Butterflies stencil from 2018. 

Each solid butterfly from the layering stencil, was inked with Squeezed Lemonade DI at different angles before darker shades of yellow, orange and brown were added using the second layer. Detail was added in Vintage Photo using the detail layer. To make the bodies stand out, I went over them with a black fine liner and with the same fine liner I doodled some extra detail onto the wings.

The heat embossed, vellum butterfly was in the package of my English Country Garden set leftover from an earlier make and proved to be the perfect foil for my Simply Said Block Sentiment.

Next is my take using the Bright Butterflies stamp set.

I used an array of rainbow colours to stamp this flurry of butterflies diagonally across my card front. The end result had such a joyful feel I decided to use a similar sentiment from Spring Botanicals- Daffodil. The end result a simple OLC!

What do you think? Did you get the Bright Butterflies stamp set back in the day? 

Anyway why not pop along to the rest of the BAs to find out what they've been up to.

 Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie - me

Steph

Vinita

See you back here tomorrow for more intros from the release at Uniko!

Joining in over at:-

Things with wings

Introducing Happy Birthday Stencil

Good morning.

Day 1 of the introductions for the Uniko February release sees us focusing on the Happy Birthday Stencil.  

My first card uses the stencil just as is and rainbow inking.

As there was so much going on I decided to just frame the inked panel with some sparkly gold paper and then added to a 5x7 white base card, very simple.

Here's my second idea using just the HAPPY part of the stencil and some die cut balloons.

To begin, I die cut balloons from white card and inked each one with DI, then added a letter from the Happy with a darker shade. When I was looking for some scrap for another project, I came across this die cut panel leftover from a frame die cut, which gave me just the right amount of interest to mount my balloons onto. A panel of black card just slightly larger shows off the edging detail and matches the MCM Sentiment Birthday. A few hand drawn strings anchor the balloons to the stamped sentiment before adding it to a slimline white card base.

For more inspiration please check out the rest of the team:-

 Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie - me

Steph

Vinita

That's all from me for today but I will be back tomorrow with another introductory post.

Joining in over at:-

Sneak Peeks

Good morning.

Today we have a sneaky peek at the new release from Uniko. Let's have a look to see if we can whet your appetite!

First up is a peek at a Release Day Special. This stencil is a fun geometric sentiment and it is a free gift that will be added to orders of £15 or more while stocks last.

This next peek is of a fun layering stencil. 

Bev's design was inspired by this next peek, that is of a re-release of a clear stamp set she's decided to bring back from retirement.

This could be a simple Alphabet stamp set, but combine it with the current Alphabet Outlined for even more creative options. We can't wait to show it in action!

You know Bev loves a background block, this is a fun addition to the series.

There are a lot of layering stencils at the moment, and this is a fun one with lots of creative possibilities. 

Use the stencil on its own or pair it with this next peek for even more possibilities. 

Finally another addition to the Spring Botanical series, can't wait to get my paints out!

So have we whetted your appetite?

Tomorrow we will be revealing the first of the new release in full.

See you later!

Never Too Old to Party!

Good morning. 

It's my turn to host the challenge at Cardz4Guyz and as some of you regulars may know I love a sketch! So here is one for you to play along with, just make sure your card is suitable for a guy.

The sketch is just a guide but the main elements should be visible in your make.

Here is a card I made for my bestie's partner last month.

I used a panel of NitWits paper that I had in my DP drawer and used B99 Copic marker to create the coloured cardstock for the circles and strips. I find this a great way to match the elements to the actual coloured image without cutting into my card stash. 

Our partying friend is Ai as is the sentiment but I cut off the top half of it by masking the stamp as I was inking it up. He is placed onto a die cut circle that I embossed with a Sizzix Argyll EF. 

Quite a simple card and so much easier as I was working from a sketch, I just had to decide on the colours used.

I'm looking forward to seeing your takes on my sketch, you've until Monday March 3rd to get your thinking caps on! There's even more inspiration from the team here.

Joining in over at:-