Uniko Challenge

 Morning all, it's time for a brand new challenge over at Uniko. Here's my take on the theme.

For my design I used the fab Pure Florals Gerbera daisy outline stamp in Altenew's Industrial Diamond ink, to create an all over background and then die cut 3 circles to create a spotlight effect. The Copic coloured sections were popped up on matching white fun foam circles. 

Using Copic alcohol markers for colouring is my go to method, love the variety of bright colours and the way they blend together. I have tried other alcohol markers, Promarkers and the Altenew ones but always revert back to my Copics. 

A sentiment strip from my stash, made up of a couple of sentiments from two different sets, Beautiful and Bee Happy that I used here was added to complete. As it takes a bit of time to get the layout of the words right, I stamped a few in different inks and embossing colours on both black and white strips for use later, this one is Platinum WOW on black.

The finished panel was trimmed to reveal a border when added to an A6 note card.

Please check out the rest of the team on the Uniko blog, as well as our fab GD Elaine.

You'll also find all the Ts and Cs there as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

Joining in over at:-

Favourite colouring medium

Uniko Challenge reminder

Good morning and welcome to my post to remind you that there is still time to enter the latest challenge over at Uniko. Here is my inspiration for you.

In my first card here I went with the daffodils in the photo as my first signs of spring and are definitely something to lift the spirits but this time I brought out my Spring Botanicals - Tulip. Tulips emerge a little later than the daffs and I have to grow mine in pots because of the soil conditions but in the proper place they look fabulous en masse, in all colours and shades, I can also see them better as they are near the patio doors!

I went with the en masse theme rather than the specimen bloom for my card, masking and stamping with Versamark before heat embossing with white EP on mixed Media paper. I then watercoloured the blooms with a selection of DIs including Twisted Citron for the leaves and stems and Wilted Violet, Picked Raspberry and Carved Pumpkin for the flower heads. The background is a wash of Salty Ocean. I added a little bit of shadow to the leaves and stems with Mowed Lawn. 

When dry I used an MFT pierced rectangle die to cut my panel. The sentiment from the same set was stamped on a white strip in black and the finished panel added on pads to a faux linen base card.

For more Signs of Spring/ Easter inspiration check out the rest of the team and our GD Stephanie here.

I'm joining in over at:-

Uniko Challenge

Morning all.
The months are whizzing by, mid summer has gone and we are heading towards high summer.
It's time for a brand new challenge over at Uniko.

Here is my inspiration for you based on our new theme.

My garden is just coming to it's full glory, the plants after having a hard time during a very dry April, have relished the rain of recent weeks and are lush and full of promise. The soft muted colours of Spring are slowly making way for the vibrant ones of high summer.
Last autumn I decided to create a new herbaceous border out of a rather tatty piece of lawn against the neighbours fence. The grass was marked out with a hosepipe and then the OH sprayed it off, I slowly dug over the new bed due to a rather wet winter and added some lawn edging, before planting my small nursery of plants that I had accumulated from garden visits, seeds and a bargain bucket at a favourite garden center, most of which are now flourishing. One of my favourite plants are the Hemerocallis lilies, I've never grown them before but I love their bright colours.
So when I saw the theme, I just had to use the Pure Florals Lily stamp set.

I chose a bright blue base card to reflect the sky on a hot summer day and the bright pinky orange colours of my new lilies.

To start, I stamped the large lily bloom with Altenew Morning Frost onto Mixed Media paper, using their Maple Yellow and Coral Blush inks to watercolour in a no line technique. Detail was added with my Zig watercolour pens before fussy cutting the lily.

On a strip of black card I stamped the greeting from Pure Florals-Peony and heat embossed it with gold EP. The gold 'Sending' die cut was threaded with the black strip and then glued down under the bloom which was added with foam pads.

OK, that's all from me for the mo but please check out the rest of the team and our wonderful GD Anrushee for more inspiration here.

Joining in over at:-


Anything but white



   
                                                   In the Garden

A New Challenge @ Uniko

Morning all.

Are we really half way through November? Christmas is going to be on us before we realise at this rate!

Anyway if you need some inspiration for your Christmas cards then perhaps the latest challenge at Uniko will help. Here's my card -

This was influenced by the new challenge and a card I saw by the wonderful Therese Calvird.



When I saw  the pic it reminded me of a die cut tree I have in my stash that is a fun take of a Christmas tree by STAMPlorations. At first I thought I could stamp the sentiments onto the tree panels but in the end I decided to use some scraps of green and stamp the sentiments from various Uniko sets on those and then use the tree die cut to help placement. I cut one tree out of brown card and starting from the bottom, adding the green sentiment panels.
The star at the top was stamped using the star from Jolly Christmas, embossed with sparkly gold EP and fussy cut. A snippet of red ribbon around the pot completes the tree.

The background was made using the trapped colour technique. Using  the Winter Foliage stencil, I inked through with Versfine onto a panel of watercolour card inked with Antique Linen that I'd left to dry fully first.
Carefully removing the stencil, I added clear EP and heat set. Once cool, I spritzed it with water and removed the excess ink with a paper towel.
I trimmed the dry panel down and glued it to a white base card before popping up the tree on pads.

OK, that's it from me but for more inspiration from the Uniko team check here.

Clouds of Cosmos

Good morning folks.

There's a brand new challenge starting over at Uniko and here is my inspiration for you.

You might be able to guess what the theme is this time -

My inspiration is a little bit literal bearing in mind the photo above!
I chose the Pure Florals Cosmos stamp to create my little scene, masking and stamping to get the mass effect. I then coloured them with a mixture of DI and Zig watercolor pens quite loosley, before fussy cutting the arrangement and adding it to my Brusho coloured panel on foam pads. The vibrant turquoise I used for the sky contrasts with the soft pink of the cosmos blooms and the green at the bottom suggests the foliage and grass. I simply sprinkled the crystals onto some MM paper and spritzed with water, then allowed it to dry and cut my panel with a stitched rectangle die.
To finish I added the sentiment from the same set stamped on a strip of matching card.

I love Cosmos and have them growing in the garden, they go on and on producing their dainty blooms amongst the ferny foliage all summer long. Last year they were a bit like Quatermas, as they grew to be over 4ft in places but after checking the seed packet I realised that they were just a tall variety, so ensured that I went for a dwarf version this year!

Check out the rest of the team here for more flowery inspiration.




    
Summer Colours                                       Earth Laughs in Flowers

Uniko challenge

Morning peeps.
The year is whizzing by and it's time for a brand new challenge over at Uniko.
This time we have a really simple theme with a little twist. Here's my take.

Can you guess the theme? It's -

For my inspiration, I was drawn to the colour of the leaves in this glorious pic.
After such a hot summer the leaves are just turning crispy and missing out on the glorious colour changes we normally see, though there are plenty of berries in the hedgerows. The rowans, hollies and hawthorns are laden with bright red berries so from a distance you get a shimmer of red over the whole hedge. The fieldfares, thrushes, blackbirds and others will have a feast! Conkers were raining down on Wednesday with the very strong winds courtesy of Storm Ali and so was the beech mast. In fact some landed on my windscreen as I drove to Sainsbugs and an acorn or some such landed with a fair old ping on the card roof too!

Anyway back to the card. I started by dripping some Copic refill ink onto Yupo paper and left it to dry. Think I was a little too generous with the ink as it left ridges on the panel as it dried.
When dry, I used the Nature's Treasures II stencil with Dreamweaver gold embossing paste to create my  pattern. It took awhile as I had to leave each leaf stalk time to dry, if the stencil comes into contact with the paste when even damp it lifts it off. It did happen to me but I managed to hide the offending boo boo under the sentiment strip! I even quite liked how the texture showed through from the background panel in the end.

As I said earlier my gold embossed sentiment strip, using So Much, was laid across the completed panel, carefully masking my 'tiny' error!

My second card uses the same stencil but this time I used DOx ink in Spiced Marmalade, Fossilized Amber and Abandoned Coral, to colour a white panel. The Camouflaged HELLO was cut from the inked panel and again from brown fun foam before replacing all the bits back into the spaces on the panel after the Beautiful script was stamped. A few sequins complete the card. Very simple to do.

OK, that's it from me but please check out the team here as well as our GD for the month, the wonderfully talented Hannelie at Desert Diva

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You have until midnight GMT on Friday 26th October to enter and the winner will be announced on Friday 2nd November, 8.00am GMT

Check out the Uniko blog for all the Ts and Cs.

I'd like to join in over at:-

  
Hope stencils apply too!

Uniko Challenge, Meadow Birthday

Morning all. 

It was a busy week for the Uniko DT last week but after a bit of a chill session and a 'bit' of housework, I'm back with a card to announce the new challenge over at Uniko.

The design was based on this rather appropriate photo.

I started by creating a background to echo the pattern on the suitcase with the Stylised Flower stencil and some Twisted Citron DOx on a die cut panel of white card.
The next step was to cut an oval of black card and stamp and emboss the greeting from Birthday Sentiments. To frame it I stamped and cut out two of the small sprays from Originally Organic Additions and some of the flowers. I wanted to create an even spray so not satisfied with using the same image I mirror stamped two more onto previously die cut sprays.
If you are not familiar with mirror stamping, all it is is stamping first onto a larger stamp then use this image to create a mirror image by stamping the image onto card. The resultant image is a little paler than the original but a fine liner soon sorts that out! There's lots of videos around such as here, here and here that explain the process.
I coloured the sprays with Copics using the colours from The Paper Players as close as possible and completed the wreath around the oval.

So are you ready to play along?

Well, just in case you need some more incentive to play along with the challenge here are the details of the prizes.

  
THE PRIZES

• Main Winner Chosen By the DT - £25 eGift Certificate
• Random Twist Winner - £4 In Stock Clear Stamp Set of Winners Choosing
• Random Uniko Stamps Winner - £4 In Stock Clear Stamp Set of Winners Choosing
• Top 3 Chosen By DT - 150 Loyalty Reward Points

You've got plenty of time to play along with this month's challenge. The deadline for submission is midnight (GMT) on Friday 22nd June 2018 (7.00pm EDT).

OK, that's about it from me but check out the rest of the team for more inspiration here.

GD Sue
Bev
Carol 

Deborah 
Izzy 

Julie - that's me
Linda

Joining in over at:-

     


Stencil It!