Uniko Autumn Colours

Good morning. 

I'm helping out on the Sparkles Challenge DT up until Christmas and their latest challenge is Autumn/Fall, so I thought I would have a go using some Uniko stash that I haven't used or one not in a while! Here is my card using the Nature's Treasure stencil and the French Script stamp.

On a panel of white card, I stamped the script with Versamark before heat embossing with gold EP, then inked through the stencil, roughly covering the text and trying not to overlap the sprigs.

Rather than use a single colour for each leaflet, I blended a couple to get a graduated effect. The colours used were Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. Once the text was covered, I dried the ink and then as the background looked a little too stark, I blended Antique Linen over the panel before trimming and adding to my cream base card. A strip of gold mirror card and a heat embossed Happy Birthday complete.

While I had the inks on my desk I had a play with the MCM shapes stencil adding a stamped element from Nature's Treasures II.

All the details for this are on the Uniko blog

Thanks for stopping by.

Nature's Treasure II Dies Release Blog Hop and Giveaway

Morning all. 

It's release day for the new Nature's Treasure's dies at Uniko and as is tradition we are having a blog hop and give away. The release is timed to coincide with the Stamping Together festival at Port Sunlight, so if you're heading there you could be one of the first to get hold of the new goodies and say hi to Bev too!

Spring has truly sprung, the hedgerows are buzzing with life and I saw my first swallow of the year on Tuesday and one again on Thursday, well it could have been the same one of course! So green features heavily in these designs.

Here's my first offering, using one of the small stamps from Nature's Treasures II set and the large solid die from the new release.

On a panel of mixed media paper, I smooshed some DI, Peeled Paint, Mowed Lawn and Twisted Citron, onto a craft mat and dragged the paper through it until I had sufficient coverage. Once dry, I trimmed it down to size for my frame and randomly stamped the small leaf in a mix of inks, the DI's I used for the background and some Altenew ones, Bamboo and Parrot. 

The frame was made using a couple of rectangle dies behind which I attached 3 of the leaflets cut from the same card. A sentiment was stamped and attached before the whole lot was placed over the inky background with foam pads and added to an A6 white base card.

My next card is my take on a Jennifer McGuire card I'd seen on You Tube and wanted to have a go at, using the new dies and Nature's Treasure II stencil and masks.

My background was created using the masks from the stencil set and then I die cut a few of the solid leaves, a mix of large and small to create the garland from it. To pop up the leaves, I also cut matching pieces of white fun foam which I glued to the back of each die cut and then reassembled the panel onto a base card. A few of the tiny flowers from Originally Organic Additions dies were die cut, adding a coloured pearl for the centers. These are bog standard plain pearls coloured with a Copic marker! My sentiment is from the Sentiment Block series stamped in black on white.

While I had my craft mat out for the first card, I smooshed some die cuts cut from MM paper in a mix of watery Mowed Lawn, Peacock Feathers and Twisted Citron DI. I then simply added them on pads to a white base card, trimmed off the overhangs and added another of my gold framed sentiments made from die cut circles and a Doodle Flower sentiment.

Here's the full set of dies, fab aren't they

OK, that's all from me but please check out the rest of the team for more ideas on how to use these fab new dies. 

 Anita

Bev

Izzy

Julie -that's me

Steph

Vinita

One more thing before you go, make sure to leave a comment here and on all the stops for your chance to win a £15 eGift Certificate to spend in store. You have until midnight Sunday 30th April 2023 to comment. The lucky comment winner will be randomly selected and announced shortly after.

Uniko Challenge #61

Morning all, hope I find you well and coping in these strange times.

It's come around to be time to announce the start of a brand new Anything Goes challenge over at Uniko.

Here is my inspiration using Nature's Treasures II stencil and So Much stamp set.

I chose to go with the option of thanks for my card.

I've been playing with my Gelli plate these last few weeks, I bought it a couple of years ago and it was still in its package, unloved and unused. I was always fascinated by the prints I saw online but a little wary too. I'm really a CAS girl at heart so was a bit reluctant to let the control out of my hands but after watching another Jennifer McGuire video on You Tube, I decided to crack the seal and have a play.

Needless to say I now have a pile of backgrounds and you may see a few more of them in weeks to come, it was quite addictive.

I first created my background by adding Squeezed Lemonade, Spiced Marmalade and Abandoned Coral DOx to my plate, spread it out with a brayer and took a couple of prints off it. The one I used for this example was the second and was much paler than the first so the leaves I added later would show up. 

For the leaves, I added a mix of Gathered Twigs and Spiced Marmalade to the plate then added the stencil over the top and took a print. I repeated this a couple of times, moving my background around as I pressed over the plate. The leaves become paler with each pull giving the effect of recession, as though you are looking through the branches.

On an A6 base card I added part of the finished leaf panel, then added a larger one of cream over the inked one, trimming away the excess.

On a strip of black card I heat embossed the sentiment with gold EP and trimmed it down before adding to my cream panel, leaving a small line of the top panel showing.

So that's about it from me, please check out the rest of the DT inspiration and then why not join in?

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

/
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!

Introducing ..........

Welcome to the first day of the May 2018 Uniko Release product introductions. This is the fun part, you now get to see all the sneak peeks in action. 

Today we are introducing 2 products. Simply Said Blocks II a mini clear stamp set with additional  popular sentiments in the same style as Simply Said Blocks and we are 'officially' introducing Nature's Treasures II Stencil. This stencil was part of the Uniko Stamping Retreat goody bag in Dec 2017 and is based on the Nature's Treasure II stamp set. It proved popular with those who attended as well as with some of the DT, so it was decided to make it available to everyone.

Here's my card using both the stencil and both the stamp sets.

        

To start I took a panel of white card and placed the stencil over it, securing it in place with some masking tape, then sponged some Versamark ink through the stencil using a small cube sized Versamark pad. Careful not to smudge the ink, I removed the stencil then embossed the leaves with white EP, heat embossed then repeated the process.
When cool and dry, I inked lightly with Twisted Citron DI and repeated the process, this time using clear EP and a couple of the Nature's Treasures II small stamps. Again I waited until the panel was dry, a light application of baby powder dries off the ink sufficiently, before inking with a heavy application of the Twisted Citron this time. Finally I inked some Mowed Lawn DI through the stencil. The finished panel was then sandwiched between a couple layers of copy paper and ironed on a high no steam setting to remove the embossing. (The process is the same as this technique using stamps here.)
To create the card I simply die cut a panel of white card and mounted it over the inked panel and placed it on a white base card. The sentiment from the Simply Said Blocks II was stamped in black and embossed with a semi dull clear EP.

Ok, enough of that let's get down to the inspiration from the rest of the team.

GD - Anna

Bev
Carol 

Deborah 
Izzy 

Jane 
Julie - that's me
Linda

Lindsey

Rahmat
Sarah G

Sarah P
 Wiebke

Introducing... 5th - 11th May 2018, here you will see a closer look at the products being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Saturday 12th May 2018 9am BST you will get to see the products in their entirety and purchase them HERE on the website! As usual there will be a Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

Extra PRIZE Info! Alternative prizes will be offered to those that may already own the prize offered. Winners will be announced on Saturday 11th on the Winners Page HERE. 

Joining in over at:-