Color Hues #79 using some Uniko Stash

Afternoon all. 

Mid month so time for a new challenge at Color Hues. This time Karen has chosen our pairing, here's what I made for your inspiration using the new duo.

I was initially a little stumped for inspiration but then a quick perusal of Pinterest and this card was the result. 

I looked through my Uniko stash and decided to use some Christmas foliage stamps but turn them into a birthday card suitable for a male recipient.

Using some Altenew inks from their Tropical Forest set, I stamped the solid foliage stamps in the top right corner then added the outline leaves from Winter Botanicals- Sweet Broom with Versamark and Copper EP. The sentiment also from Uniko was stamped in the darkest of the 4 greens to complete. 

I often find CAS is a good direction to go with when making tricky masculine cards and the foliage is just masculine enough to get away with.

I'm also up over at Uniko with another card that uses this same combination.

Click the link to Uniko for all the details. 

Looking forward to seeing your takes in our gallery but if you need more inspiration why not check out the rest of the Color Hues team and GD Greta, here.

Perfectly CAS and The Flower Challenge's 5th Birthday

Good evening, it's time for a brand new challenge over at Perfectly CAS.

Here is my take on this month's theme.

Sympathy cards are never the easiest of makes so I find it best to have a couple in my stash for those unwelcome moments.

I chose to use the Lilies from Uniko's Pure Floral set, the theme at the Flower Challenge and kept it very simple. I can't believe it the Flower Challenge's 5th birthday!

On a panel of white card, I stamped and masked my bunch of lilies and coloured them with Copic markers. I then die cut the bunch with a circle die and then again with a slightly smaller circle die to create a frame. The sentiment, also from Uniko was stamped on black and heat embossed with white EP.

To assemble, I die cut a piece of copy paper with the large die and set to one side. Using both circle dies, I cut a matching frame from fun foam and then attached it to the copy paper. The stamped and coloured panel pieces were then added to make a topper and the sentiment popped in the bottom right. The topper was then added to a 5 x 7 dark grey card.

By using a larger card, I was able to get away with a bigger panel and still keep the design to 1/3rd of the whole. Although it's tempting to add some detail to the background, I resisted and so kept it CAS. Remember white space doesn't doesn't need to be white!

So where will the theme take you? We'd love to see you in our gallery.

For more sympathy inspiration, check out the rest of the DT 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

Uniko challenge, a reminder

Welcome to a post to remind you that there is still time to enter the challenge over at Uniko.

Here is my card, hopefully fulfilling the brief!

I chose some bright and cheerful DOx inks to match the flowers from The Card Concept, to colour this panel which I had previously stamped, masked and heat embossed in white with the Pure Florals Lily set, love the tropical feel to this colourway.
You might recognize the background as I made it at the same time as my watercolour one from the start of the challenge. It was as easy to make 2 as just one using my MISTI. This time I used plain white card.
On the finished embossed panel, I added DOx in Squeezed Lemonade, Spiced Marmalade,
Abandoned Coral and Candied Apple and blended them from light to dark over it.
Once the ink had dried, I buffed up the panel to remove extra ink from the embossing with a bit of kitchen roll and added some peachy orange fun foam to the back, keeping the glue to the edges only.
Using a rectangle die, I cut the center away to leave the raised frame. The center came away with only a little help from a craft knife as the glue had squished out! The central foam was then free to be used in another project.
The frame was glued to an A6 base card and the unmounted center panel was slipped in to the center and glued flat to the base card.
On a strip of black card, I embossed the sentiment and added a gold glitter die cut 'Sending' popped up on black foam.

That's all from me, but for more bright and happy Uniko inspiration, please check out our fab GD Viv and the rest of the team here, along with all Ts and Cs.


Joining in over at:-

       


I was inspired by the colours of the floral elements to create my background for this clean and layered card.

Stargazer Lilies

Morning Uniko fans, it's time for another fun challenge.

This time I'm going bright and happy!

I know a lot of us are spending more time in our gardens than ever before, so I was thinking about what I still had to plant out and what I would like to buy now the garden centers are open and thought about some stargazer lilies. Lilies aren't good if you have cats but we don't, so perhaps these bright and happy blooms will find their way into my basket one day soon.

Using a panel of watercolour paper, I stamped and embossed in white these Pure Florals -Lily images, creating my own masks from Post-its, before colouring with my Zig watercolor pens, great for detail and larger areas!

I chose a purple and deep pink against a pale blue background, washing in some pale colour to the petals first, adding some darker areas whilst still wet, before going back to add the details once the background was dry. I finished by adding my blue background wash of dilute Salty Ocean DI.
My sentiment strip is from the Pure Florals - Cosmos set.
The completed panel was trimmed down to size before adding to an A6 top folding note card.

While I had my lily stamp set on the table, I saw that over at Twofer the theme was Flowers, so I thought I would make another card using the same lily stamp. This time I used just the one bold bloom and coloured it using Copics. Now I have to say that due to the current situation, my stash of Copic friendly card is rather low, so I used some other white card for this to see how it would work. The end result isn't all that bad but not as good as the right card would have been. The surface of this card is more absorbent so the blending is rather patchy. Hopefully I shall be able to trot off to get some more of the good stuff from my normal local supplier very soon.

I went with a bright orange lily for this card and a sentiment from the Pure Florals Rose set.

Here are both cards together.

The Copic coloured one is more graphic compared to the arty looking watercoloured one but I do love this large lily stamp.

That's all from me for the mo, but for more bright and happy Uniko inspiration, please check out our fab GD Viv and the rest of the team here, along with all Ts and Cs.

We'd love to see your efforts, who doesn't want a bit of cheeriness in these dark days. You don't need to use Uniko stamps either but it would be great if you did.

All challenge details can be found on the Uniko blog.

Joining in over at:-

   

 

 
Fabulously Feminine                                             

Say it with Flowers