Introducing... BIG & BOLD Merry & Background Builders: Christmas 2018

Morning all.

It's the last of the introductions from Uniko's Christmas release.

Here's my card featuring Background Builders 2018.

I used two of the strips to create this following the layout from CAS(e) this Sketch with the addition of a sentiment from previously released Simply Said Christmas.

The strips and sentiment were stamped then embossed with white EP on a red die cut panel, mounted on green and finally popped up on foam over a white base card.

Also featured today is the Big and Bold Merry set.

For more inspiration check out the rest of the DT here-

Bev
Carol 

Jane 

Julie -that'll be me

Izzy 

Linda

Lindsey

Sarah P

I'm joining in over at:-

Introducing...Winter Botanicals: Sweet Broom & Quilted Stencil

Good morning.

Its day 3 of the Christmas launch over at Uniko. Today we showcase a stencil and addition to the Botanicals range.

Well I don't know about you but its getting rather parky around these parts. We even had a hailstorm on Friday, winter is rapidly approaching. So that was the inspiration for this card using the Quilted stencil. 

I teamed it up with the previously released Winter foliage set to create a WOW card.

To create the quilted effect panel I inked through the stencil on the diagonal with Weathered Wood DI over white card, then removed it and added shading to create more depth using the edge of the stencil and more of the DI. Following the pattern created by the stencil I added soft colour, working off the sharp edge of the stencil towards the stenciled card, careful not to add too much. When added in one direction, I turned my piece 90' and repeated to get the shadow effect. 

I stamped the holly foliage with the same DI and embossed it with clear EP before fussy cutting. The berries were stamped and embossed with silver EP and a few die cut branches complete the spray.

To add a little extra bling I added some small PPP sequin gems to the center of each cross. My sentiment from previously released Simply Said Christmas was stamped and embossed with silver EP.

My quilted panel was mounted on some silver glitter paper and the spray attached before adding to my white base card.

Also previewed by the DT is the new Winter Botanicals: Sweet Broom stamp set.

For more details check out the rest of the DT here.

Bev
Carol 

Izzy 

Jane 

Julie -that'll be me

Linda

Lindsey

Sarah G

Sarah P

Pop back tomorrow for the final preview before the full release and blog hop.

Joining in over at:-

pearls and or gems

Introducing... Scandinavian Christmas, Christmas Folk Snowflake Stencils & Simply Said Blocks Christmas

Morning peeps.

It's the weekend and also day 2 of the Christmas release at Uniko.

First off the block is this cute folksy snowflake stencil.

I only used one of these gorgeous snowflakes, more of the rest later!

I used some plain white embossing paste over some Kraft card initially, cutting out the single flake from the rest for this. To get the shimmer I popped the stencil back over the raised image and added some Nuvo glimmer paste before mounting on a cream square over some frayed burlap continuing the folksy vibe. On a scrap of the kraft I stamped and embossed one of the SS blocks with white EP and trimmed to size.

I used a similar double layering of the stencil on this card using the Scandinavian Christmas stencil.

This time I used Ranger Texture Paste which allowed me to add colour over the white stenciling. 

The colour was added with a Qtip so that I didn't get any colour where it wasn't required.

I used DOx in Gathered Twigs, Candied Apple and Broken China for the total Scandi feeling.

Using the layout at Freshly Made Sketches, I trimmed down the stenciled panel, adding it to a white base card before adding a sentiment on a die cut oval mounted on a scalloped die cut inked with the Candied Apple. A few die cut pine branches cut from scrap white were coloured with Gathered Twigs and slipped under the sentiment panel. The stamped sentiment is from the Most wonderful set.

What do you think of these new releases, fab aren't they?

Check out the rest of the DT for more tempting ideas.

Bev
Carol 

Jane 

Julie -that'll be me

Izzy 

Linda

Lindsey

Sarah P

Don't forget to comment along the way for a chance to win.

Joining in over at:-

Re introducing Jolly Christmas

Morning Uniko fans.

It's day one of the 2018 Christmas release.

Today we introduce two previously released sets that have been brought back, Jolly Christmas and Background Builders Christmas.

My card uses the Santa and sentiment from Jolly Christmas.

Isn't he cute. I used some of my extensive DP collection and the sketch from Sunday Stamps for the layout. Love the fun DP with the letters to Santa. Not sure where it was from but suspect it was some that my friend gave me when she downsized her stash! The green was a snippet from the bits box.

Santa was stamped and coloured with Copics before being fussy cut. I added some WOW white puff twinkle EP to the trim of his suit. This is a new EP I bought at Port Sunlight earlier in the month and to tell the truth I'm not particularly impressed with it, as there seems to be more twinkle than puff!

The frame is from MFT and was popped up on pads.

I don't have this 2nd set but it may find its way into the stash before too long!

For more inspiration check out the rest of the team 

Bev
Carol 

Jane 

Julie - that'll be me

Izzy 

Linda

Lindsey

I'll be back tomorrow with another brand new release from Uniko, see you then.

Joining in over at:-

Christmas release at Uniko, a sneak peek

Morning all.

It's getting nearer to Christmas and the shops are starting to fill up with festive goodies, even if we aren't quite ready to let autumn go just yet. Anyway, Bev has come up with a few brand new Christmas stamps and stencils to tempt you, as well as a couple of re-releases of older but loved sets.

Over the next few days the team will be teasing you with a new release preview each day up to the big release day on Tuesday 30th October.

So for starters here are some sneak peeks of what is on offer.

Tempted, want to know more? Well check out the Uniko blog tomorrow for the first of the week's new releases.

Happy birthday wild thing

Hi and welcome to a brand new challenge over at Cardz4Guyz.

For the next two weeks we would like to see your masculine projects on the theme of -

INTO THE WOODS

What will you make of that?

I had one or two ideas, trees are pretty obvious but what about their fruit, conkers etcetera or mushrooms or perhaps creatures you would find there.

In the end I came up with this card featuring trees and deer.

I'd seen this fab card awhile ago by the lovely Loll, I'm not stalking you Loll, honestly!. I loved the soft muted colours and the silhouetted deer but for my card I went with a more autumnal hue.

On a panel of watercolour paper I laid my TCW stencil and secured it at the top with masking tape before sprinkling Dk Brown Brusho over the top. Try not to get too much on the solid areas of the stencil as it is the exposed areas that will provide the gorgeous mottled background for your stencilled trees. Carefully spritz the whole panel with water and wait for the magic to happen. Don't leave it too long to remove the stencil or add too much water as it might bleed under where you don't want it!

I discovered Brusho many years ago and used it with my 7 -8 year olds in art class to make patterns on the autumn leaves they had painted. The look on their tiny faces when the Brusho crystals exploded over their images, the effects were always stunning and totally unpredictable. In fact my Dk Brown is left over from that period so is well over 15 yrs old! A little goes a long way.

 When dry, I cut a panel from it and added some IO die cut deer and some 'grass', made from some handmade Mulberry paper shot through with gold strands, which was torn to achieve an uneven edge. The sentiment from HLS, was stamped with Altenew Lava Rock ink and embossed with a semi dull EP.

Check out the Cardz4Guyz blog for for inspiration then why not join us?

Joining in over at:-


CAS or Fussy and Fancy
CAS everytime and especially for masculine cards, they need a bold image and very little in the way of embellishments.

Autumn

   
                                                        Hope the gold thread in the
                                                            Mulberry paper isn't too insignificant!
                                                      My choice is die cuts and Brusho

Christmas Baubles @ STAMPlorations

Hi and welcome.

Today sees the launch of a fab new stamp set from STAMPlorations just in time for those Christmas makes. Here are two cards made using the new fun Christmas Baubles set.

Isn't it fab, five gorgeous baubles, or Wesley bobs as a friend of mine calls them, sentiments, holly cluster and stars.

My first card uses three of the baubles and the fir branch from the earlier released Christmas Bell Medley set.

To create the foliage, I took my white base card and stamped around the top of it with the branch in DI, Mowed Lawn, before painting over it with water to soften. To add depth and before it dried, I repeated the stamping with more Mowed Lawn followed by DI Pine Needles. This was then left to dry completely and let the water do what it would!

On a scrap of card I stamped three of the baubles in Altenew's Pure Graphite, then quickly added WOW semi dull EP and heat set. This allowed me to colour them with my Zig water brush markers. I chose bright colours for an alternative to the traditional Christmas colours before fussy cutting. The yellow bauble had its bow cut away as I didn't want it on this occasion. They were then arranged below the branches and attached with pads and the sentiment was stamped and embossed in WOW platinum EP. Using a straightedge and black fineliner, I drew in the strings.

This design owes a lot to a card by the wonderful Loll Thompson here. Loll's uses a die cut bauble but mine uses another from the set, this time stamped and embossed with gold EP, coloured with Zigs, before being fussy cut.

The CUTplorations Season's Greetings sentiment was cut from gold mirror card and placed flat onto my base card. Before the glue was fully dry I slipped a strand of gold twine through the G and tied a bow and slipped the bauble under. A simple CAS card.

For more inspiration, check out the STAMPlorations blog here. 

As usual you can comment as you hop along for a chance to win the set for yourself!

All Ts and Cs are found here.

Joining in over at:-

 

  





  

Melissa, a tribute

Just over a fortnight ago, I was checking my phone for messages as my husband and I travelled home over the Pennine hills. We'd visited our son, the OH had checked in at the office and I'd been for some crafty fun with my bestie. Just as we dropped down into Lancashire, I checked one particular message that left me shocked and disbelieving, one of my STAMPloration teammates, Melissa, MainesLanes, had passed away.

Unlike many of my DT teammates, I had actually met Melissa and her lovely family at the HLS retreat in Swindon in 2016.
Melissa was then living in Germany with her forces husband Chris and family and was looking forward to returning to Maine in the near future. They had driven enmasse, including their house rabbit, to meet up with everyone in Swindon for a weekend of crafty fun before heading off for a sightseeing holiday.
From that brief meeting it was evident that she had a wonderful and supportive family and I was so pleased to hear that she had recently, finally made it back to Maine, where they were in the process of setting up a small holding.

Many of you may know her from her blog Honey Bee Lane and her stints on various challenge blogs, AAA, HLS, as well as the STAMPlorations MM team.

She was in her prime and finally back in Maine living her dream, which is why I was so shocked when I read Shery's news.

Melissa loved butterflies, so Shery decided that our tribute to her should be themed along those lines, in a celebration of her life.

Here is my tribute.

If you would like to celebrate Melissa's life with us, you would be very welcome to add your project to the STAMPlorations post.

All details of how you can participate are on the STAMPlorations blog here.

Penguin Tag Christmas

Hi and welcome to a post to announce the start of a brand new challenge over at ATSM.

Here's my inspiration for you.

Our theme this week is -

My mojo fled out the window this week, I started with a stinker of a cold a week ago and am finding it difficult to throw off, so I went looking for inspiration out there in blogland.

So after checking out a few challenges, I came up with the above card.

The start was the layout at Sketch Saturday followed closely by the girls at LIM wanting tags. CAS Christmas wanted birds so that sent me hunting through my stash. It was a toss up between penguins and owls and eventually I went with this little chap from MFT.

I started by cutting a tag with my Poppy Stamps Stitched Main Street tag die set from a panel of card. I then embossed the panel less the tag with an EF of unknown origin. The space left by the tag was filled with a scrap of DP from the stash before the panel was attached to a matching base card.

On a scrap of card, the fire and penguin were stamped, coloured with Copics and then fussy cut.

To finish a small silver twine bow and sentiment were added to the tag before adding to the card at a jaunty angle and adding in the fussy cut elements.

So what will your project be, we'd love to see it in the gallery, but if you need more inspiration the DT have more ideas for you here.

Joining in over at:-

    

   

                                                  Christmas