AAA Colourful Colourboard #18

Welcome, 

A lovely summery colourboard in store for you in this month's challenge from AAA Colourful.

Do you ever get inspired with the colourboard image? I tend to focus on the colours more than the image but maybe I should take some inspiration from the image too...one to think about! 

I went for a tropical paradise with my card, albeit a CAS one! I can't remember where the dies are from but I do like the size of the leaves and blooms. 

So what are you going to use these great colours for? Looking forward to seeing your creations over on the AAA Colourful blog. 

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #188 - Animals

Hi everyone, 

We have what promises to be a popular theme for this month's The Male Room challenge, Animals. 

These cute little chameleons are from a stamp set by Clearly Besotted. 

Lots of choices with such a great theme so what animal will you choose? Join in with The Male Room challenge #188 here. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Birthday Inspiration - 12th Birthday Celebrations

Morning all, 

Welcome to my Uniko Birthday Inspiration post. Each one of the Brand Ambassadors is sharing birthday inspiration as we celebrate Uniko's 12th Birthday!! 

As well as the Brand Ambassadors Inspiration there is an Uniko release, preceded by the sneak peeks, of course, and culminating in the blog hop and GIVEAWAY!! The sneak peeks start on the 12th Feb. 

And that's not all, on the 11th Feb we will be hosting a Birthday Linky Party so be sure to make a birthday card and join in. 

Now for my birthday inspiration makes. I decided to dig out some of the older Uniko stamp sets here and also realised that some of these are ones I haven’t used before. It’s always lovely to ink up a new stamp, even if it’s been sat in your stash for a while 🤦🏻‍♀️!!

For my first card I inked up the Uniko Large Background Tropical Paradise stamp using green ink. I coloured the leaves using various shades of green alcohol markers and coloured the open spaces with a pale yellow. On another piece of card I stamped the toucan and flower from Uniko Paradise stamp set and coloured with some bright oranges and yellows before fussy cutting and adhering to the background. I stamped the sentiment from Uniko Floral Vines stamp set onto a strip of card coloured the same as the background and adhered everything onto a Kraft card base. 

Sticking with the same stamp sets I created my next card with a watercolour style.

Again I inked up the background using green inks but before I stamped, I sprayed the inked stamp with water and stamped onto watercolour card. I did the same with the flowers and additional leaves from the Uniko Paradise set and fussy cut before adhering with foam pads. The sentiment this time is from the Uniko Anniversaire Arts Decoratifs stamp set.

Don’t forget to check out the other Brand Ambassador Birthday Inspiration posts over on the Uniko blog and come back to join in all the fun with the linky party, sneak peeks, introductions and blog hop with giveaway. 

Much love

Steph x

Something a little different

Hi all, 

I’m here today with something a little different. It’s been ages since I’ve had time to make anything that isn’t required for a DT role and I certainly haven’t entered any challenges for ages. 

This weekend I found time to have a play around with the electronic cutting machine and made a cake topper for my great nieces 3rd birthday. There were lots of things learnt during the process and I definitely think the machine has a lot more potential than I’ve had time to figure out before!

I’m entering this make into:

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge #226 - G is for Glitter

Papercraft Challenges #90 - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!

Much love

Steph x

Finally crafting for me!

Hi all, 

So I’m finally at a stage where I can craft for me and not because I need to get a Design Team entry done! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not got my whole year sorted when it comes to Design Team work but I’m far enough ahead to take a break from it for a bit!

So I was looking through my stash of patterned papers, of which there is more than I will ever use, and I came across this lovely tropical summer set that I couldn’t resist using. 

My first card was inspired by this card made by @fifig60 on Instagram. Sadly the sentiment stamp Fiona used is out of stock everywhere but I managed to get something similar. 

Having discovered the beautiful papers I carried on with my ‘drinks’ themed cards.

A simple die cut cocktail glass with lime slices felt right agains this tropical background. I could do with a holiday like that!

And my final card became a shaker with a cocktail umbrella to finish off this sparkly drink!

Hmm, not feeling nearly as tropical today as I was when I was making them yesterday since it’s absolutely tipping it down in the East Midlands today. 

I will be entering my cards into the following challenges:

Happy Little Stampers March Anything Goes with Dies challenge 

(Cards 2 and 3)

Less is More challenge #460 - Bit of Bling

(Card 3)

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Craft Challenge #160

Hi everyone, 

Welcome to this month's The Male Room Challenge where the theme is 'Animals'.

This is such a good theme as it is open to all sorts of interpretation. What  animals will you choose?

I went with jungle animals. I stamped and coloured the macaw, chameleon and tropical frog last year but I haven't had any inspiration to turn them into a finalised card. When I was thinking about making this card I suddenly remembered the wonderful Large Tropical Paradise Background stamp from Uniko and I knew it would work perfectly. I stamped and heat embossed the background stamp onto watercolour card and coloured using inks and water brushes. Once this was dry I attached the sentiment strip and adhered the animals using foam pads. 

I hope you have been inspired to join in today. Don't forget to pop over to The Male Room Challenge blog to get even more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the Design Team. 

Time Out Challenges are celebrating their 8th birthday this month so I wish them many happy returns as I link up my birthday card. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko July 2021 Reveal, Release Day, Brand Ambassador Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

Hello everyone,

Yay! I'm so glad you are here today to see the Uniko July 2021 release reveal! 

It's a big release this month and a mixture of stamps and stencils, so sit back, relax and enjoy. 

Firstly the stamps and what I created with them:

Heat embossed Background Blocks Diagonal Stripe in gold. Stamped and fussy cut Paradise Leaves stamp set followed by heat embossing in clear.

Repeat stamped Background Blocks Grid stamp and coloured in black, blue, red and yellow. Die cut ‘happy’ from Big & Bold Happy die set to create an aperture and stamped sentiment and party confetti from corresponding stamp set.

Background Blocks - Layered Modern Floral stamped in blue and green on the top half. Background Blocks Grid stamped and coloured in blue on the bottom half. Ribbon and sentiment across the centre along with fussy cut flowers and leaves.

Stamped Block Party - Summer in Versamark onto grey card. Heat embossed in green, yellow, blue and lilac powder in diagonals. Die cut and layered onto grey card blank using foam pads.

Outline floral and leaf stamped onto grey card in dark grey (or Versamark) ink. Solid floral stamped in orange and outline stamped in grey onto white card and fussy cut. Orange florals attached using foam pads and any overhang trimmed off.

Simply Said Blocks III stamped in matching ink onto red, yellow and green card. Die cut circles, each larger than the one before and cut in half. Adhere to the card front as shown. Stamp more sentiments and fussy cut before adhering one on top of another to create a flower/windmill and add to the card front.

And now for the stencils:

With the Flower Power #8 stencil in place, used various colours of Nuvo drops to infill petal sections. Once dry, added heat embossed sentiments from the Uniko Birthday sentiments stamp set. (Don’t look too closely as there are some errors in my Nuvo drops but not too bad for a first attempt!).

Inked through Rainbow & Clouds stencil with white pigment ink onto dark blue card. Once dry, coloured rainbows with watercolour brush markers. Fussy cut and layered onto dark blue die cut squares and rectangles before arranging onto a dark blue slimline card base.

Inked card stock with Distress Oxide inks before laying the Squared stencil on top and inking through with white ink. Die cut with square nesting dies and added to dark teal card stock alternating flat lay and foam pad for dimension. 

Using various shades of green, ink through Tropical Leaf I stencil and fussy cut right hand edge. On another piece of card use orange ink through Tiger Print stencil followed by black ink, slightly offset. Add the leaf panel over the tiger stripe panel and add the sentiment from the Uniko Wild stamp set to finish. 

What a fabulous release from Uniko! Well done Bev. 

Now for some fun! Hop over to each of the Brand Ambassadors blogs and leave a lovely comment for your chance to win the ENTIRE release. 

Bev

Hannelie

Izzy

Jane

Julie

Rahmat

Steph - that's me!

Thanks for visiting today. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Introducing... Stencils Flower Power #8, Rainbow & Clouds, Squared & Tropical Leaf I

Hi everyone,

Go grab yourself a cup of tea because we have a fabulous FOUR Uniko stencils being introduced today!

Firstly we have Flower Power #8 which matches the Uniko Flower Power #8 stamp set.  

I must have Christmas in my mind currently because when I saw this stencil I thought of a poinsettia. I wanted the flower to have some texture so I used white texture paste through the stencil and used the spatula to create 'veins' in the leaves. Once dry I was able to colour the paste with a mixture of inks and watercolour pens. The green watercolour pens have added sparkle which is so beautiful so I added some Wink of Stella to the red areas too. The paper I added the texture paste to also has a pearlescent touch so this is a very shimmery card! I fussy cut around the edge of the paste as I wanted to capture the shape of the flower. Finally I added the sentiment from the Uniko Stunning Snowflakes stamp set. 

Next we have the Rainbow & Clouds stencil. 

I like playing around with stencils and I seem to be less rigid in my crafting style when I use a stencil. This card is a good example of that and I have used lots of techniques here although the camera doesn't pick up in them all too well. My first job was to simply colour the rainbows through the stencil. I also used metallic white watercolour paint to colour the clouds. I knew I wanted to give the panel a blue watercolour wash so before I removed the stencil I inked it up with Versamark and used clear embossing powder to seal the rainbows and clouds. I gave the panel a light wash with watered down acrylic paint and was able to remove the paint from the embossed areas easily. Once it had dried, I placed the stencil back over the panel and ran it through the die cutting machine with an embossing mat which gave some subtle definition to the piece. Finally I added the sentiments, stamped in red, from the Uniko Simply Said Blocks stamp set.

Half way through now guys, how is that cup of tea?

The next stencil is called Squared. Now if you joined my for the sneak peeks on Monday you will see that I mentioned that some of the release might not have been my immediate 'go to' but I actually completely fell in love with the product once I got my hands on it. This is that item!

Initially I was having a panic about how to use this stencil but then I had a sudden blast from the past a realised that it was very like some wallpaper my brother had on his wall in the 80's! I can't remember the exact pattern but I remember the colours and the geometrics so I recreated it in this card.

And I love it!! It was so simple to create but the effect is amazing and it's perfect for those 'oh so difficult' masculine cards. I started off with a piece of grey card and drew inside each of the squares with a red gel pen. I then moved the stencil a little up and to the left and did exactly the same but with a black pen. I started off with my black gel pen but it decided to seize up on me within seconds so this is a simple black biro! I moved the stencil again, this time down and to the right, and used a white gel pen to draw the squares. I cut the panel to size and layered onto a red then black piece of card, each slightly larger than the last. I heat embossed the sentiment from the Uniko Anniversaire Arts Decoratifs stamp set and mixed 80's style with 20's elegance! Finally I added some Glossy Accents drops randomly to the panel. 

Now for the last stencil which is called Tropical Leaf I.

Just like the sentiment on my card, this stencil is lovely. I have used the inner part of the stencil only here but you do get the centre 'cut out' part too. Unusually for me this is a 5 x 7 card as I needed the bigger size to make the most of my tropical leaf border. I have inked the leaf up in pink and green before using Versamark and gold embossing powder for the solid gold leaves. For added interest I then used a Versamark pen to draw around the inside edge of the stencil and heat embossed this to give a 'skeleton' leaf effect. I added the gold glitter card frame with foam pads and inside this a panel using a sentiment from the Uniko Hello Lovely stamp set. 

So, how was that for lots of loveliness? And lucky you, because there's even more gorgeous inspiration over on the Uniko blog as the Brand Ambassadors have outdone themselves! Go check it out and come back tomorrow for the final Uniko Introduction before the big reveal, release day and blog hop GIVEAWAY on Sunday! 

Much love

Steph x

Wild times!

Good evening all

I have another card to enter into the current challenge #146 at The Male Room. 

The prompt is animals and I remembered that a while ago I stamped out and coloured in some of the jungle animal stamps which came with issue 85 of Creative Stamping magazine. I dug them out of my stash and got the stamp set out again to stamp up and colour some of the leaves to go around my card. I thought a Kraft card base would suit best and I’m really pleased with it. The sentiment is from Uniko set Wild which I stamped, coloured and fussy cut. The rest of the sentiment was printed from my Dymo machine. 

Hope you like it!

UPDATE:

Following some (ahem) ‘constructive criticism’ from my husband I have changed the sentiment on the card. He really dislikes the Dymo labels and thinks they detract from my cards! Anyway, I’d be very interested to know which you prefer. Leave a comment and let me know. 

Thanks for visiting

Steph x