Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Always and Forever

Hey Everyone, 

How are you feeling now that Christmas Day has been and gone? Did Santa bring you what you wanted or are you going to get it yourself in the sale?! 😂

I love Christmas but I definitely get to a point where I’m ready to move on from it so today I’m taking a break from Christmas cards and looking ahead, perhaps to Valentine’s, with these cards.

All three cards use the Uniko Always and Forever stamp set and the same set of rainbow coloured inks or coordinating card stock. In addition the first card uses the straight line stamp from the Uniko Pattern Building Christmas Tree stamp set (darn it, I didn’t quite manage to move away from the Christmas stamps after all!). 

For the first card I used some light pencil lines and a stamping platform to keep everything straight whilst stamping the background in rainbow colours. I added a fussy cut heart which was heat embossed in white onto black card. 

The second card also has the coloured diagonals but this time I used card to create the background before stamping and heat embossing the heart and sentiment in white on black card. 

For my final card I stamped the hearts in the rainbow inks before fussy cutting and adhering to black card with foam pads. For added interest I have filled in the gaps with drops of glossy accents.

I hope you get a little time to craft over the festive period and I wish you all a great New Year whatever your plans may be. 

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #476 (Team B)

Good afternoon all, 

I hope you are all set for the Christmas season but don't panic if not as there's still time! You will be pleased to know that Color My Heart Color Dare challenge #476 is open to festive and non festive cards so if you have finished your Christmas crafting you can still join in!

As always both Team A and Team B have created beautiful projects this week so be sure to check them all out. Team A have a theme of 'bright and bold colours' (challenge #475) whereas Team B (challenge #476) have a theme of 'soft and pastel colours'.

As I am on Team B, my card is made using soft and pastel colours. I chose to make a Christmas card because I recently purchased this gorgeous stamp set from Concord & 9th and I haven't had chance to use it before now.

The stamp set is called Merry Mantles. I have teamed it with a sentiment from the Uniko Most Wonderful stamp set. For the background I have stamped the Uniko Background Blocks Diagonal Stripes in a darker shade ink than the card. 

I hope you are inspired to join in with either challenge (#475 for bold and bright and #476 for soft and pastel). Head over to the Color My Heart Color Dare blog to check out all the fantastic makes by the rest of the Design Team and join in! 

Much love and Merry Christmas,

Steph x

Funky Fossil Gnomes - Part I

Good morning all, 

A while ago I purchased two packs of Funky Fossil’s trio of gnomes (so 6 in total!) and I had the best time decorating them. 

This set was given as a late November birthday present so the recipient would be able to use them for Christmas this year. 

I have used acrylic paint for the base colours and beards. The decorative elements are a combination of heat embossing, texture paste or painting through a stencil. I’ve added detail with some Nuvo drops, stickles and a white gel pen.

The second set are being given as a gift for Christmas so I will share those at a later date!

I haven’t had time to enter any challenges for ages so here goes:

Happy Little Stampers Dec Stencil Challenge 

Happy Little Stampers Dec Christmas Challenge 

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge 572 

The Holly and the Ivy Christmas Challenge 106

Much love 

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #474

Hello everyone, 

I'm here today with Color My Heart Color Challenge #474 where we have a Fancy Five challenge of which you need to select at least THREE colours (excluding the free colours). 

We reference Close To My Heart colours but you are free to use any brand as long as it is a VERY close match.

My card today uses Papaya, Avocado and Flamingo. I thought they looked like party colours so I have made a birthday card with a little party going on!

The die set I have used is from Spellbinders called Birthday Animals. First I stamped the Avocado and Flamingo card stock with Uniko Party Confetti Background Block stamp to give interest to the die cuts. I then cut the dogs, cake and cake stand from the stamped card. The table and chair are copper in colour but this hasn't translated well on the photo. I decorated the cake with small pieces of papaya and copper card and the party hats with papaya, copper and avocado card. The sentiment is Lawn Fawn Happy Birthday Line Border which I have snipped down to fit into the gap on the top right hand side of my card. All the elements were adhered to a stitched border papaya card die cut before being adhered to a white card blank. 

I'd love to see what you decide to make with this week's colours, maybe adding in the Harbour or Rosemary to tone the card down a little!! Please head over to the Color My Heart Color Dare blog to check out the brilliant inspiration from the rest of the Design Team.

Much love

Steph x

Christmas Craft Creations December Challenge

Good morning all, 

Welcome to the December Christmas Craft Creations challenge. This month we are looking for you to 'Make a Scene'. 

For my scene I have used the Uniko Background Builders: Winter Wonderland stamp set. 

I started with a black card blank and heat embossed the sentiment to the top in white. The snow is also heat embossed directly onto the card front but in pale pink. I then heat embossed the hillside scenes onto separate pieces of black card stock, in green and blue, before fussy cutting the top edges. The bottom edges line up with the bottom of the card front and the green layer has been adhered using foam tape for dimension. Finally I heat embossed the sentiment in white onto a strip of black card and adhered to the top layer.

I hope you like the card and will head over to the Christmas Craft Creations blog for more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the Design Team. I am sad to say that this month will be my last one as part of the CCC team. I have unfortunately had to step down as my work and family commitments have increased to a point where I'm struggling to fit everything in. I am sure I will be back to participate however, and I wish the rest of the team all the best with the ongoing challenges. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Challenge #68 - Reminder

Morning everyone, 

Here’s a reminder about the current Uniko challenge #68. The theme is ‘Celebrate’ and the optional twist is Reds & Greens.

Again I made a Christmas card, well it’s rather close now and celebrate we will!

For this card I used the Uniko Winter Foliage stamp set (which is one of my favourites!). I simply marked out a pencil circle as a guide in the top left corner of a square of white stamping card. I then stamped the berries three times and again on masking paper. After I had masked the berries I stamped the holly leaves in two shades of green. I stamped the pine cones on a different piece of card before cutting out and adhering with foam pads. The sentiment is from a now retired Uniko set which I inked up in brown. I then adhered the panel to red glitter card before adhering to the card blank. 

Please do pop over to the Uniko blog to check out the amazing inspiration from the Uniko Brand Ambassadors and to join in the fun!

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #157

Hi All,

Welcome to this month's challenge from The Male Room. We have the theme of Food for this month.

Since we are fast approaching Christmas, my choice of food was Christmas pudding! 

Here I have used a stamp set from Clearly Besotted called Christmas Pudding. I have stamped the puddings in Lawn Fawn Walnut ink and added the holly stamped in Lawn Fawn Noble Fir and Lobster inks. The sentiment is from the same set and I finished it off with a die cut holly. You can just make out that I have added Nuvo Drops to a couple of the holly berries, on the sentiment and the pudding in the middle of the card front. The panel was then layered onto a dark brown card base.

I hope you will head over to The Male Room challenge blog to check out the other fabulous creations by the talented Design Team and join in the fun! 

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #472

Hi everyone, 

We have another Crazy 8 challenge over at Color My Heart Color Dare this week for challenge #472. We have noticed that the Crazy 8 challenges are not as popular as some others but they aren't as scary as they seem! Simply select a minimum of 4 colours from the square and create something beautiful. 😊

As always we refer to Close To My Heart colour names but any brand is fine as long as it is a VERY close match. For this type of challenge I usually go a bit wild and use all eight colours (!) but today I restrained myself and challenged myself to use just the required four.

My colours are Papaya, Mink, Silver, Sapphire and Gold...as you can see I didn't stick to my challenge of only four colours!!! I threw the Papaya in at the last minute as I needed something to lift the whole card.

It's been a while since I made a hexagon card so I die cut a card base in white, layered up the gold and Papaya and added a Sapphire frame. The trees are fabulous dies from Funky Fossil called Quirky Trees, which I cut from Sapphire, Mink, Gold and Silver card. The sentiment stamp is from a super set from Uniko called Anniversaire Arts Decoratifs and I thought it would suit this card well.

Hopefully you feel inspired to give this challenge a try and if you hop over to the Color My Heart Color Dare blog you will get some more fabulous inspiration from the rest of the Design Team. I love how different the makes look due to the different colours we each select. 

Much love

Steph x   

Uniko Challenge #68

Morning all, 

Thanks for joining us today as we launch Uniko challenge #68. The theme for this challenge is ‘Celebrate’ with an optional twist of Reds and Greens.

The theme and colour twist lend themselves beautifully to a Christmas card as Christmas is definitely a celebration in our household. 

I used the recently released Uniko Pattern Building Christmas Tree stamp set to make a gorgeous background panel in red, green and gold before adhering to a card blank. I then stamped the solid tree from the retired set Uniko Christmas Pop in red, green and gold. Once cut out I adhered to the panel.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys create for the challenge and if you need more inspiration then head over to the Uniko blog as the Brand Ambassadors have once again done a marvellous job. 

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #470

Good afternoon all, 

Welcome to Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #470 which is a Tic, Tac, Toe challenge.

I chose to use the right hand column of French Vanilla, Carolina and Sapphire. As always we reference Close To My Heart colours but you are free to use any brand providing it is a VERY close match! 

These three colours made me instantly think of a seaside theme. I decided to use my three colours to make the same card three times as I couldn't make up my mind as to what the best order of colours would be. I'm still not sure which I like the best!! 

The background stamp is from Uniko and is called Background Blocks Nautical Stripes. The porthole stamp and all the other seaside stamps are from two sets I received with magazines in the UK. 

Here are the other cards I made with the same colours. Which do you like best?

Don't forget to pop over to the Color My Heart Color Dare blog and check out the fantastic makes by the rest of the team, and join in the challenge! 

Much love

Steph x

Christmas Craft Creations November Challenge

Good morning all,

Welcome to this month's Christmas Craft Creations where the theme is Fun Fold.

This was a tricky theme for me but I came across this lovely template online called Star Fold Card and I thought it was perfect for Christmas, the star on the tree or the star in the sky.

This is the card folded. I started out with a 12" square of card and created an equilateral triangle, 12" on each side. I marked at 4", 6" and 8" on each side and scored from each one to the other creating a triangle in the centre and smaller triangles to the outer corners. 

I then cut the various shapes from patterned papers and stuck down before stamping the circle sentiment twice and die cutting. The second circular sentiment is on the inside and was layered onto more patterned paper and a scalloped edge circle to finish. This is the card opened out. 

I hope this inspires you to take part in the challenge. Check out the Christmas Craft Creations blog for more inspiration from the talented Design Team. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Creative Christmas

Good Morning all, 

For my Uniko Brand Ambassadors post I thought it would be quite nice to showcase a different way to use some Uniko non Christmas stamps mixed with the traditional Christmas sets for creative Christmas projects. 

My first card uses Uniko Background Blocks Doodle Flower stamp teamed with the more recently released Uniko Doodle Flowers stamp set. I have used red and green for the petals to resemble a Poinsettia. The sentiment is from Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas stamp set. 

My second card uses the foliage silhouette from the Uniko Just Because stamp set and I have teamed it with some white berries to create a hanging stem of mistletoe. I have used chalk ink over the black card in order for it to show up. The sentiment is a mixture of Uniko Christmas Sentiments stamp set, Uniko Most Wonderful stamp set and Uniko Big & Bold Hugs stamp set.

My final card for today uses Uniko Flower Power #3 stamp set. I have stamped the solid floral in two shades of green before fussy cutting and turning upside down to build my Christmas tree. The decorative elements have all come from the recently released Uniko Pattern Building Christmas Tree stamp set teamed with a sentiment from the Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas stamp set.

I hope you like my three cards today and that I have got you thinking about different ways in which to use your stamps. 

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #156

Morning all

Welcome to this months challenge from The Male Room. The theme for challenge #156 is Gnomes.

This is a perfect theme to fit in with any Christmas cards you might be making right now. I however, made my card earlier in the year and had much more Spring/Summer vibes in mind! 

Just look at all that lovely sunshine that we are no doubt all missing right now! I used Clearly Besotted Under the Weather stencil and Distress Oxides to create the background. Staying with Clearly Besotted I used the Garden Plushies stamp set for the gnomes and added a die cut fence from My Favourite Things Animal Farm Fence set. I wanted to keep the card quite light so I used a light green layer (as opposed to dark green) before adhering it to the base. The sentiment is also Clearly Besotted and is heat embossed in white. 

I hope you like my ray of sunshine during the winter months and hope you will pop over to The Male Room blog to check out the rest of the Design Team’s makes and join the challenge this month. 

Much love

Steph x