Uniko Introducing... Christmas Sentiments

Hi All, 

Thanks for coming back today as we continue the Uniko Introduction posts and today we have the Uniko Christmas Sentiments to show you. I really like the size and style of the font in this set and I can see me reaching for it regularly. 

I used a good few of the sentiments to create my background and inked them up in grey, although it is worth noting that there are some smaller sentiments within the set too. I die cut this with a stitched edge and layered onto a black A6 card blank. I then inked up the MERRY and CHRISTMAS in green and red respectively and layered this onto foam pads before adhering to the black card and onto the main panel. Finally I added the red pearls. 

As always, please do head over to the Uniko blog to check out the rest of the Brand Ambassadors introduction pieces and you may even get a sneaky peek of some stamps being introduced later in the week! 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Introducing... Background Builders: Winter Wonderland

Welcome back and good morning! 

Today we are introducing the first of the stamp sets under the Uniko September 2021 release. This stamp set is called Background Builders: Winter Wonderland and here is my card.

First I heat embossed the falling snow in white on dark blue card. I then heat embossed the deer and tree landscape three times onto velum before fussy cutting the top. I adhered the first layer directly to the card, the second layer is adhered using foam pads and the top layer is adhered using doubled up foam pads. Finally I heat embossed the sentiment onto a narrow strip of dark blue card and attached it over the top. I attached the whole panel onto sliver glitter card before layering onto a dark blue card blank. 

I hope this card gives you a good idea of what the Background Builders: Winter Wonderland stamp set is all about but as there are more stamps in the set that I did not use on this card, you should definitely check out the Uniko blog and the introduction cards from the rest of the wonderful Brand Ambassadors. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko September 2021 Release - Sneak Peeks

Good Morning Everyone, 

Welcome to the Uniko September 2021 release sneak peeks. We have a small release this month of three stamp sets and one stencil and they are fabulous! 

So, have those sneak peeks got you intrigued? Then be sure to come back each day this week as we introduce the stamp sets and stencil and we even have a blog hop at the weekend where you can win some goodies! 

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #462

Good afternoon! 

This week's Color My Heart Color Dare challenge #462 has a very autumnal theme:

The challenge is a TicTacToe so make sure you choose a row, column or diagonal and please detail which you have chosen to make it easy on us! As usual we have referenced Close To My Heart colours but you can use any brand as long as it is a very close match.

I chose the diagonal from top left to bottom right (Harbour, Gold and Nectarine) and also added Paprika.

I stamped several types of leaves in Harbour, Nectarine and Paprika before stamping the sentiment in Harbour too. I layered the piece onto gold card and then Harbour card (which is ink blended as I didn't have a near enough match). To add a little further gold and 'bling', I added three gold pearls.

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope to see you join in with the challenge over at Color My Heart Color Dare. Visit the blog for more fantastic inspiration from the rest of the Design Team too.

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Challenge #67

Good morning everyone!

I hope this morning finds you well? I’m here to tell you about a new Uniko challenge #67 which goes live today. The theme is ‘Anything Goes’ with an optional twist of ‘Autumn Colours’. 

‘Anything Goes’ is always a popular challenge theme and I decided to use the optional twist as it gave me somewhere to start. 

I pulled out Uniko Framed Floral Vines and stamped it in the lightest grey ink I have. I then grabbed some Autumn coloured alcohol markers and proceeded to colour the stamp to give a ‘no line’ effect. I really like the size of this stamp and how I didn’t need to add much more to complete my card. I wanted to bring blue into the colour mix so I stamped my sentiment from the Uniko Originally Organic Additions set in dark blue. I layered the panel onto dark blue card stock to emphasise the blue in the sentiment and finally adhered it to a burgundy card base (which looks like a very dark brown here!). 

To join in with the challenge all you have to do is head over to the Uniko blog and link up your card. Check out the rest of the amazing inspiration from the Brand Ambassadors while you are there too. 

Don’t forget that there are randomly selected prizes for those that use Uniko products and those that ‘twist’ with us as well as for the main winner chosen by the Brand Ambassadors. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Season of Beauty

Hi Everyone, 

Thanks for joining me today for my Brand Ambassador post where I am focusing on the Uniko Season of Beauty stamp set. 

This is a ‘new to me’ stamp set but I have been a big fan of it since it was released. As it was my first use of the set I had a good play about and stumbled upon a technique that I have completely fallen in love with - faux water colouring.

For my first card I inked up the poinsettia outline and before I stamped it, I spritzed the stamp with water. I then stamped onto watercolour card and the effect is beautiful. I followed up with inking the inner leaf part of the poinsettia using the same colour ink and various leaves and stems using differing colours of green, spritzing each with water before stamping.

To finish my card I layered it onto a Kraft card blank, heat embossed the sentiment from Uniko Most Wonderful stamp set in gold on black and added some gold embellishments to the gaps.

I was enjoying this technique so I carried on and changed the colour scheme to purple for my second card.

For my third sample I decided to spritz the watercolour card with water instead of the stamp and the effect is quite different.

Initially I wasn’t as pleased with the result because of the more ‘blocky’ look but after I adhered it to the black card it seemed to really come alive. For this card I used a heat embossed sentiment from the Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas stamp set.

Us Uniko Brand Ambassadors all seem to be on a roll with Christmas inspiration. See recent inspiration from Weikbe here, Jane here and Issy here.

Much love

Steph x

Christmas Craft Creations September Challenge

Morning All

Welcome back for another Christmas Craft Creations Challenge, this month we have a great sketch for you to use.

September is the time when I start to think about Christmas crafting and shopping, I like to be organised!! So out came the Christmas supplies...I have that much that I decided to store the Christmas craft stash separately from the rest! I have lots of lovely Christmas papers so I decided to use those for this sketch and to show them off to their best, I only used one stamp for the sentiment. 

I chose to interpret the sketch very literally and cut out three trees and backed them with purple cardstock. I did the same for the sloped ground and then mat the whole piece onto the same cardstock before attaching to the card front. I wanted to keep the strong lines as per the sketch. Finally I took the same cardstock and heat embossed a sentiment from the Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas stamp set.

I hope you are inspired to join us and I'd love to see how you interpret the sketch. It's always great to see how differently people approach a sketch challenge. And talking of which, head over to the Christmas Craft Creations blog to see how the rest of the Design Team got on with the sketch too.

Much love

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #460

Good afternoon all,

Now, can someone please tell me how we are in Sept already?! For me the first part of the year started off slowly but when we got past June it feels like someone is accelerating us through to the end of the year! 

So here is the first Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge for Sept. It is another Crazy 8 which I think can be hit or miss for some of you but they really aren’t as tricky as the look. Just select four of the colours in the grid and craft away! 

We reference Close To My Heart colours but any brand is fine as long as you make a very close match. 

With this type of challenge I usually start off by picking out the colours of card and set about die cutting but I didn’t fancy that this time. Instead I used some new stamps from Honey Bee Stamps called Coffee Break and got out my closest matching alcohol markers. 

I have used the colours Smoothie, Canary, Peacock, Pebble. Almond and Fern. Once you get started it’s quite easy to get all four, or in my case six, colours on your project. Don’t forget it doesn’t have to be a card! Any paper craft project is acceptable. 

So I will leave you to head over the the Color My Heart Color Dare challenge #460 on the blog and check out what colours the rest of the Design Team chose to use. 

Since I have used a coloured card base for this card, I am going to enter it into Time Out Challenge #195. 

Much love

Steph 

The Male Room Challenge #154

Morning all

Welcome to a new challenge from The Male Room. Challenge #154 has the theme ‘Natures Bounty’.

I struggled a bit with this theme. I think I was overthinking it but I just couldn’t get my head around what it meant! In the end I went with something produced by nature...honey!
 

This is a gift card holder where the outer sleeve is the beehive and the gift card holder is the honeycomb that lifts out.

I used Uniko stamp set Bee Happy which I’ve been struggling to get inspiration for but I think it was perfect for this project! The bees on the yellow card were stamped, heat embossed and masked before I stamped and heat embossed the honeycomb. I know the hexagons don’t line up perfectly but it wasn’t that easy to do!! I then coloured the bee wings with a white gel pen.

The sleeve was created from cream card before I added the wood effect panels. The wood effect was stamped on using Stampin Up! Hardwood stamp and Momento ink in Toffee Crunch. The bees on this layer are heat embossed onto yellow card and fussy cut before adhering the body only and lifting the wings for dimension. 

I’d love to see how you interpret the theme so I do hope you’ll join in the challenge fun! Pop over to The Male Room blog and check out the rest of the Design Team’s terrific creations as well as our Guest Designer for the month.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #458

Afternoon everyone,

Thanks for stopping by to check out this week's Color My Heart Color Dare challenge #458. 

This week we are also teaming with Double Trouble challenge #91 so you can enter both if you follow the above colour scheme AND include the "Scrappers Trail Mix" (plaid, checkers, polka dots, stripes). 

For the Color My Heart Color Dare challenge, you must use at least three of the colours but feel free to use more as long as they feature on the chart. Black, white, neutrals and gold are free. 

I chose to use colours Peacock, Glacier, Blue Belle and Sundance. I used a newly released Background Blocks Grid stamp from Uniko to create my background and I coloured it with alcohol markers to achieve the plaid effect. For my ice lollies I used Concord & 9th Cool Treats dies. 

Hopefully you feel inspired to join in the fun on both challenges. And of course I’ll be joining the Double Trouble challenge too! A reminder of the links here:

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #458

Double Trouble Challenge #91

Head over to both blogs and check out the wonderful inspiration by the Design Teams. We are looking forward to see what you create. 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko July 2021 Release in Review

Hi everyone,

Thanks for joining me today as we take another look at the Uniko July 2021 release and the Brand Ambassadors get the opportunity to share with you their favourites from the release. 

I loved working with the stencils but for my release in review samples I am all about the stamps. 

For me, the background blocks stamps have such versatility they are a complete asset to anyone’s stash. And just to prove that, I haven’t used just one or two for my next card but all three! Plus I’ve added in some florals from the Doodle Flowers stamp set. 

Bottom layer - Background Blocks Layered Modern Floral

Middle layer - Background Blocks Diagonal Stripes

Top layer - Background Blocks Grid

Florals - Doodle Flowers

I couldn’t do a review without adding in another card using the Block Party Summer stamp. I loved to creativity of the Brand Ambassadors when it came to this stamp and I loved those that used just part of the stamp too. I haven’t drifted too far away from my original sample with the seaside background but instead of adding colour I have taken it away by water ‘bleaching’ the Distress Oxide inks.  

I hope these samples have inspired you even further and if you haven’t made a purchase yet you will popping over to the Uniko shop to make one! I hear that the Doodle Flowers set is a best seller and I’d say that you won’t regret purchasing the Background Blocks Grid stamp. 😉

If you need even more inspiration before taking the plunge then head over to the Uniko blog and check out the rest of the Brand Ambassador blogs. There’s even a £20 eGift Certificate up for grabs for one lucky winner if you comment along the way. 

Bev

Hannelie

Izzy

Jane

Julie

Rahmat

Steph - that’s me!

Much love

Steph x

Christmas Craft Creations August Challenge

Hello there,

Ooo have we got a great Christmas Craft Creations challenge this month: Non-Traditional Colours. 

Now of course this can mean different colours in different parts of the world but here in the UK I consider red and green to be traditional colours so I steered clear of those! 

In recent years I have been using a turquoise and pink theme for some Christmas cards so I wanted to avoid those and really challenge myself, so I picked yellow and grey! I think these are as far away from a Christmas theme as you could find. My design is fairly simple with the stag head repeat stamped, for which I did have to draw some pencil guidelines and then erase. I added my Clearly Besotted sentiment using a Clearly Besotted die and I kept it all flat to the card base so I could post this one. I'm always keenly aware of the price difference on posting flat cards in the UK and try to make more of my Christmas cards flat. Finally I added some Earl Grey Nuvo drops which I recently purchased and am still getting to grips with. This one is from the vintage collection so it has a slightly matt finish. 

I think it turned out ok, what do you think? I also think you could use this for a birthday around Christmas time with a different sentiment. 

Head on over to the Christmas Craft Creations blog for some more inspiration from the wonderful Design Team and definitely join in the fun. I'm so excited to see what wonderful creations you can conjure up with non-traditional colours! 

Much love

Steph x

Uniko Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Mid Century Modern Florals

Good morning everyone!

Thanks for joining me today as I showcase three cards using the Uniko Mid Century Modern Florals stamp set.

Like many of my stamp sets, I purchased this as soon as it was released because I love the style but I never got around to inking it up! 

My first card really captures the essence of Mid Century Modern and I kept the colour scheme simple, in keeping with the MCM style.

I have stamped up various flower stems, leaves and heads in black and added a simple strip of washi tape to the left and a green stamped sentiment from the Uniko Simply Said Blocks II stamp set.

For my second card, I wanted to show an alternative way to use the stamp set so I have created a garland of four leaf clovers for a good luck card. 

Finally, I used some of the leaf stamps to create a Christmas wreath! 

I started off by drawing a circle in pencil (later erased) and free stamped the green leaves before adding in the red ‘berries’.

I hope these cards show how versatile the Uniko stamp sets are and inspire you to ink up the Mid Century Modern Florals stamp set soon.

Much love

Steph x