Hello September!

 Hello & Happy September!

I can't believe we are in September already. The summer seems to have flown by in a flash. It is back to school chaos as The Beans return on Monday AND luckily they get to celebrate their 8th Birthday tomorrow with no school! 

In between baking cakes today I managed to squeeze in a little crafty time. As much as I have enjoyed the summer, I have missed my daily routine in the studio and getting creative. So as much as I would happily have the school holidays last a little longer, I will be glad to get back in the studio!

Todays card was a fairly quick make as I had already stamped and fussy cut the leaves from Natures Treasures II a few weeks ago. They've just been sat waiting to be used! 

I decided to pair them with BIG & BOLD Hello. Mainly as I wanted a Hello September / Autumn inspired card with a modern twist of using neutral tones, but not just browns. I added a little bit of dimension with the fussy cut hello and the upper most leaf using foam adhesive.

September is an exciting month as next week we have another batch of requested clear stamp restocks arriving next week. These include, Background Blocks Halftone, Background Builders Squared, Pure Florals Gerbera, Pure Florals Peony and Snowflake Serenade. These are all available on backorder over on the website and any orders containing a backorder will be posted 7th / 8th September. 

Orders over £25 are being posted via Signed For Delivery at no extra cost to you, due to the postal strikes. As well, please allow extra time for your orders to arrive due to the strikes. I have no control over this and if I used a courier I would have to increase postage costs and I don't want to do this. 

In other news, Uniko is super excited to be in Harrogate on the 10th and 11th at the Crafterama show. This will be our first time in Harrogate AND doing a two day show! You can purchase tickets HERE.

Before I go I have one more little announcement. I know times are hard right now and we are all feeling the pinch. So in celebration of The Beans 8th Birthday tomorrow I am offering 10% off all orders from today, until 10am Monday 5th September. 

That's all from me today! 

Crafty Hugs

Two For Tuesday & a WINNER!

 Hello & Happy Tuesday 😊 

I'm back today with another Two For Tuesday to share with you, but first I have the randomly selected comment winner to announce from the recent June 2021 Stencil Release, Brand Ambassador Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY we had HERE.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to join in on the hop and for all the lovely comments left. Thank you also for all the wonderful orders, I look forward to seeing Uniko stencil creations pop up on social media.

So, without further ado let's get to the winner. I used a random number generator to select the lucky comment after I went through and totted up. AND the lucky comment is...

Tiina Kalliokoski / tweety.cardworld 

Hi Bev. I just love what you have done with the Pure Floral Rose and with the Butterfly. Gorgeous colours and so skilled colouring. Can’t really decide which of them would be my fav if I had to choose – luckily I don’t have to. I’m so happy I found your products and this blog. At the moment I have only one big gorgeous Uniko stamp but when I need to refill my stash I know where to find what I need. Regards, Tiina a.k.a tweety.cardworld (on IG).

Congratulations Tiina! 

Please send me an email (bev@uniko.co.uk) no later than10th July 2021, with your postal address to claim your prize.

Okay, now for some creative eye candy! 

Today I decided to ink up English Country Garden Butterflies clear stamps & dust of the coordinating Designer Dies too to create two cards. Both have a CAS feel to them but I've used colour in different ways on them.

For this first card I thought it would be fun to double up the large & small butterflies. I rarely reach to stamp on coloured card these days, so reached for my favourite trio of colours in my scraps box and got to stamping & die cutting. I added a little contrast by stamping the smaller butterfly on white card.

I haven't been one to jump fully on board with the slimline card, but in order to fit 3 larger butterflies on a card the slimline style was perfect. I added sentiments from the Simply Said Blocks series and some eagle eyes might notice something on this card?! 

Next up I wanted to use the butterflies more as and accent to a sentiment. It's been ages since I inked up BIG & BOLD Hello and it seemed the perfect choice. 

The bold hello is inked and heat embossed in clear sparkling embossing powder. I then stamped the trio of large butterflies and selectively coloured them in three colours using three shades of each colour. Super quick and simple colouring. 

I finished off this almost one layer card with an accompanying sentiment from BIG & BOLD Hello stamped and embossed in white, popped up with foam adhesive and a trio of rhinestones. 

It's been lovely inking up and playing with these older Uniko stamps & Designer Dies again. That's all from me today, thanks for stopping by today.

Crafty Hugs

 

Stencil Sunday - Hello Friend

Happy Spring Forward!

It's daylight savings here in the UK. I am looking forward to warmer days & longer & lighter nights, that's for sure. Shame the clocks couldn't fast forward a few weeks instead of just one hour, right?!

Anyway, I thought I would brighten up your weekend with a Stencil Sunday creation and check in over here too! I posted HERE yesterday, so if you missed it, pop by & have a read.

I was totally inspired by the challenge over at CAS(E) this Sketch! seen HERE and below. And I have to say I am really pleased at how it turned out.

It was pretty simple really. I masked off sections of the stencil to replicate the sketch design and used a different Spring colour to ink through the Uniko Stencil - Doodle Flower. The sentiment is from BIG & BOLD Hello.

That's all I have to share with you today, but I am super happy to have found some creativity this weekend and join in on some of my favourite challenges too!

Stay safe & at home. Crafty Hugs

Brand Ambassador Inspiration - Hello!

Hello! 

It's Jane here today to wish you a very Happy New Year and share a few cards made with the BIG & BOLD Hello stamp set. I also added in some stripes from Background Builders Classics.

     

Here's my cards: A set of three ................

............... and a singleton.

The trio of cards all follow the same design just switching up the greeting and base card colour. While I was making these cards I kept looking at the smaller stamps that often get neglected in a set and decided to give them some love too. I used colours that were similar to the base card colours of the set of three and changed up the stripes to horizontal.

Well that's my little share all complete for today. I hope I may have inspired you a little with these CAS cards.

Jane

x

DT Inspiration - Hello, Hello!

Hello there friends it's Sarah P here with a little DT Inspiration post.

Last month's DT Inspiration post from me featured the newly released BIG & BOLD 'Happy' stamp set and it occurred to me that I missed the August release last year due to other life commitments! As well as a bundle of other goodies, the August release included a brand new BIG & BOLD set called 'Hello' so I've finally had a play with it!

Here's a few of my examples - all very similar in design but different colour schemes and sentiments. I've also included some of the mini flower stamps from the set to show how useful they can be in creating a background.

I'm hoping Bev will perhaps bring out the matching word dies for 'Hello' as well as 'Happy' ... I hate fuzzy cutting!!!

I hope you like my creations and thanks for calling by the blog today!

DT Inspiration - Pretty Butterflies

Hello there, it's Sarah P sharing some butterfly DT inspiration today.

Despite having nothing in particular to inspire me in creating these cards as my mojo is a little lacking at the moment I decided to simply grab my Uniko stamps and flick through to find any sets I didn't feel I'd shown enough 'love'!

I didn't need to flick very far through them to reach the English Country Garden Butterflies set.

It's an older one but totally classic so first up 2 very similar cards using simple stamping of the 2 mini butterflies, using both the outline and block images although slightly off-set with the embossed outline stamping on the first one.

I've teamed both of these cards with sentiments from one of the brand new sets; Wonderful Day, released just before Christmas.

The stamping on this next one uses both outline and block images but with a tone on tone effect, which isn't showing up too well in the photo. I've also applied some tonic shimmer to the butterflies and IRL I can assure you it really does shimmer!

To create a completely different look with the same set I've used the Emboss Resist technique for the next 2. 

First up the butterflies are stamped with Versamark ink before heat embossing with white embossing powder from Hero Arts. Once the embossing was cool I've blended Distress Inks over the top in probably my favourite colours (Mustard Seed, Fossilised Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon, Picked Raspberry and Wilted Violet). 

To finish I white heat embossed a collection of sentiments from the BIG & BOLD Hugs and BIG & BOLD Hello sets

I was having so much fun with the resist technique with inky blended background that I decided to make another card, this time using the larger butterfly stamp and blending the colours in reverse. 

Hopefully you'll feel inspired to have a little crafty play time with your own stash. Have a fabulous weekend and thanks for calling by the blog today!

Sarah x

Uniko August stamps Release in review

Hello everyone Rahmat here.
I am up with a few cards using the August release stamps, I was away and I didn't had the chance to be part of the release hop.
I am using the Big and Bold Hello, Framed Florals and Beautiful stamp sets.
I have stick to the same color schemes for my projects.

For the first card, I first stamped the Framed florals in Versafine watermark ink and then I used the versafine onyx black ink for the bold hello.
Then I used the markers to color the florals.
I then trimmed the framed part, and mounted it on a patterned pre-cut base. To finish off, I added a few black jewels.

For the second one, I have used another pre-cut base.
I stamped the flowers on a white card stock and watercolored using zig clean color markers and Staedtler Marsgraphic markers, fussy cut only the top, and added using foam adhesive.
I added a black strip at the bottom of the card. The sentiment is stamped on the base, a few black jewels to finish off.

     Thank you for stopping by, I really appreciate your kind  feedback :) Have a great day!
                                                                     

DT inspiration - Extending your stamps

Morning all, Julie here with another idea on how to use those small stamps.

I'm up on my own blog with a card that uses the Originally Organic Additions and Big and Bold Hello stamps, as well as few hand drawn additions.

I've wanted the Christmas wreath stamps for awhile but as they are still out of stock I've had to think outside the box. I decided to show you that if you haven't got the exact right stamp, look at your stamps again and perhaps you can use those you have in ways that they weren't originally intended for!

I started by placing my handmade wreath maker, you could use the Gina K one if you have it of course, and a panel of card, in my MISTI.

Placing the small leaf element from the Originally Organic Additions set in the MISTI, I stamped.and rotated my card in the positioner and repeated 3 times. I was intending to stamp at every station but decided to keep it at 4, leaving out alternate positions.

To add more leaves instead of stamping I drew 2 in freehand on each spray, then added the flowers from Big and Bold Hello and the small berry clusters from Originally Organic Additions using the positioner and MISTI. To fill in some of the empty space I doodled a small flower by the stamped flowers and added more berries in various sizes, then coloured the elements with Copics.

My sentiment from Simply Said Christmas was stamped and embossed with gold EP.

To frame the wreath, I inked a slightly larger card panel with a Versamark pen and embossed with the same gold EP. Both panels were then added to a 5 x 5 white base card.

By the way there's a fab article featuring some of the DT in this month's Craft Stamper and a little extra on their blog here.

OK, that's it from me, thanks for stopping by,

August 2018 Reveal, Release, Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

Woohoo! 

Finally the day has arrived and the August 2018 Release is NOW available to purchase HERE on the website. We have our traditional Reveal, Release, Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY! 

How about a look at the FIVE new clear stamp sets...

Background Builders: Happy Hexagons £9 

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2018

www.uniko.co.uk

Beautiful £4 

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2018

www.uniko.co.uk

BIG & BOLD Hello £4 

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2018

www.uniko.co.uk

Framed Florals £4

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2018

www.uniko.co.uk

So Much £4 

Copyright Uniko Ltd 2018

www.uniko.co.uk

Now I have formally introduced all the NEW products, how about a FUN blog hop and a ton of inspiration from the Design Team.

Bev

Carol 

Izzy 

Jane 

Julie

Linda

Lindsey

Sarah G

Be sure to comment along the hop for your chance to win the ENTIRE Release!! You have until Midnight (BST) 2nd  September 2018 to comment and the winner will be announced soon after.

Happy Hopping!

Hugs

Introducing... BIG & BOLD Hello and Framed Florals

Hey!

Welcome back to day three of the August 2018 Release product introductions. Thank you for all the lovely comments and support around social media for yesterdays introductions, I do love reading them all :)

Today we are introducing another 2 new clear stamp sets, BIG & BOLD Hello and Framed Florals.

Here is a little look at BIG & BOLD Hello, the next in the BIG & BOLD series...

This little stamp set has been designed for sometime, well, the sentiment part that is! It has been sitting there in my archives waiting for some tiny accent stamps and one day whilst doodling, these little accent stamps appeared and became the perfect accompaniments ;)

I used the tiny trio of accent stamps to create my own patterned paper design. I added some White Blizzard Glitter Nuvo drops to the flower centres for a little sparkle embellishment and the bold 'hello' is stamped, fussy cut & adhered to the card using foam adhesive.

Lastly, I have Framed Florals to introduce to you...

This was kind of a 'happy accident' stamp! I was simply playing around with various motifs which you will recognise from the Flower Power & Originally Organic series and this stamp design was born! 

I love how striking the design is against colourful backgrounds. For this card I went back to my original Mini Distress Inks in my favourite colours, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Picked Raspberry & Peacock Feathers to create a ink blended background. I've then simply stamped the image, fussy cut it and adhered it to my card base. The sentiment is from Simply Said.

That's all I have to share with you here using these new sets, but why not grab a cup of your favourite beverage and hop along with myself and the team...?

Bev

Carol 

Deborah 

Izzy 

Jane 

Julie

Linda

Lindsey

Sarah G

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed that hop and I am all inspired to get inky! I'd love to know your thoughts on these clear stamp sets and which is your favourite of the two, that is if you can decide?! 

That's all from myself and the Design Team today and all 5 of the new clear stamp sets have been introduced, which means.... TOMORROW is RELEASE DAY!!

Hope to see you then for the full reveal, release, Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!!

Hugs