Uniko Christmas In July 2025 - Reveal, Release, Brand Ambassador Blog Hop and Giveaway!

Good morning!

It's Christmas in July release day over at Uniko and I'm here to reveal the whole release and share another card.

Here's the final card I made, using the new Ink & Flip Snowflake Pattern stencil...

For this one I used the stencil on the diagonal on a die cut panel and only inked up two rows.  For the first row I used Distress Oxide in Saltwater Taffy and then heat embossed with a pearl embossing powder.  Then I flipped the stencil and inked up the remaining snowflake halves with embossing paste.  I heat embossed the greeting from the Most Wonderful set (apologies, I think this set is now retired) on some co-ordinating cardstock and inked around the edges with the same Oxide ink.  The panel was then adhered flat to the card base.

Materials used:

• Stencil: Uniko - Ink & Flip Snowflake Pattern
• Stencils: Uniko - Most Wonderful
• Ink: Distress Oxide - Saltwater Taffy; Versamark
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - White Pearl
• Embossing Paste: Nuvo Glimmer Paste - Moonstone
• Dies: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Double Stitched Rectangles

So, now to reveal the new and reintroduced products in full.

First up are the new stencils, this first one being the fab new Layering Christmas Bauhaus Blocks...

Next up are the two new Ink & Flip stencils - Christmas Tree Pattern and Snowflake Pattern...

Now onto the stamps and first we have a couple of new additions to the Background Blocks collection, Merry Christmas Scramble and My Favourite Colour...

and finally, the final set to complete the Flower Power collection, Flower Power #12...

So, lots of fab new products to kick start your festive creativity.  The products are available from the Uniko store now, here. 

Be sure to leave some comments on the Brand Ambassador blogs or social media.  You can find all the links over at the Uniko blog, here.  By commenting along the hop you're in with a chance of winning a £25 eGift Certificate to spend in store.  You have until Sunday 3 August to get your comments in before all the Christmas in July 2025 winners are announced on or around the 6 August 2025.

Thanks for visiting today and for your lovely comments here and on my socials.

Uniko 12 Days Of Christmas Inspiration & Giveaways 2024 - Christmas Linky Party

Good morning!

Starting this morning, Uniko is bringing you 12 Days of Christmas Inspiration and Giveaways up until 12 December, with the winners being announced on Friday 13 December.

The team are kicking things off with a Christmas Party card making style with a linky link-up.  All you have to do is make and link up a new Christmas card using Uniko products.  If, like me, you still have cards to make (super unorganised as usual!), this is the perfect opportunity to make more and you can link up three as part of this party!

Here's my card...

On a panel of white cardstock I ink blended in from the edges using some green Distress Inks, fading out in the centre which remained white.  I then inked through the Winter Foliage stencil using two shades of green.  I then stamped and heat embossed the sentiment in white on a die cut rectangle from red cardstock.  The sentiment is from the Most Wonderful clear stamp set.  I popped up the sentiment panel on 3D foam and finished with some Nuvo Crystal Drops to add some accents.

Materials used:

• Stencil: Uniko - Winter Foliage 
• Stamps: Uniko - Most Wonderful
• Ink: Distress Ink - Rustic Wilderness, Pine Needles; VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Brutus Monroe - Alabaster White
• Die: MFT Die-namics - Stitched Rounded Rectangle Stax
• Accents: Nuvo Crystal Drops - Autumn Red

Linky Rules/Details...

Simply create a new Christmas card using Uniko products.  Products from other brands can also be used, so long as Uniko is prominent or the main focus of the card.  And there is a maximum of three entries per person.

Linky is open now over on the main Uniko blog, here, and will close at 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 11 December 2024.  The Uniko Brand Ambassadors will vote for their Top 3 and the prizes are as follows...

1st Prize - £25 eGift Code

2nd Prize - £15 eGift Code

3rd Prize - £10 eGift Code 

Bonus Prize For a Lucky Comment Along The Hop Above - £10 eGift Code

I look forward to seeing all your fabulous projects in the Linky gallery!  Thanks for taking a look and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

 

Uniko - Let's Have Some FLIPPIN' Seasonal Fun - Release Day, Brand Ambassador Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY

Good morning and Happy Card Making Day!

What a way to mark the end of the FLIPPIN' week....it's World Card Making Day AND it's release day over at Uniko.  The two new Ink & Flip Layering stencils are now available.

I made another card using the new Ink & Flip Layering Cobweb stencil and paired it with the cat from the Mid Century Modern Purrfect Day stamp set, and a couple of elements from other brands...

For the cobweb this time, I used ink through the first side then, once flipped, I used some glimmer paste.  Be sure to clean off your stencil straight away if using pastes, they dry quickly!  Once dry, I stamped the cat, the sentiment and the spider in black ink and then added the spider's thread using a silver pen.  These spiders are far too small for this design but it's all I had in my stash and my drawing skills are zero! :D 

Materials used:

• Stencil: Uniko - Ink & Flip Layering Cobweb
• Stamps: Uniko - Mid Century Modern Purrfect Day; Clearly Besotted - Simple Script; Card-io - Field Day
• Ink: Versa Magic - Oasis Green; Versafine Clair - Nocturne
• Paste: Nuvo Glimmer Paste - Moonstone
• Accents: Uniball Signo pen - Silver

So, let's now take a look at the two additions to the Ink & Flip stencil series in full.

Ink & Flip Layering Cobweb...

and Ink & Flip Layering Geometric Christmas Tree...

Aren't these great?  As you can see from the projects shared by the team, they can be used in so many ways.  Be sure to leave some comment love either on the Brand Ambassador blogs or social media.  You can find all the links over at the Uniko blog, here.

Make sure you have commented along the hop as Bev will be giving away 3 Ink & Flip Stencils of the winner's choice. Comments will close for the chance to win at midnight on Sunday 13th October 2024 BST, with the winner announced on Monday 14th October 2024.

The products are available from the Uniko store now, here.  

Thanks for visiting today.

Less is More Challenge #442

Good morning

I'm feeling very chilled this morning as it's the start of my first week off work this year.  Not much planned as we're still in partial lockdown here in the UK but some restrictions have been lifted so I should be able to get out and about, and no alarms are required so that's good enough for me.

Ok, this morning I'm introducing the new Theme challenge over at Less is More which will run for the next fortnight.  Here's the theme...

I decided to give one of my stamp sets it's first inking and chose this cute little crab...

I began by stamping the crab and then inking up another to use as a mask.  With him covered up I then masked a slim strip and inked this up to create the sand of the seabed, then shifted the masking to enable me to then ink up the water, before inking heavier over the top through a sun rays stencil.  I removed all the masks then coloured the crab with Copics.  Next I stamped the sentiment before die cutting the panel with a scalloped rectangle die.

I have been after this set of dies from Create a Smile for sooooo long.  It is so difficult to find rectangular dies which are designed in the correct ratio for UK/European A6 cards.  Most are American brands which are made to work with A2 notecards so you're left with an uneven border.  Create a Smile have really reasonable shipping charges and I received my parcel from Germany within two days!  Certainly worth checking out for those of you who use A6 card bases.

Next I made some dots on the seabed with a Quickie Glue pen before sprinkling with glitter and then used a white gel pen to add some subtle twinkles to the water.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Water Plushies
• Ink: Memento - Tuxedo Black; Versafine - Onyx Black; Distress Ink - Pumice Stone, Tea Dye, Peacock Feathers, Mermaid Lagoon
• Stencil: Clearly Besotted - Sunny Day
• Coloured with Copics: R20, R22, R14
• Die: Create a Smile - Cool Cuts Scalloped Rectangles
• Accents: Nuvo Pure Sheen Glitter - Rose Gold; Sakura White Gelly Roll 08 pen

Thanks so much for visiting today.  I hope you all enjoy your weekend and to those in the UK, happy Bank Holiday!

Christmas Card Multiples - Tone on Tone Poinsettias

Good evening

Do you remember the card I made for the last Less is More challenge, the one with the holly on the green blended background?  You can find it, here.  Well, I loved it so much I made another version with tone on tone poinsettias.

And of course I made more than one...

These were made in exactly the same way as before.  I blended the top corner of the coloured card base then stamped the images over the blended area.  I then stamped and heat embossed the sentiment in gold.  To finish, some tiny Nuvo drops were added to the flower centres.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Pretty Poinsettia, Sing It's Christmas
• Ink: Distress Ink - Festive Berries; Altenew - Velvet
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Metallic Gold Rich
• Accents: Nuvo Crystal Drops - Antique Rose
• Coloured cardstock from stash

Challenge entries:

AAA Cards - CAS Game #18 - Made in Minutes (Option: Christmas)

Dream Valley - Challenge #238 - Christmas

My Time to Craft - Challenge #447 - Monochromatic Christmas

Sweet Stampin' Challenge - Last Minute Christmas

And going back to the green holly card, I loved it so much I made more of them!

Thanks for your visit and I always appreciate your lovely feedback.  I still have more to share so will be back soon to show you.

Less is More Challenge #433

Hi there

Today, I'm back to announce the new challenge at Less is More.  This will be the last challenge of the year in order to give the Design Team a little break throughout December.

And just to cheer you all up, we're finishing with a One Layer Challenge!  But I can assure you it's an easy one, here's the cue card...

And we also have a familiar face joining us for this one.  Our previous leader at Less is More, the lovely Chrissie, was our October challenge winner and is therefore joining us as our Guest Designer.  Please do pop over to take a look at her lovely CAS project and to say hi.  It's so great to have you back, Chrissie!

I have two one layer makes to share with you this time.  The first was a super quick make and I'm actually really loving this one...

I masked off the back of the green card base and then lightly blended some green ink from the upper corner, fading it out.  The holly (from an oldie but goodie stamp set, now retired) was then stamped in dark green ink and the sentiment in VersaMark.  I then heat embossed the sentiment in gold before finally adding some holly berries with Nuvo drops.

I'm still way behind on my Christmas makes this year, so as I love this design so much I think I may make more of these, and some variations of the same layout.  Although this was a one layer card, made from one piece of green card, to stretch my coloured cardstock I'll more than likely make panels to adhere to the fronts of more cost effective white card bases.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Clearly Besotted - Christmas Poinsettia, Sing It's Christmas
• Ink: Distress Ink - Pine Needles; Altenew - Evergreen; VersaMark
• Embossing Powder: Wow! - Metallic Gold Rich
• Accents: Nuvo Crystal Drops - Autumn Red

Challenge entries:

Time Out - Challenge #175 - Quick

We love Chocolate Baroque - November Challenge - Christmas

And while we're on the subject of holly, I wanted to share this picture with you.  I took it a couple of weeks ago when visiting a local Country Park.  I've never seen a holly bush with so many berries, it looks so festive!

Ok, would it even be approaching Christmas if I didn't make a winter scene card using my Card-io stamps?  Here's card number two...

I masked off a central rectangle on my card base and then chose a selection of images from the different scene-builder sets and roughly planned the layout.  Using some paper scraps cut with curves I gently blended the glow and evening sky, the snow banks and shadows where my images would be, and gave the edges a touch of ink to frame the scene.  Then it was just a case of stamping the images in black ink, the church and trees with a mask in place, and the foreground foliage in first and second generation stamping.  To finish, I adhered some fine glitter with a glue pen, which you can see more clearly below.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Card-io - Festive Fun, Festive Scene, Greenery 1, Mini Tall Trees, Dear Deer, Branching Out
• Ink: Versafine - Onyx Black; Versa Color - Marigold, Neptune
• Accents: Cosmic Shimmer Diamond Frost - Frosty Dawn
• Quickie Glue pen

Challenge entries:

Uniko - Challenge #62 - Tis the Season (option: Sparkle)

Thanks so much for taking a look today.  As usual, the challenge linky over at Less is More will remain open for two weeks.  Looking forward to seeing lots of one layer makes in the gallery in the run up to Christmas.

Honey Doo Crafts - January 2020 Release - Selection One

Hi guys

Tonight I'm sharing some samples using Honey Doo Crafts products.