Uniko 10th Birthday Celebrations - Featuring Special Guest Keren Baker

 

 

Hello & Happy Wednesday!

Along with so many wonderfully talented Brand Ambassadors over 10 years, Uniko has been honoured to have so many creative Guest Designers, including todays special guest, Keren Baker.

Keren has not only been a guest, helping to introduce our July 2019 release, but has also showcased Uniko products in print for a number of magazines. 

Here's the first card that Keren chose to CASE, it is one of the cards she made during the July 2019 introductions using Originally Organic Additions.

This card still amazes me to this day, I love how creative Keren was in selecting one of the smaller stamps from the set to create this floral bough and framing the sentiment. So much beautiful detail and fussy cutting as the Designer Dies didn't launch at the same time! You can read more about this card HERE.

And here is how this card looks with a awesome geometric twist using Background Builders Happy Hexagons. 

Again, so much wonderful detail and fussy cutting. I love the layers and how Keren has created triangles from one of the large hexagon stamps.

It has been a delight to have Keren join us for this special occasion. Don't forget if you've been inspired by these cards to create your own you can add it to our Linky Party.

Huge thanks for dropping by today. Check back tomorrow for another amazing prize giveway!!!

Crafty Hugs

Mixed Media Monday - Alumni Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe

 Hello & Happy Monday! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have our Alumni Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe joining us again. If you missed Lindsey's first projects, be sure to hop on over HERE.

Lindsey Bowe

Blog / Instagram / Pinterest

Hello everyone, I am delighted to be back today to share a Journal Page with you.

On watercolour paper (requisite sorry - ordinary card will warp!) I painted several squares, letting the colours run a little, added some paint splatters & sprinkled over table salt in a couple of areas.

To finish the project off, I added some machine stitching and iridescent sequins. For my focal point, I chose a couple of blooms from the « Beautiful » stamp set.  These were stamped on tissue paper stuck onto card to make them more manageable.  

I shaded around the bottom RHS of the flowers with a soft graphite pencil to make them more grounded - no need to shade around the whole shape just think of where 5 is on a clock face!  

If you want a hint with your final composition, remember the rule of thirds and triangle placement. The flowers were placed in the bottom RHS third where the eye is automatically drawn to and my sequins were placed in a triangle to encourage the eye to move around the finished piece.  

Try positioning your pieces in different areas on a project & hopefully you’ll see what I mean. You need to entice the eyes to keep moving around your project and you can manipulate this with strategic placement of your focal piece and embellishments!  

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Lindsey for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Mixed Media Monday - Guest Brand Ambassador Sally Holmes

 Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have our guest Sally Holmes joining us again. If you missed Sally's first projects, be sure to hop on over HERE.

Sally

Blog / Instagram 

Hello Everyone, today I have a couple of mixed media projects to share with you using Uniko's Background Builders: Seeing Stars and Reach For the Stars clear stamp sets and Stencil Wonky Stripes.

Journal page

For the background I used distress oxide sprays in Wild Honey, Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet. I used the same colours in oxide inks for stencilling down each edge of the page. I used the same inks and some Versafine Clair Twilight ink to stamp the stars and borders. I stamped the words and three more stars onto snippets of black card and embossed with fine detail white embossing powder and gold embossing powder. I stuck these on with matte medium. Finally, I splattered a small amount of water and a little of each spray across the whole page.

Card

For the background I sprayed a piece of mixed media paper (180gsm) with Distress oxide sprays in Peacock Feathers and Brushed corduroy. When this was dry, I stamped the star strings in Versafine Clair Acorn. 

I mixed about a teaspoonful of Pretty Gets Gritty Clear Get Crackled gel with a few shakes of Mars Pretty Gets Gritty explosion powder. I applied it with a palette knife through the stencil and left it to dry.

I stamped and embossed the sentiment into the space and the star onto a scrap of card sprayed with the oxide sprays. I used Versamark ink and copper embossing powder. Finally, I added a few extra stars in the Acorn ink and cut out and stuck on the star with some 3d glue.

I hope you have enjoyed my projects today? I look forward to sharing more with you later this month. 

Sally

Star Struck! 

I am so inspired to have a go at a journal page, it is something I've never done myself. Such beautiful colours and placements of images & stencils. So many new ways to use Uniko products.

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Sally for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Mixed Media Monday - Guest Brand Ambassador Camilla

  Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and I am delighted to have another guest joining us please give a warm Uniko welcome Camilla Nordqvist. 

Camilla has been a customer of Uniko since opening day. How do I remember this? Well, Camilla was the first customer to order all those years ago and as a small business owner, it's kinda one of those things you never forget! 

With age my short term memory might be a little wooly here and there, but as each order that comes in gives me this warm fussy feeling and I do a little happy dance inside, names of customers (usually) stick with me. 

Anyway, enough of my rambling, let me hand you over to Camilla...

Hello,

A few weeks ago Beverley kindly asked if I wanted to create a mixed media project for Uniko. So I decided to pull some prints from my gel printing plate and make some colourful tags. 

The gel plate is a super versatile tool that you can use with different kinds of mediums and tools. You don’t even need special tools, some of my favourite things to use are bubble wrap, cardboard and different caps/lids. If you’ve never worked with the printing plate, it’s very addictive and an afternoon passes quickly when you’re building up texture, playing with different techniques and colours. I recommend to go to YouTube and let yourself be inspired by the many talented artists there.

I normally use acrylic paints on my gel plate, but I’ve recently started playing a lot with alcohol inks. Some of you might have a gel plate in your stash but don’t want to buy new inks, but maybe you have refillers for your alcohol markers? They work very well on the gel plate. For my tags today, I have only used Copic refillers. They work the same as alcohol inks. 

Another great thing with the gel plate is that you don’t need yupo paper to pull a print. You just add a layer of acrylic paint on top of the alcohol inks; this will ‘lift’ the alcohol inks off the plate and transfer them to your choice of paper. I use a smooth, thick white paper (250 g/m2) to pull my prints.

Add your colours to the gel plate. Use a brayer to spread them a bit or use a straw to blow them around (don’t suck in!). Let dry. If you want, you can create your own pattern with stamps (the tags with arrows, flowers, leaves and paisley patterns were all stamped directly on the gel plate). Let dry. Then apply a thin layer of acrylic paint with the brayer and pull your print.

My final tag is a bonus tag, made from all the colourful scraps that were on my desk. Shame to throw them away! The flower is made with a Tim Holtz die.

Thank you Beverley, it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to create a mixed media project for you!

Uniko Clear Stamps Used:

Accent Essentials: Arrows (sadly retired)
Explosion!
Explosion! Additions!
Flower Power #7
Marvellous Mehndi
Paradise – Leaves
Simply Said Birthday (sadly retired)

WOW! 

I for sure am inspired. Mainly I want to go and get me a gel plate - haha! As would you believe I don't own one. I am really enjoying seeing Uniko clear stamps used in different ways and with different media. It's also been a delight to see some loved but sadly retired clear stamps still being inked up.

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Camilla for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Mixed Media Monday - Alumni Guest Brand Ambassador Lindsey Bowe

  Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am back with another Mixed Media Monday and today I have another guest joining us who is also a Uniko Brand Ambassador Alumni.  Please give a warm Uniko welcome to Lindsey Bowe.

Lindsey Bowe

Blog / Instagram / Pinterest

Hello Everyone, Lindsey here and it's good to be back at Uniko. Today I have some watercolour, stamping & stitching mixed media projects to share with you.

And here is how I made them. I started by painting random stripes of harmonious watercolours on some straightforward copier paper. I often paint a couple of shapes at the same time (you never know if they’ll come in handy later on 😊)

I then stamped on top of the strips with the Background Blocks Mid Century Modern and Background Blocks Mid Century Modern II, using similar ink colours to the watercolours.  As you can see my stamping wasn’t perfect but usually with mixed media projects you end up adding lots of different media as you progress,  so I wasn’t overly worried!

I tore the strips apart (again, there’s no need for precision!) and decided on those that I liked the look of best & glued them to a piece of A6 card. 

Then it’s a case of starting to tie everything into one harmonious whole 😊. I do love using machine stitching for this. Paint splatters are also good, as is doodling with paint pens or felt tips. I’m also rather fond of gold or silver acrylic paint!  I’ve used a small lid here to stamp & link the strips together. 

To give the whole piece a final focus I added a stamped flower using the Mid Century Modern Florals clear stamp set, sequins, a spot of glitter and one of the aforementioned little hearts!  The sentiment is from the Pure Florals Peony clear stamp set. 

If you’ve never dabbled with mixed media before I wholeheartedly recommend it. It can be absorbing and lots of fun. It can also help free up your style.  You really don’t need to splurge on lots of new materials (unless you get the bug that is!). If you’ve got children you can probably find crayons, felt tips, poster paints & glitter lurking somewhere in your house.  I’ve even been known to use emulsion paint before!  It’s just a case of starting with some sort of colour on paper and taking it from there, one different sort of media after another. If you don’t like something, just collage another piece of paper on top or paint over it. 

Have fun!

WOW! Are you picking your jaw up off the floor like I am right now? 

I love the soft subtle colours Lindsey has used for her projects today. AND what I especially LOVE is how Lindsey has shown that Mixed Media doesn't have to be complicated and you don't need a lot of specialist supplies.

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Lindsey for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Mixed Media Monday - Guest Brand Ambassador Trish Latimer

 Happy Monday & Shiny New Week! 

Today I am bring a new feature to the blog and a theme that from an Instagram poll not long ago revealed that many of you would like to see more of, Mixed Media. As you know I lean towards clean & simple, but it is a style I dabble in now and then. More so when I was lucky enough to have a feature in Craft Stamper magazine. This of which leads me nicely to introducing our Guest Brand Ambassador to kick off this feature. Please give a warm Uniko welcome to Trish Latimer.

I'm Trish Latimer, full time mixed media artist. Former editor of Craft Stamper, current addict of all things painty! You can usually find me in my studio covered in paint, glue and very occasionally glitter too......

www.instagram.com/trishlatimerart

For this art panel, I scraped some texture paste through the Wonky Stripes Stencil and let it dry. Creating the rainbow is great fun, although a little messy! I used acrylic inks, but paint will work too. Simply add a small dot of colour, then spray with water. The colour will move around, giving a washed out look. The important thing to remember is to make sure each colour is dry before adding the next, otherwise you'll end up with a muddy mess. 

Once the rainbow was done, I added splats of white paint and the stamped words. This panel was glued to a wooden box frame, but of course this effect can be done as a flatter project, in an art journal or as a greetings card front.

Another art panel, but a totally different look! This one is a much more pastel affair. I painted pieces of card in my chosen colour scheme (of course you can use ready coloured card!) and then white embossed lots of designs all over them. I drew a scallop shaped template, and used this to cut down my card. Each identical scallop nesting underneath the next. 

I used the diamond shaped stamps from Background Builders Delightful Diamonds as the flower 'petals', white embossing those, cutting them put and then gluing them together. The flower stem was created by wrapping white cord around a bamboo skewer, then trimming to size. 

Again, I put this panel onto a wooden box frame for display, but the idea is another than can be easily transferred to cards!

WOW! Are you picking your jaw up off the floor like I am right now? 

Trish had no idea what products I was sending and has created two fabulous mixed media projects with completely different feels and I am inspired by them both. I am loving the rainbow colours and dimension of the first card and texture paste is something I always neglect to use but the results like Trish has achieved is amazing. Then we have the soft pastel shades with beautiful white embossing and creative flower making on the second. 

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Trish for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Mini Uniko Logo Stencil - Guest Designer Tara Cardwell

 Happy Saturday! 

Did you see that the Mini Uniko Logo Stencil that was the FREE gift for our 9th Birthday celebrations is NOW available to purchase on the website HERE.

Today I have a Guest Designer joining us with some inspiration using this mini stencil. Please give a warm welcome to Tara Cardwell one of the lovely owners of my favourite craft stores, Seven Hills Crafts! 

Hello Everyone, Tara here. I've been playing with the new floral stencil today but when I saw it, I saw not a flower, but a butterfly - and here's how I did it.

I die cut a circle from cream card and taped the stencil in place and used a detail blending tool to ink in shades of brown, red, orange and yellow to give a sort of "red admiral" feel.

Once I was happy with my first stencil shading, I took it off, cleaned it, flipped it over to get a mirror image and inked again with the same colours.   That left me with the following "wings" and a couple of brown bits in the middle.   I used the brown bits to help me pencil draw a thorax to connect the wings.  I then just used a couple of markers to shade the thorax.   I drew the antenae with a brown fine liner but a brown pencil would work too.

To give more butterfly like detail I added a few dots of stickles in red and crystal.  

I mounted the circle onto a square kraft base card and used more crystal stickles to add a flight trail and then stamped a sentiment either side of the trail using stamps from Big & Bold Happy to finish the card.

Hope that gives you some ideas how to stretch yours stash beyond the original design!

I hope you have enjoyed todays feature and a big THANK YOU to Tara for inspiring us all. 

Crafty Hugs

 

Happy Graffiti Explosion - Uniko Guest Ambassador Tara Cardwell

Happy Weekend! 

I’m thrilled to be guesting for Uniko today and couldn’t wait to get one of my favourite of their stamps all inky – the Background Blocks Graffiti Texture is such a great way to add maximum impact for minimum effort!

For my first card I started with a white base card and stamped the graffiti background twice underneath each other with the card in portrait orientation in Speckled Egg Distress Oxide ink rotating the stamp for the second imprint so the swirls form an S shape in the middle.

Next, I turned the stamp and inked it up again this time in Peacock Feathers Oxide and over stamped the speckled egg in the top right corner.  This fills 75% of the card but to cover it completely I masked off the edges and stamped the image another 3 times until the whole area was complete.   Lovely textured background complete.

For the focal image I used the Explosion! and Explosions Additions sets stamping onto teal card and embossing with copper powder (hero arts) before fussy cutting the explosion.   Fun and funky way to tell a guy he’s awesome!

For the second card I wanted to take the background one step further and to make it more masculine by going for a camo feel.  I did this by starting with a sand base card and stamped in Versafine Clair Shady Lane and Verdant greens following the same pattern as the blue version.   

Once that was full dry (I cheated it with a heat gun)  I masked off the edges and then stamped across the two corners with the same stamp in versamark  and added gold embossing powder.  To get a rough feel I rubbed off the straight edges in the middle of the card so the embossing looked more rustic before heating it.   

The focal point this time came from the Big and Bold Happy stamp and die bundle with the die cut happy and a stamped and embossed birthday sentiment.   I do find it awkward to find non-twee images for boy cards and these graphic styles from Uniko really hit the mark!

Thanks for reading – happy crafting

Tara