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A Look Back At 2016!

Hey & Happy Boxing Day!

I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day, I think this year has to of been one of the best for us as a family of four 🙂 Seeing the beans faces as they walked into the front room with all the new toys and train set laid out was a picture. Plus, I just loved every minute watching them play together learning their new toys and then pulling daddy down to the floor to help and play. It truly melted my heart.

Here are a couple of photos from Christmas morning, apologies for my bed head!

Me and Ben the bookworm, checking out the new Peppa Pig books!

Josh admiring the train set

Josh getting stuck in with all the toys!

Anyway, back to the title of this blog post… A Look Back At 2016! This year has been an amazing year for myself personally, but it has been a fantastic year for Uniko. We have had 5 fabulous releases, with 16 new clear stamps sets lining the Uniko HQ shelves.
I don’t know about you, but to me this year has almost passed by in a blur! With that in mind I thought it would be nice now the main seasonal festivities are over and as 2016 draws to a close, to take a look back at Uniko’s 2016.
Today, I am looking back at the 2016 February Release. This was Uniko’s 4th Birthday celebration and I launched 4 clear stamp sets, Beautiful Blooms IIII Love TeaSome Bunny and Simply Said. So, I dusted the sets off and got to work with the help of my Christmas present from Santa, the MISTI and made a few new cards to share with you…

First up is a card using Beautiful Blooms III, the perfect set to get my MISTI into action! This set features a lovely modern 4 step layering bloom. I decided to only use 3 of the layers, but with the help of the MISTI it was a breeze and such a quicker process.

I’ve not had the time to sit and ‘play’ with my stamps or join in with challenges, so I was inspired to join in on the current CAS(E) this Sketch! sketch for the layout of my card seen HERE.

I also got my new and neglected Altenew inks out for this card. The sentiment is from Originally Organic, a clear stamp set I will be looking at later in the week, but the sentiments work perfectly with florals, so I couldn’t resit using it and showing you how Uniko clear stamp sets can work together for even more possibilities.

Next I was inspired by THIS photo on Pinterest to use I LOVE Tea clear stamp set and replicate some blue and white fine bone china.

The teacups are stamped in Encore Gold ink and again I used my MISTI for this simple stamped image. I don’t know if this happens to you, but when I stamp using metallic inks onto smooth card the image can slide slightly. So using the MISTI prevented this from happening 🙂

The teacups were decorated using the small Beautiful Blooms III image from the I LOVE Tea clear stamp set and the larger bloom from Beautiful Blooms III. As you can see I love to coordinate clear stamp sets when I am designing them! The sentiment is from Simply Said and as I need a few thank you cards post Christmas that was the reasoning behind my choice.

Lastly, but no means least I inked up Some Bunny clear stamp set. Though this set is oriented towards Spring and Easter, it is also a perfect set for New Baby cards, Children’s Birthdays and more.

I used the current Freshly Made Sketches sketch seen HERE for the layout of my card and I opted to make a New Baby Congratulations card. No harm in having one of these on hand for 2017, I know a few people expecting next year.

The bunny is such a fun and cute image, perfect for those who like to colour. But it also suits some paper piecing, for when you are short on time! The congratulations sentiment is another from Simply Said.

So, that’s a quick look back at the February 2016 Release, I hope I have given you a little inspiration to dust off these sets if you have them 😉 There is amount of 3 of the sets in stock on the website and I have planned some restocks to arrive in January.

I hope you will join me again tomorrow, when I will be taking a look back at the 2016 April Release. Until then, thank you for stopping by.

Hugs

Merry Christmas 2016!

Merry Christmas!

I thought I would pop by to wish you all a VERY Merry Christmas and share one of my last minute CAS Christmas cards I made this week…

The ‘merry’ die cut is Stampin’ Up! and die cut from black and gold metallic paper. The foliage is a mix of stamps from Rustic Wreath and Background Builders: Winter Vines and the sentiment is from Simply Said II.

I hope you all have a wonderful day spent with family, friends and loved ones, whether you celebrate the occasion or not.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

LOVE THE BROWNS!

November 2016 Reveal, Release & GIVEAWAY!

Hey & Welcome to the Uniko November 2016 Reveal, Release & GIVEAWAY!

As we’ve quite a few new followers here, (“Hello & Thank you”) I will explain what’s going on! Here at Uniko I *USUALLY* only release new products every other month. This is for a number of reasons, firstly, being an avid paper crafter myself and knowing the current economic climate I know ‘some’ are on a limited budget when it comes to buying new stash, so this way you’re not tempted to splurge too much every month.

The second reason is that it is just me here at Uniko HQ. I currently run this little business single handedly, designing, blogging, demoing, classes, packing. Alongside that I am a full time mum to 2 year old twin boys. So releasing every other month gives me chance to keep my head above water, well…just about! However, with having a break over the Summer with releases I wanted to squeeze one last release in before the end of the year!

So I am back today, with the help of the awesome design team to introduce you to the three clear stamp sets available to purchase HERE now!

If you missed any of the product introductions, you can catch up HERE and HERE.

Let’s have a look at the three clear stamp sets…

First up is Christmas Pop, this is a FUN geometric styled Christmas Tree building stamp set. Along with the obvious Christmas theme it is also suitable for other occasions and stylised creations.

Christmas Pop £9 / £9.95 Copyright Uniko Ltd 2016 www.uniko.co.uk

Next we have a mini Christmas Sentiment clear stamp set called Most Wonderful. This set contains two full mixed font sentiments and then a multitude of mix font sentiment building stamps.

Most Wonderful £4 / £4.95 Copyright Uniko Ltd 2016 www.uniko.co.uk

Lastly but by no means least we have a fun addition to the ‘Rustic’ collection! This fun mini set has so many possibilities on its own, but pair it with sentiments and images from Rustic Christmas and Background Builders: Vines and Vines Winter Additions for even MORE possibilities!

Rustic Wreath £4 / £4.95 Copyright Uniko Ltd 2016 www.uniko.co.uk

Now I have done all the formal introductions, how about some more cards using these sets to inspire you…

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First up I have used Christmas Pop in a non Christmas way. This set contains some fun geometric triangles and I couldn’t resit using them to create a funky background for a birthday card.

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I used two of the triangles to create my BG and then I coloured sections of the decreasing triangle one using my Stampin’ Up! bright marker collection. I then stamped a sentiment from Simply Said Birthday onto a banner die cut (Project Life) and adhered it to the card using foam adhesive.

Next I decided to go Christmassy, I really need to build up my stash of Christmas cards ready to send out 😉 This time I opted for a reasonably quick CAS card using the outline tree and some Papertrey Ink Bitty Dot Designer Paper.

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After fussy cutting the Christmas Trees, which too the longest! I stacked/layered them one on top of the other leaving a small border to create taller elongated tree. The sentiment is from Most Wonderful and I finished the card off with a few sparkly star embellishments.

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My last card for today uses Rustic Wreath. This time I used the wreath to make a garland along the edge of my card. I embellished the garland with a couple of the smaller stamps from the set to fill it out and add interest.

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I then stamped the ‘deck the halls’ sentiment in Chocolate Chip ink, to tie in with the berry sprig stamped in the garland. To finish the card off I stamped a cluster of the smaller images from the set to embellish the sentiment as it needed a little something to balance the card out.

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That’s all I have to share with you, but we also have an awesome Design Team Blog Hop and GIVEAWAY! Simply hop along the links below and be sure to leave a comment along the way for your chance to WIN the ENTIRE release! A winner will be picked at random from all the comments left along the hop before Midnight Friday 2nd December GMT.

CLICK HERE to see more from Deborah

CLICK HERE to see more from Jane

CLICK HERE to see more from Lindsey

CLICK HERE to see more from Rahmat

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah G

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah P

I really hope you have enjoyed all the wonderful inspiration this week. Thank you for all the lovely comments, they are all appreciated.

Happy hopping & shopping!!

Introducing…Rustic Wreath

YAY!

I’m SO happy that you have come back today, as here at Uniko preparations for the November product release are well underway. We have had all the sneak peeks at the 3 clear stamp sets being released and yesterday HERE the Design Team and I introduced the first two clear stamp sets.

So, without further ado lets get to introducing the last of the products being released! Today we are introducing you to the last clear stamp set being released called Rustic Wreath.

This set is a follow on set to Rustic Christmas, but it also coordinates with images from Background Builders: Vines Winter Additions and Winter Foliage.

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For my first card I was inspired by the current challenge over at Fusion Card Challenge HERE and seen below. I was mainly inspired by the sketch, but I interpreted the little wreath in the photo too, adding a layered sprig created from 4 of the tiny stamps contained in the set.

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Apart from the little bit of fussy cutting, this was a super quick card to make, another to add to the ‘last minute’ makes if I run out of Christmas cards last minute!

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Next I have two more super duper quick CAS cards…

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This first card uses a layout I have used before, which lends itself to an all over stamped pattern. As it is just a small section of the card that is decorated it still has a CAS look to it. All the stamps I have used are from Rustic Wreath.

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This second card literally took 5 minutes to make and is a one layer card. This time I have combined the sentiment from Rustic Wreath with a combination of stamps from Background Builders: Vines Winter Additions.

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Again, I clustered the images, starting with the trio of Poinsettias and the small area is quite busy but as there is still LOADS of white space the card remains CAS.

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Ok, that’s all I have to share with you here, but hop along the Design Team Blog links below for even more inspiration. I know for a fact you won’t be disappointed, the team have created amazing projects showcasing how this set can be used. PLUS don’t forget to comment along the way for a chance to win a random prize!

CLICK HERE to see more from Deborah

CLICK HERE to see more from Jane

CLICK HERE to see more from Lindsey

CLICK HERE to see more from Rahmat

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah G

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah P

I do hope you enjoyed the hop and you have enjoyed seeing some of the possibilities this set has? All the sets will be fully revealed and available to purchase HERE tomorrow Sunday 27th November at 9am GMT. 

The Design Team and I will be back tomorrow with our traditional Reveal, Release and GIVEAWAY Blog Hop!! 

Here’s an outline of the release schedule:

Sneak Peeks 23rd & 24th November, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing 25th & 26th November, here you will see a closer look at the clear stamp sets being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Sunday 27th November 9am BST you will get to see the products in their entirety and purchase them HERE on the website! As usual there will be a Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

As this is our last release of 2016, I will be giving away some random prizes throughout the release countdown. To be in the chance of winning a random prize, be sure to join in on commenting along the Introducing Hops and joining in on the fun via social media such Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Winners of the random prizes will be announced Sunday 27th November at 8am GMT.

Thanks for joining in on the release fun so far and I hope you have enjoyed the inspiration! Please stop by tomorrow and join in on the Release Day FUN 😉

Hugs

Introducing…Christmas Pop and Most Wonderful

YAY!

I’m SO happy that you have stopped by today, as here at Uniko preparations for the November product release are well underway. We have had all the sneak peeks at the 3 clear stamp sets being released and NOW it is time for the Design Team and I to introduce them to you.

Today we are introducing two clear stamp sets called Christmas Pop and Most Wonderful. Both these clear stamp sets can be used individually, but they work perfectly together too 😉

My first card uses just Christmas Pop and the sentiment is from Simply Said Christmas…

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The stamps contained in the set have a multitude of mix and match options. On my card I have used two of the main images from the set. The outline tree and the elongated triangle with horizontal lines. I used my Stampin’ Up! Bright Markers to selectively colour the horizontal lines in a rainbow before stamping and fussy cutting it out.

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The routine tree is stamped onto a white card layer and the fussy cut tree adhered on top using foam adhesive. I added a good smothering of clear Wink Of Stella to the tree and added a selection of Stampin’ Up! enamel dots to finish the card off.

Next I have combined Christmas Pop with one of the complete ready to stamp sentiments from Most Wonderful…

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I chose to use 3 of the main clear stamps from Christmas Pop and 2 of the accent stamps from the set along with a funky Christmas colour scheme I am seeing a lot at the moment. Shades of Teal/Aqua with Lime Green.

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The outline tree stamp I used on my first card is embellished with the 2 accent stamps. It’s hard to see in the photo, but I added a good smothering to the trees on this card too! This time I embellished with pearls from The Hobby House.

Ok, that’s all I have to share with you today, but be sure to hop along the Design Team Blogs (links below) for even more inspiration. I know for a fact you won’t be disappointed, the team have created amazing projects showcasing how this set can be used…

CLICK HERE to see more from Deborah

CLICK HERE to see more from Jane

CLICK HERE to see more from Lindsey

CLICK HERE to see more from Rahmat

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah G

CLICK HERE to see more from Sarah P

I do hope you enjoyed the hop and you have enjoyed seeing some of the possibilities they have? Both the sets will be fully revealed and available to purchase HERE on Sunday 27th November at 9am GMT. 

The Design Team and I will be back tomorrow with the last product introduction and lots more inspiration! 

Here’s an outline of the release schedule:

Sneak Peeks 23rd & 24th November, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing 25th & 26th November, here you will see a closer look at the clear stamp sets being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Sunday 27th November 9am BST you will get to see the products in their entirety and purchase them HERE on the website! As usual there will be a Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

As this is our last release of 2016, I will be giving away some random prizes throughout the release countdown. To be in the chance of winning a random prize, be sure to join in on commenting along the Introducing Hops and joining in on the fun via social media such Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Winners of the random prizes will be announced Sunday 27th November at 8am GMT.

I hope you are intrigued by what you have seen so far and thank you for stopping by.

Hugs

November 2016 Sneak Peeks

Hey & Happy Thanksgiving to All that Celebrate!

Even though we do not celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK, I am truly thankful for each and everyone of you. Without all of YOU Uniko wouldn’t still be going, so THANK YOU and welcome to the last release of 2016 here at Uniko.

This month we have 3 more clear stamp sets to add to the Uniko collection, they have a Christmasy theme to them but 2 of the 3 can be used for other occasions too 🙂

As usual we start the countdown to release with some little sneak peeks, you may have already seen a few peeks at the new sets around the Design Team blogs and social media. However, if you missed the first two ‘official’ peeks you can catch up HERE and now onto the last little peek…

Lastly but by no means least we have a fun addition to the ‘Rustic’ collection! This fun mini set has so many possibilities on its own, but pair it with sentiments and images from Rustic Christmas and Background Builders: Vines and Vines Winter Additions for even MORE possibilities!

Ok, so that’s all the peeks for this release! That means tomorrow we start the real fun and you get to see the first two peeks in action. The Design Team and I have created lots of eye candy to show you some of the possibilities these sets, there will be a DT blog hop and don’t forget the chance to win a random prize 😉

Here’s an outline of the release schedule:

Sneak Peeks 23rd & 24th November, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing 25th & 26th November, here you will see a closer look at the clear stamp sets being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Sunday 27th November 9am BST you will get to see the products in their entirety and purchase them HERE on the website! As usual there will be a Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

As this is our last release of 2016, I will be giving away some random prizes throughout the release countdown. To be in the chance of winning a random prize, be sure to join in on commenting along the Introducing Hops and joining in on the fun via social media such Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Winners of the random prizes will be announced Sunday 27th November at 8am GMT.

I hope you are intrigued by what you have seen so far and thank you for stopping by.

Hugs

November 2016 Sneak Peeks

Hey!

Welcome to the last release of 2016 here at Uniko, we have 3 more clear stamp sets to add to the Uniko collection. They have a Christmasy theme to them but 2 of the 3 can be used for other occasions too 🙂

As usual we start the countdown to release with some little sneak peeks, you may have already seen a few peeks at the new sets around the Design Team blogs and social media. However, here are the ‘official’ first two sneak peeks…

First we have a peek at a fun, modern and geometric Christmas tree building set. This set has SO many possibilities and not all of them are Christmas either. Wait till you see what the design team have created for the introduction of this set AND release day!

Next up is a mini Christmas themed sentiment set. The set might be mini but it has lots of different mix and match sentiment choices along with a couple of sentiments already to stamp and go!

Ok, that’s all the peeks for today, I have one more to share with you all tomorrow. I hope you are intrigued by what you have seen so far and will join me again tomorrow! Plus there is lots more fun during the countdown to release.

Here’s an outline of the release schedule:

Sneak Peeks 23rd & 24th November, these little teasers give you hints at what is in store!

Introducing 25th & 26th November, here you will see a closer look at the clear stamp sets being released with a daily blog hop with the Uniko DT.

Release Day! Sunday 27th November 9am BST you will get to see the products in their entirety and purchase them HERE on the website! As usual there will be a Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

As this is our last release of 2016, I will be giving away some random prizes throughout the release countdown. To be in the chance of winning a random prize, be sure to join in on commenting along the Introducing Hops and joining in on the fun via social media such Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Winners of the random prizes will be announced Sunday 27th November at 8am GMT.

Ok, that’s all the peeks for today, I have one more to share with you all tomorrow. I hope you are intrigued by what you have seen so far and thank you for stopping by.

Hugs

Happy Birthday Mum

Hey!

Here we are at the beginning of another week, I really don’t know where these days and weeks are going! This past weekend seemed to fly by even though I spent another long 24hrs in bed from Friday evening until Saturday evening suffering from yet another stomach sickness bug 🙁 The beans were ill on Thursday with it and luckily we are all over it now, fingers crossed it stays away!

Anyway, I did find a little creative energy last night to create a birthday card. This is for my mum and in remembrance of my mum who passed away suddenly in April 2008.

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My mum would have been 69 years old today and as I have always done I made a card to celebrate her life. She taught me so much and showed me so much love during the time we had together and is truly missed. Like most mums she liked flowers and Chrysanthemums were one of her favourites.

I decided to have a little ‘play’ along with the current challenge over at ColourQ HERE and seen below. The colours were perfect for me to use Pure Florals: Chrysanthemum.

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I kept my card pretty simple, masking and stamping the smallest outline flower and leaf inside a circle die cut onto a white CS base layer, I then over-stamped the sentiment in Chocolate Chip ink. The circle die cut panel is adhered to the card using foam adhesive and I finished the card off with a trio of enamel dots.

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That’s all I have to share right now, but this week is a BUSY BUSY one, with a few clear stamp restocks HERE and we have our November Release, which is also our final release for 2016. The fun begins on Wednesday 23rd November 9am GMT! I do hope you will join us?!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Hugs

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Uniko Challenge #38

Hey!

Welcome to the November Uniko challenge and our last challenge for 2016. We have another fun and easy challenge this month to spark your creativity…

You may or may not be ready for this, but everywhere you look there are BIG signs that Christmas is just around the corner! This month we are giving you a helping hand on getting a fabulous start to your Christmas creativity, whether you choose to make cards, tags or even gifts for the BIG day.

You can use any products/stamps to enter the challenge, but we do LOVE to see you use your Uniko products.
Email entries welcome, just email a photo of your card to bev@uniko.co.uk and I will add it to the Uniko Flickr gallery and link up!

We have another awesome Guest Designer joining us this month, Sue from Sue’s Card Craft. Sue is a regular participant in the Uniko Challenges and was the lucky winner of Challenge #36. Now check out this stunner Sue has created using Pure Florals: Poinsettia…

Isn’t this just amazing? I love white on white and the splash of elegance with the gold is exquisite and simply stunning. Be sure to pop on by to Sue’s blog HERE and leave some love.

As always the Uniko Design Team have some festive inspiration for you too, over HERE on the Uniko blogspot blog. If you look closely you might just see some sneaky peeks of the November Release 😉 Celebrations for the November Release begin next week.

This is what I was inspired to make…

This is my first card of a trio I made for the current CAS Colours & Sketches challenge HERE. I talked about my creative woes HERE. This week is colour week at CC&S and our hostess Patricia has chosen a monochromatic trio of blues.
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When I saw the blues I immediately thought of a white Christmas. The falling snow against a bright blue crisp sky.
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I started by creating a rectangle window mask to apply a trio of Stampin’ Up! inks using my Clarity Stencil Brushes. I then stamped and heat embossed a trio of snowflakes from Stunning Snowflakes. The sentiment is a sneaky peek from a NEW clear stamp set being released next Sunday 😉
Along with a NEW Uniko clear stamp set release next week AND prizes up for grabs over at CC&S this week. As usual we have prizes up for grabs for the Uniko Challenge.

THE PRIZES

  • The DT will choose a winner who will get a £15 gift voucher and opportunity to Guest Design.
  • The DT choose a Top 3 who will each get 100 Loyalty Rewards Points added to their Uniko customer account.
  • We will do a random draw for all those who use A UNIKO stamp. This winner will get 200 Loyalty Reward Points added to their Uniko customer account.

You’ve got plenty of time to play along with this month’s challenge. The deadline for submission is midnight (GMT) on Friday 16th December (7.00pm EDT).

25 Days Of Christmas Tags

Hey and Happy Tuesday!

Uniko is excited and honoured to be taking part AND sponsoring the FABulous 25 Days of Christmas Tags hosted and organised by the lovely Tracey McNeely from In My Creative Opinion.

All the fun began on Nov 1st HERE and there are lots of prizes and inspiration to be had, so be sure to check it out from the beginning.

Anyway, the Uniko DT myself included have made a Christmas tag or two to inspire and share with you, all the links can be found HERE.
This is what I came up with…

I’ve seen a few shaker tags around blog land and Pinterest and so I thought I would challenge myself to have a go! I was also inspired by the current “Less is More” challenge HERE, which is to use Purple and Gold, though as I have made a tag, rather than a cardI am not entering into the challenge. I used the challenge as inspiration.

Anyway, I started by die cutting 3 of my tags from white card. I then die cut a rounded rectangle from one of the tags to create my window. The snowflakes are my favourite trio from Stunning Snowflakes and I stamped them onto the second die cut tag.

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I used a mixture of gold and purple sequins for my shaker and added a gold heat embossed snowflake with a few enamel dots to embellish the outside of the tag. Some satin ribbon and bakers twine finished the tag off nicely.

The third tag I die cut was to create a back to my tag, scoring and adhering only a small section at the top so my tag would stand up! It also gives a flat surface to write the recipients name and message too.

Before I go I have a couple more tags to share, which are SNEAKY sneak peeks at a couple of clear stamp sets being released in a couple of weeks 😉

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Now, I am also offering an extra prize to the Sponsor Prize!

Simply comment on all of the Uniko Design Team blog posts (links above) AND Tracey’s post HERE and I will use random.org to select a winner to receive a November 2016 Release Clear Stamp Set!! You have until midnight GMT 26th November 2016 to leave your comment for the chance to win!

I hope we have inspired you to join in on the fun and I look forward to seeing you in the gallery link up!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs