Posts tagged “Florals”

Feature Friday – Pure Florals Gerbera

Happy Friday!

I thought I would pop by today and share a card I was inspired to make after the restock of Pure Florals Gerbera arrived in the studio earlier this week. It’s taken me a couple of days to finish it in-between work as I am very slow at colouring!

I’ve said it before, but I really do get inspired to use older stash when a restock of them arrives, it’s like getting new stamps all over again.

This clear stamp set was launched way back in July 2012 and even though styles, trends and fonts have changed over the years since, this set is timeless with the realistic style it is drawn in.

With a goal this year to use more colour in my creations, I seem to be stuck on the rainbow colour train right now!

I have so many boxes of coloured card scraps, that I am trying to use as much as I can from them and not break out any more new sheets. So I created a rainbow of coloured strips down the edge of my card. I have to say, it seems like I used a lot here, but it has hardly made a dent!

The Gerber flower is the outline full face flower stamped and embossed with WOW! Opaque Bright White and I have coloured it using Prismacolor Pencils.

I decided to add a sentiment from the newly released Hello Lovely clear stamp set and my usual Nuvo Drops, this time in White Blizzard.

It was a refreshing change to use this older stamp set again & I hope to share more new creations with much loved and previously released Uniko clear stamp sets with you this year.

Thanks for stopping by today.

Crafty Hugs

Introducing… Hello Lovely

Happy Friday & welcome to the last of the January 2020 Release product introductions. Today I have saved the new floral addition to the Uniko clear stamp set line up till last.

So I introduce to you, Hello Lovely.

This on trend floral stamp set features a large spray of peony blooms that takes centre stage on your paper craft projects. You probably recognise the peony bloom from the previously released Pure Florals Peony. I have a little comparison to show you of the two stamp sets together side by side…

As you can see from the photo above there is quite a difference in the size of the blooms.

How about a look at Hello Lovely in action…

On this first card I have stamped them in Lawn Fawn River Rock ink and coloured the blooms with my Prismacolour pencils.

The sentiment is one of the mix and match options contained in the set and I am just loving these fonts.

Next I wanted to create a card to show how you don’t need to be a fan of colouring to use this stamp set.

I’ve not used or touched on the Pantone colour of 2020 much yet, so I was inspired to use Stampin’ Up! Night of Navy. I stamped the peony spray with VersaMark ink and embossed with WOW Metallic Gold Rich Regular embossing powder.

Before fussy cutting the stamped image out, I did add a few lowlights to the blooms using my B99 Agate Copic marker and using the colourless blender to remove any colour that went onto the embossed lines.

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That is all the cards I have to share with you today, I hope you have enjoyed all the product introductions this week?

I will be back tomorrow with the Uniko Brand Ambassadors at 9am GMT for the January 2020 Reveal, Release, Brand Ambassador Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY! I hope you will join us and comment along the hop for your chance to win the ENTIRE release! All the products will be available to purchase in the store HERE too 😉

Thank you so much for stopping by today.

Crafty Hugs

Festive Friday!

Happy Friday!

Here at Uniko HQ I am finally caught up with the fun and chaos of Happy Stampers Festival! I absolutely LOVE doing the show, but it does bring a lot of extra work pre and post show. Especially when I am prepping for the release of NEW products too 😉

Those lucky enough to be able to come to Happy Stampers got the chance to buy the new products (bar one) and if you caught my Instagram stories on Saturday you will have seen a BIG peek at the products!

If you missed both, fear not, I have a whole bunch of festive cards to share with you today using the New Release, which will be available on the website tomorrow – yay! I’m working my little socks off to have it ready to go for 8 or 9pm BST.

In this release there is three new clear stamp sets, two coordinating designer die collections, a stand alone die which does coordinate with a previously released clear stamp set AND there is one new stencil design.

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On this first card I have used Season Of Beauty clear stamp set combined with a sentiment from Festive Sentiments Outlined.

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Season Of Beauty is a large £16 clear stamp set which features this beautiful modern layering poinsettia styled flower, along with wintery foliage and accents, plus a trio of festive sentiments.

Even though I have ‘themed’ the stamp set to be festive, the style of this flower and the foliage can easily be used all year round in all seasons, by changing up the colours. You will see this in more of the samples I have to share tomorrow.

The next clear stamp set being released is Festive Sentiments Outlined. With the popularity of Sentiments Outlined released in July, it was a no brainer to bring out a festive version!

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Unlike Sentiments Outlined, I have designed this stamp set to be a little more flexible in building your own sentiments. Plus, some can be used all year round and not just for your holiday cards. Though some, like the ‘Let it Snow’ I have used on this card come as one sentiment.

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I couldn’t resist doing this all over design again like I did HERE with Sentiments Outlined. It is fairly time consuming, especially the colouring in of the sentiments in black, but I love the look! I used some blue tones to colour the focal ‘Let it Snow’ sentiment and I also added some clear gloss Nuvo Drops to that sentiment. This time I decided to add a little embellishment of some sparkly stamped and die cut snowflakes from BIG & BOLD Snow.

The last of the clear stamps for this release is an addition to the Background Blocks series. I love this series of single stamps as they are great for creating a quick cards for all sorts of occasions.

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Here I introduce you to Background Blocks Scandinavian Christmas. As you can see it is a very similar design to the previously released Stencil Scandinavian Christmas.

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This card was so quick and easily mass producible, if needed! I simply stamped the block in VersaFine Onyx Black ink and heat embossed it with my favourite ‘go to’ embossing powder for festive makes, Stardust! I’ve then adhered the stamped panel to my card base using foam adhesive and added a simple sentiment from Simply Said Blocks Christmas.

Okay, that’s all the stamps for this release, but how about a look at the Designer Dies and Stencil design!

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First up is Designer Dies Winter Foliage Collection to match the previously released and ever popular Winter Foliage clear stamp set. To say I am excited about these dies is an understatement! They have been a long awaited addition and I can’t wait to really sit down and play with them!

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Here I have used all but one of the coordinating dies and just look at this background. This photo really doesn’t show how sparkly this stencil design is. I’ve used the new Stencil Winter Foliage and the last of my Nuvo Moonstone embossing paste. You will recognise quite a few of the images in this stencil design, taken from a mixture of Uniko clear stamp sets, such as Background Builders Vines Winter Additions.

Next I have another set of coordinating designer dies, this time to match another of the BIG & BOLD clear stamps, BIG & BOLD Snow, which leads me onto my next card!

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Here I have reached for some lovely Pool Party card stock and stamped & embossed the Large Scattered Polka Dot Background with WOW! Clear Sparkle embossing powder. I then die cut the Snow and Snow shadow and added lots of glittery loveliness to the die cut snow *huge heart eyes*.

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AND lastly, but by no means least I introduce the last of the designer dies and a beautiful stand alone one at that, Designer Die Sparkling Snowflake.

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Just look at this beauty! Do you recognise the design of the snowflake? Yep, that’s right, it’s my favourite design from the previously released and much loved Stunning Snowflakes. You can see the stamped snowflakes behind this sparkly snowflake and again the sentiment from Festive Sentiments Outlined.

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So that concludes the October Release! What do you think? I’d love to know and which is your favourite, I think mine has to be the Designer Die Sparkling Snowflake, I am a sucker for snowflakes after all 😉

Okay, now I am off to finish adding all these lovely products to the website and now that I have an unexpected Bean free night AND the football is on to keep hubby occupied, they might be up early!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs


Stamp Set Focus – Background Builders Classics

Hey!

I had planned on writing this blog post last night, but the motherhood exhaustion hit post Bean bedtime and I just chilled instead – sorry!

Anyway, this is one of those types of post that I keep meaning to do more of and then life/other work gets in the way. I had also envisioned I would use more of the stamps from the clear stamp set I am focusing on, but I kinda got hooked on just one of the stamps! Please tell me it’s not just me that has these problems 😉

For my first ‘Stamp Set Focus’, I wanted to use the recently released Background Builders Classics. I felt it needed a little more inky love.

For my first two cards I used the same layout (inspired by Jane’s Uniko DT post HERE). I used the horizontal stripe stamp from the set more as an accent, rather than to build a background too.

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For this first card I dusted off some older clear stamp sets. The large bold HAPPY is from All Occasion Sentiments #2 and it is so much fun to stamp it in a rainbow of colours! The flowers are from Flower Power #7 and the smaller script birthday is from Simply Said Birthday. I added a few Nuvo Drops to finish of my design.

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As I still had the horizontal stripe stamp positioned in my MISTI, I stamped up another to create my next card. This time combining it with a sentiment from the recently released Sentiments Outlined and accented with some blooms from Beautiful Blooms II.

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I love how quick this card was to make, just a little bit of simple stamping and masking for the blooms and a little dimension for the stamped panel.

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Next I switched up the orientation of my card and used another of my favourite techniques and paired the stamp with some other ‘older’ Uniko stamps.

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Using a stamping tool means your stamp is always in the same place for repeated stamping. This is handy for this technique, where I have used water  based markers to colour my stamp. I have done this technique quite a few times, like HERE.

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I used Stampin’ Up! markers in Calypso Coral, Lucky Limeade and Costal Cabana for a lovely tropical palette to go with images from Paradise and Paradise Leaves.

Lastly, I wanted to ‘build’ a background and this is the result…

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Having created a bold background I wanted to showcase it in a way not to take too much focus from it and it also needed a pop of colour.

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I used Stampin’ Up! dies to create the HAPPY, which I die cut each letter 3 times and adhered them together with glue. I wanted them to have some dimension but not too much to make the card bulky. Again I used the partially stamped sentiment, script birthday from Simply Said Birthday.

I hope I have inspired you a little and given you some new ideas and techniques to try out. I sure had fun using this one stamp!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs


Uniko Challenge #54 – Flowers with an optional twist of Die Cuts

Hey!

Welcome to the July / August 2019 Uniko Challenge.

We’ve another lovely favourite theme of flowers for this new challenge, but if you’d like to challenge yourself a bit more then go with our twist of using die cuts.

We’re really delighted to have Amy as our Guest Designer for this challenge. Just look at this beautiful layered die cut floral. Such happy and pretty colours too. Be sure to hop on over to Amy’s blog for more details and leave a lovely comment.

This is such a wonderful time of year in the Northern Hemisphere to be inspired by the bounty of florals in the Summer gardens. I love flowers and I was excited to ink some older Uniko flowers that haven’t seen much ink recently and I also wanted to go with the ‘twist’ of the challenge too!

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As you can see I chose to ink up Flower Power #2 and use the coordinating dies. This is one of my favourite flowers from the Flower Power series to cluster in colourful blooms.

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I paired the flowers with leaves from Natures Treasures and also a NEW sentiment from the upcoming July 2019 Release 😉 You will see more of this sentiment on Monday on the blogs!

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I’ve used Gloss White Nuvo Drops for the flower centres and I have also added White Blizzard Nuvo Drops inside the lines of the sentiment.

The Uniko DT have also been busy and have created some awesome flowery cards to inspire you to join in and play along, so be sure to pop on by their blogs.

Are you ready to play?

Well, just in case you need some more incentive to play along with the challenge here are the details of the prizes.

  

THE PRIZES

  • Main Winner Chosen By the DT – £25 eGift Certificate
  • Random Twist Winner – £5 In Stock Clear Stamp Set of Winners Choosing
  • Random Uniko Stamps Winner – £5 In Stock Clear Stamp Set of Winners Choosing
  • Top 3 Chosen By DT – 150 Loyalty Reward Points
  •  

You’ve got plenty of time to play along with this challenge. 

The deadline for submission is midnight (GMT) on Friday 23rd August 2019 (7.00pm EDT).

Hugs,

 


Uniko Sponsors “Less is More”

Happy Weekend!

I hope your weekend has begun well and you have some creative time planned 🙂 If you need a little inspiration, why not join in on the new challenge over at “Less is More”.

This fortnight I am super happy to let you know that Uniko is the sponsor for the challenge. You could win an in stock clear stamp set (any value) from the Uniko website – how good does that sound?

The challenge this fortnight is a colour challenge seen HERE and below. A lovely soft colour palette of Duck Egg Blue, Plum & White.

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And here’s how I used the colours…

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For my card I used the Large Background French Script. In hindsight, even though I’ve stamped it in Altenew Sea Glass ink (my closest match to a Duck Egg Blue), which is a really light and soft blue, I wished I hadn’t inked the stamp for a complete solid stamp as overall my card isn’t as ‘CAS’ as I would have liked!

To keep the design more ‘CAS’ with more open white space I should have applied the ink in a more haphazard way, to achieve a rustic/faded look.

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For the floral/foliage silhouette I used the main image from Just Because clear stamp set. I used Altenew Deep Iris for the plum colour in the challenge. I’ve stamped the image 3 times, varying the angle and how much of the stamp would be visible to create a panel of the design along the left hand side.

My chosen sentiment is With Sympathy from Simply Said Blocks II, as sadly I need a few sympathy cards to send out. The stamps I have used and the colour palette works beautifully for this theme of card.

Okay, that’s all I have to share with you just now. Myself & the Uniko DT will be back later this morning for this months Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

Until then, thanks for stopping by & I look forward to seeing you in the LIM Challenge Gallery!

Hugs


Woohoo – Mid Century Modern Restocks!

Happy Hump Day!

My hump day has added cheer today, with some Mid Century Modern restocks that arrived in the studio late yesterday afternoon! So today I managed to squeeze in a little creative time and inked up two of my favourites from the April/May 2019 Release 😉

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Doesn’t it feel good to finally execute an idea you’ve had stored up in your head?! I’ve had this card layout idea using Mid Century Modern Florals for ages! I’ve used a trio of Altenew pink inks for the hash circle (Baby Pink, Fuchsia and Magenta). I’ve also used a trio of Altenew grey inks for the scalloped outline to the flowers (Grey Denim, Cloudy Night and Charcoal Suit).

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I’ve used one of the sentiments from Birthday Wishes and some Liquid Mercury Nuvo Drops to embellish the design – just still in LOVE with Nuvo Drops!

Next I HAD to ink up Background Blocks Mid Century Modern

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I still can’t quite believe how popular this stamp has been since I released it last month! If you were waiting for it to come back in stock before you ordered it, be quick as there are only a few left! I will be ordering more, but it’s going to be another couple of weeks before I get them.

Okay, for this card I was inspired by this weeks colours over at CAS Colours & Sketches seen HERE and below. Such yummy soft pastels and something a little more feminine for this stamp.

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I’ve used Altenew Volcano Lake instead of Pool Party, which the background is stamped in. I then used Gery Denim for the burst stamp from Mid Century Modern Florals or Kindness Blooms! I’ve trimmed the stamped panel on an angle and adhered it to my card base using foam adhesive.

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The HAPPY is the MFT Happy Birthday die and I have die cut it from a different white card to my card base, making it stand out a little more. The Birthday sentiment is from Simply Said Blocks and stamped in Altenew Baby Pink for Powder Pink. I’ve then finished the design with some Dandelion Yellow Nuvo Drops for the challenge third colour.

That’s all I had time to make today, hoping to find LOTS of creative time tomorrow as I am Bean free! I best get to packing a couple more orders tonight so I can 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs


Birthday Doodle Flowers

Happy Weekend!

This week I’ve been playing with more of the Uniko Background Blocks clear stamps and this time I was inspired to use Background Blocks Doodle Flower. If you missed my earlier Background Blocks inspiration post, you can see it HERE.

Anyway, back to todays card…

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As you can see I didn’t use the complete background! This is such a fun and versatile stamp, in that you can use it as a background, but you can also use the doodle flower elements by themselves.

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There are a couple of ways you could achieve this. Firstly, you could do what I did for my card and stamp the background block in Catherine Pooler Midnight ink, colour the flowers you want to use with Copic Markers & fussy cut them out.

Or, if you aren’t a fan of fussy cutting small flowers, you could mask off all but the flower you want, stamp & repeat the process to achieve the desired look.

I’ve paired the flowers with a sentiment from Birthday Sentiments clear stamp set & I added my favourite Dandelion Yellow Nuvo Drops to the flower centres and accents.

The layout of my card is from this weeks CAS Colours & Sketches HERE and seen below. It was so much fun to sit & play with my supplies and to join in on a challenge, it’s been a while 😉

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As I’ve created a birthday card & AAA Cards is celebrating their 5th Birthday over HERE, I’m going to join in on their challenge too!

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Don’t forget Uniko is one of the AAA Cards Birthday Sponsors & there is LOTS of ways to win!

Okay, that’s all I have to share with you today. I am off to the Spa with a couple of friends for the day / night 🙂 Another 40th Birthday treat! I hope you all have a wonderful day & have something nice planned too.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

Hugs


FUN Background Blocks Inspiration

Hey & Happy Monday!

I hope your week has started well. Like those in the USA, we have a holiday Monday here in the UK and typically it has been a pretty wet and windy day. Though perfect for lazy days snuggling on the sofa watching Pixar movies! It’s still quite a novelty here as The Beans are now interested and have the concentration to watch a movie that isn’t Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Toy Story 3 or Cars!

Anyway, I’m here this evening to share a trio of cards I have made recently using Background Blocks and the fun you can have with them and also how they can be used to make quick clean and simple cards.

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First I have this Zentangle inspired card using Background Blocks Wonky Stripes. Okay, so this card isn’t my usual CAS style as it has lots of added detail, but it did only use minimal supplies.

My card was inspired by one that popped up on my Instagram feed a while ago HERE. Amber has used a stencil & added Zentangle designs in-between the ink blended stripes.

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For this card I stamped the Background Blocks Wonky Stripes in VersaFine Onyx Black ink. After the ink was dry I used a black fine line pen to add Zentagle patterns inside each of the stripes. It seemed fitting to add a Birthday Sentiment from Simply Said Blocks as Uniko is celebrating with & sponsoring this fortnights challenge over HERE at AAA Cards.

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AAA Cards is celebrating their 5th Birthday & have a FUN birthday challenge, along with LOTS of other ways to win prizes from sponsors, including Uniko 🙂

For my next card I was inspired to use Background Blocks Scattered Polka Dots

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Like all of the background blocks, the scattered polka dots is a fun design to stamp in an ombre effect. Here I have used my recent purchase of the Altenew Gentleman’s Grey collection of inks. I used my MISTI stamping tool and simply inked up each colour starting from the top with the lightest shade, down to the bottom with the darkest shade.

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I decided to embellish the polka dot background with the largest bloom from Kindess Blooms stamped, coloured with Copic markers & fussy cut. I adhered it to my card base using foam adhesive and finished the card with the thank you sentiment from Simply Said Blocks II and some Liquid Mercury Nuvo Drops.

Lastly, I decided to give Background Blocks Horizontal Stripe some inky love…

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For this card I gave my newly acquired Catherine Pooler inks a test run! I used Suede Shoes for the horizontal stripes and Coral Cabana and Samba for the Wonderful Day flowers. The leaves, also from Wonderful Day are stamped in Grass Skirt.

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I’ve used WOW Opaque White EP for the flower details and some Gloss White Nuvo drops for the flower centres. The sentiment is also from Wonderful Day stamped in VersaFine Onyx Black.

I hope these cards have given you some inspiration as to how to use the Background Block stamps 🙂 I’d love to see what you create!

That’s all from me today, but I hope to find some creative time for more projects I have in my head that need to make it onto a card 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs


April / May 2019 Reveal, Design Team Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY!

Hey!

Finally the day has arrived and the April / May 2019 Reveal, Blog Hop & GIVEAWAY is here! The Release will be available to purchase HERE at a NEW time of 9pm GMT tonight.

Hopefully you have hopped on over from HERE, where I have formally introduced the 4 new Clear Stamp Set designs, 2 coordinating Designer Die collections AND 1 Stencil Design being released.

I’ve made a couple more cards using the new products, not as many as I had hoped to make, but I do feel I am getting back into the creative groove again…

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My first card uses the Designer Dies English Country Garden Butterflies. I’ve been wanting to pair the butterfly with the Large French Script Background for ages and it seemed the perfect time now I had the dies to match. They give such a love clean cut edge compared to fussy cutting!

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I still have a thing for shades of grey! Hence my colour scheme, though I did add in a little hint of aqua for the butterfly body and some Nuvo Drop detail. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Birthday Sentiments, which is now back in stock.

My last card today was inspired by a couple of things. Firstly the Double Challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches seen HERE and below.

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And secondly by Jenny’s card HERE our Guest Designer for this release. I just loved how Jenny thought to cut up the Background Block Mid Century Modern II. So I did the same, this time using it for the top and bottom border in the sketch.

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I simply stamped the Background Block Mid Century Modern II in black and coloured the outline sections with the closest colours to the challenge as I had. I then got to fussy cutting the sections out and adhered them to my card base using some new Gina K Connect Glue – LOVE! Thanks for the recommendation Lynda 😉

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The sentiment is another from Birthday Sentiments and I’ve accented it with a flower from Mid Century Modern Florals and some of my favourite Gloss White Nuvo Drops!

That’s all from me today, but as usual we have our traditional Design Team Blog Hop & Giveaway. To be in the chance of winning The ENTIRE April / May 2019 Release! (4 clear stamp sets, 2 previously released clear stamp sets, 2 co-ordinating designer die collections & 1 stencil design).

Simply comment along the blog hop, it’s as easy as that! You have until Midnight Sunday 12th May 2019. Winner will be announced a few days after.

Happy Hopping!

Hugs