Friends of Unity September Blog Hop

 Wow… approaching my fav season! Just love autumn decorations, traditional foods, the seasonal color palette and holidays! Couldn’t wait to start delving into fall crafting efforts, so this month’s Friends of Unity theme served as a perfect jumpstart. It was definitely time to get out all my fall supplies!

I love making my own decorations when I get a chance. A few times I’ve tried using 3 dimensional wood pieces I’ve picked up from local stores. With those pieces I ended up using a bunch of vendor products to achieve my aim. There’s pics and videos in my blog from a couple years ago of Christmas and Winter decor I made for friends and family. 

Well… just so happened, when thinking about our theme for this month, I remembered I bought a 6” x 6.5” x 1” standing wooden pumpkin a year ago that I could decorate. This was a real challenge for me as I had to find in my Unity stash, items I could use to create both a Halloween side and a Fall side of the pumpkin. 

So, after finding a leftover checked napkin with sunflowers, I started looking for Unity sunflower images I own, that I could pair with it. (For some reason, sunflowers remind me of fall.) I needed a sunflower stamped image that would pair with the napkin’s sunflowers and fit the size of the pumpkin. I finally found it in Unity’s All Kinds of Holiday Kit. 

To make sure the napkin image showed up well, I first painted one side of the pumpkin with white acrylic paint and let it dry. I then used collage medium to decoupage the napkin on, after first removing all but the top layer of the napkin.

Then I decoupaged another sunflower from the napkin onto a heavyweight cardstock I could fussy cut up once dried and use as ephemera. I used watercolors, acrylics and pens to color in the sunflower image I had stamped onto watercolor paper. I ended up also adding glossy accents on top of the petals. I fussy cut it out and added cardboard pieces behind it to make it sturdy.

Then, I went searching through my stash and found Prima chipboard pieces, a Love puffy piece, 3 somewhat matching white flowers, leaf images I could fussy cut out, and a felt leaf. I tried to stick to a yellow gold and black/white theme here. After figuring out a design that would work, I glued and hot gun glued all the pieces to the decoupaged napkin. I finally decided on a black ribbon and found a cute BoBunny chipboard button I could top it with. I had to acrylic paint the bright yellow heart on it to gold to match the color theme. The challenge is all this was finding the appropriate sized pieces, colors and theming that blend somewhat harmoniously. Hopefully, I achieved that with this side of the pumpkin.

Overall, I think it turned out pretty cute. I love the addition of the Unity sunflower image. I can’t wait to pair it with a sunflower in a vase and perhaps a candle.

Now on to the “dark side”… 🤣    ….👻🎃🏚️! This was more of a challenge for me. I couldn’t find, in my stash, a Halloween kit that perfectly suited the size of the pumpkin. Instead, from Unity, I found these papers, Hocus Pocus Palette, and this set of ephemera, White - Chronicles of a Ghost, I had picked up awhile ago. I just loved the haunted house image on the papers and I started by fussy cutting that out and then playing around with ideas, adding other fussy cut out images. Before I did anything else, I painted the outside edge of the pumpkin black. Then, I knew I had to find a suitable grungy, color matching, background and finally found an orange sheet (maybe Tim Holtz) paper that matched. I traced around the pumpkin, cut it out and adhered it to the pumpkin.

Here’s the work in process… with a few options… some deselected!

So, with some fussy cut pumpkins and branches from the paper pack, and a ghostly image and sentiment from the ephemera pack, I started my design layout. I also searched through my stash and found a little scroll piece from another vendor I could use to “frame” the sentiment at the top. I embossed it with cream colored powder and added shadows with pen. Not knowing how I’d treat the bottom part, I used a background stamp from another Unity kit to “ground” the house. I also found a black mesh I could also use to cover that part.

With both sides of the pumpkin, I had to create my own sturdy “chipboard like” pieces of the Unity stamped or printed images. As with the sunflower before, I cut down to size some cardboard recycled material to back the paper images and glued them to the back, like this…

I ended up cutting more foliage images out of the paper to use as filler. After creating the final design, I then started adhering and or hot glue gunning the pieces on. I used the gun on the mesh as well.

For more filler, I had a little leaf die I used on all sorts of coordinating paper scraps. I also found some chipboard gravestones in my stash that I could add. (Must admit, I love Disney’s Haunted House ride and may have been a little inspired by it!). To complete this side. I added shiny orangish dots, and a muted gold ribbon backed with a mesh copper ribbon. I also embossed black bats that I fussy cut out using Unity’s Thanks in All the Things Kit. Here’s the finished very busy Halloween side… maybe a little too busy, but I like it. 

I have a lot of Halloween decor (some homemade of course) that I can match this side to! Can’t wait to start decorating! To finish off the standing pumpkin, I used my hot glue gun again to add matching copper mesh and cream colored ribbons to the connecting side!

With both sides of the standing pumpkin decorated, I can easily change the decor now between Halloween and Fall at a whim by turning it around. 

Here’s a couple decorating ideas… quickly put together (just with what I remembered I had on hand) …

Well… this was a lot of work and challenging … but also a lot of fun. Let me know if you’ve made any decor yourself. I’d be interested in hearing about it. Hope you got some ideas from this.

Remember to comment along on the hop for a chance at winning some Unity goodies. I will be doing a giveaway package this month, so be sure to leave your name with your comment and check back next month to see if you won it. 

I also want to congratulate:

Meg Crawford

as my randomly picked winner from last month’s hop!

Now, on to the rest of the hop. You may have come here from:

Jane’s blog

Continue on with:

Doreen’s blog

Or, you can start from the beginning with:

Crystal’s blog

Friends of Unity August Blog Hop

Hello… wow, Summer is really moving by me fast. How about you? But, it’stime for August’s Friends of Unity blog hop! This time our fun theme is:

And, I do love me sone grunge! The first card I made was inspired by an old Prima paper that I had used a very large doily die on and had kept. It’s under the flower. I used a Tim Holtz stencil and Black Soot ink to grunge it up a little. I then stamped the flower from Hello Beautiful, watercolored it to match colors in the paper and fussy cut it out. I ended up using one of the background stamps with a Memento ink on the doily as well… to add more color to match  flower then. I also used the sentiment with the same ink on a grungy paper from a mixed media kit. I found a different scrap paper I used as the background and distressed the edges of all the papers. I stamped, watercolored and attached the fussy cut butterfly from Feel the Fear. To complete this grungy mess 🤣, I added fake paper and metal flowers flower with a pearl.

 

For the second card, I found a background I had created several years ago using acrylics, stencils and my Gel printing plate. I found a Unity paper in Rustic Farmhouse that I used a stencil and turquoise Nuvo Glimmer paste on. I then stamped the image from Peony Ledger using black and turquoise inks. (Looking back I should have distressed the edges of the die cut image  and sentiment as I did the gel plate image.) I embossed the butterfly (hmm… all my cards have butterflies) from the Secret of Change kit using the turquoise powders (I mixed) and used an old shimmer watercolor kit to add silver and turquoise to. Finally, I added the sentiment from an old retired Donna Downey kit using the leftover scraps. I used black paper for backing the images and as a card base. For embellishments, I used black ribbon, black dots and a black inked wood scroll chipboard.

Last card was started using a background paper from who knows where that I attached a torn paper from Unity’s Newsprint Greetings paper pack. I sprayed a mixed media paper using a variety of sprays and die cut and tore it up. I then distressed all edges. I stamped a couple solid butterflies from the kit used above using yellow ink and then embossed the overlaid image on vellum using a Seth Apter copper powder. I attached those and then looked for matching ephemera. First, I cut up vellum and paper butterfly and floral images from a Studio Light Mixed Media pad. I then found a grungy doily die cut paper I created a long time ago that I could use. I arranged and assembled all of those and then found a sentiment I could use from Unity’s Creative Inspiration pack. Finally, I added copper spatters and metallic dots.

So, I’m not sure which is the grungiest, but I certainly dove into this theme head first! Unity, for sure, has a lot of products that I own and they produce that lend themselves to this style of card. Hope these turned out okay and provided some inspiration for you to play.

So, before we move on to the rest of the hop…a reminder that we do giveaways from our own Unity product stash! I’ll be doing a giveaway from this month’s post, so add a comment below (with your name, please) and I’ll be announcing a winner on next month’s hop! Now on to the rest of the hop!

You may have come here from:

Jenni’s blog

Next up:

Rachel’s blog

Or, you can start from the beginning with:

Crystal’s blog

Build Your Stash Holiday Cards - Card 6

 Okay… I did another Prima Ephemera card, this time using just a tag and the poinsettia from the kit! Card 6 for the {BYSHC} Christmas in July 2026 Linky Party!

I actually found a Brutus Monroe paper pack never opened I used for the backgrounds. I had a the Ho Ho Ho and Naughty and Nice paper snippets I decided to try using as well. Finally, I die cut some presents from glitter and metallic papers and added crystals to complete the card.

Geez… match the above graphic much😆… just noticed that! Thanks for stopping by!

Build Your Stash Holiday Cards - Card 5

 Welcome back to the last Prima ephemera card for the {BYSHC} Christmas in July 2026 Linky Party.

This time I used random paper from a different collection, that I die cut a window in. I then cut smaller windows in a black and then a gold foil paper to create a frame around the Prima tag. I created a poinsettia ephemera using a Paper Rose die. I fussy cut around the Prima deer. And then I found another Prima pack that I pulled the sentiment from. I fussy gold paper around the sentiment and mounted it. Finally, I added gold and red crystals all over to complete the card.

Thanks for stopping by for this last, I think, Prima card!

Build Your Stash Holiday Cards - Card 4

    Played some more with a fun ephemera pack from Prima for the {BYSHC} Christmas in July 2026 Linky Party.

This time I used random leftover papers to create the backgrounds for the cute image, tag and Joy sentiment from the pack. I created the Falala sentiment strip by paring down a patterned paper. I embellished the card with ribbon, gold string and red enamel dots. The little tree and sentiment have gold metallic on them. 

I’ve had a lot of fun creating these cards in the short amount of time I have had due to the delivery Saturday of our new little 3.4 lb. pup, named Mija! Must admit… puppies are exhausting but fun! Well… thanks for stopping by!

Build Your Stash Holiday Cards - Card 3

 Continued playing with an old Prima ephemera pack and paired it this time with a very old paper pack called Painted Poinsettias from Wild Rose Studio. Had fun with this third card for the {BYSHC} Christmas in July 2026 Linky Party!

I started by creating trimming down a background for the little girl image. I used an old die to create a background for the girl piece using paper from the same pack. I then used an old poinsettia die on red paper and the green patterned paper. I fussy cut poinsettias from the paper pack and combined all three in tge corners. I used a sentiment strip from the ephemera pack and used papers from the paper pack for backing. I mounted everything on  red card base and added mint colored enamel dots to complete the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Build Your Stash Holiday Cards - Card 2

  Played with Prima’s Candy Cane Lane ephemera pack and matched with a Mintay patterned paper pack for my next card{BYSHC} Christmas in July 2026 Linky party. See details on this event and the prizes you can win in the website mentioned below.

I really had fun finding a paper pack to mix with these cute designs. I was able to find a cute frame pattern paper to cut down and use to offset the tag, striped strip, and the Santa and sentiment image. I added plain green paper, green twine and green enamel dots to complete the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Build Your Stash Holiday Cards - Card 1

 Played with a Prima Candy Cane Lane ephemera pack and matched with various random patterned papers to create this cute holiday card just in time for the {BYSHC} Christmas in July 2026 Linky party.

I added vellum and used a sentiment strip from in the pack and added ephemera as embellishments. I added gold pen dots to complete the card.

I think I’ll be on a roll to continue playing with this pack.come join in the fun and link your holiday cards for a chance at winning a prize: https://byshcardmakers.blogspot.com/2026/07/byshc-christmas-in-july-2026-linky-party.html

Thanks for stopping by!

Friends of Unity July Blog Hop

Happy July 4th and our 250th anniversary month! What a perfect way to celebrate these commemorative moments than with our Friends of Unity color palette theme! Note, in conjunction to our hop, there is going to be a color challenge going up on Unity’s Show and Tell Facebook group. So, enter your creations for a chance at winning a prize!

 

Before I begin, I wanted to congratulate 

                                                            Debbie Owens, 

my winner from last month’s hop. Please PM me your address and I’ll get a package out to you shortly. Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

I began this first card by stamping the image from Slow Bloom Society onto watercolor paper. I then used masking fluid to “mask” out the floral areas to leave them white. I then proceeded to paint the background with red and blue stripes. I had already matched the colors to a retired Unity paper pack which I used for backing. After using an eraser to remove the dried masking fluid, I watercolored the florals. I ended up adding white pen stamens and outlining the branches. To embellish the card, I added white (slightly colored in) Tim Holtz die cut florals, enamel dots, and red ribbon. I can’t remember which set I used for the sentiment, that I white embossed.

For the second card, I pulled out Love Truly and Blessed and Happy Everything kits. For inspiration, I found some very old star patterned acetate, a red and blue one. I cut them down and used narrow double sided tape to adhere them together. I then adhered those to a white card base and added a red border. After using coordinating inks to stamp the tag, I cut down another 2 tags in matching paper colors and added a red and blue ribbon. I then inked “BIRTHDAY” and added the 3 tier “happy” sentiment. Red and blue enamel dots were added to this one. 

 

So, finally, I created a celebratory set of ATC’s. Since I always create 2 different sets to send out, I also included a description of the second (non-Unity based) ATC’s as I didn’t want to create another blog post…lazy, I know! So, I used an old SMAK kit for the woman image on these and the Looking Up set on the background. I had already pulled out an old vintage Tim Holtz paper to use as the background. I stamped the image using a red, blue and green ink (green to mute the other 2 colors) to match the paper. I embossed the stars using a glittery red powder on the background. I added Tim Holtz stars using embossing paste and stencil. I then pulled out and used ephemera and using the Unity paper above created stars for embellishment. I used an Ellen Hudson sentiment die and a Gina K die to mount the sentiment. Finally, I added striped string.

The next set has no Unity elements. So, as I was searching through my large ephemera stack, I found these ladies and, more importantly, the Eastman Kodak Co. ephemera piece on the top right ATC. So, a little about me… I’m originally from Rochester, NY, birthplace of Kodak (1888). Check out George Eastman for photography history if interested. At its peak… during my formative years, it employed 145,000 employees, 60,000 in Rochester alone (now down to under 4K, but that’s another story). My parents, my brother and sister, uncles, friends’ parents, etc… all worked there…I did too summers home from college. So, this was a … gotcha moment…had to use it. That, along with some lovely ladies, and a Hampton Art camera stamp and Bo Bunny film clip die formed the basis of this set. I used an old cut up recipe paper for the background and added a bunch of ephemera pieces, black string and Tim Holtz sentiments to complete these. Must admit…these were fun to do and nostalgic.

Well, that’s a rap… another month done! Hope you got some inspiration from these for the Color challenge and thanks for humoring my last ATC set. Now…remember to play along with the Color Challenge on Facebook for a chance at winning some goodies. 

You may have come here from 

Toni’s blog

You can continue on with: 

Doreen’s blog

Or you can start, from the beginning, with

Crystal’s blog

 

Friends of Unity June Blog Hop

 Hello…time for another monthly blog hop with my Friends of Unity co-crafters! This month our theme is:

I chose “drink” as my focus. Before I begin, wanted to let you know I’ll be doing a giveaway this month. Enter comments below (please include your name) for a chance at winning some Unity goodies from my stash. I’ll announce a winner in next month’s hop post. I didn’t hop last month, but I’d like to congratulate this commenter -

Becca Yahrling 

from my April post, and send you a package of goodies! Please PM me with your address and I’ll send out a package in the next week or so!

For my cards, I was inspired by and used the pretty Paper Rose’s Heart and Home Basics paper collection. My husband and I were in Europe in April and had the chance during that wonderful trip to visit the champagne region in France. We toured and visited a few champagne houses there. I just had to celebrate our upcoming anniversary with that remembrance through this card. I used a paper for the background and die cut tags from the pack for enhancements. I used a hole punch to get scalloped edges. For the image, I used a stamp from Life is a Celebration kit. I also used a now renamed kit, originally called Bitty Backgrounds … not sure of new name, to enhance bubble look. I stamped the image on coffee stained paper, I created a few years ago, and colored it with pencils and pens. I used a die on that one too! I added brown crystals to complete the card.

For the second card I, pulled out the One Sip at a Time kit. Again, I stamped the floral part of the cup on coffee stained paper and used my pencils again to color them in. I fussy cut them out. I used paper from the pack for the cup holder and both white and Kraft paper for the other pieces. I used pencils to add dimension to the pieces. I adhered all the pieces and stamped the sentiment on another scrap. I then used the lovely paper as background pieces along with Kraft paper. I finished off the card with tan pearl dots.

Had fun with the theme this month. I must admit, I love how the monthly themes take me out of my comfort zone and challenge me to think outside the box! Hope these 2 and other cards in the hop challenge you to try something new! Thanks for stopping by and remember to leave a comment for a chance at winning this month’s package from me. See you next month!

Now, on to the rest of the hop! 

You may have come here from:

Toni’s blog

You can continue on with:

Dawn’s blog

Or, you can start from the beginning with:

Crystal’s blog

Build Your Stash Holiday Card Makers - Card 4

   And here’s my fourth card for the {BYSHC} Spring into Christmas 2026 Linky Party! Find more info on how to link up your creations here -

https://byshcardmakers.blogspot.com/2026/04/byshc-spring-into-christmas-2026-linky.html

 Okay… I had another Susan Winget calendar image saved from recycling I decided to make into another card! After die cutting the larger image down, I found same random papers I could use as backing that I thought paired well with this lovely image.

I found another preprinted tag I cut down into a sentiment strip. I used a TH die, some ink pads, that I  used to color the paper to match, and a gold paint to create the tree branch used to back the sentiment. I finished the card off with a few gold enamel dots. (It would be a big challenge and, probably, impossible for me, to try to recreate this painting. But the trying would be fun anyway 🥴).

Well, that’s the final card for this Linky challenge! Thanks for stopping by … see you next one!

Build Your Stash Holiday Card Makers - Card 3

  And here’s my third card for the {BYSHC} Spring into Christmas 2026 Linky Party! Find more info on how to link up your creations here -

https://byshcardmakers.blogspot.com/2026/04/byshc-spring-into-christmas-2026-linky.html

 As I continued my decluttering effort I came across these 3 pieces. The first is the lovely paper I think came from an old Susan Winget calendar I bought many years ago. Again, I loved her painting style and had glommed onto many calendars, cups, and diaries made with her paintings over the years. As I decluttered the paper items, I must have saved the large December calendar graphic page… what can I say… goes along the Friends of Unity Recycle/Earth Day theme. I die cut it to fit a card. I’m just enamored of that image. 

So, I then looked through my stash again, and looking through other paper ephemera pieces, I picked out a preprinted “MERRY” tag I cut down to use as a sentiment… it has some good foiling on it. I distressed the edges of it.

Looking through loose papers, I found, I think, a few Tim Holtz papers that I must have picked up from maybe an old SSS monthly holiday kit. It matched the colors and style I think of the graphics. So I used that as a background paper. Again, a pretty simple style… I stopped there with just the addition of black framing paper and gold enamel dots. Fun, huh?

Thanks for stopping by again!

Build Your Stash Holiday Card Makers - Card 2

 And here’s my second card for the {BYSHC} Spring into Christmas 2026 Linky Party! Find more info on how to link up your creations here -

https://byshcardmakers.blogspot.com/2026/04/byshc-spring-into-christmas-2026-linky.html

So, continuing on with using up my old Bunny Yuletide Carol collection. I used more ephemera from the collection and actually some other ephemera I had collected. I used a Simon Says Stamp sentiment from the Merry and Light Kit, and a TH evergreen die set. I added a tree ribbon and some red crystals around the evergreen. Pretty simple again, but easy to create with a few dies and papers. 

Thanks for stopping by again.