Friends of Unity December Blog Hop

 Hey, have you heard? Friends of Unity (FOU) are celebrating 5 years of blog hopping with the Unity Stamp Company family and friends! Such a great community and such a big anniversary! 

To celebrate, Unity Stamp Co. is giving away not 1, not 2, but 3 $25 gift certificates. Winners will be randomly chosen on December 10th from those who comment on every blog in the hop! Winners will be announced December 11th on Crystal’s blog and in the USnT FB site. 

Speaking of giveaways, I also will be doing a giveaway… all you have to do is leave a comment, making sure you leave your name! I’ll announce the winner in my post next month!

So, speaking of years of FOU blogging, there are tons of inspiration buried in these FOU blogs. Since Unity rarely retires stamps, the benefit is just unmatched in the cardmaking business. A card sample from 3 years ago is just as valuable as one made yesterday, as you can still nab that stamp set …just a thought! For example, here’s some holiday cards from years past…

And…some non-holiday examples…

Moving on, our theme this month is…

And I’m all over this one🤣! So the first set of cards was inspired by all of Unity’s wonderful poinsettia stamps and demos and a watercolor painter on YouTube. I decided to try painting my own background on a large 9x11” watercolor paper. Clearly, not going after perfection here. After painting the poinsettias, I outlined them using opposing pen colors. I then added stamped images of a “Holiday Cheer” sentiment (Cheer and Joy) and an ornament (Elements of the Holidays). I also lightly stamped the background stamp from Change and Direction. I ended up embossing the stamped elements with sparkling embossing powder and adding some penned gold dots.

I cut the paper into four sections and die cut those. I die cut some tags in matching colors, found matching background papers and embossed the sentiment using sparkling embossing powder again. I added shiny Washi tape and string to the tags and coordinating crystals to the poinsettias.

These turned out better than I expected as there’s so much going on, imperfections are lost (thank goodness).

For the next cards, I decided to play with my sparkling pigments. I knew I was going to use snowflakes and I wanted a blue background I could stamp on. So, I took a 6x4 mixed media paper and started to sprinkle blue toned Primary Elements pigment onto the paper and spritzed it with water. After drying, I wanted to change the blue tone a little, so I added blue Nuvo pigment powders and repeated the same process. Finally, still not satisfied, I added drops of ArtC blue glitter ink and did a repeat. (Clearly, playing here.)

I then found a perfect paper background I thought would complement the blue paper. I also went looking thru a DCWV glitter paper pad and found a matching blue paper and a scrap piece of acetate. I then decided to make 2 acetate windows with stamped snowflakes on the bottom peeking thru a stamped snowflake on the acetate. 

Using 5 snowflakes from the kits mentioned above, I stamped (and embossed) the images all over the now sparkling mixed media paper. I used a variegated blue Seth Apter powder for these flakes. I then stamped the largest snowflake on 2 pieces of acetate and used Brutus Monroe Sterling Silver powder for this. I cut the sheet in half, made window panes of the blue DCWV glitter paper and combined the 3 layers together. 

I used several Unity sentiments for the cards, stamping in Tumbled Glass Oxide and then clear embossing them. And I varied the layout of each, adding another panel with white glitter paper and patterned paper on one. I also used different embellishments on each card and dies on the 2nd. Must admit… the glitter and glitz on these 2 cards can be seen across the continent.

So that’s it for me… now onto the rest of the hop! Thanks for stopping by and remember to comment on each blog for a chance at some goodies.

You may have arrived here from:

April’s blog

 Next up:

Alaine’s blog

Or, you can start at the beginning, with:

Crystal’s blog