[Uniko Studio] Challenge No. 7 - Vintage or Distressed

Hi everyone - my poor, poor neglected blog. I haven't been creating behind your backs; I just have a ridiculous work schedule right now and focusing on my weight loss. On a happy note I have lost about 23 lbs now and keeping it off. And since I am prioritizing this "move more" thing, sometimes it's really tough to get behind my crafty desk. Le sigh. Being a responsible adult takes too many hours in the day - wouldn't it be more fun to just create and craft all day?

So at Uniko we're trying something a little different. An inspiration picture for a color combo and a theme. This time we're kicking off with some bold colors. I'm so sick of the winter and shoveling of snow. I want to see popping colors!

Photo Credit: Design Seed

And our theme this week is Distress / Vintage. Whenever I see distressed, I get a little anxious. But then I remember that running the edge of my scissors along card stock, or inking up edges with some ink does the trick. Shhh - don't tell people my shortcut ;)


Stamps: (Background Builders - Squared, Beautiful Blooms I) Uniko Studio
Paper: (Paper Basics Card Stock - Pure Poppy, Aqua Mist, Rustic Cream) Papertrey Ink
Ink: (Creative Color Pigment Ink - Hazel, Bubblegum) Mama Elephant; (Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Vintage Photo) Ranger
Embellishments: (Inka Gold - Turquoise) Viva Decor; (Artists' Acrylic Basic Color Set - Titanium White) Utrecht; (Soup Labels - Card Sentiments) Jillibean Soup

I decided to pull out Beautiful Blooms to play, and use the Background Builders to build ... wait for it ... some textures background ;) Then layered some textures with some acrylic white paint and some shiny Viva Decor Inka Gold Turquoise. Playing around with some of this mixed media is my slowly but surely way of getting my fingers messy. Except in this case it was more like one right, index finger ;) Baby steps, ladies, baby steps...

The big bloom is from the Beautiful Blooms I set, which I cut out, added some white acrylic paint and Vintage Photo Distress Ink.



The last pictures is an unclose look on the textured background. Some uneven inking, or stamping off the image can create some imperfect impressions. Add some acrylic paints, distressing the edge - easy enough. And when scrounging my embellishment box (and wow-ing to myself to use my stash) I pulled out this perfect sentiment. 



Hm... in hindsight, I should have distressed the sentiment a little with some Antique Linen. But it will just have to do since I won't have a chance to take another picture ;)

Check out the rest of the girl's cards and leave them a sweet comment or two. Remember you don't have to use all the colors - any or all as an inspiration.

Lastly, a few helpful things to remember:

• Challenge ends Mar 14th, 2013, 11:59p BST; Check back for the winners after
• Prize is £10 Gift Certificate to the random Winner & a Guest Design spot on our following challenge
• Three people will win a spotlight
• We would like you to use a Uniko Studio product; If you don't have any, check out the freebies here

I hope to see you play along, so that I can pop in on your lovely blogs! Also let us know what you think of this new format of a challenge. See you soon!