Video Blog Hop with Laura Sterckx from Making Cards is Fun

Thank you so much for stopping by! I was approached by the very talented, Laura Sterckx, from the Making Cards is Fun blog, and she asked me to join in on a fun video blog hop! It feels like it's been so long since I made an actual video for my own Youtube channel and I'm pretty excited that I got a chance to do it. You may be wondering why Laura has gathered a group of crafty gals together for a video hop and the answer is because she's hit a major milestone on her Youtube channel and has reached a total of 7000 followers! This is the reason why she decided on putting together a great big video blog hop. 

In this video I'm using a variety of Mama Elephant products as well as some Lawn Fawn Products, too. Feel free to watch the video (show below) for a details description of the products used while creating this card. 

Laura, is also offering a chance to win lots of prizes and even a coupon code from Ellen Hutson. Feel free to click the following link for more information on winning prizes and for the full list of videos on the hop! Good luck and I hope you enjoy my video and all of the other videos on this hop! 

Happy crafting and thank you for stopping by! 

Watercolor Christmas Cards---My Etsy Shop

If you follow my Instagram account @unifyhandmade you may have already seen a sneak peek of these cards that I’ve released in my Etsyshop. I’m super excited about these cards because they include some of my hand painted watercolor designs—and since I’m totally obsessed with watercoloring right now it seems appropriate for me to incorporate my love for painting into my newest Christmas card collection. What also makes these extra special, to me, is the fact that I created some of the accents—like the laurel—on these cards using my tablet. I’ve been playing around with it for 2 years now and trying to get the hang of digital drawing (it’s so much fun).

These cards are being offered in sets of 8, and you can purchase a set of one particular design; or, you can purchase a variety pack. I also created some adorable tags with the same watercolor theme, too.

 I wanted to create some place cards using this wood mounted stamp I purchased from Paper Source a few months ago, and I thought it would be a great time to create some for Christmas. Perfect for use at dinner time for Christmas Eve; or, Christmas day!

I’ve always wanted to mass produce my very own watercolor designs and I was able to do that by simply creating my designs on this Tim Holtz watercolor paper and then transferring them to my computer by scanning them into Photoshop.

I’ve always wanted to create a red and white themed Christmas line—and this year I finally did it. In this collection I’m using traditional Christmas colors but with a modern day twist. If you can see in the last image (shown above) I also created a heart shape. I have big plans for new cards coming this Valentine’s Day. I can’t wait to share them!

To view my new Christmas cards you can find them in my Etsy shop, here, here, here, here, and here. I hope you've enjoyed this close look into my new Christmas cards and feel free to leave me a comment letting me know what you think!

Have a great Friday!

Nicole 

Fun with Product Packaging

When it comes to product packaging, I like to have fun with it and even change it up every now and then. So this time around I thought it would be fun to make some tags that say, “Thanks for shopping with Unify Handmade”. I thought about printing stickers, and even thought about getting a rubber stamp made with my shop name on it but then I had the idea to make some simple hang tags. I made these on Photoshop, printed them out and used my tag shaped craft punch to cut them out. Next, I thought it would be fun to wrap the product in tissue paper, and secure it with some white and coral hemp twine. I think the final result looks so lovely; and, I’m hoping buyers will be excited to un-wrap their packages! 

Thanksgiving Gift Box and Tag

Is Thanksgiving here already?! That’s exactly what I thought today when I was thinking of my next blog post. I couldn't believe I hadn't even made anything for this holiday. But since I have my trusty Lawn Fawn stamps—making something in a snap isn't a problem at all. One of the many great things about having LF stamps is that you can make the cutest holiday paper crafts with their versatile sets. For instance I’m using the, Hats off to you, set and it comes with a variety of festive hats; such as, a Santa hat, birthday hat, cow boy hat, etc—and I’m using their super adorable pilgrim hat and paired it with Lawn Fawns gnome, from the stamp set, Gnome sweet gnome to create a tag. I also purchased a few Kraft boxes from Michaels and stamped the smiley corn stock image onto it with white pigment ink.

First I started off by die cutting a few tags, using the, tag you’re it, craft dies by Lawn Fawn. Next I used the coordinating stamp set, winter gifts, for the border around the tag.

Next I stamped the pilgrim hat on the tag, and also stamped the hat onto a piece of a sticky post-it note, cut it out, and placed it over the hat image (an easy masking technique).

 Next I inked up my gnome stamp and as you can see from the image I only inked him up from the head down.

 Next I simply stamped him onto the tag, like so…

 Look at how pretty that came out—once the mask was lifted!

Now you can color in your image, and I’m also using the little turkey leg from the stamp set, happy feast, and colored that in with the markers show in the image. I also show how I went about coloring him in—with the light color first and ending with the darkest color. Then you go over it again starting with the medium color and ending with the lightest.

Once I was done coloring everything in, I shuffled through all of my other LF stamps to add the sentiment and wooden fence. I think it looks so cute. I also die cut a piece of this pattern paper and I’m going to adhere it to the back of the tag.

Lastly, I took some of my white pigment ink by, Hampton Art, and stamped the corn image all over the box. I also used some of this awesome vintage looking hemp twine in orange—which is also sold by Lawn Fawn.

I think a set of these boxes and tags would make for a cute place setting at a Thanksgiving table. You can stuff these boxes with homemade treats or even a homemade gift. I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know what you think in the comments! I’d love to hear from you. 

New Things I Purchased While My Computer was Down

My computer is up and running! I’m so happy about that—you have no idea. I really dislike working on laptops, I don’t know why. Well, I guess it’s because I have a really huge monitor to work on and that’s what I’m used to. But it feels so good to be able to work on my own computer with all of my own programs and such. Over the Memorial Day weekend I was in Big Bear with my boyfriend. We were in this awesome cabin, owned by one of his friends, and the weather was so perfect. On Saturday, a few girls and I went shopping in the village and I found this little crafting nook at one of the stores there, and I found this multi-colored hemp twine. I thought it was a great price so I purchased a few, and I thought I’d used them to wrap my packages. So far I love how they look. What do you think? While I was at that store I asked some of the locals if they knew of any mom and pop craft stores I the area but sadly there weren’t any. When we came back from Big bear I thought I would head over to Muskatels in Downtown Los Angeles to pick up a few new shades of satin ribbon and I love the new colors I picked up. Can’t wait to use them, and update the ‘colors’ in my shop options. Speaking of new colors, hehe, I went to Michaels a few days ago to pick up some stuff for a custom order I’m working on and I thought I’d treat myself to two new Copic Markers. I got colors: G12 (Sea Green), and C3 (Cool Gray, No.3). I’ve wanted the Cool Gray color for some time now, and I’m so excited to finally have it! So I can color in all my white fur critters, hehe. Overall, I’m just happy to be back in blog land—it seemed so lonely not being able to blog. Is that weird? Lol.