~ Friends of Unity December Blog Hop ~

Hello and welcome to our first Friends of Unity Blog Hop!!

Amber and I were chatting the other day and realized that we had the same idea stirring... let's start a blog hop featuring our favorite stamps from Unity Stamp Company!! Fabulous!!

That conversation quickly turned into a fantastic group of friends - old and new - that are just as excited to hop sharing their love of Unity. Our name was born... Friends of Unity! 

Enough with this silly intro... let's get inky!

I love wreaths! I think I've mentioned that before, but I am really in love with this Cheery Christmas wreath designed by Graciellie Designs for Unity Stamp Co. The detail to this stamp is simply amazing! I really wanted to make this special so I had to go with the No Line Coloring technique. I stamped the image using Simon Says Stamp's Barely Beige ink. I then pulled out my prismacolor pencils and got to coloring. I had a blast blending and layering color... I love these pencils!

Once I had the wreath colored, I went digging through my endless Christmas papers. I found this gorgeous holly and berry paper in a paper pack by The Paper Studio called Pine St. Square. I die cut the paper with a rectangle stitched die and layered it with a scrap of Garden Green card stock from Stampin' Up! I set that aside and pulled out a kraft card base. I blended the edges of the card base with Vintage Photo and Black Soot distress inks. I wrapped some gold thread around the patterned paper several times and then I adhered the patterned paper to the card base. I tied a little bit of gold ribbon round the thread. And then I decided to die cut the wreath using the Mod Square Stax die from My Favorite Things. I blended the edges of this piece with the same distress inks and then I popped up the whole thing on the card base. To finish off my card I wanted a small sentiment so I used the 'Merry Christmas' from the Entwined Poinsettia kit. I stamped it in VersaMark ink and then heat embossed Ultra Fine Antique Gold embossing powder from Simon Says Stamp.

I absolutely love the way this card turned out! I sure hope that you do too!

~ Let's Hop ~

Crystal O. Minkler <--- you're here

up next ---> Wynne Grob

Eileen Mathys

Robyn Jordan

Jeanie Hays

Amber Trubiak

Dawn Fields


Thanks so much for stopping by for our first Friends of Unity blog hop!!

Hope to see you next month for our second hop!
~ Crystal