Do you wanna build a snowman...

Hello!

Today I'm sharing a card that is a bit different. I've been watching regularly Lisa's Youtube channel (Lachri Fine Art) and she is so Amazing!! I just wish that I could draw and colour someday a half as good as she does. I've been so inspired by her work and wanted to try to draw something by myself. And since a daughter of my dear friend is turning four soon and since she is crazy about Frozen.. I saw a chance to try and I took it. I couldn't possibly draw Anna or Elsa but Olaf looked easier. There are things that could be better, for instance his eyes are not correct and the head in general could be better, but I was so impressed when I showed this to my girl (2years) AND she recognised it to Olaf!! So it is close enough. :)

I also filmed while I drew and coloured if you are interested. And please, if you liked this, will you let me know so I know if you like to see this kind of stuff in the future too. I still will be mainly focusing stamping and stuff but maybe once in a while I do similar to this too, if that is what you would like to see too.

Supplies:
Stamps: Birthday Greetings by Altenew
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black

Copic markers: Shading on the Olaf: 0 - N0 - N1, Mouth: N5 - N7, Buttons: W3 - W5 - W7, Arms: E55 - E23 - E47, Carrot: YR21 - YR23 - YR24 - YR18, Background: 0 - V20 - V22 


Faber-Castell Polychrome Pencils: Dark Cadmium Yellow (108), Sanguine (188)m Burnt Sienna (283), Van-Dyck-Brown (176), Nougat (178), Cold Grey I (230), Cold Grey II (231), Cold Grey III (232), Cold Grey IV (233), Cold Grey V (234), Warm Grey II (272), Warm Grey VI (275)

Thank you so much fro stopping by today! Hopefully your day is beautiful! And thank you Lisa for inspiring us, you are so wonderful!

Hugs,
Marika

Guest at Yana Smakula

Hello Friends,

Today I have something very very special to share. My very talented, and all-so-sweet-inside-out- team mate, Yana asked if I liked to guest at her YouTube channel. She asked if I would like to make a tutorial on colouring and of course I said yes! I'm always happy to help!

If you want to see my tutorial, please head over her blog or to her YouTube channel. If you haven't subscribed her channel yet, you should. :) She posts videos regularly and they are so easy to follow. Just love her work and I'm so honoured and thrilled to be in the same team with her! 

Here's the card that I made for the guest video. I made a similar one on my focus post Altenew a couple of days ago, but in this I used coloured pencils over the copics. Hopefully you'll like it! 

Supplies:
Stamps: Painted Butterflies, Birthday Greetings and Botanical Garden from Altenew.
Inks: Frosty Pink, Fayred Leaf and Buttercream Altenew Crisp Inks, Versafine Onyx Black, Shabby Shutters Distress Ink
Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms Smooth Card Stock, a stripe of green textured card stock
Sequins: Lime Sorbet and Lemon Meringue Sequins from Pretty Pink Posh, Clear SSS Sequins
Tomboy Multi Moni Liquid Glue
Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool Copic Markers: Butterfly: Y21 -YR21 -YR23,  Flowers: RV00 - RV11- RV32 -RV92, Greens: YG91 - YG95

Faber-Castell Polychrome Pencils: 
Flowers: Pink Madder Lake (129), Light Magenta (119), Middle Purple Pink (125), Ivory (103), White (101)
Greens: May Green (170) - Earth Yellowish (168) - Olive Green Yellowish (173) - Chromium Green Opaque (174)
Butterfly: Raw Umber (180) - Green Gold (268) - Naples Yellow (185) - Dark Naples Ochre (184), Black (199)

Thank you so much for visiting! See you soon!

Hugs,
Marika

Make a Wish

Good Morning!

Hopefully your holidays have been peaceful and you've enjoyed the time with your family and friends. I'm here today with another Purple Onion Designs card. I have made this card and the video a while ago for a new release of Stacey Yacula's stamps in October. Somehow I have forgotten to share it with you. If you have visited Purple Onion Designs' blog, you might have already seen it there but here it is on my blog today.

Stamps used: Be mine, Bloom No.2 and Sweet Occasions Sentiment set.

You can watch my tutorial on how to use unmounted red rubber stamps here or in HD in Youtube:

Supplies:
Stamps: Be Mine, Bloom No.2 and Sweet Occasions Sentiment set by Purple Onion Desings
Dies: My Favourite Things Pierced Squares
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black
Card Stock: Neenah Solar White 80lb, Papermania Premium Textured Coloured Card Stock

Copic Markers: YG03 - YG67 (greens), W0 - W1 - W3 (greys), Y38 - YR68 (orange), YR31 (yellow), W5 - W7 (Black)
White Kids Fun Foam

Thank you for stopping by today! See you soon!

Marika

Altenew and Pretty Pink Posh Blog Hop

Hello!

Today I'm participating an awesome collaboration of Altenew and Pretty Pink Posh. You probably just came from Lisa Elton's blog if not, please start at the beginning from Altenew blog and hop along and have many chances to win prizes along the way.

A few week's back I made my first shaker card and I had so much fun making it so I decided to try to make another. I used a co-ordianting die to cut my shaker window and I used the same die to cut the shaker "space" from fun foam. I found that making a shaker card this way was very easy since you can just glue the layers together. So here is my card:

I made this into a video tutorial. You can watch it here or in HD in Youtube.

Supplies:
Stamps: Bejewelled and Striped Florals from Altenew
Sequins: Lilac Garden Flowers Sequins Mix from Pretty Pink Posh
Dies: Bejewelled Die from Altenew
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black, Picked Rasperry Distress Ink
Superfine Silver Embossing Powder by Ranger
Copic Markers: 0 - N0 - N1 - N3 - N5
Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Pen

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate this blog hop, Altenew will draw two winners who will each receive a $30 gift certificate to their online store. Also, Pretty Pink Posh will draw two winners who will receive $30 gift certificate to their online store. Winners will be randomly drawn from all comments left along the hop, comments must be left by Monday, Oct 26 11:59 EDT. Winners will be announced at Altenew and Pretty Pink Posh Blogs shortly after.

GET HOPPING

Your next stop will be incredible Joni Aldaya. Here is also the full list of participants.

Altenew Blog 

Gayatri Murali

Anna Kossakovskaya

Yoonsun Hur

Carissa Wiley

Yana Smakula

Nina- Marie Trapani

Lisa Elton

Marika Rahtu <-- YOU ARE HERE

Joni Andaya

Amy Kolling

Agnieszka Malyszek

Nichol Magouirk

Julia Altermann

May Sukyong Park

Yuki Yoshioka

Amy Gray

Pretty Pink Posh blog

Thank you so much for visiting. Have a great day and have fun hopping! Good luck!

Hugs,
Marika

Polychromos on vellum

Hello,

Today I'm here just for fun.. It's been so long that I've crafted just for fun and not any kind of purpose in mind. I've been longing to participate on challenges but I've hadn't had time to do so today I visited a couple of my favourite card challenges and played around with some crafty goodness and my polychromos. Here's what I came up with.. and just a note... I had so much fun today!! YAY!

This is my entry to the Throwback Thursday #7, 
Less is More #243 and Inkspirational Challenge #92.

Here's another one that I made with the same technique on the butterfly. I tried to CASE Tracey's card.. This card was supposed to be very simple having just one butterfly on a inked background.. While listening my favourite music on the back I kinda got carried a way... sorry Tracey. Hopefully you don't mind.

This is my entry to the Time Out Challenge #40.

Otherwise these cards are pretty straight forward but I did experimented a new-to-me colouring technique in these cards - I used my polychromos to colour on vellum and it worked perfectly. I might a shoot a video on this if you're interested. I coloured the flowers first with copies and then added details with pencils. 

I will enter these cards for following challenges:

Throwback Thursdays #7 at Wplus9 - I used Flora and Fauna 2 by Wplus9

Less is More #243- Something Shiny - I found that White Pearl embossing powder and sequins very very shiny in real life. Quite hard to capture in photo though.

Inkspirational #92- photo inspiration - I used their fall colour theme

Time Out Challnge #40 - CASE Tracey - I was inspired by the vellum and inked background.

Supplies:
Stamps: Flora and Fauna 2 and A new day by Wplus9, Baby Zoo by Altenew
Inks: Versamark, Versafine Onyx Black, Appeltini Pure Color Die ink by Wplus9, Shabby Shutters and Scattered Straw Distress Inks, Frosty Pink and Coral Berry Crisp Inks by Altenew
Dies: Pierced Squares Die-namics by MFT
Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms, Neenah Solar White 80lb, Linen Effect paper by WHSmith, a stripe of textured light green cars stock
Vellum: Pink and light green vellum by Inspire Me
White Pearl Embossing Powder by WOW!
Sequens: Lime Sorbet and Lemon Merigue by Pretty Pink Posh, Assorted Moonshine by SSS

Polychromo Pencils: Earth Yellowish Green (168), Green Opaque (174), Black (199), Pink Madder Lake (129), Madder (142), Magenta (133), Walnut Brown (177)

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils: Orange (C070)

Copic Markers: Y15 - YR23

Thanks for stopping by today and have a wonderful day!

Marika

Guesting at Time Out

Good Morning!

Today I am thrilled to tell you that I was kindly asked to guest at the Time Out Challenge #39. The theme there is "Make your Mark". When I got this assignment I asked Nonni what did it really meant (since I wanted to be sure) and she said that you can make your mark by just colouring something. Couldn't there be any more perfect challenge for me..? Thank you so much Nonni and Sandie for asking me to guest design! I thrilled to be your guest.

I made this card for a special friend of mine who had a birthday this week. Congratulations Kelly! Hope you had an awesome birthday and this card have arrived to your doorsteps before you see this post. Since this card was a birthday card for Kelly, I wanted to include the things that she might like and those are: one layer, bold and vibrant colours and copics. (All three very hard tasks for me to do) But this is what I came up with!

I also made a speed drawing and colouring video. If you wish to see it, you can watch it here or in HD in YouTube. Hopefully you enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope to see your card at the Time Out Gallery! There's a prize to be win too! :) 

Marika

Exciting news - I'm joining in the Purple Onion Designs' Team!

Hello my friends,

Today, I have very exciting news to share. You all probably know that I love to make cards with Purple Onion Designs cute critters.. and today I am able to say that in the future I will be making even more cards with their stamps since lovely Michele, from Purple Onion Designs asked me to join in her team! So thrilled! 

To celebrate this I noticed that this week over at the Time Out -challenge, there is CASE challenge and there is my new team mate Alice to be CASEd. Alice from Alice's (little) Wonderland is one of those colourist that I just adore. Her skills with no-line copic colouring are just stunning! So what would be more perfect to celebrate this than make a card for her challenge. So here is my card:

This is my entry to the Time Out- challenge #36.

And here is the wonderful card by Alice:

I was inspired by Alice's little critter and her lay-out. I'm also a big fan of Alice's way of using bold colours - in this card I tried to mimic her colour themes.  This little fella is from Purple Onion Designs and he is called Cinnamon and the branch is called Blossoming Perch. I stamped them with black ink and coloured with copic markers. I don't have washi tape so I had to improvise so I just inked the background with light yellow ink. To finish off my card I added a dark brown border and a few tiny little flower sequins here and there. I changed the place of the sentiment to the right, opposite corner - I've seen Alice to use this many times. 

Supplies:
Stamps: Cinnamon,  Blossoming Perch and Sweet Occasions sentiment set by Purple Onion Designs.
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Altenew Crisp Buttercream Ink
Paper: Neenah Solar White 80lb, SSS Dark Chocolate
Copic Markers: Browns: E55 - E23 - E47 - E49, Greens: YG91 - YG95, Pinks: W0 - R81 - RV34

There's still time to join us at the Time Out to CASE Alice. Hope to see your card at the gallery. Thank you for stopping by today! See you soon! 

Marika

CASology #153 and Freshly Made Sketches #193

Good Afternoon!

I am so glad that I had time to have fun with a few challenges this week. I found this funny stamp by Art Impressions and I just had to have it. I had tons of fun colouring it with copic markers. I have to say, it is little bit difficult but you can see the progress here in these two cards. For the first card I only had in mind to add a pink border stripe but when I wrote the card I had the front panel smeared at the bottom. Then, I saw the sketch at the Freshly Made Sketches and fix it with it. Now I see that I kinda saw the sketch only in half... maybe too little sleep lately. Any how here are my cards for today:

This is my entry to the Freshly Made Sketches #193.

Close up where sparkle in seen a little better.

Here is my second card which I think is really fun. I added an action wobbler behind the lady. I also attached a short video where you can see it in action.

This is my entry to the CASology #153.

Well, I tried to add the graphics but blogger couldn't find the pictures. I'll try later again.

Supplies:
Stamps: Hop Hop Girlfriends by Art Impressions, Gorjuss On Top Of the World by Docrafts, Birthday Greetings by Altenew
Inks: Memento Tuxido Black and SSS Smoke 
Card Stock: Neenah Solar white 80lb, Pink Canson paper 200gsm, Simon Says Smoke card stock
Copic Markers: Blue shirt: BV29 - BV25 - BV23 - BV 20, Trousers: W7 - W5 - W3 - W1, Skin: E000 - E00 - E55, sack: E23 - E55 - E47, Purple shirt: RV99 - RV95 - RV93 - RV91, hairs: E55 - E47 - E49, Red Shirt: R37 - R35 - R32. 
atyou Spica Glitter Pen Black
Action Wobbler

Thank you for stopping by today. Have a great rest of your weekend!

Marika

Guesting at the CTS #130

Hello Friends,

Today I am thrilled to tell you that I am guesting at the CTS this week. I've said this before but I love there challenge, unfortunately I haven't had time to play along as much I have wanted to in the past few weeks. Their sketches are just awesome, please play along this week! 

When I received the sketch for this week, my first thought was that this is right in my alley like a friend of mine would say. Then, I quite struggled with it but finally came up with this card to what I am quite happy with. Hopefully you like it! I'm having a bit of colourless month and this card will continue it. Maybe when I come back from our "adventure" I'll be more inspired by the beautiful colours of the summer again. But here is my card:

Here is the sketch by very talented Leigh Penner. She has really eye for design and her blog - To the Full - is full of inspiration. Please, visit her - you'll be really enjoying your visit!

And before anyone asks, that reflection of the fence in the picture is purely from the kitchen table with sunlight coming out of the window. Pretty cool, isn't it?!?! I was so amazed by it.

This is a one-layer card, I stamped the butterfly with light grey ink, the sentiment is stamped with black pigment ink. Then I used Derwent Inktense Pencils to colour in the image. I sketched the "fence" with my pencil and then shaded it with the same inktense pencil.

Supplies:
Stamps: Bejeweled and Birthday Greetings by Altenew
Inks: Memento London Fog and Versafine Onyx Black
Derwent Inktense Pencils: Ink Black (2200)
White card stock 300gsm (manufacturer unknown)

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you play along this week at the CTS! Enjoy rest of your day and see you soon!

Marika

Soft Flowers with watercolours

Hello Friends,

Today I am at Altenew blog to share this card. I used Floral Motifs set and very easy and quick watercoloring technique. I find these Floral Motifs flowers to be so cute in their simplicity but for more I am loving the woodgrain background stamp. I just love how versatile it is and the elegance that can be achieve with it. I try to avoid not to use it too much since I would use it in every card that I make. LOL! But here is my card:

Stamp sets used: Floral Motifs, Wood Pallet Background and Birthday Greetings.

Here is video tutorial if you wish to see how I made this:



Supplies:
Stamps: Floral Motifs, Wood Pallet Background and Birthday Greetings by Altenew
Inks: Versafine Onyx Black and Versamark, Dusty Concord Distress Ink.
Embossing Powders: Ranger Super Fine Clear and White Pearl by WOW
Distress Markers: Milled Lavender and Worn Lipstick
Sequins: Neat and Tangled Sweetheart Sequin Mix and Love Sparkles Mix
Card Stock: Neenah Solar White 80lb, Canson Watercolou Paper 180gsm, WHSmith Linen Effect Paper 150gsm
Card base: Papermania A6 300gsm

Thank you for stopping by today! See you soon!

Marika

Stacey Yacula's new stamp collection Sweet Occasions is released!

Hello my friends!

Today is the day when the new collection of stamps from Stacey Yacula is in sale at Purple Onion website. The collection consists of 25 adorable images and a coordinating sentiment set with 20 different sentiments. 

Michele, is so sweet that if you act fast she is offering you a discount if you purchase the entire collection. For a limited time you can purchase the entire Sweet Occasions collection for $100.00.  This is a 30% discount off the regular prices.  This offer is only available until Sunday, June 7, 2015. 

I have a card to share today also. Here it is:

Stamps used: Cinnamon and Sweet Occasion sentiment set

Instructions: I started by stamping the Cinnamon with black pigment ink onto a watercolour paper. I coloured the squirrel with my Inktense Pencils. I used my pencil to draw the branch and coloured the trunk and the leaves with Inktense pencils. (Yes, again had tons of fun doing this). I added some doodling with my alcohol marker after I was finished with colouring and let it dry in between. Then I temporarily adhered the circle die behind the watercolour paper and ran it through my die cutting machine. This way, there isn't going to be that "indents" showing on the right side. :) Then I adhered the little stripes of patterned paper onto my card base and adhere the watercolored panel to it. I die cut a same sized circle out of fun foam and adhered the centre pieces to it and then to my card base. I stamped the sentiment with black pigment ink.

Supplies:

Stamps: Cinnamon and Sweet Occasions sentiment set from Purple Onion

Inks: Memento Tuxido Black, Versafine Onyx Black

Dies: A circle die (manufacturer unknown)

Card stock: Canson watercolour paper 180gms, Dovecraft Back To Basics IV Designer Paper Pack

Derwent Inktens Pencils: Willow (1900), Saddle Brown (1740), Tan (1720), Oak (1730), Sepia Ink (2010), Spring Green (1550), Light Olive (1540).

Copic Multi Liner Black 0.1

Card base: Papermania A6 300gms 

Thank you for stopping by today! See you real soon!

Marika

Guest Designer at CASology # 142

Good morning!

Today I have an honour to be a Guest Designer at CASology. 

When Melissa contacted me and ask me to be their GD for this challenge I was so thrilled but when I got the cue word I was even more excited!! How sweet it is and how wonderful cue word for a challenge when the spring has finally come! 

Here is the challenge:

Well, the first thing that I knew when I saw the word was that I am going to be doing some Purple Onion fun this time! Their stamps are just the sweetiest in my opinion. About the same time, my friend asked me if I could make a birthday card for her aunt since she is turning 60! Sweet Sixteen turned into Sweet Sixty! The recipient is also a kindergarden teacher so I kind of tried to achieve an old story book look to this card. Maybe she would like it! Here is my card:

Here is a close-up of the mouse:

Some of you have requested that I show how I colour this mouse, so this time I filmed while making this card. Hopefully you enjoy and try it on your own. I would love to see your colouring!

If you can't see it here, you can watch it in Youtube.


Supplies:
Stamps: Wishing (partly stamped) by Purple Onion Designs, Halftone Hello (sentiment) by Altenew.
Inks: Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks, Memento Desert Sand, Versafine Onyx Black
Derwent Inktense Pencils: Tan (1720), Saddle Brown (1740), Willow (1900), Sun Yellow (0200), Spring Green (1550), Light Olive (1540), Iris Blue (0900) Cadmiun Orange (0250), Burnt Orange (0260).
Cardstock: Canson Mix Media cards stock 200gsm, Dovecraft Back to Basics IV Designer Paper Pack 150gsm
Card base: Papermania A6 300gsm
Copic Multi Liner 0.3 Black
Wink of Stella Glitter Pen

Thank you for stopping by today and please join the fun at CASology this week! See you soon! 

Marika

CAS(E) this Sketch #116

Hello Everyone!

This is my entry to the CAS(E) this Sketch #116.
This card got Honourable Mention at the challenge.

I've been quite busy lately and haven't had time to play along at the CAS(E) this Sketch so today I decided that when the sketch aired, I will immediately make it into a card. Love the sketch from Leigh Penner- very versatile and of course I was drawn into the flower in the middle. I had this rose for half coloured so I finished it and made it into this card. 

Here is a close-up: 

Close-up where the shimmer from Wink of Stella can be seen.

I started by inking the rose and the stem and the leaves from Sketchy Rose with light water soluable ink. I believe, I used third generation stamping with the stem an the leaves. I watercolored them with Distress Inks. I created a mask from post-it notes and mask off the frame and left a rectangle to where I stamped the woodgrain background. Before that I inked the edges to get some contrast for the white space. After that I heat embossed the background and I wasn't quite patient enough and the embossing powder was stuck.. pretty much to everywhere. I kind of liked the effect so I decided to leave it as it was. The sentiment from was inked with black pigment ink and then heat embossed. I cut the flower with scissors and craft knife and it was then adhered with liquid glue and foam tape onto the card base.

Here is the sketch:

Supplies:

Stamps: Sketchy Rose and Label Love by Altenew

Inks: Tattered Rose, Fried Brick and Peeled Paint, Antique Linen Distress Inks, Versafine Onyx Black

Embossing Powder: Clear Matt Dull and White Pearl by WOW!

Card stock: Canson Watercolour paper 180g/m2, Neenah Solar White 80lb

Card base: Papermania A6 300g/m2

Thank you for stopping by today! And thank you for your comments and ideas for the videos. I loved reading them and got some ideas. So thank you very much! See you soon!

Marika