30 Coloring Challenge

Hello!

It's March already, time flies doesn't it? Have you heard about Kathy's 30 day colouring challenge? I believe this challenge is one of the best ones, it encourages you to color which is so therapeutic, at least for me! If you want to join in the fun, just color something and share it on the social media. Easy and fun! Many companies are also running promotions, if you are interested what Altenew is offering, please, see the end of this blog post. There's a fun blog hop running though the 10th of this month! 

I used Altenew stamps for my project. Actually this card was custom made for a girl whose name is Maj. I used Remember This- stamp set. I used Altenew Frosty Pink Ink to stamp my flowers and for the leaves I used Altenew Morning Frost Ink. I coloured the flowers and the leaves first with copic markers and then added details with pencils. I die cut the letters using Bold Alphabet Die set. I cut six times each of the letters, coloured one of the letters to match to my flowers with a copic marker and then glued them together. For my finishing touch I added a piece of Altenew Pale Grey card stock at the bottom of my card and stamped the sentiment under the die-cut letters.

Here's some details and offers what Altenew is promoting at the moment:

1. FREE GIFT with every order from Coloring Challenge Collection (3/2-3/5)

• Receive a FREE Apple Tree Stamp Set when you order stamps from the Coloring Challenge Collection! No need to add to cart, will automatically ship with orders. Limit one per customer, while supplies last. Not applicable on previous orders. Offer ends on Sunday 3/5, 2017 at 11:59 PM EST.

2. Giveaway, over $100 in products (3/2-3/10)

• Place an order with any of our 19 stamp sets from the Coloring Challenge Collection, and you will automatically be entered to win a Big Prize! One lucky winner will be chosen to win Reflection Scrapbook Collection, Artist Markers Set A, and Fresh Freesia Stamp Set, valued at over $100. No minimum purchase needed! Giveaway ends on 3/10, 11:59 PM EST. The winner will be announced on March 11th on the Altenew Blog.
• Two $30 gift certificates to 2 winners - selected from the comments left on the Coloring challenge blog hop post.
• More details will be available on the Coloring Challenge blog hop post on 3/2.
  
  
  Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully you are having a great weekend!
  
  
  Marika

Chloe from Purple Onion Designs

Hello my crafting friends,

Today I have a card made with Purple Onion Designs stamps. I'm so glad I finally got this video edited and ready for you. I used Chloe - a bunny with a flower - and Bloom No.2 stamps to create my card today. In the video I am concentrating on how to colour a fur and add texture to it to make it look more realistic. I used my go-to colouring technique: copics combined to coloured pencils. Here's my card:

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

Supplies:
Stamps: Chloe (bunny with flower) and Bloom No.2 
Inks: Memento Desert Sand, Versamark
Opaque Bright White Embossing Powder by WOW!

Copic markers: Chloe: E40 - E41 - E42, Shirt: R00 - R21 - R32, Flowers: E000 - Y21 - YR21 - YR23, Leaves: YG91 - YG93 - YG95

Faber-Castell Polychrome Pencils: Chloe: Ivory (105), Burnt Ochre (187), Raw Umber (180), Burnt Sienna (283), Shirt: Light Flesh (132), Medium Flesh (131), Dark Red (225), Flower: Cream (102), Dark Cadmium Yellow (108), Van-Dyck-Brown (176), Dark Cadmium Orange (115), Cadmium Orange (111), Leaves: May Green (170), Earth Green Yellowish(168), Olive Green Yellowish (173)

Thanks for stopping by!

Marika

Reinspired.. over at Marias!

Hello!

I'm so happy that this day has finally arrived. A month ago, Maria from Lollygrot Scrapbooking asked me if I was interested taking part in her new blog feature over her blog. She has invented this fun blog feature where she asks to remake one of one's own cards. This sounded so much fun that of course I wanted to participate and said YES! And this was A MONTH ago! :)

I chose to CASE one of my cards, actually I made that one for about a year ago. I used watercolours and very soft look for colouring. I really really loved the lay-out on that one so I wanted to remake the card with different style of colouring and colour theme. Please, head over to Maria's blog and find out what card did I CASE and while you are there, please leave her some love and let's let her know how much we appreciate bloggers who are passionate for giving us these fun blog features. These thing takes time to organise and that is sometimes taken for granted. Thank you, Maria! I'm so thrilled to be part in this and so happy that you asked me. Thank you. By the way, besides being super sweet, Maria is kinda talented too you know, so you may even want to follow her while you're there. 

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

Supplies:
Stamps: Peony Bouquet and Sketchy Rose by Altenew
Inks: Sea Glass and Frayed Leaf Altenew Crisp Inks, Versafine Onyx Black
Paper: Japanese smooth card stock, manufacturer unknown, Exotics White Silk Paper from Hobby Craft, SSS Smoke Card Stock

Copic Markers: YG0000 - BG0000 - BG000 - BG10 - YG03 - YG11

Faber Castell Polychrome Pencils: Cold Grey I (230), Cold Grey II (231), Cold Grey III (232), Cold Grey IV (233), Cold Grey (235), Dark Indico (157), May Green (170), Earth Green Yellowish (168), Chromium Green Opaque (174)

Thank you for stopping by today! Have an amazing day!

Hugs,
Marika

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

Botanical Garden

Hello,

I'm at the Altenew blog today to share three cards made with Botanical Garden set. 

On my first I used the technique which is the easiest for me - no line colouring. Love how the sentiment fits so well for flowers.

Copic markers used: Y21 – YR21 -YR23, YG03 – G24 – YG67.

On my second card I used zig clean color markers to stamp and colour the flowers. 

Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers used: Pale Pink – Brick Beige

This third one is my favourite of these these - maybe because it is so different what I normally make. I made this into video tutorial, hopefully you'll find it helpful. 

Supplies:

Stamps: Botanical Garden, Many Thanks, Halftone Hello, Beautiful Lady by Altenew.

Inks: Deep Iris, Lavender Fields, Soft Lilac Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades, Buttercream Crisp Inks from Altenew, Versafine Onyx Black and Vintage Sepia

Clear Sparkel Embossing Powder from WOW!

Hammer White Paper Creative Paper

Altenew and Freckled Fawn Blog Hop

Hello, 

Hopefully you are all doing well. Today I'm participating on a very fun blog hop between Altenew and Freckled Fawn. You probably just came from Candi Billman's blog, if not please be sure to start at the beginning from Altenew blog. 

So let's go into my project for today. Here we go:

I started by creating my background from White/Pink Blossoms on Tree washi tape from Freckled Fawn. The patterned paper was so easy to create and I think it looks cool behind the branch. Then I stamped the butterflies from Painted Butterflies from Altenew and coloured them with copics and coloured pencils. I also stamped the branch from Vintage Flowers and used co-ordinating dies to cut them. I also cut a frame from white card stock and adhered a piece of cream vellum behind it. Then I glued the elements on to the frame then I glued the frame onto my selfmade patterned paper. I used Love Script Wood Chips as my sentiment.

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate, Altenew is giving away two  $30 gift certificates to their online store and Freckled Fawn is giving away two January Embellishment Kits valued  $27 each. Please leave a comment by Tuesday, January 26, 2016 at 11:59 AM EST. Winners will be announced on the Freckled Fawn and Altenew blogs on January 28th.

GET HOPPING

Next on the hop will be talented Soraya Maes. Here is the full blog hop list. Hopefully you are having fun hopping!

Altenew Blog 

Megan Anderson

Therese Calvird

Candi Billman 

Marika Rahtu

Soraya Maes

Sveta Fotinia

Svitlana Shayevich

Adrienne Alvis

Amy Gray

Freckled Fawn Blog

Thank you for stopping by today and have fun hopping! See you soon!

Hugs,

Marika

Happy Holidays and a GIVEAWAY!

Hello!

This is my second post for today, please check out the collaboration post with Pia from Pia's Creative World. You can see it HERE. We also have a video tutorial how we made our collaboration project.

I'm also at Altenew blog to share my last post for the year of 2015. Within this card I want to wish Happy Holidays for all my Altenew friends. Please, enjoy the holidays and cherish the time with friends and families.

I used Poinsettia and Pine set to make this CAS card. Firstly I stamped the images with light brown and light green ink and then coloured the images with copic markers and coloured pencils. The background is firstly stamped with Woodpalet Background onto a smoke card stock with Versamark Ink and then heat embossed with Vanilla White Embossing PowderThe background.

I started blogging about a year and a half ago and this journey here in blogland has been such an amazing experience for me. I have met so many kind people whom I can call my friends now although we live in different countries - even continents. I truly appreciate all the love and support that you have given me and because of your encouragement I have become better in crafting, colouring and drawing since I always want to give the best of me to you. Finding out that I have that kind of skills in colouring, has been one of the biggest discoveries for me and without the support of this loving crafting community, I may never have found it. So thank you all of you! 

I would like to send you all a thank you card but that is just impossible. So within this project, I would like to say thank you to you all. And I would like to send this to someone, so if you like to receive this item, please leave a comment on this blog post before the 29th of December 2015. I will randomly draw the person whom I'm sending this and I will announce it soon after. I'm also having a giveaway over at Altenew Blog, if you want to participate please head over there to enter into the drawings.

If you wish to see a video tutorial on this technique that I used to colour the Rose piece, you can watch the speed colouring video HERE and a similar card made in this following tutorial. You can find it HERE. 

Thank you for stopping by today. Please, check out our collaboration project with Pia as well, we really had fun within that project. I also have a few holiday cards to share which I will do over the holidays. They are holiday cards but can be used as everyday cards as well. 

Hugs,

Marika

Festive Christmas

Hello,

I'm here.. again! :)  You can't believe how much fun I've had during the last two weeks, I've played a long with many challenges and I can say, I've had a blast. I've missed playing along and what I've noticed, these card challenges are a such a great source of inspiration. 

So today's card is made inspired mainly by Fusion - Season's Greetings. I went for the inspiration picture and tried to use as many elements as I possible could. At the same time, over at the Paper Players there's a new colour challenge so I tried to use only those colours. So here's my take:

Stamps used: Birch, Winter Bough and Handwritten Holiday

Well, I started with the woodgrain background. I can't believe how identical it looks to Altenew's Woodgrain Palet Background heat embossed vanilla white EP onto SSS Smoke card stock. I love the look! Just beautiful! Then I took a stripe of red card stock and white jelly roll pen and tried to mimic the pattern seen on the table cloth. In the inspiration picture, there's this bird but I so wanted to use this little cute bunny. I think he is so darn adorable. Oh and I used a stencil to ink up the little red and grey dots on the background which can mimic the berries in the picture. The bunny is coloured firstly with copic markers and then added details with coloured pencils. I didn't write down the exact numbers, so I don't list them since I can't be sure. If someone is interested in the colours, please let me know - I can give a good guess. :) I was trying out a new copic combos, the hat on the bunny came to be more pink that I would have wanted. Hopefully the PP gals don't mind. 

Supplies:
Stamps: Birch, Winter Bough and Handwritten Holiday by Purple Onion Designs.
Inks: Memento Desert Sand and New Sprout and Versafine Onyx Black
Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms Smooth Card Stock, SSS Smoke Card Stock and Textured Card  Stock from Papermania.
Vanilla Opaque White Embossing Powder by WOW!
White Jelly Roll Pen

I will enter this into following Challenges:
Fusion - Season's Greetings
The Paper Players #275 - Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow and Very Vanilla

Thank you for stopping by today! See you soon!

Hugs,
Marika

Beauty of the Season

Good Morning!

I'm back as promised to share another Penny Black Holiday card. Back in July, while I was designing the cards for the Guest Design week, when I saw these two products this was something that I had in mind how I would use them. But you know, sometimes the colouring just doesn't work - especially when done in a hurry. So back then I went for something more simple than this with these. You can see the cards HERE and HERE. But I find this particular Poinsettia called Sparkler to be so beautiful that it deserved to be coloured in. So here is my take on it:

Products used: Sparkler, Glorious and Beauty of the Season.

Products used: Sparkler, Glorious and Beauty of the Season.

I started by stamping the Sparkler with light brown ink onto a smooth card stock. Then I coloured it with copic markers and coloured pencils. Since the flower took a while to colour, for the leaves I used Glorious die. I trimmed it a bit (I think I just cut off the stem and one pedal from the right side). Then I die cut it again, this time from light brown card stock and used the ones that I had cut off from the green card stock and glued them in place. So the Glorious die seen on the back is almost identical for the actual die. While putting the card together, I glued them where they fitted the best in a card. The background is just a square piece of cream coloured vellum and the sentiment was heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

Supplies: 

Stamps: Sparkler and Beauty of the Season by Penny Black

Dies: Glorious die from Penny Black, Die-namics Pierced Squares by MFT

Inks: Versamark

Card Stock: Canson Bristol 250mg Smooth Card Stock, Brown and light green textured card stock

Metallic Gold Rich Embossing Powder from WOW!

Cream vellum

Small Permanent Adhesive DODZ  by Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L

I will enter this into few challenges:

Penny Black and More: Anything goes with a stamp

TIME OUT Challenges #46: Photo Inspiration

Thank you for stopping by today and have an amazing day!

Hugs,

Marika

Rustic Scene with Penny Black

Hello!

I'm here to share a card with a stamp from Penny Black as mentioned earlier this week. As some of you may remember, I was lucky enough to be asked to guest design for Penny Black in Christmas in July- event a half a year ago. Then, I quite felt that I had gotten a few stamps that I didn't quit did justice back then, so I'm here to correct my error and tried again. LOL! First one of those was/is this Snowy Hamlet stamp. 

Stamps used: Snowy Hamlet and Beauty of the Season.

Stamps used: Snowy Hamlet and Beauty of the Season.

Firstly, I stamped the Snowy Hamlet with light brown ink onto a smooth card stock. Then I die cut it with a square die. I used my go-to colouring technique at the moment: I laid down my base layer with copic markers and then added details with coloured pencils. I think I did the coloured job for this particular image way too complex - as far as the main church image is concerned. The areas that can be coloured in are so tiny that the copic base layer doesn't really show, but it can be seen better in the mountains, sky and the snow. For colouring wise, I used cool greys for the mountains. After putting down the base colour, I noticed that it looked way too blue compared to the rest of the image and the feel in the image. Then corrected the error for going over it with warm grey marker and it toned it down and I liked the result. Then I used the same technique for the sky, first I went over with C1 marker, added some yellowish glow to the horizon and then went over with warm grey marker to make it toned down. After the whole image was coloured, I took my white jelly roll pen and went crazy with it adding snowy details. LOL! 

Then I partially stamped the trees from the same stamp to my card front to make it look like continuing scene. The main coloured image was then adhered to a piece of craft foam and popped up a bit. 

Supplies:

Stamps: Snowy Hamlet and Beauty of the Season by Penny Black

Dies: Pierced Square Die-namics from My Favourite Things

Inks: Desert Sand Memento Ink, Versafine Vintage Sepia and Onyx Black

Card Stock: Canson Bristol 190mgs Smooth Card Stock, Bazzil Textured Card Stock, Neenah Desert Storm 80b Card stock

Copic Markers: Brown and the shadows in the snow: E40 - E42 - E43 - E44, Green: YG91 - YG95, Yellow: YR31, Mountains: 0 - C0 - C1 - C3 - W1, Sky: C1 - YR31 - N0 - N1 - W1, Shadows in the church: W1 - W3

Faber Castell Coloured Pencils: Venetian Red (190), Dark Red (225) Earth Green Yellowish (168), Pine Green (267), Green Opaque (174), Black (199), Dark Naples Ochre (184), Warm Grey II (271), Warm Grey V (274), Van-Dyck-Brown (176), Raw Umber (180), Walnut Brown (177)

I noticed that the theme at the SSS Wednesday challenge is "Let it snow!". I'll link this to their challenge as well.

Thank you for stopping by today! 

I'll be back very soon with another stamp from Penny Black that I thought I didn't quite do justice in July... a little hint.. it is a flower! :) Until then, enjoy your day! 

Hugs,

Marika

Warm Winter Wishes with Purple Onion Designs

Hello Friends,

I'm sharing a few cards that I've been holding on since October. I coloured these in during the Kathy's 30 day colouring challenge. I really enjoyed colouring these and I liked how they turned out. I was kinda hoping to make these into a video but it looks that I'm not going to be getting the setup running before Christmas so I'd like to share these before holidays. I used copic markers combined with coloured pencils in these cards. 

Inspiration to these cards came from the sentiment - I wanted to colour these in warm shades but still having the snowman in a wintery scene. I've done many cards during this past year - this Snowman card is one of my favourites. 

Stamps used: Warm Hearted, 2 forests, Handwritten Holiday.

Stamps used: Cora and Thomas, Pond,  Handwritten Holiday.

I did wrote down the exact colours after colouring these in October. Back then I only did the panel and left it unadhered to a card base. Apparently, while gluing the panel to the card base, I managed to glue the post-it note between the panel and the card base. Oops. So, I don't list the colours this time because I really can't remember them and I don't want to give false information. All images are coloured firstly with copic markers and then added details with Faber-Castell Polychromo Pencils. The sky was inked with Distress Inks: Antique Linen and Tattered Rose. 

Oh, and just a reminder that if you like Stacey's images as much as I do, Purple Onion is having a Holiday Sale as we speak that runs until December 6th. All stamps are 25% off! 

Thanks for stopping by today. I'm working with some Penny Black Christmas goodies at the moment, I'll be sharing them later this week. :) 

Have an amazing day!

Hugs,

Marika

Holiday Sale at the Purple Onion Designs

Hello,

There's this fun challenge at the CASology where the cue card is - OWL. Kymona from Creative Kymona gave me a hint of this challenge and of course I took the bate. :) I used Louis and Winter Bough from Purple Onion Design designed by fabulous Stacey Yacula. I used no-line colouring technique -firstly laid down my base colour with copics and then added shading and details with coloured pencils. Thank you - Kymona - for giving me a hint; I had a blast making this card!

Supplies:

Stamps: Louis, Winter Bough, and Merry and Bright- sentiment from POD.

Inks: Memento Bamboo Leaves and Desert Sand, Versafine Onyx Black, Tumbled Glass Distress Ink

Paper: Canson Bristol 190gms Smooth Card Stock

White Gelly Roll Pen

Copic Markers: Gray: 0 - N0 - N1 - N3, Red: E04 - R56, Brown: E42 - E43 - E44, Black: N7, Gray shadows: 0 - W0 - W1, Green: YG03 - YG67, Orange: YR15

Faber Castell Polychrome Coloured Pencils: Cold Grey IV (233), Cold Grey II (271), Warm Grey II (271), Warm Grey V (274), Dark Red (225), Pompeian Red (191), Venetian Red (190), Cadmium Orange (111), Dark Chrome Yellow (109), Sanguine (188), Green Yellowish (168), Chromium Green Opaque (174), Raw Umber (180), Van-Dyck-Brown (176), Walnut Brown (177), Black (199).

Just a quick note to let you all know that the holiday sale is underway at the Purple Onion Designs.  All stamps are 25% off through December 6, 2015.  There are also a few pages of Black Friday specials.  They will run all weekend since Monday is Cyber Monday.  These stamps will receive an additional 25% from the Holiday Sale. 

I have quite many Purple Onion Cards coming up soon. As you know, my filming set has been down due to a move of my crafting space. I haven't shared some of my cards since I kinda wanted to make them into a videos. It seems that it is going to be some time before I'm able to film again so I'm going to go ahead and share these cards since they are all Christmas / Holiday themed. So stay tuned! LOL!

Thank you for stopping by today. Hopefully you are having a great day!

Hugs,

Marika