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

Altenew March 2016 Release Blog Hop

Hello!

Today I have the most exciting news to share. Way back last year, Tasnim asked if I was interested designing stamps.. well, my first impression was.. me... are you really talking to me about this? Well, I kinda laughed at the whole idea at first, but then I started to think and sketch and you know... things evolved. This whole stamp design thing has been such a big learning curve for me, I had to learn to sketch, trace and above all, I needed to learn how to use Illustrator to be able to get my hand drawn images into digital form... I've been nervously waiting this day to come and I'm so hoping that you'd like my designs.

When we first talked designing stamps with Tasnim, she asked me to do something from my own culture. I started to think about it and when I need to think.. I need to walk too. I went to a walk with Simo, who is a dog of my dear friend - he's so cute by the way - and I thought about what would be something from my culture and of course since this is my first set, I also wanted it to be sort of personal since I knew already at that point that I will put many hours to this thing if I was gonna do this. While walking in the forests with Simo I looked around and had this flashback moment from my youth. We used to have a dog - Cecilia. She was a Tibetan Terrier and she was amazing. I used to take walks with her and we usually went to this little place near my childhood home - it was our place to calm down and sat down for a moment. My childhood home is by the lake and on the other side of the lake there is this little peninsula which is the most beautiful and the most peaceful place - at least to me. It only grows birch trees in that peninsula and we used to sat down to a grass bed with Cecilia and listen to the waves slowly hit the sand with birds singing on the back. Nowadays, someone had brought a bench to that place so I think there's at least one more person who also loves that place. 

So that was the inspiration to my first ever set. While designing, I also wanted to make a  set that was useable for many different kind of techniques since we all love to do different kinds of things. I'm sharing two of my cards today that I have made with my set and later this week and weeks to come, I'll be sharing more and I will make them into video tutorials as well. So, if you don't want to miss them, please subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

I'm also participating in the Altenew March 2016 release Blog Hop and if you came from my amazingly talented and sweet teammate May Park's blog, you're on the right track. If not, please start at the Altenew blog.

Supplies:
Stamps: Birch Land,  Garden Grow and Succulents.
Inks: Frayed Leaf and Forest Glades Altenew Crisp Inks, Versafine Onyx Black, Tumbled Glass Distress Ink
Paper: Neenah Solar White 80lb, Hammer White Paper 100gsm by Soho Creative

Supplies:
Stamps: Birch Land, To the Moon, Winter Cardinal and Sketchy Cities America 2.
Inks: Versafine Onyx Black, Tumbled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress Inks, Fairy Dust Pure Color Dye Ink, SSS Smoke Dye Ink
Superfine Clear Embossing Powder from Ranger
White Jelly Roll Pen

Copic Markers: 0 - N0 - N1 - N3 - N5 - N7

I used three shades of grey ink to stamp the images and then I took my copic multi-liner and added the black details to the cottage and to the trees. To create a sky I used a cool grey marker (copics) and added the snow with white gelly roll pen. 

Supplies:
Stamps: Winter Cottage, Snowing and Pine Tree
Inks: Fairy Dust Pure Color Dye Ink, SSS Smoke Dye Ink, Jet Black Altenew Crisp Ink

Black Copic Multiliner 0.1
Copic Markes: C0 - C1 - C3
White Jelly Roll Pen

Copic Markers: C0 - C1 - C3

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate this release, Altenew is giving away $50 gift certificate to three lucky winners. Please leave a comment on the Altenew blog by Friday March 18th, 11:59 pm EST for a chance to win.

And there is more! I will randomly choose a winner from comments left on this post and the prize will be $30 gift certificate to Altenew online store. Please leave a comment on this post by Friday March 18th, 11:59 pm EST for a chance to win. I will announce the winner on my blog after soon after.

GET HOPPING!

Hopefully you are having fun hopping. Next on the hop is fabulous and so sweet and kind Svetlana Hayevich. If you encounter a broken link along the hop, please start at the beginning from Altenew blog.

I really hope you liked what you saw. Thank you so much for visiting and have a great day!

Hugs,

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

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

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

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

Merry and Bright Season Greetings

Hello!

I'm here to share an other holiday card. I used a few Stacey Yacula's cute images that you can find at Purple Onion Designs.

I had a bit of trouble while making this card. Firstly I stamped the images with black die ink. Then I cut a mask for the birds and the top of the trees. I didn't bother to cut a mask for the trunk of the trees, since I was going to colour them quite dark so I can hide the ink with my colouring. While I was inking the background I noticed that the black ink started to bleed, you can see it on the bigger bird on the bells. I don't know why, maybe I should have waited longer before I started to ink up background but then I figured that I should have done this in different order. I think the smarter thing to do this, would have been first stamp the trees and cover them with the masks, then just put the masks for the birds, ink the background, let it dry and then stamp the birds and colour them. Have you had this kind of trouble and how have you solved it? Please, feel free to share. 

The birds are coloured with copic markers and I added a little bit yellow copic marker to the trees and added white jelly roll pen and wink of stella on top. 

Supplies:

Stamps: Maple, Juniper and Seasons Greetings by Purple Onion Designs.   

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black (sentiment), Memento Lulu Lavender, Cantaloupe and Tumbled Glass Distress Ink (I think or Peacock Feathers).

Wink of Stella

White Jelly Roll Pen

Copic Markers: Birds: E40 - E42 - E43 - E44, E04 - R56 - R59, Trees: YG03 - YG67, E47.

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

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