A winner of the Altenew October Blog Hop

Hello Everyone,

I'm a bit late announcing the winner of last week's hop, thank you so much for your patience. But finally here she is. I used Randon.org True number generator to draw a winner and she is the 90th comment left on my comment box:

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vinita jain3 October 2015 at 07:41

I am so much impressed with your talent! All of your creations are so elegant with great color combo, designing, hard to pick fave one! Would love to follow you to see more of your creativity!

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Thank you Vinita for your kind comment and thank you all for leaving so much love and support. Really loved reading through all of them. Vinita, I have messaged you, hopefully the message finds you.

Thank you all who participated on the hop!

Hugs,

Marika

Autumn... the year's last, loveliest smile

Hello!

Hopefully you all are doing well today. I'm here to share this card that I made inspired by  Therese from Lostinpaper. Therese is one of the first crafters and Youtubers that I started to follow. I immediately fell in love with the cute critters that she featured in her cards.. And if you wonder.. yes, they were those adorable critters by Stacey Yacula. I've also learned so much from colouring just watching her colour in her amazing videos. And yesterday, can you believe, is the day that I can call her as my teammate as SHE joins in the Altenew Team! How wonderful is that? I couldn't be more pleased and thrilled! Welcome Therese! 

I wanted to celebrate this day by being inspired her cards and there are so many that I could take inspiration from. But lately Therese has made two these two cards (here) and (here) with birds in them, so I needed to go for the birds theme. Then I saw this challenge at TIME OUT Card Challenge #41 and figured this could be a good fit to there as well. 

I used Wild Hibiscus and Vintage Flowers set from Altenew to stamp and colour the main bird at the bottom. Then I drew the three flying birds first with a pencil and then coloured on top with Faber-Castell Polychromos. (Sorry for smutch on one of the birds, I messed up the colouring, tried to erase it but Polychromos doesn't quite erase that well.

Thank you for visiting, see you soon!

Hugs,

Marika

Coloured Pencils on Vellum

Good Afternoon!

I'm sharing a card at the Altenew blog today. I used Wild Hibiscus set and first I stamped the flowers on vellum and then used my coloured Pencils to colour the flowers. Here is my card:

Stamps and dies used: Wild Hibiscus, Sketchy Landmarks and Vintage Flowers die.

Here is my video on tutorial. Hopefully you find it helpful.

Supplies:
Stamps: Wild Hibiscus and Sketchy Landmarks by Altenew
Dies: Vintage Flowers die by Altenew
Inks: Versamark, Altenew Frosty Pink and Jet Black Crisp Dye Inks
Card stock: Neenah Solar White 80b
Pink Vellum by Inspire Me
Clear Droplets by Pretty Pink Posh
Silver IrRESISTible Pico Embellisher by Tsukineko

Thank you for stopping by today. See you soon!

Hugs,
Marika

Card Concept Challenge #40 - Forest Friends

Hello!

I'm here to share card that I made for Card Concept Challenge #40 - Forest Friends in mind. I just couldn't resist the adorable inspiration picture they had this time. I'm running so close to deadline that I need to get this quickly published. I'm also playing along Kathy 's The 30 Day Coloring Challenge. Here's my card - pretty simple scene and one layer card. 

This is my entry to the Card Concept Card Challenge #40.

I used Stacey Yacula's images: Bobby, 2 Forests and Blossoming Perch and drew the swing.  The sentiment is also from Purple Onion Design from a set called Hopscotch Sentiments. I coloured the images with copic markers and for the background I used Distress Inks.

And I'm linking this up to Clean and Simple category.

Thank you for stopping by and I appreciate all the lovely comments left to me. Thank you so much!

Hugs,
Marika

Altenew October 2015 Blog Hop

EDIT: I have announced the winner, please visit here. Thank you. 

Good Afternoon Everyone,

Today I'm participating Altenew October 2015 Blog Hop to celebrate the release of twelve new Crisp Ink colours and a variety of new Dies. You probably just came from the newest member of our Design Team Svitlana Shayevich's blog, if not please start from the beginning at Altenew blog and see what other members of Altenew's design team have come up with. 

I played a bit of Poinsettia and Pine set with co-ordinating dies. I also used a couple of new inks to stamp the images and inked up the background. Have you started you Holiday cards yet? Hopefully I'll give hint of inspiration to start to have fun with them.

Stamps and dies used: Poinsettia and Pine and co-ordinating die,
Wood Pallet Background and Sketchy Landmarks.

Stamps and dies used: Poinsettia and Pine and co-ordinating die, 
Wood Pallet Background and Sketchy Landmarks.

In this other card I used the pine cones to be my focal point.

Stamps and dies used: Poinsettia and Pine and co-ordinating die, 
Wood Pallet Background and Sketchy Landmarks.

Stamps and dies used: Poinsettia and Pine and co-ordinating die, 
Wood Pallet Background and Sketchy Landmarks.

I used no-line colouring technique in these images. First, I stamped images with a light inks: I used Cotton candy for the Poinsettia and Peach Perfect for the Pine cones. Then I added my base layer with copic markers. Then I took out my Faber-Castell Polychromo Colour Pencils and added detail with them. On the Poinsettia card I used the new Dark Chocolate Ink to stamp the pine needles - for the pine cone card I used Evergreen to stamp them. 

I used Wood Pallet Background to stamp the woodgrain on to a Desert Storm card stock with Dark Chocolate Ink. I cut them to frames with my paper trimmer and added a bit of worn out look with Gathered Twigs Distress ink with my ink blending tool. On the Pine cone card I uses Dark Chocolate and Peach Perfect ink to add a bit of interest to the background. 

The sentiments were stamped from the Sketchy Landmarks set with Altenew Dark Chocolate Ink. 

Copic Markers: 
Poinsettia and berries: RV11 - RV32
Leaves: YG03 - YG67
Pine Cones: E23 - E47

Faber-Castell Polychromo Colour Pencils:
Madder Lake (129), Madder (142), Walnut Brown (177), Burnt Sienna (283),Green Yellowish (168), Green Opaque (174), Juniper Green (165).

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For my third card I wanted to show you the variety of ink colours. I tried to come up with a card that a teenager might like. 

Stamps and dies used: Halftone Hello and co-ordinating die, 
Label Love and Shutter Cover Die.

I stamped the Halftone Hello with Altenew Crisps inks Soft Lilac, Lavender Fields and Deep Iris. I started from the bottom of the stamp and used my stamp positioner to get the repeated stamping to line up. Between the colours and let the inks overlap a little bit. If you have MISTI, this would be fun and easy to do. A tip: start from your darkest colour and go for lighter ones. I die cut the Hello sentiment with the co-ordinating die. I also stamped How R U with black pigment ink and cut it with my scissors and left a tiny white border to get contrast.

Then I die cut my front panel with a new Shutter Cover Die (I trimmed it down to be a square.) and used new Altenew blue inks to ink up the front ombre. The inks used from the bottom to the top: Sea Glass, Ocean Waves, Dusk and Desert Night. The back of the shaker window is made by dry embossing with the same Shutter Cover Die. I used the same inks on that panel but in reverse order, I also rotated the panel 90 degrees to get the embossing to be seen better. I kinda like the effect this gives. And as you can see, the inks blend perfectly!! For purple ombre I used the following inks from left bottom corner to the upper right: Midnight Violet, Deep Iris, Lavender Fields and Soft Lilac. I created my shaker window from acetate and black fun foam. For the shaker material I used Metallic Silver and Charcoal Sequins. (Yay!! My first ever shaker card!) :)

GIVEAWAY

To celebrate this release, Altenew will draw three winners who will each receive a $30 gift certificate to their online store. Please leave a comment on the Altenew blog by Friday, October 9 11:59pm EST for a chance to win. The winners will be announced on Saturday, October 10.

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, October 9 11:59pm EST for a chance to win. I will announce the winner here on my blog on Saturday, October 10. 

GET HOPPING!

I was the last one on the hop this time. You can visit Altenew and let Tasnim and Jennifer know what you thought of this release and enter the big giveaway by doing so. I hope you enjoyed hopping and got some inspiration. 

Thank you so much for visiting and taking the time to comment. See you very soon!

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

My Favorite Things' Superstar Card Contest

Good Afternoon my dear friends,

Today I'm here to share a card that I made for My Favorite Things Superstar Card Contest. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly encourage you to go and check it out. There's still time to participate.. gallery closes tomorrow. There are awesome set of prizes to win but moreover there are such a wonderful gallery of cards for your inspiration. What a eye candy for sure! 

There's a story behind this card. I made this card for my husband - who is the best husband ever of course but I wanted to make him a card since he's been very supportive with me with this wonderful hobby of mine. Although, it is mainly fun of course, but there's times that you'll feel frustrated when nothing works and the deadline is tomorrow. He's been wonderful in those situations and I wanted to say thank you. 

For those of you who doesn't know, but we went to Hawaii on our honeymoon. What a wonderful place - just loved it there. My hubby also loves maps (God knows how many we have of those..) so I wanted to make a map that reminds him of our honeymoon. That's the inspiration behind this card and here it is:

Firstly, I stamped the flower images with light pink ink and added the base layer of color with copic markers. I love details and sometimes with images this small, details are hard to do with copics so this time I added them with pencils on top of my copic coloured base layer. Found while doing this that polychromos work so much better than coloursofts which blend very well but are so soft that those tiny details where hard to add with them as well. I die cut the flowers and used partly die cutting technique for one of the flowers (second to lowest on right.) Then I inked up my background with Distress inks and added Shimmer mist onto it to give a feel of an ocean. I stamped the sentiment with black pigment ink to the bottom left corner. Before putting my card together I figured the background needed some interest so I cut it to stripes and popped up three of the stripes to get some dimension to my background. Flowers are added with foam tape and liquid glue - as well as the tiny sequins.

Supplies:
Stamps: Polynesian Paradise by My Favorite Things
Dies: Polynesian Paradise by My Favorite Things
Inks: Versafine Onyx Black, Spung Sugar, Peacock Feathers, Broken China Distress Ink, Milled Lavender Distress Marker, 
Paper: Canson Bristol 250mgs (flowers), Neenah Solar White 80lb (the see)
Sequins: Simon Says Stamp White Iris

Copic Markers
Flowers: RV00 - RV11 - RV32 - YG21 - Y15 - YR18
Leaves: YG11 - YG03

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils: Pink (C190), Blush Pink (C180), Orange (C070)
Faber-Castell Polychromos: Green Opaque (174), Green Yellowish (168)

Thank you so much for stopping by! I appreciate everytime. Enjoy your day.

Marika

Miss You Lots with Inktense Pencils

Hello crafters,

I was kindly ask to Guest Design at the Time Out Challenges #39 where the theme is Make your Mark. The challenge is still going on for about a week and I did another card for your inspiration. 

I've purchased this adorable little girl called Miss you Lots by Wplus9. I just haven't had time to colour it until now. While I bought these I thought that they would make a perfect gift for my Goddaughters and this is my first one (of quite a many) and it'll be for my niece. Hopefully she likes it when she receives it. It would be super neat if Dawn would use her magical drawing skills and make a set of stamps like this but little boys in them... What would you think? 

I took a close up since those frames were the only ones that I could find while taking a photo... AND they are HUGE!!. I used no-line colouring technique with Inktense Pencils. For the trees on the background I used a stamp from Coming up Roses and did a bit of watercolour stamping. I very much like how this turned out, in particular I like how the dress turned out. (Many many MANY layers of Inktense pencils...) Lol! And I had a blast colouring! 

Supplies:
Stamps: Miss You Lots and Coming up Roses by Wplus9
Inks: Memento Desert Sand. Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters and Gathered Twigs Distress Inks.
Paper: Daler & Rowney Simply... Watercolour paper 190mgs/90lb, medium grain textured surface

Derwent Inktense Pencils: 
Dress: Sicilian Yellow (0220), Cadmiun Orange (0250), Baked Earth (1800) 
Boots: Sicilian Yellow (0220), Spring Green (1550), Light Olive (1540), Sepia Ink (2010) Hair: Tan (1720), Amber (1710), Saddle Brown (1740), Willow (1900) 
Skin: Willow (1900) 
Petticoat: Sepia Ink (2010)
Kitty and stones: Chinese Ink (2030)
Sky: Iris Blue (0900)
Lake: Iron Blue (0840)
Lakeshore: Tan (1720), Saddle Brown (1740), Willow (1900)
Grass: Spring Green (1550), Light Olive (1540)

Thank you so much for stopping by today! Enjoy your day!

Marika

Freesias with bright colours

Hello,

Hopefully you all are doing well. Thank you so much for your kind comments left on my last post. I've read them all but I hadn't time to visit back, which I'll do shortly.

Today, it is my turn again to host Altenew blog. I had fun with my copics and no-line colouring today. Here is my card:

Stamps used: Fresh Freesia, Painted Poppy and Baby Zoo.

Stamps used: Fresh Freesia, Painted Poppy and Baby Zoo.

I also made a video tutorial how I used a couple of masking techniques and how I coloured this flower. I also shared some thoughts of mine what goes in my mind while I colour. Hopefully you found them helpful. And for those, who struggle getting one's hands in Neenah card stock, my friend Nonni and Milla found this Canson Bristol paper that is easier to find (at least in Finland) and I'm finding it quite good for copic colouring.

You can watch my tutorial here or in HD in Youtube.



Supplies:
Stamps: Fresh Freesia, Painted Poppy and Baby Zoo by Altenew
Inks: Memento Cantaloupe and New Sprout, Altenew Jet Black Ink, Wild Honey Distress Ink.
Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms card stock
Copic Markers: Y13 - Y15 - YG11 - YG03 - YG67

Thank you so much for stopping by today. See you soon!

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