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

CAS(E) this Sketch #109

Good Afternoon!

This is my entry to the CAS(E) this sketch #109 and
Runway Inspired Challenge #77 - Jenny Packham.
This card got Honourable Mention at the CTS.

I made this card for the CAS(E) this Sketch and I took the colour theme from Runway Inspired Challenge. I saw that challenge inspiration photo and it was so gorgeous that I had to take part. This card ended up being totally different what I had in mind in the first place, so it is not quite what the inspiration was for. 

I started with stamping the Peony Scrolls by Altenew and Pretty Little Peonies by Wplus9 with Versafine Smoky Grey onto this grey card stock. I coloured the flowers with Derwent Coloursoft Pencils. After, I stamped the sentiment from a stamp set called Sketchy Rose by Altenew with Versamark and heat embossed it with Vanilla White Embossing Powder. I added the paper twine, a few sequins and that little light blue border.

I will link this card into these challenges:

CAS(E) this Sketch #109 - the sketch

Runway Inspired #77 - Jenny Packham - The colour theme

Here are challenges' graphics:

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you are a having a wonderful day!

Marika

Inkspirational #75 and Card Concept Challenge #27

Good Evening Everyone!

This is my entry to the Card Concept Challenge #27
and Inkspirational Card Challenge #75.

I made this card and filmed it while making it. It was made with the same technique as one of the cards at the Altenew Guest Design post and I was asked to make a tutorial to show how I coloured it. Well, I don't have a video you, unfortunately I was only able to film my head.... although I tried to avoid it. Maybe next time. :) 

The inspiration for this card comes from these two challenges. Valentine's Day is coming up and love is in the air. In Finland, we celebrate friendship at Valentine's day and that is why I need more "friend" cards other than "love" cards. I loved the colours at Card Concept and wanted to participate with this friendship card. Hopefully it is ok. I also made this card Inkspirational's colour challenge in mind. I only read the key word - Rose - and started to make it. After I was done I noticed that there was no craft card stock at the neutrals list.. Hopefully it is ok too? If not, please delete my card.

I started this card with stamping the sentiment from Altenew with Versamark and heat embossed it with Vanilla Opaque White embossing powder. After, I stamped the flowers and leaves from Whimsical Flowers set by Altenew with Memento Desert Sand ink. I coloured the flowers with Derwent Coloursoft and Faber-Castell pencils.

I will link this card into these challenges:
Inkspirational Card Challenge #75 - Use rose colours
The Card Concept Card Challenge #27 - Love, I was inspired by the colour combo

Here are the challenges' graphics:

Thank you for stopping by today! Have a wonderful day! 

Marika

Muse Challenge #102 and CASology #131

Good evening everyone!

This is my entry to the Muse #102- challenge.

This is my entry to the CASology #131- challenge.

My Godson turned two this month and her sister turned four. They had combined birthday party today and I wanted to make cards for them. 

I started with stamping the images from Purple Onion Designs onto a watercolour paper with black pigment ink. I coloured the images with Derwent Inktense pencils and cut them out. After that I created background by stamping the Purple Onion Designs backgrounds stamps with grey ink. I coloured them with Derwent coloursoft pencils. I added snow by going over some areas with Versamark pen and then adding either white or Clear Silver Highlight Embossing powder and heat set them. I inked the sky with Versacolour Sky Blue pigment ink. I die cut circles onto panels that will be my card front and stamped the sentiment from Avery Elle (Oh Happy Day) and Tiddly Inks (Happy Birthday). Then I put the cards together. For the final touch, I added Wink of Stella for the penguin's hat to add some shimmer.

I will enter these cards into these challenges:

Muse Card Challenge #102 - I was inspired by the die cut window and a critter on top of the front panel. 

CASology Card Challenge #131 - Birthday card. Maybe mine isn't traditional birthday card with balloons and cakes but I wanted to make something a bit different.

Here are the challenges' graphics:

Thanks for visiting! Hopefully you're having a great day! See you soon!

Marika

Less is More #206

Good Evening!

This is my entry to the Less is More #206.

I had a little time to colour with my daughter today, I made this card and my daughter coloured a card for her friend's birthday. She was quite a lot of quicker in colouring though! :) I wanted to participate to Less is More #206 where is going on a one-layer week with a theme of New Beginnings. My dear friend is going to be starting in a new job in a few weeks. She doesn't enjoy her work in her current one so I wanted to make a card to give her a little smile and strength or "sisu" as we call it in Finnish to keep going these few days she still have left in her old job. Inside of this card there is text "Blue skies are ahead" Hopefully she will enjoy her new job. 

I started this card by masking off the "uncoloured area" with post-it notes. Then I stamped all the images with black pigment ink. The branch and background trees are from Purple Onion Designs and balloons, the dog and the sentiment are from stamp set called Flying High by Tiddly Inks. I also drew the road and I coloured all images with Derwent Coloursoft pencils. Then, I masked off the coloured part of the card and stamped the rest of the branch and the bakcground hills and trees with grey ink. At the top of the card, one of the balloons was cut off from the backside of the card to give some interest to the card. The sentiment inside of the card is from a set called Blue skies by Lawn Fawn.

Here are some close-ups:

Hopefully you like it and I hope it will give a smile for my friend. Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful day!

Marika

Happy Anniversary!

Good Evening!

This is my entry to the CAS(E) this Sketch #105,
The Card Concept #26 and

It's been quite hectic life since Christmas - not a whole lot time for crafting. I saw the sketch at the CAS(E) this sketch and wanted to participate. I had a few ideas on my mind for that one, this one actually ended up into a finished card.

I started with stamping the flower - Lacy Scrolls from Altenew a craft cardstock and coloured it with Coloursoft Pencils and with the same technique as the previous Altenew cards.  I used more grey/cool colours this time since I wanted it to match to the grey cardstock and then cut it out. The partial frame is die cut from Spellbinders and the background paper is handmade paper bought from a craft store in UK. It is called White Silk. The sentiment is from a Painted Poppy stamp set by Altenew. I stamped it with black pigment ink and then heat embossed it with Clear Matt Dull Embossing powder. The frame and the flower is popped up with foam tape.

I will enter this into these challenges:

CAS(E) this sketch #105 - the sketch

The Card Concept #26 - One year anniversary: Clean and Layered

Here are challenges' graphics:

Thank you for stopping by today and thank you for your comments from my Altenew Guest Design post. They made my day! Video tutorials... me... hmm.. I am terrified to be honest. :) Let me see what I can up with. Anyhow, a request to my husband has been sent to come up with the equipments for the videos... Maybe someday.

See you soon and Have a wonderful day! 

Marika

Guest Designing for Altenew - second post

Good Evening!

Hopefully you all are doing well today. A few weeks ago Tasnim from Altenew asked me to guest design for them - she asked then if I could do two posts and this is the second one. Thank you so very much for your kind comments on my cards on the first one. It really gave me enthusiasm for making these new cards as good as I can. Thank you for it! 

Last time the theme was Flowers with Watercolours. This time the theme is Craft Cardstock and Color Pencils. And perhaps the theme combining these two sets are Butterflies: I just couldn't resist using that gorgeous Painted Butterflies also this time. 

Stamp sets used: Peony Scrolls, Halftone Hello
and Painted Butterflies.

Stamp sets used: Whimsical Flowers, Label Love
and Painted Butterflies.

Stamp sets used: Lacy Scrolls, Label Love and
Painted Butterflies.

I started with stamping the sentiments using either Versamark or a black pigment ink and then heat embossed them with either Vanilla White or Clear Matt Dull embossing power. Then the main images were stamped using either white pigment ink (Lacy Scrolls, solid image) or Memento Desert Sand (outline images) and then coloured with Derwent Coloursoft Pencils or Faber-Castell Polychromos Color Pencils (greens). Since heat embossing resist the ink, I was able to stamp images after stamping the sentiment and still got the illusion that flowers and leaves are behind the sentiment. The "Love U"- card is made in different order: At first, I stamped the main images with white pigment ink and then the sentiment with black pigment in so the white shines through just a tiny bit.

Here are close-ups: 

Thank you Tasnim and Jennifer for this great opportunity to be your guest. It's been a wonderful experience. Thank you very much!

Thank you stopping by today and have a wonderful day! See you soon!

Marika

Let it snow!

Good evening everyone!

This is my entry to the Less is more #202 - Snow
and to the Card Concept #25 - Silent Night.

This is my entry to the CASE this Sketch #103
and to the Merry Monday Christmas Card #139 - Winter Wonderland.
This card got Honorable Mention at CASE this Sketch.

I am back from our vacation to the beautiful city of Oxford, UK. It was very lovely to see the sun really shining again. Well, during those two weeks I had tons of time to gather some ideas and luckily, four of the challenges that I usually enter my cards had a theme that fitted into my ideas. 

In both of the cards the image stamps used are all from Purple Onion Designs and I coloured images with Derwent Coloursoft pencils and Inktense Pencils. I added some snow with two different kind of embossing powders: Opaque White by Zing and White Twinkle by WOW. 

For the second one I wanted to add some colour and I used the sketch from the CASE this Sketch. The owl is made the same way as in the one layer card but I was lazy and didn't want to create a mask so I stamped the owl to a watercolour paper and coloured it with Inktense Pencils and fussy cut it out and glued it to panel after I had made the background. For the background I inked the night sky with Distress Inks: Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry and Chipped Saffphire and Memento Lulu Lavender.

Here are the closeups for the snow with that White Twinkle embossing powder. In real life it really is pretty and shiny. It was quite hard to photograph.

 

Challenge:

The card Concept #25: Silent Night Neutrals - Clean and Simple. 

CASE this sketch #103: the sketch

Merry Monday Christmas Card: Winter Wonderland

Less is More #202: One Layer and Snow

And here are the challenges' graphics:

Thank you for stopping by today, hopefully you like what I have come up with. And thank you for those who has given me such kind comments during last two weeks. I do appreciate them very much. Thank you. 

Hopefully you are having a wonderful day!

Marika

Color me...Subtle! #47- challenge

Good Evening!

This is my entry to the Color me... Subtle! #47- challenge.
This card got Honourable Mention at Color me...!

I wanted to participate this week's Color me...! Challenge and the colour combo there is Early Espresso, Soft Suede and Cajun Craze. A lot things went wrong while I was making this card, so the end result is way different than I originally thought it would be. Isn't it just fun though, that just changing the design you can hide your mistakes pretty well. :) I also bended the rules of the challenge a little bit, I needed to add some interest on the background ( read = among others hide my fingerprints) so I added a little bit of golden/yellowish colour.

All the stamps are from Purple Onion Designs and I coloured the images with Derwent Coloursoft pencils. 

Here is the photo of the same card. Hopefully, the shine of the Vintage Champagne Embossing powder is seen better here. I believe, the "wow" effect of this card is in those snowflakes, which catch your eye when looked at from a different angle. 

Here is the challenge's graphic:

Thank you for stopping by today and always pleased to here what you think! Thank you for your lovely comments on my previous cards. They have made my day many times!

Marika

Less Is More #198 - More than one tree

Good Afternoon Everyone!

My entry to the "Less is More" #198 -
More than one tree- challenge.

Well, I will enter this card to one of challenges since it's been quite a challenge for me. I started to make this card for the past week's Muse but it never made it there. Firstly, I've been watching Therese Calvird's tutorials with my girl for a while now. She is amazing with Prismacolors and blending them with gamsol. My crafting friend brought me a bottle of similar stuff for me to use blending with my Derwent Coloursofts. Well, what seems to be very easy thing on those wonderful tutorials, isn't that easy in real life - at least not for me. I also need to buy better greens, my set of pencils had such an awful set of greens. Secondly, that sentiment is my third tryout, the first two were not publishable. Thirdly, when I looked at the gallery of the this week's challenge at Less is more, there is almost similar card already made for this challenge, but I will link this anyhow since I am not copying or CASEing it since this card has been sitting on my desk for about two weeks now awaiting me to come up with something for the sentiment part.

The theme at the "Less is More" #198 is More than one tree. The stamps used in this card are from Purple Onion Designs.

Thank you for stopping by today and thank you if you have time to leave a comment. I am always pleased to hear what you think. Have a wonderful day! 

Marika

OCC Stretch your stamps 2 - Outline image stamps.

Hi to all!

My daughter and I went out of town for the weekend to visit my daughter's Godmother. We had a very wonderful weekend but a little time for crafting. I'm a little bit behind with the class and yesterday I tried to catch up for the previous four days homework. For the first card I was inspired by Debbie Hughes's card when she encouraged us to colour on non-white medium. I used to Neenah desert storm craft card stock for the base of my stamped image and coloured it with Derwent Colorsoft pencils. 

For the second card I wanted to try out Donna Mikasa's idea of water painting. I think I should have used more vibrant colour for the distress ink since I wasn't able to get enough contrast between inner and outer side of the stamped image. Though, in my crafting body's opinion this card was the best one for the day since it had enough pink! For the third card I just wanted to colour the magnolia with watercolour and make it a clean and simple card. I have not been using watercolours for a long time so this was quite challenging for me but I think it turned out nicely. I really like the look of watercolour!

Thank you for stopping by and thank you for the previous comments on my cards. I'm very pleased to see that someone else also likes my creations! Thank you! Happy crafting!