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

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

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

Jolly Critters

Hello,

Thank you so much for encouraging comments left on last post of mine. Well, if you're not tired yet... just let me know when you are, I still have a few to come. :)

Today I'm sharing something that was meant to be very simple but what came to be quite more difficult. I planned to stamp the puppy, colour him and add the sentiment. Well, I did that until I had coloured him and noticed that there is this stocking hanging on the air... Hmmp. Well got to do something to it, so I drew the table. There is something wrong with the perspective but for a holiday card, it'll do. This is sent to my dear friend that I've known since we were four years old, she loves dogs.. 

Stamps used: Jolly Critters and Beauty of the Season.

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Supplies:
Stamps: Jolly Critters and Beauty of the Season Penny Black
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black
Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms Smooth Card Stock

Copic Markers: Puppy: E40 - E42 - E43 - E44, Pink Stocking: RV91 - RV93 - RV95, Candy Cane and the Tablecloth: E04 - R56 -R59, Present: BV20 - V22 - BV25, Floor and the shadows: 0 - N0 - N1 - N3 - N5

I will enter this into following challenges: 
Less is More #254: One layer week and What's in my Stocking?
Merry Monday Card Challenge #183: Candy Cane (Hopefully a "candy bone" works as well, that was the closest to a candy cane that I had...)
Simon Monday Challenge: Holly Jolly Stamping

Thank you so much for visiting me today. I'll be back tomorrow with an new holiday card. See you then!

Hugs,
Marika

Blue and Green Christmas!

Hello!

You probably are getting tired of seeing Christmas cards from me and surely I'm running out of ideas. I still have a few to make so please.. bear with me. I seek inspiration from challenges that are going on at the moment. Less is more is having a colour theme: Blue and Green. That is the base for today's cards. Here they are:

Stamps used: Snowflake Grove Decorated Tree and Happy Holidays - Scripty.

Stamps used: Holly and Happy Holidays - Scripty

If you are familiar with my blog and visited me yesterday, you probably recognise the design on the first one. Yesterday I entered a similar card to CTS, the color theme yesterday was pink. I really liked how the card turned out to be so I replicated it, I just used a different tree stamp for it. My colouring could be better, but you know, holiday cards are made in bulk so I really didn't have the time to use for more detailed colouring this time. Funny thing though is that I kinda had an issue with green stars... Then I figured, if I don't have a problem a tree being blue... surely I can't have a problem with a green star, can I?

On the second I wanted to use the mouse that I had had for about a year now. I think he is really cute but he has never made into a card. One problem with him was that he is quite hard to cut out and before I had copics, I usually cut everything out. I like how he is coloured but I kinda regret inking the blue snowflakes on the back.. and seriously, I'm so running out of ideas. LOL!

I will enter these into followering challenges:

Less is more: Blue and Green

Paper Players Card Challenge #274: Let it snow 

Supplies: 

Stamps: Snowflake Grove Decorated Tree, Holly  and Happy Holidays - Scripty.

Inks: Memento London Fog and Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black, Tumbled Glass Distress Ink

Paper: Neenah Solar White

White Jelly Roll Pen

Copic Markers: B91 - B93 - B95, YG03 - YG67, 0 - W1 - W3, E40, 0 - N0 - N1.

Thank you for stopping by today. I really appreciate your kind comments, especially this very hectic time of the year. Thank you. You really are so kind people in all. Hopefully you are all well and having a wonderful day!

Hugs,

Marika

Pink Christmas!

Hello!

I'm here to share a very quick post since CTS is closing in 3h hours. :) When I saw the sketch, I knew immediately what to do. I know there are circles in the sketch, my circles are on the trees, hopefully that counts! And the colour theme is inspired by my two girls. They don't really care about the colour as long as it is PINK! Pink made this card to be quite cute, what do you think?

Stamps used: Snowflake Grove Bright Trees2 and Happy Holidays (Scripty).

I started with the sketch and drew a grid with my pencils to my card panel. Then I stamped the trees with light grey ink to make the pattern seen. Before I started to colour the images, I erased the pencil grid. All images are firstly coloured with copic markers and then added white details with white jelly roll pen. Next, I die cut a window to an lower right corner and stamped the pattern with black ink - I tried to make sure that the pattern would continue through the die cut window. Then I die cut a square panel out of white card stock and added two coats of the same copic colours as used to colour the trees. Next I stamped the sentiment with light pink ink onto the panel and "wrote-over" the stamped sentiment with white jelly roll pen. The sentiment panel is then popped up with fun foam to add a little bit dimension. 

Supplies:

Stamps: Snowflake Grove Bright Trees2 and Happy Holidays (Scripty) from Purple Onion Designs.

Inks: Memento London Fog and Tuxedo Black and Altenew Cotton Candy Crisp Ink.

Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms Smooth Card Stock

White Jelly Roll Pen

Fun Foam

Copic Markers used: RV91 - RV93 - RV95. N1 - N3 - N5.

I will enter this card into to following challenges:

CAS(E) this Sketch # 151 - the sketch

CASology #176 - Cue Card - Tree

Thank you for stopping by today! Hopefully your day is beautiful!

Hugs,

Marika

Joy to the World

Hello All,

I'm here to share these two cards with Purple Onion Designs. I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to make two cards that are exactly the same. But since holiday cards are often needed more than one, I've found it easiest to use the same design but alter it a little bit. The inspiration for these two cards comes from the sky. I've had in mind this vision hat I would like to have Aurora Borealis on the sky for some Christmas cards of mine. This year we've had many beautiful moments here when the sky has just bloomed, but it turned out to be quite difficult to mimic the boldness and the softness that those beautiful blooms of the sky have. This is the best one so far. 

Stamps used: Flora, Toadstool Cluster and Handwritten Holiday

Stamps used: Fawn and Merry and Bright.

I started by stamping the images on my card panel and drew the snowbanks with copic friendly marker. Then I cut a mask for both main images and covered the stamped image. For the latter card, I also cut a mask for the moon. Then I used my ink blending tool to ink up my sky with Distress Inks. I used two shades of Distress Inks: Tumbled Glass and Stormy sky. The halos around the aurora borealis and the moon were created by leaving Tumbled Glass to show; that is for all the darkers areas seen, I laid second layer of Stormy Sky on to firstly laid Tumbled Glass. Do I make any sense here? I made Flora-card first and after I had made it I realised that in real life if there is snow on the ground and clear sky during the night, the moon light is reflected from the snow. So on the Fawn- card I left a bit of white to show near the snowbanks to make it more real. 

Next I coloured the images with copic markers, I'll list the all the colours in the supplylist below. In the Flora-card I really didn't think the direction of the light source but in the Fawn-card I practiced back-lit shading. I added more highlight with white jelly roll pen and used that to add the stars to the sky as well. Not really sure if the shadows or highlights are in correct places, but it was quite hard learning experience for me to really think where to put the shadows and highlights. 

In the Flora-card I created the Aurora Borealis with Faber-Casstell Polychromo pencils with many different shades of green and yellow. The sentiments were then stamped with black pigment ink.

Just a last reminder, Purple Onion is having a sale - all stamps 25% off until tomorrow.

I saw that Addicted to CAS has the Code Word: JOY. I think the latter one might express the feeling of Joy, just love that cute critter by Stacey Yacula!! She is so joyful, isn't she? Here's the graphic:

Supplies:

Stamps: Flora, Toadstool Cluster, Handwritten Holiday,  Fawn and Merry and Bright by Purple Onion Designs.

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black, Tubled Glass and Stormy Sky Distress Inks.

Card Stock: Canson Bristol 190mgs Smooth Card Stock

White Jelly Roll pen

Copic Multiliner 0.1

Copic Markers: Flora and Fawn: E40 - E42 - E43 - E44, YR23, Scarfs: B91 - B93 - B95 - B97, Stump: E42 - E43 - E44: Toadstool and berries: R56 - R59 - E43 - E44, Shadows: 0 - N0 - N1 - N3 - Y13, Leaves: YG95 - YG97.

Thank you for stopping by today! And thank you for all lovely comments left for two earlier posts, I'll come to visit you soon! 

Hugs,
Marika

Beautiful Lady

Hello!

I'm at the Altenew blog today to feature Beautiful Lady from Altenew's November release. I tried to achieve three different looks by altering colouring mediums and style. On the first card I used Zig Clean Colour Markers and Distress Inks to colour my image. I tried to achieve a look from an old floral books - one might say a vintage look.

Stamps used: Beautiful Lady and Thinking of you.

Supplies:
Stamps: Beautiful Lady and Thinking of you by Altenew.
Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers: English Lavender, Dull Blue
Inks: Versafine Onyx Black, Stormy Sky, Dusty Concord, Chipped Sapphire, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive, Scattered Straw, Hickory Smoke Distress Inks
Paper: Daler & Rowney Simply... Watercolour Paper 190gms/90lb, SSS Slate Card stock

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For my second card, I wanted to go for very clean and simple, sharp and detailed look – one might say: a modern look. I used no-line colouring with copic markers and coloured pencils to colour my image.

Stamps used: Beautiful Lady.

Supplies: 
Stamps: Beautiful Lady by Altenew
Inks: Buttercream and Frayed Leaf Altenew Crisp Inks, Versafine Onyx Black
Paper: Canson Bristol 250gms Smooth Card Stock, Papermania Textured Card Stock

Copic Markers: Y15 - YR15 - YR16 - UG03 - YG67

Faber-Castell Coloured Pencils: Cadmium Yellow (105) - Green Yellowish (168) - Leaf Green (112) - Juniper Green (165) - Dark Crome Yellow (109) - Cadmium Orange (111) - Dark Cadmium Orange (115) - Van-Dyck-Brown (176)

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On my third card, I wanted to gain a fresh and chic – a party like look. Although it ended up being a thank you- card, I’m quite happy with the result. To colour this card, I stamped the image with Distress Markers and then blended the ink from the image with my water brush. For the stem and leaves, I used Zig Clean Color Marker to stamp them and coloured it with same technique. Since that ink had already dried, it was quite hard to get it blend again so I had to add more colour from the marker. While doing so, the stem and the leaves got more details than the flower part, so after I ended up adding  more details to the flowers too. I used a stencil and watercolored though it to make my background. And of course, splatters finishes up every card.

Stamps used: Beautiful Lady and Sohcahtoa.

Supplies:
Stamps: Beautiful Lady and Sohcahtoa by Altenew

Inks: Versafine Onyx Black, Hickory Smoke Distress Ink, Grapevine Altenew Crisp Ink

Worn Lipstick Distress Marker
Pale Dawn Gray Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker
Paper: Daler & Rowney Simply... Watercolour Paper 190gms/90lb, SSS Slate and Cotton Candy Card stock, 

I had tons of fun colouring these – as always. Thank you for stopping by today and if you please, let me know what is your favourite! 

Hugs,

Marika