Hero Arts Nature Challenge

Good Morning All!

Just a quick post to submit this card into Hero Arts Nature Challenge. I saw this challenge when it started back in February and wanted to participate. Then I forgot about it and remembered it yesterday. Yaiks! I went to my stash of half made things and hope to find something that I could use to make card very very quickly. No time for colouring. All the supplies that I used in this card was found from there except the sentiment. Flowers were coloured with Distress Inks and the woodgrain background was embossed to get some detail.

This is my entry to the Hero Arts Nature Challenge.

Here is challenge's graphic:

Supplies:

Stamps: Delicate Blossoms by HeroArts, Wood Pallet Background and Bejeweled by Altenew (sentiment)

Dies: Blooming Branch by Memory Box, Spellbinders Nestabilities Distress Edges 

Inks: Spiced Marmelade and Gathered Twigs Distress Inks (flowers), Versafine Toffee (background) and Vintage Sepia (sentiment)

Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 80lb, Neenah Desert Storm 80lb, Papermania Textured Cardstock

Embossing Powder: Regular White Pearl by WOW!

White Paper Twine

Tools:

Acrylic blocks

Paper trimmer

Sizzix Big shot Machine

Tomboy Multi Liquid Glue

Scotch Foam Tape

Scotch ATG & tape

Thank you for stopping by today and have a great day! I will be back later today to announce the winner of the Altenew bloghop! See you soon!

Marika

Hero Arts Flowers with watercolours!

Good Evening! 

During the weekend I wanted to do some water colouring and paint some flowers. I've had this flow of making scenery, holiday cards for Christmas and now I wanted to do something different. To get some inspiration I went through some really nice blogs and found some really nice challenges to which I wanted to participate. 

This first one was inspired by Fusion Card Challenge - Hardwood Florals! Perfect what I had in mind anyways! I took the sketch and the background and then I went through my stamps and found these Hero Arts Delicate Blossoms- stamp set. They are not near the flowers in the picture - but they'll have to do. I water coloured them with Distress Inks: Dusty Concord and Chipped Sapphire. I also found this Inkspirational #67- challenge which had a colour theme in this week's challenge: any shades of Purple and Silver! How pretty is that! I took the silver since I already had purple flowers and stamped this (just beautiful) woodgrain background stamp from Purple Onion Designs. I stamped it with Versamark and heat embossed it with Superfine Silver Embossing Powder by Ranger. Love that stuff, gives really crisp and detailed embossing. I inked white card stock with Dusty Concord and Chipped Sapphire Distress ink to create a border for my background. I die cut those little branches behind the flowers with Tiny Pine Cones- die by Marianne Design. I applied Versamark and black embossing powder and heat set it. For the sentiment I used a sentiment from Technique Tuesday's set called One of a Kind. The challenges graphics and the sketch is shown below.  

And this is my final card! I am pretty pleased for the fact that I really followed the sketch this time almost fully - I just changed the sentiment! LOL! 

My entry to the Fusion Card Challenge - Hardwood Florals
and to the Inkspirational #67.
This card got Honorable Mention at Fusion 
and was one of the top picks at Inspirational.

My second card was inspired by this week's CAS(E) this Sketch #96. Ingredients are the same - just a little bit different design and colour theme. I water coloured the flowers with Distress Inks: Spiced Marmalade, Rusty Hinge and Gathered Twigs. The little branches are die cut from craft card stock and sponged with Gathered Twigs to give some dimension. The background is stamped with Versafine Sepia ink. The sentiment is a bit old and bought in a local craft store. It says "To my Friend" in Finnish. The challege's graphics is shown below.

My entry to the CAS(E) this Sketch #96.
This card was CTS Favorite.

Here are the graphics for the challenges:

Thank you for stopping by today! I am always pleased to hear what you think. Happy crafting!

Marika

OCC Stretch your stamps 2 - Floral stamps.

Hi everyone! Today at the Stretch your stamps 2 OCC we played with the floral stamps. I needed a thank you card made with watercolours since my dear friend gave me a set of watercolour to try out. The image is from Hero Arts Delicate Blossoms stamp set and I stamped it with Antique Linen Distress Ink. First when I started to paint this flower I thought that I would use Dawn's Sketched outline-tecnique but by the time I had painted the flower I chickened out since it looked beautiful as it was. I even put the thank you- sentiment inside because I didn't want to mess the image with bad sentiment stamping. I can't believe I have just made that card. 

The second card for today was inspired Dawn's Sketched outline technique. I do not own any stamp sets that could have worked with that design so I figured, if I could paint the flowers and leaves myself - of course with watercolours. And this is what it looked at the end.

The third card was inspired by the Bonus's day Colour me images. I needed a card for encouragement for a male friend of mine. The owl is from Stacy Yacula's design at Purple Onion Designs. I just love her work, they are so fun to colour and they fit almost for every occasion.

Today I also had a pleasure to craft with my daughter. We watched a few of the videos together from the Bonus Day material and she decided that she wanted to make a card by Kristina Werner. She chose the colours for the watercolour base and had tons of fun doing the background. Then she stamped the images and coloured them with pencils. I helped the cut the images and then she put the card together. I bet there will be a one happy grandmother in few days when that card is delivered by the Postman Pat. 

My daughter's card, age 3.5 years.

Thank you for stopping by and thank you for your kind words on my yesterday's cards. You totally made my day in the morning when I looked at my phone and saw those notifications. Thank you very much! Happy crafting for all of you.

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!