Drawn Birthday Card

Two weeks ago I was asked to do a birthday card for an 8-year-old girl.

After figuring out that movie Frozen is a big thing for her, I got drawn to the idea to draw the card myself.

Why to see all that trouble? Well, I felt a bit nostalgic I guess...

Around 10-year-old I enjoyed Disney movies like the Little Mermaid and Lady and the Tramp.

In those days I drew the original characters and "designed" my own characters -basically learned to how make Disney-styled girls and dogs. ;) Most of those pictures are long gone.

This time I actually took more photos during the work, so you can see what happened:

Aquarelle pens were great for this thing. :) I enjoyed the coloring very much!

Finally I added a turquose background paper and sprayed blue & green glitter spray around the edges.

In the pic the wet paper is still slightly bent, but luckily it dried well.

This took about 6 hours of work. I didn't even notice time passing - got on a flow state. ;)

As much as I liked doing the character of Disney, Elsa, I also enjoyed drawing the text. The font that is used in movie poster was an inspiration, of course. I wanted same kind of icy feeling, but lighter and more decorational style. Figuring out the details was very rewarding for me! :)

Photos from May - Pets and Flowers

I think the picture above tells really perfectly how great the early Summer feels to me. :)

I have enjoyed the first warm days very much! I plan to go for long walks and photograph...

Yllä parin viikon takainen otos kirsikankukista. Alkukesän ihanuus välittynee siitä aika hyvin. :) Puut kukkineen löytyivät kilometrin päästä, ja tarkoitus olisi kuvata ulkona vielä paljon...

Below is the only card I have made during this Spring. It was for Mother's Day, of course.
Kortteja en ole täällä paljon esitellyt tänä vuonna, ja oikeastaan alla oleva on ainoa, jonka olen tehnyt.

It was natural to choose birds for the card as they are my mom's favourite animals. Right now she has two budgies. The new-comer, a green female, has charmed the older male. I never seen more sappy pair of birds, their honeymoon has lasted already two months!

Äitienpäiväkortin lintukiiltokuvat löysin Honkkarista, kaikista maailman kaupoista. Ne sopivatkin hyvin äidilleni, joka pitää linnuista kovasti. Hänellä on pitkään ollut undulaatteja, ja alla tämänhetkinen pariskunta. Nuori vihreä tulokas on saanut vanhemman herran täysin pauloihinsa, ja pari on kuherrellut siirappisen rakastuneena jo useamman kuukauden.

My mom has also two guinea pigs. Both girls, named after Finnish pop singers. The golden coloured is bolder and bossier, althought the chocolate-golden one holds her ground when needed! They got their share of salad after Mother's Day dinner.

Pakko esitellä myös äidin mainio marsukaksikko, tumma Paula ja vaalea Vicky. (Nimetty Koivuniemen ja Rostin mukaan.) Vicky on aikamoinen päällepäsmäri, ja rohkea kuin mikä. Paula on ujompi, mutta osaa kyllä ilmoittaa siskolleen, milloin ei sovi hyppiä silmille.

Camera was useful also while travelling to my mother. The near-by forest floor was filled with delicate wood sorrel flowers. It is more common to see wood anemones in May, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Kamerasta oli äitienpäivänä hyötyä myös matkalla. Huomasin metsänpohjan täynnä kukkivaa ketunleipää. Odotin näkeväni tietenkin valkovuokkoja, joten herkemmät kukkaset veivät saman tien huomioni.

I'll write more soon, as I finally got photos of my cranberry&oatmeal-cookies before they vanished. ;)
Lisää kirjoittelua tulossa pian ainakin karpalokaurakeksien reseptin merkeissä. :)

For Inspis Challenge

I take first time part to Inspis challenge.
The challenge was to use this design in the card:
/ Ensi kertaa mukana Inspis-haasteessa! Alla kortin luonnos:

I made card for Mother's Day which is 11th of May in Finland.
/ Valmistauduin jo äitienpäivään tämän kortin myötä. :)

Easter Greeting Card

Here's a sample of Easter greetings I made this year. Tested doing bows with a fork and it worked nicely. :) The card was very easy to make - I just drew a model for eggs and copied the outlines to patterned papers. This was an easy way to make use of small bits of paper! ;-)

Pääsiäisterveiset lähtivät tänä vuonna tämän näköisinä. Kokeilin ensimmäistä kertaa rusettien tekoa haarukka apuna, ja se toimi hyvin. Kananmunia varten tein mallin, jolla kopioin ääriviivat kuviopapereille. Tämä oli muuten kätevä tapa käyttää paperipakkauksista tulleet pienet palaset. ;-)

A Birthday Surprise From Finland

Recently I sent a surprise present for my close friend who lives abroad. It's not so long ago when she left there but knowing she misses Finland gave me an idea how to cheer her up.
/ Hiljattain lähetin ylläripaketin pitkäaikaiselle ystävälleni, joka asuu ulkomailla. Hän ei ole asunut vielä pitkään siellä, mutta kaipaa kotimaataan. Aiheesta keskustellessamme sain ajatuksen, kuinka lähettää palan Suomea synttärilahjaksi.

The solution was a talented acquaintance of mine. She makes cute and personal jewellery which I have bought few for myself, like my favourite owl earrings. :) There are also cup cakes, doughnuts and other fun stuff. (Her new web page is purppurapuu.omasivu.fi, and more works you see from Facebook.)
/ Mieleeni tuli lahjakas tuttavani, joka tekee ihanan söpöjä ja persoonallisia koruja. Lempparikorvakoruni, nuo pöllöt, ovat hänen tekemiään. Ideani Suomi-teemaiseksi koruksi taisi kuitenkin saada kimmokkeen niistä ruoka-aiheisista koruista. joita hänellä on Facebookissa esillä. (Purppura Puulla on myös uudet kotisivut, joilta myös löytyy kaikenlaista kaunista.)

So I ordered a personalized necklace for my friend. I think Elisa did terrific job with it with lifelike rye breads and bright wooden pearls!
/ Kaulakorun tilasinkin siis erillisenä työnä, ja Elisa työsti heittämistäni ajatuksista upean kokonaisuuden, pienine ruisleipineen ja pirteine puuhelmineen. :)

I completed the gift by making the greeting card on the background. There I used watercolour drops for watery effect. The fairy and dragonfly stamps fit there perfectly I think. :)
/ Taustalla näkyvä kortti onkin sitten omaa käsialaani. Halusin jatkaa itsetehtyä tunnelmaa, ja käytin vesivärejä taustan luomiseen. Keiju/vedenhenki ja sudenkorentoleimat istuivat kivasti vedelliseen kokonaisuuteen.

Well, this about time to get off the computer. we have sunny Friday here! :) Have a lovely weekend!
/ Nyt taitaisi olla aika lähteä koneen äärestä auringonpaisteeseen. :) Mukavaa viikonloppua!

A Postcard for the Faces theme

Hi!
After a short pause I'm taking part again to Sunday Postcard Art -challenge.
The current challenge is Faces. I think it's a fun subject because an artist can use only few lines and still capture person's character...

Here's my card, in 6 x 4 inches:

I think I name it "Bow Ties Are Cool". I didn't plan to make a fan art piece of Doctor Who, but the face just appeared on while painting with watercolours. :) That helped to design the surrounding area with stamps collected from various places.

Thanks for visiting!

A Card from Violet and Black

I was excited to find a new challenge which had colour combination violet/black as the current challenge. Violet and its tones are my favourite colours!

This challenge blog is Paperminutes.

Here's my card - could not resist the Halloween mood when I came up with this happy little Vampiria flying up. :) It's been a while since I  drew a vampire character. My inspiration came from a fantasy book series that I was fond of being nine years old: The Little Vampire.

Details: I painted the patterned background paper with acrylic colour to make the pattern stand out better. The vampire picture I drew with black ink and coloured with violet watercolour.

Glad you came to peek out this card, x

A Glimpse of This Summer

During this summer I had "crafter's block" if you could say so. I kept all the fabrics ready but struggled to get anything fit together.
 Anyway, I at least got done some congratulatory cards and maybe they helped me to get on with the hobby. :) I guess also the holiday time offered some new places to relax and see things differently.

Here's a name day card...

One birthday card...

And a card for house-warming party. :)

A new favourite place of mine where my fiancé's family's summer cottage near the water. :)

We circled the area a lot with bicycles, and saw some beautiful sailing ships too:

Thanks for looking! Have a lovely autumn!

Waiting for Spring

Taking part to It's All About Vintage and Beauty's latest challenge "Dreams of spring with lace".

I personally welcome warmth and light of Spring.This thought made me choose a warm colour palette for my card:

What a lovely family photo! The picture is one from Vintagearkku. Thank you! :) The big crocheted circle and earth-coloured round buttons are from recycling centre, orange lace I dyed myself years ago and white fabric ribbon I bought few days ago.

Thank you for looking!

Lonely Mermaid

Hi!
Taking part to Sunday Postcard Art's challenge "Silhouettes". Very inspiring theme!

Here's my mermaid card:

For this card I used water based acrylic colours, water colours and water colour pencils. The mermaid I drew to transparent vellum and cut it to use as a sablon. Then I coloured the background paper with water colour, leaving some white between brush strokes. The algae I drew with the pencils. After this I applied different acrylic colours through the sablon. The shell is also made with acrylic colours, but just freehanded without planning ahead. Finally I spread some colour areas with water.

Thank you for looking.

Sketch Challenge

Taking part to Dutch Dare Card Challenge again. :)
The challenge was this time to use a sketch. I went through my papers and picked one of best as a background. This sketch was great way to use it.

Thanks for looking!

Let's See... Bingo!

Hi! With this card I take part to Dutch Dare Card Challenge.
I used the line of flowers, buttons and distressing.

As you can see, I'm getting ready for Valentine's Day. :)
I think this is the first time I took part to this challenge. I've been following themes some time, and they are very interesting. Glad to be with you this week!

Thank you for looking!

Inspirational Paris

The Sunday Postcard Art challenged us today to think of France.

My first thought was Paris, but it felt almost too easy. So I started doing other things - and found myself thinking of Paris once again. I especially remembered all the the artists I love who have lived there. You might say they turned my head and inspired this card:

The artist that I chose for this card is Alphonse Mucha. I adore his style - in example the female figures of the posters: beautiful and unique in their time.

Thank you for looking!

Happy New Year to all paper craft fans

I hope your year has started well. I'm happy to say that things are going well here. I started working in new job after New Year, and so far it's been great! It really makes a difference to be able to use professional skills and educational background.

I think all you crafty bloggers find this blog candy interesting - personally I think it's irresistible!

In December I hardly had any time for hobbies, but somehow managed to send Christmas greetings plus make a baby card for a gift we gave to our fellow employee. A good friend of mine also had her first child lately. I can't wait to travel to see their little one! :) Meanwhile I plan an awesome card...

Inner strenght lifts you up...

...when it's time to take wing. I find red colour powerful and energetic - it encourages to take action.

Taking part to Collage Obsession's challenge "red". This subject gave me a push, thank you for that. :)

I started my red collage with my favourite fairy picture and the rest just came along... Completed the details with black ink and metallic gel colours.

Thank you for looking!

Travelling

Got inspired of the theme of travelling in Crazy Amigo Challenge.

Here's my entry:

Thank you for looking!

Tired but looking forward to this weekend!

I'm glad it's almost Friday!  I have to share exhausting tidings so you might understand my relief. Hope you won't mind...

In Tuesday morning I happened to spill some hot tea all over my keyboard and pile of craft things... What a mess! Luckily the keyboard now works, whew. It just needed a day to get dry. The craft things I had to throw away were only left-overs and few paper flowers, which was not so bad.

Back to Tuesday! Somehow I got in time to work but there were bad news waiting. A new exhibition of our project lacks the person keeping it open. So it's up to us to keep the exhibit open for citizens. It's not so bad but the days are getting longer than office hours.

And, naturally, we have to carry our current tasks along, blah... Well, enough about that. I'm happy that this will be over in few weeks.

Now some good news... This weekend I can compensate the lack of hobby time by going to a craft event! It's Passion for Crafting. Yay! :)

To get to right mood, let's put some pics at the end. Here are some old challenge cards from my other blog. I thought you might enjoy seeing them here because I continue to participate on this blog.

Here is my interpretation of Sunday Postcard Art's theme "Shabby Chic". Made in November 2011.

This one, made also in November 2011, is my first card for the It's all About the Vintage.

Doilies!

Here's my entry for It's all about the Vintage and Beauty -challenge. The theme was to use doilies.

I used a piece of blue doily along with background papers and quite a stripe of white doily when I made the big rosette. The edges I coloured with Vintage Ink.

Fly away with me

Here's my entry for two challenges...
Sunday Postcard Art: Quirky
That Craft Place: Things With Wings

The card size is 6 x 4 inches. I used watercolours and water-based metal colours for the picture, and some ink for the text.

Thank you for looking! x

Oriental Tea

Taking part to Collage Obsession's newest challenge "oriental".
The hot drink in picture is tea - which I also drink a lot! :)

The card size is 6 x 4 inches. I used acrylic colours for the background paper. Most of the images are cut from magazines, except coloured stamped picture.