Stencil Girl Blog Hop!

Hi!
My name is Elina, welcome to my blog!

Imagine and Stencil girl DT's have come together for an amazing three days blog hop, and today is our second day.

Here's a list of our bloggers participating today in this amazing blog hop:

Imagine:

Neva Cole

Kyriakos Pachadiroglou

Renee Zarate

Elina Stromberg (you are here!)

Stencil Girl:

Sandee Setliff

Karen Gaunt 

Cindy Gilstrap

Tina Walker 

One lucky winner will receive both a $25 Gift Certificate to StencilGirl Products AND a $25 Gift Certificate to Imagine Crafts!
Visit the fabulous designers from both teams and comment for your chance to win!
The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN! (One comment per blog please.)
You have until Sunday, July 23rd at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments. Winner will be announced on StencilGirl's Facebook page and Imagine Crafts’s Facebook page on Monday, July 24th.

My Stencil Girl blog hop project is a colourful, round mixed media canvas:

For this project I used two different stencils; background is stencilled with 'Modern Buds' by Rae Missigman, and the gold coloured 'Be Happy' stencil/mask is designed by Maria McGuire. I just love them both!

I started the project with preparing the canvas with white gesso, and once dry I decorated the background with Metallic Gold and Metallic Copper Creative Mediums. The stencil pattern is repeated three times, and before moving onto the colouring step I let the textures airdry properly.

The canvas background is colored with Fireworks! mists; the first layer of yellow and pink is misted, and once dry I added more color with a brush. Metallic Medium is resisting Fireworks!, so the texture remained beautiful and shiny.

The 'Be Happy' sentiment is heat embossed with gold Embossing Powder. I used Clear VersaMark ink and a Jumbo Dauber to ink the background underneath the mask; I'm happy how crispy the embossed image turned out!

I love playing with contrasts, so for highlighting the colorful background I decided to embellish the canvas with black and white elements only. I stamped the flowers and leaves on heavy white paper, colored gently with cool grey markers, and cut out. Before gluing them on the canvas I pressed them in the center with a stylus to bend the petals a bit for making the flowers bit dimensional.
Flower stamps are from Altenew set 'Adore You'.

This canvas will end up on my crafting room wall. Love the bright colors, beautiful flower images, and the metallic golden background textures. Looking at it makes me happy :)

Materials used:

Stencil girl:
* Modern Buds 
* Be Happy 

Imagine:
* Fireworks! Craft Sprays: Lilac Posies & Dandelion
* Creative Medium Metallic: Gold, Copper
* VersaMark Clear ink
* Embossing Powder Gold
* Jumbo Dauber
* Memento Tuxedo Black 

Other:
* Stamps: Altenew 'Adore You'
* Grey markers
* Scissors
* Glue
* Heat Gun

Remember to visit also the blogs where yesterday's projects were showcased, start your journey *here*. Blog hop continues tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Happy hopping! And remember to leave a comment for a chance to win!

Cute girly birthday card

Hello,
Craft Stamer July blog challenge 'Take it, Make it' continues. 'Anything Goes', as long as there's stamping somewhere on the project. Easy, isn't it!
Read all the challenge details and get inspired by the already linked projects *here*.

Here's my second July project for this challenge:

The cute girl image is a Carabelle Studio stamp designed by Zorrette. Love it! The original stamp set had also a bird and a beautiful sentiment text with it, but on this project I used a die-cut title, a butterfly by Stampendous and a flower by Altenew.

The background oval is die-cut with a Tim Holtz/Sizzix die and painted with liquid watercolors.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend! Hope you get inspired to play along our challenge!

Hugs,

Musical Birthday Card

Hi and Happy Wednesday!
Today I'm sharing with you a birthday card I made using stamps from three Visible Image stamp sets:

I started the project with inking the background with a few shades of pink/red Distress inks, using darker tones on the edges and lighter in the middle.

 
Once the background was ready I stamped and heat embossed the saxophone player on the card. Love his cool silhouette!
The musical bubbles are stamped and heat embossed, too. I used the double circle stamp from the 'Rays of Light' set, as the large circle was just the right size to fit the letter stamps from the new 'Alphabetical' set.

Before stamping the letters into the circles I removed the ink from the heat embossed bubbles: Distress inks react well with water, so I brushed plain water on the circles, let it react for a few seconds, and then picked up the ink by pressing it with a paper towel. The little white spots were done the same way; using a small brush I put drops of water on the inked surface, let it sit for a while, and pressed with a paper towel.Works like magic!

For more information on the stamp set I used, please click on the pictures below:

Wishing you a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by in my blog!

EPIC Hipsters on ATC cards!

Hi!
Today I'm sharing with you a set of five ATC's that I made using the wonderful Tim Holtz Hipster stamps and matching Sizzix dies. I wanted to see how the hipster images would work on small ATC's, as I had been using them on larger projects only. Well, I think these versatile and cool images are perfect for any sized projects, aren't they! :D

I stamped the images on white paper and colored with my Promarkers. Love how well the matching dies cut even the finest details of the images! And those cool glasses... I'm sure I'll be using them on many other projects, too. 

For highlighting the colorful images I decided to keep the background simple. Using my favourite Tim Holtz stencils I traced the patterns with a thin black marker. I changed to a grey Promarker, and re-traced the patterns to create bit of shadows on the designs. Love how the backgrounds turned out!

Hope this set will bring a smile to your face :)

Wishing you a wonderful day!