Review: Simon Hurley Dye Inks

Photo used with the kind permission of Simon Hurley

Remember that band New Kids on the Block? My friend Nicola was a huge fan, I wasn't, never really got boy bands once I grew up, in my day it was The Osmond's and then The Bay City Rollers (showing my age now lol!) So what has that opening sentence got to do with crafting? Well as far as I'm concerned there is a new kid on the crafting block and he released the first wave of his own brand of brilliant crafting goodness last year and more is still to come in 2020.

I'm referring of course to Simon Hurley, I say he's a new crafter on the block but this young dude has been crafting since the tender age of 10 when he first starting playing with alcohol and distress inks, he's now 16 coming on 17, has graduated college and is making a career out of inspiring crafters like me all over the world, with his own special brand of crafting enthusiasm and now inks, stamps, stencils and more. I've been watching this talented young man on YouTube since 2015, but he's been uploading videos there since 2014. I discovered him whilst watching Jennifer McGuire, another of my favourite American crafters, over on YouTube.

The video I was watching of Jennifer's finished playing and one of Simon's early videos Cardmaking Life Hacks You NEED to know! began autoplaying, initially my instant reaction as this young peppy voice burst out of my PC screen was "Who the freckle is this boy, and what the heck can he teach me about crafting or bring to my crafting experience?" that's the polite version 😉 But the young dude hooked me just 0.06 seconds in to his video with his "Wittle bit easier" line and I've been a fan ever since. By the end of watching that video Simon had infected me with his enthusiasm, but more importantly he'd taught this old crafter that crafting isn't something that is just for the older generation of the female persuasion, crafting is for any age and sex, and the younger generation can inspire and enthuse others just as well as the older generation.

I could wax lyrical about Simon's style and what he brings to the crafting table, but his creative genius and skill, coupled with the way he's taking the American crafting world by storm speaks for itself. I'm hoping that he takes the UK crafting world by storm as well because it would be lovely to attend a workshop here in the UK.

Simon's aim is to redress the balance in the industry from focusing on feminine crafting supplies to add products with a more masculine feel, to appeal to male crafters and potential male crafters and to give us female crafters more tools to make the dreaded male cards (I'm paraphrasing here), his stamps and style aren't just aimed at female crafters they appeal to all.

Lets skip forward to January 2019 and Simon launched his first batch of stamps, stencils and inks. The ink queen that I am knew after seeing his first demo that I had to have ALL the inks, and recognised that there is something fun and fresh about the stamps and stencils coupled with an element of humour that takes me back to a time when life was less stressful. They are perfect for creating cards for the men folk in my life as well and they are fun to use.

I started out with just Simon's first batch of inks, I bought 3 and tried them out and I had a major 'WOW!' moment. I have been a big fan of Tim's Distress Inks since I discovered them back in 2014 and I didn't think that they would ever be toppled off their crafty throne, but they have been, sorry Tim!

Now don't get me wrong, I still use my distress inks and always will, but Simon's dye inks are a DREAM to use, they blend wonderfully, work with water based techniques and unlike distress inks they stamp lovely and crisp, the ink formula also means you can stamp with the inks and then use alcohol markers like Copic's to colour the stamped images and the ink doesn't bleed! So they are a perfect all round ink and the colours are fabulous.

I printed off the Colour Swatch Chart from the Ranger Ink website and bought the inks a few at a time until I had the full set, the chart has to be expanded now so I can add the next 6 colours to it which I now own, and there are more to come in the not to distant future (I'm holding out hopes for a darker blue and brown and a black pretty please and maybe a lovely Pumpkin orange colour 😉), there has also been anew ink added to the line called 'Prom Queen' an absolutely gorgeous shade of bright fuchsia pink added recently, but so far I haven't been able to get hold of it here in the UK or the re-inkers for the 6 new colours 😭

Back in November I purchased one of his stamp sets called 'Caroling Squad' and made a batch of fun cards to send to friends and family. From there I progressed to buying some of Simon's background stamps and stencils, and in January I picked up 4 stamp sets, all 12 re-inkers and another background stamp in the Buddly Crafts January sale.

Only it turned out that they were clearing out Simon's range 😪, probably because not enough people in the UK have heard about his inks and stamps. That made me very sad because there are only a couple of stores in the UK that I know of that stock Simon's range, and buying the stuff from the States works out too expensive when you have to pay shipping for me sadly, it can sometimes triple the cost if you place a large order.

I'm hoping that Buddly will rethink stocking Simon's products, or some other UK store will stock them like Art from the Heart who already stock products for all the designers that work with Ranger except Simon! His line would be a perfect addition so let Ben at AFTA know you'd like to buy Simon Hurley products from them! The only other stockist I know of in the UK is Craft Stash but they tend to go out of stock rather quickly.

Last year I contacted Simon via Facebook to let him know about a typo on the Ranger Colour Chart for the swatch for 'Triple Berry', it reads Tripple Berry (I can't help it, its my inner proof reader) and as of the second download for the next batch of colours it still hasn't been corrected lol!

He replied and was really nice so I threw caution to the wind and sent him a Facebook friend request, which he graciously accepted and has since commented on a couple of my posts and did me the honour of sharing one as well, which was pretty damn awesome.

Simon Hurley inks tick all the boxes for me, and if your new to inks and have a limited budget so need a set of inks that have everything (well almost everything - we need a black ink Simon!!!) then I encourage you to give these inks a try because they are useful for so many techniques.

My favourite way to use them is straight forward blending, I use blending brushes and it is so easy to lay down the colour and blend them together, the colours are so vibrant, as I said before I love my distress inks but the way the colour lay down with Simon's inks is like they switch a light on, they are so vivid and alive, distress inks although colourful often have the 'light off' feel to them and aren't as vibrant.

In my wish upon a star card above I combined 'Triple Berry' with 'Clear Skies' and got a gorgeous looking night sky from just two colours! Those two colours melded so well together creating a new darker colour whilst still keeping some of their own colour identity by blending lightly, a light spray of water and lift with a paper towel after 30 seconds lifts away some colour and adds texture and dimension just like distress inks do, The grass was done with 'Later Gator' and 'Overzealous' which alongside 'Clear Skies' and 'Crown Me' are my favourite colours so far, but who am I kidding I love them all lol!

Another technique that the inks lend themselves to is bleaching, on this floral card I layered 'Clear Skies', 'Triple Berry', 'Rosie Cheeks' and 'Bee Sting' in rows over a white heat embossed image. I then used household bleach and a water brush on the details of the flower and you can see that the colours changed slightly either becoming lighter or they turned a different hue.

The inks are fab to use for water colouring images as well, when Simon demonstrates he smooshes the ink pads on his laminate surface, but I have added drops of his re-inkers to a Ranger Distress Ink Palette and pull out a little ink on to the white area of my Media Mat, make my blends on the glass and then paint my images that way.

The re-inkers are also fabulous for adding to shaving foam to create colourful and unique backgrounds and I've added them to texture paste to colour it before adding to a project with excellent results. I really can't wait for more colours to be added to the line, the more colours we have, the more wonderfully colourful projects we can create with them.

I predict as more colours are released I will be using some of the other brands of ink I own like Hero Arts and Lawn Fawn a lot less, price wise Simon's inks are better value as well. I'll be posting some more projects soon using Simon's stamps and stencils so watch this space, in the meantime go check out his website, watch his videos for some inspiration and tips for using these inks, the dude is full of ideas and is a marvellous and inspirational teacher 😍

CASED: Vertical Sticky Note Pad & Pen Holder

Earlier this month I went to a crafting Play Date held by the lady that runs the monthly Stampin Up class I go to, and we played with the new Peaceful Poppies suite. I was in a bit of a daze and only really did some stamping and die cutting whilst everyone else was making full cards. partly due to the fact that I'd forgotten to take card blanks with me and my watercolour pencils doh!

I bought a selection of the 6" x 6" papers from the collection to bring home to play with, and brought home the bits I stamped and cut and over the past week I've been playing with them to make cards.

I was browsing Pinterest looking for some ideas at the weekend and this lovely project popped up by Rachel Tessman of Stamp Your Art Out using the SU Peaceful Poppies papers, I decided to have a go at creating one. The first one didn't turn out so well because I did the measurements wrong and the resulting project was slightly narrower than it should be, luckily it still allowed the post it notes and pen to fit in so I used it anyway.

All the measurements and info can be found on Rachel's blog post for the Vertical Sticky Note Pad & Pen Holder and in the video below. I've ordered some fun mini pens in a variety of colours off Ebay for making more and some more post it note pads as well. These can be made in all colours and for lots of different occasions.

A point to note though, in the video Rachel uses sheets of card that are US sized 8½" X 11" and she gets both panels needed from her sheet. However if you are in the UK and buy your card stock from a UK SU demonstrator (or use any UK A4 card for your holders) your sheets will be A4 (8.3" × 11.7") so not long enough width ways for the job. You would need to use two sheets of card stock and cut it lengthways to get the same length that Rachel uses.

You can get round this by cutting your panels at 8.3" (which is almost 8¼) and for the back piece cut at 8" all the other measurements are the same. The amended measurements for UK A4 card stock are as follows: -

• Front Piece that forms the pocket and front of the holder: 5½” x 8.3" scored parallel to short end at 2¼” and 2¾” and scored parallel to long end on each side at ⅜″ and ⅞″
• Back Piece that forms the back and stand 3½″ x 8″ scored parallel to short end at ½″, 1½″ and 2½″

All the other measurements are the same, what you will end up with is holders that are approx 8¼" high instead of 8½".

As well as the holders I did make some cards this week using the stamped panels I made and papers I bought at the Play date.

This first set were really simple to make, I just cut a sheet of 6" x 6" Peaceful Poppies paper up and added the larger section to a card blank I made from Rich Razzleberry cardstock and stamped a simple sentiment on it.

The remaining piece I used to make a bookmark and trimmed it with some wool scraps, again a stamped sentiment and the finished bookmark is good to go. Both were very, very quick makes and perfect for when you have flagging mojo.

I stamped one of the poppy images several time, coloured with SU watercolour pencils, the top one is stamped direct to the card panel, I added a sentiment and matted the panel on to black and then a silver card base then added a few black iridescent gems to the centre.

The second card I stamped the leaves in water based dye ink and then used a water brush to pull the green out from the edges to colour the leaf. I stamped the other poppies on a separate piece of card, coloured them and then fussy cut them out.
I made a card blank from Old Olive card stock and added a mat of black card and I stuck the leaf panel to the top of both.

I then adhered the sentiment panel to the card and added the fussy cut poppies to the card, again adding some black gems to the centre. I really love this poppy collection, its so versatile, when I first saw the dies I thought I wouldn't want all of them, but now I've had a chance to use them I can see that I do, I'm looking forward to next months play date already and craft class this week :)

A Box of Delights from Ranger Ink

Back in January I was watching a Facebook Live from Ranger Ink showcasing the new products they would be launching this month (Feb 2020) after showing them at Creativation 2020, when Ranger Ink's social media lady Kelly Kronowski made an announcement. If viewers shared the video and left a comment they would be entered into a draw, and 5 people would be picked to win a selection of the new goodies.

This was on the 6th January the day before my birthday, I shared and commented like many others and carried on enjoying the live and getting excited about the new products being added to all the lines that Ranger stocks. To my surprise 3 days later I was tagged in a post by Ranger to say I'd won! YAY! I gave Kelly my details and started to wait for my goodies to arrive.

This morning I had a delivery from UPS and I almost ripped the package out of the UPS delivery dudes hands as I yelped "YAY it's my prize", which made him laugh a little lol! I skipped into the house yelling to the cats its my prize, bounded up the stairs and opened my box of delights. I was blown away to find way more goodies than I thought I was going to receive, I thought we'd get an ink pad and maybe a stencil or something, but nope! My prize box contained one of the new Silicone Mat's, a pack of Grey Embossing Pens, 2 of the new Archival Ink Pads (Coastal Coral & Seafarer), a jar of Stickles Glitter Gel (Asteroid), 2 of the new Perfect Pearls colours (Poppy & Iris), the Hello Sunshine Stamp Set and a Treading Hearts Stencil 😁

As soon as I opened the package I started to play, and so far I've created 3 cards with my goodies. They are pretty basic because I wanted to focus on using just the items I got in my prize package, I almost did it, but I had to use a couple of other Ranger products on two of the cards.

The first card I created I blended both the Coastal Coral and Seafarer Archival Inks through the Treading Hearts stencil, where the inks met in the middle they created a purple grape kind of colour, which surprised me. Before today I'd only used my Archival inks for stamping, I'd never blended with them!

I stamped the 'Hello Sunshine' sentiment a few times in the centre of the card using the Seafarer ink and then stamped over the top with some Ranger Perfect Medium and brushed over some Iris Perfect Pearls to give the card a little shine. I've had Perfect Pearls for a while, I have about 12 colours in my collection but until recently when I saw Simon Hurley use them they had been sat in a drawer forgotten about. To be honest I'd forgotten all about them, but they are back on the play list now.

For my second card I decided I wanted to use the 'Sending Smiles' stamp, I was so happy when I opened my box because I really liked the Hello Sunshine stamp set and it was high on my wish list, I can't do calligraphy, but love the effect, so having stamps that can help me achieve the look is brilliant.

The card is a lovely CAS card I used a few of the stamps from the set, and turned the gorgeous 'Iris' colour Perfect Pearls in to a paint, to fill in the open areas of the sending smiles stamp. I used Jet Black Archival Ink from my stash and some Ranger Super Fine Detail Clear Embossing Powder over the archival ink and I added some 'Sunflower Sparkle' Perfect Pearls to colour in the sun.

For my third and final card, for today at least 😆 I made good use of the Coastal Coral Archival Ink, first I stencil it on to white card stock using the Treading Hearts stencil, then I added some of the super sparkly Stickles Glitter Gel over the top, boy is it ever super sparkly.

Whilst I left the panel to dry I die cut a heart and used my blending tool to colour it with the Coastal Coral ink, I used it to colour the edge of a white card base. I decided to do some tone on tone stamping with the ink using another stamp from the set. In hindsight I should have heat embossed the ink to make it stand out more, but as I said above I was trying to use just the supplies I received.

I'm a fan of Ranger products and have been since I first started crafting when I discovered the wonderful world of Distress Inks and then Oxides and now the new Simon Hurley ink line! I think we focus on the brands that we forget who is behind them, I have NEVER been disappointed with any products I've bought from Ranger, they are always of the highest quality and last for ages. I hadn't used any of the Letter It line before, my head filed them into craft supplies for Calligraphy people, but they are not, the line is perfect for people like me and has so many uses. I'll be adding more of the Letter It range to my stash over the next few months. I have also got a lot of the new Simon Hurley range on my wish list as well.

Receiving this package has made me look at the Ranger Products I have in a different light, its opened them up and made me realise that I can blend with archival inks and use Perfect Pearls to make gloriously shiny paint. THANK YOU so much Ranger Ink for your generosity and for sending some lovely, crafty sunshine and smiles across the pond. I can't believe that I got the chance to play with some of the new products before they hit the stores in the UK, I am truly blessed 💖💋

Frugal February Challenge

February Theme Challenge 'Love'

And as fast as that we streak in to a new month! Hello everyone, blogging has been slower than I anticipated this year, there have been some life changes making the need for creating a downstairs craft space necessary. Then my PC C: Drive died resulting in almost a week without a PC and worry that I'd lost all my craft related photos, but thankfully my hubby had mirrored the drives so everything was backed up YAY!

That meant I didn't lose anything data/file wise, but I did lose the programs that were installed and the C: Drive which has meant several more days of getting my PC back to how it was before.

As a result there hasn't been much time for crafting, or craft spending! Which is good because spending was starting to get a little out of hand again and I need to stop and take stock both literally and figuratively!There's a meme that does the rounds, and I think I've mentioned it before about crafty spending being a separate hobby from crafty making, and if that's true I was becoming more of an expert in spending than making, and that has to stop, before we lose the roof over our head lol!

So this month I've set myself a challenge to keep to a fixed budget of £100, this amount is to include my monthly colouring class and Stampin Up class, and a SU club I'm in where we spend £15 minimum a month. It also has to include any craft magazines I buy (I cancelled all my subscriptions) and any supplies or extras.

January Colour Challenge

Last year I started to help out the creator of a Facebook group called Craft Carnage and after a while Sarah the owner of the group made me an admin and now I set challenges and swaps for members to take part in, we have four weekly mini challenges every month and we also organise individual challenges like our  Frugal February Challenge.

We also organise swaps for events like World Cardmaking Day, Halloween and Christmas, and we have lots of swaps and challenges planned for the rest of 2020, feel free to pop over and join us if you are so inclined.

All the photos in this post are of cards I have made for some of the challenges so far, we have colour palette, theme, materials, and sketch challenges that rotate each month that also take in to account seasonal events like Mother's Day, Easter, Holidays etc.

January Sketch Challenge

The current challenge for February is another spring inspired colour palette challenge and I'm hoping to use dies and items I have in already to create my card. That way I can incorporate the mini challenges in with the Frugal February master challenge.

The first card pictured in this post was for the mini theme challenge, I knew I wanted to use my wreath templates to create a circle of hearts, but I didn't know if/or where I had any small solid heart stamps. So yesterday I sat for an hour trawling sites looking for a set of small heart stamps.

After that hour I came to my senses and started to go through my boxes of stamps and dies and although I didn't have a dedicated set of small solid heart stamps, I discovered I do have several stamp sets with small solid hearts in. The ones I used came from two Altenew sets Crafty Friends and Crafty Life that I've had for a while and not used, the sentiment also comes from one of those two sets.

I used 4 different colours of Memento dewdrop inks and some Nocturne Versa Clair ink for the sentiment which I then added some clear embossing powder to, to make it stand out more, the enamel hearts and dots I won in a raffle at my Stampin Up class last year and I hadn't got round to using them yet.

Towards the end of last month, I came across a video by Kristina Werner detailing a challenge she was setting herself for February that she called Capsule Papercrafting. Her aim is to pre-select a set of tools and mediums, stamps and stencils and use only them for the month. If you're interested check out the video below.

I decided that I would follow Kristina's example, so far I've selected a couple of things but not everything, as its now the 5th Feb I need to get my skates on lol! Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have everything together that I intend to use. The goal for me is to go box 'shopping' that means I hit all the boxes and tubs of supplies I have and find items I've bought and never used BEFORE I buy new items.

If I see a project I like, before I hit search to find the stamps and dies others have used, I ask myself what I already have that I can use instead. As far as stamps, stencils and dies go I have lots of choice, so it shouldn't be too hard. My problem is choosing which inks, pens or pencils to use, I can't plan ahead of time what projects I'll be doing for the whole month and would hate to have the creative urge to work with say my Brusho's or Pixie Powders for a project and not be able to. Thinking cap on, and I have to make sure that whatever I do includes only things I already have!

Parkrun & Health Update

Since the beginning of January I've managed to lose just over 7lb, still a long way to go, but I'm happy with that. I also walked my 2nd Parkrun on the 29th January, my foot played up royally after the New Years Day walk, and after a non-Parkrun walk I did on the 15th Jan, but at least I tried again, recovery time is getting better thanks to the stretch exercises I'm doing which is good, and hopefully with those and losing more weight I will continue to see an improvement.

One week 2 I came last (well one before last as the tail walker is always the last to finish). Technically though I was the last park runner to walk across the finish line 😥 I was slower this time and I believe it was because I decided to walk to pounding dance music, and I think I pushed myself too hard when very fast tracks played ::note to self you cannot go up Cardiac Hill in time to Darude's Sandstorm!::

Pushing myself at a stupid pace required me to recover for longer periods of time thus slowing me down, and the whole process took me 6m 25s longer than my first time. ::Further note to self don't wear a coat to Parkrun you get too flipping hot even on a cold day!:: Check out my new running trainers as well, after Parkrun number 1 Si took me to Decathlon to get some running clothes (trainers, tops, and a sports bra) it's ON!

I admit I was rather annoyed at myself at the end of week two because I was slower than my first week, but lots of people pointed out that I had actually finished a 5K again, which was an achievement in itself, which it is I guess 😁 I need to focus more on just doing it and less on trying to beat my best time, the more I do it, the fitter I'll become and hopefully the faster I'll get! I'll be doing my 3rd Parkrun this coming Saturday and plan to do it without music, walking at my own pace and not the musics pace! Because of my foot problem I've settled on the idea of doing Parkrun every other week until my foot is better, the weeks in-between I will be volunteering as a Marshall or as a token sorter.

Last weekend was my rest weekend but I still went to Parkrun but as a spectator to watch Simon complete his 50th Parkrun, I am so proud of him, its been wonderful to see him go from someone who couldn't run more than a few paces to someone who can run 5K in just over 23 minutes, fingers crossed that will be me one day! This week I will be walking to the pace of my own body and see what happens, I do like music when I walk, so I guess I have to find something that goes with the pace I can currently walk, until I do I guess silence will be golden lol!

Review: Chromatek Watercolour Brush Pens

As a crafter and relatively new colourer, there is nothing worse than having a favourite brand of pens you start to use to learn techniques with and learn to became better at your craft, to then have them become discontinued, harder to obtain or rocket in price, my up to now favourite watercolour pens have been Zig but they have become harder to get in the UK especially open stock. So in December last year I started casting my eyes around for alternative brands of water brush colour pens.

First I tried Arteza and they were disappointing on a few levels, the major disappointment was the way they blended (not very well), and good luck finding a colour name or number on the pen barrel to make it easy to swatch or see which colour your using whilst working if shades are similar! Then I saw a set on Amazon by a company called Chromatek. I have to be honest and say that initially I thought that the pens were made by the same company that makes Zig's and were just a budget brand, but I was very wrong!

Lots of reviewers out there focus on colouring with the pens, not being the best colourer in the world and liking to experiment, compare and test as well as seeing what the companies that are getting my hard earned cash are like to deal with, my review is a little different. Before I go any further I must stress that I HAVE NOT been paid to review these pens by Chromatek, nor do I get any kick back or affiliation perks from reviewing them. I paid for the pens myself and my opinions are all my own, that given I believe that Chromatek are a breath of fresh air in the desert of craft suppliers!

From what I've gleaned so far, the customer is very important to them, they seem to go out of their way to provide customers with all the tools they need to explore their creative water colouring side, quality, access to information, customer service is all brilliant.

On their website https://www.chromatek.net/ the first page sets the tone of what you can expect from Chromatek once you've purchased your pens from them, they say that their aim is: -

• To provide you with the highest quality art supplies at a reasonable price.
• To provide you with comprehensive video tutorials and downloads to ignite your imagination and get you colouring, drawing, painting and most importantly PROGRESSING faster than ever before.
• To be here for you if you need any additional support or have any problems with your products.

True to their claim the website has tutorials for using all their products with helpful videos so you can see the techniques in action like the one below, they also provide some downloads and the 26 and 54 set come with a a watercolour pad with 6 lessons in. Mine didn't, I got a pad of high quality water colour paper but not the tutorial pad. I contacted Chromatek via their Facebook page and the friendly person who responded told me there should have been a postcard with the details to access the tutorials on, and they gave me the details of the url I needed to access the tutorials, and also informed me that moving forward they intend to ship the pre-printed tutorial pads with all the pen sets.😁

So to the pens...... Zig Real Brush pens contain water-based dye ink and Chromatek is also the same (although not the same formulation) Chromatek describe what is inside their pens as paint and that's what it is a paint pigment mixed with water. When I use Zig's I usually use the ink straight from the pens, blend colours together and sometimes blend with a sparkle pen, very rarely do I blend using a water brush, so I don't have a lot of experience water colouring with water based dye ink pens, Chromatek pens if you view the tutorials lay down some ink then blend out with a water brush pen to dilute and move the ink and create shades and tones of colour, and that's what they are designed to do. You can of course use them undiluted but just be aware that you will use up the ink inside the pens a lot quicker than if you use them how they are intended to be used.

Crafters that know me, know that I'm a bit of an ink queen, I like to try everything in my efforts to find the best tools for me to use. I now have 3 different brands of watercolour brush pens by Arteza, Zig (Kuretake) and Chromatek. As I mentioned above the Arteza pens were a regrettable purchase, they are something I will let my Granddaughters play with when they visit because I don't like the way they perform at all.

Arteza pens also contain a lot less pigment than Zig or Chromatek and to my mind Arteza blend patchy as can be seen in the photo here. I tried to chose colours that were similar in all three types of pens, which was hard. I don't want this to become a three way comparison, but I thought it useful to share some basic observations between the three brands.

Putting them side to side, Chromatek and Zig pens look very similar, so you can see why I thought they were the same company? The brush nibs on Zig's are finer than Chromatek and appear to contain less in the way of bristles. It's still possible to get fine lines with the Chromatek if you use a light touch. Chromatek's appear to have a little less pigment than Zig's but lots more than Arteza pens.

That said, there is something about the formula of the Chromatek blends that makes then blend out a lot smoother than Zig's. If you check out the look at the 2 thin lines in this photo you can see how much more evenly blended the ink is after being allowed to dry for a few minutes then gone over with a water brush.

The Chromatek do leave behind a line when blended out after allowing them to dry, but they do not bleed colour like the Zig's do! I think that the Chromatek blend out a lot more evenly, although the colour doesn't stay as bright as Zig's after blending, but I think that is a good thing, the images coloured with Chromatek's look more like a water coloured image and less like something done with alcohol markers. Another positive for me with the Chromatek is both the colour number and the colour name can be read clearly on the barrel of the pen, Zig's are labelled but the info is a lot harder to read, clear readable names make it easier for old eyes like mine to be able to grab the right colour and just get on with it!

I did a few tests as can be seen in this photo, all my swatching for this review was done on Crafters Companion Water Colour Card, I know that some of the people who review in the USA use different brands, but they aren't as easily (or cheaply) available here and CC water colour card is easy to obtain for me.

The first is straight out of the box just scribbling on the paper with the pen, the ink flows beautifully and you can do a couple of layers with no piling of your watercolour card. Next I've used the pens to draw lines, the way you hold the brush and how heavy or light your pressure is when you touch the pen to paper will dictate how fine your line is. As I mentioned previously Zig markers have a finer brush so you can get thinner lines, but the Chromatek pens can achieve fine lines as well.

My next test was to blend the No. 38 Azure pen to bottom of my test area and the No. 41 Fuchsia pen to the top then take the Fuchsia pen and blend up from Azure into the Fuchsia to blend them together to make a lovely rich purple. As you can see in the next test area I then took the Fuchsia brush and scribbled on the card stock until the Fuchsia colour ran true again and it didn't take that long.

My next test we to lay down 2 green colours No. 37 Green and No. 36 Fluorescent Green and then use the water brush to blend the colour out. I also turned the green 90 degrees after it had dried and added more water.  Next I took the green pen and just touched the water brush to it a couple of times and coloured that way, a great way to add some subtle colour without the risk of ending with with a harsh line.

Finally I added two green boxes a test area and I then blended out the second box to see how far the ink will travel. You can see with lots of water the No. 37 Green goes a delightful mint green colour. In short I tested the Chromatek pens with all the techniques I'd use and I am thrilled with the results, Chromatek pens also blend well when added direct to card and then blended out with a shimmer pen, one of my favourite techniques 💖

Now to price, a picked up my 54 set for £29.99 off Amazon (a set of 28 contains 27 colours plus 1 water brush), I must add though before anyone gets confused there are only 50 colours in the pack, the other 4 pens are water brush pens.

You can see the official colour swatch from Chromatek here to see all the colours in the 54 set. I would like to see some more greens, blues and more pastel colours, but for the price the colour range is pretty good and you can blend colours to create yet more colours.

As I mentioned above, the Amazon description said that a water colour tutorial pad was included with the set to go along with the online videos, but I got an A5 blank pad (15 sheets) of 300gsm Cold Pressed Water Colour Paper instead. A little disappointing as I was looking forward to following the tutorials, but the pad I got is very high quality. Despite that fact, I think the 54 set is very good value, a set of 48 Zig's costs around £56 and you get no water brushes or card and there is very little support for using Zig's given by the actual company, so less than £30 for a set of 50 pens, 4 brushes, proper watercolour paper to work on AND tailored tutorials and support is very, very good value in my opinion.

By comparison Zig provide a "How to Use" guide on their website, but there are no tutorials or support or further information about Zig's 😞on the other hand Chromatek's website contains so much more product information, but more importantly LOTS of inspiration for using the pens. On top of that, Chromatek offer a money back guarantee, so if you're not happy with the pens (and you have done all the course work from the 6 tutorials and can provide evidence that you have done that) and do that before 30 days have elapsed after your purchase you will get your money back. Which is good, but if you're like me and didn't get the tutorial images and have had illness, Christmas and other things stopping you doing all the tutorials within 30 days its not so good, maybe a little more time would be useful, but its more than a lot of companies do.

As I said above, I would like to see more colours added to the range and would also like to see the pens available open stock (sold individually), the good news is that when I reached out to them yesterday Chromatek responded really quickly and told me that they hoped to be selling the pens open stock in the future YAY! So if you're like me and have favourite colour combo's (in my case blues/pinks/purples). I am so impressed with my Chromatek Watercolor Brush pen set that I'm going to invest in a set of their glitter pens next, for value for money, colour range and versatility, not to mention customer support, I think that Chromatek Watercolour Brush Pens could become my go to pens.

Things I've Learnt, Picked Up & Discovered Recently

I realised that because I haven't been blogging I haven't shared some of the awesome things I've been taught, picked up and discovered over the past 5 months, and it occurred to me that I've also been making lots of cards but not sharing them to boot!

So to rectify that, I thought I'd do a little pre-Christmas post and share a new technique to me that I learnt at one of Tracey's Stampin Up Classes a few months ago. Its really so, so simple but very effective and at the end of the process you wind up with 4 cards!

You process starts with a sheet of A4 stamping card and using stamps and a selection of inks you randomly build up stamped clusters, groups of 5 work rather well, like this rose card.

It was so funny when we did this class, Tracey had us all carefully stamp our designs, then when we had she instructed us to chop them in to 4, the looks on our faces were priceless. During the class we each picked 1 of the 4 pieces from our chopped up panel to make into a card during the class and the rest we took home to turn in to cards at our leisure.

I was so impressed with the technique, that when I got home I used one of my Stampin Up! sets now retired called "Painted Seasons" and stamped a couple of sheets with pine cones, leaves and ferns on. I also stamped some of the flowers from the set and fussy cut them out to add some dimension to the sets of cards I decided to make for Christmas.

I inked around the edge of the flowers to give them so more depth and added them with foam pads then added some Nuvo drops to the centres.

The technique lends itself to use with lots of different kinds of stamps for all occasions and its perfect for making batches of cards and because you chop the A4 panel up, no 2 cards look the same.

If you don't add an added dimension, they are also flat to post as well.

Another thing I've picked up from craft class is adding decoration to the envelopes we put our cards in, it takes moments when you are stamping your card/embellishments to stamp one of the stamps from your card design on to the envelope to give a totally co-ordinated look.

Something else I've started doing is working more with with smaller sized card bases. I used to be a 6"x6" or 7"x7" girl but its getting more expensive to post them, especially if you add dimension. So I now take an A4 sheet and cut 2 x 4½" wide strips, score them at 5⅞" and trim them to be 5¾", another advantage to this size is you get 2 cards out of 1 A4 sheet.

I make batches of 6 in several colour ways and keep them on my desk ready to use when I'm making cards. I make them when I don't have a lot of time, or my old mojo fails me, as well as making card bases, I've started to die cut out sentiment bases, leaves, frames and other things I add as decorative elements to cards. I mostly cut them from white card, then I can colour them to suit my project or keep them white.

One of my most favourite discoveries this year though are Sakura Glaze Pens, I've had a black one for ages that I use to add details like eyes, buttons on snowmen etc. But recently I bought them in reds, greens, yellow and blues and they are absolutely FABULOUS for adding details to items that you want to look shiny or glassy. If you click on the photo of the Newton's Nook cards I made you can see the effect you get.

I've worked with them two ways this year, on their own directly on to white card stock and over the top of Copic coloured images. As well as the candy cane details I used them to colour in fairy lights, the brilliant thing about them is the gel ink in the pens dries slightly raised and is translucent to boot.

Once dry, wherever you've applied the glaze pens will actually look glassy, making them perfect for fairy lights on Christmas cards! They are available in 20 different colours including clear, white and black, and can be purchased individually, or in 2 different packs of 10 pens light and dark colour groups.

As well as card you can use them on vellum, the trick is to go really slowly as you colour so more of the ink comes out, giving a smooth and even coverage, you can also use them on other non-porous surfaces including plastics, coated papers, acetate, and glass! I'm hoping to get back to blogging more in 2020 as life and my health seem to be improving, so hopefully I will be able to share more in the new year. For now, I wanted to say I huge thank you to everyone that has read my blog, left me a comment or offered support, it means the world. I hope you all have a hearty Christmas and a healthy, happy and prosperous new year!

Copic Pen Tray & Lid - Free Download

It has been a while since I blogged, so much has been going on in life mixed in with several anxiety and depression flare ups that I've found it hard to keep up with blogging. Trying to deal with the the stress that is part of the problem I have signed up to the Kit & Clowder Colouring Classes, I'm finding colouring is an excellent way of clearing my mind and relaxing, when I colour I seem to just focus on the colouring, my mind goes quiet and all the things I've been stressing about melt into the background enough to stop my stomach churning and the anxiety bubbling.

Those of you who read my blog will know that earlier this year I started collecting Copic pens, back in February I had 36, I now have 95 and I think Santa may be bringing me some more if I'm lucky! The more pens I acquired the more storage became a problem, initially I bought one of the Crafters Companion racks, but at £18 (the cost of several pens), I was chatting to Simon about it and once again like with my 3D printed Distress Marker Storage he went away and came back a couple of days later with a pen tray suitable for copic's.💖 Now keep in mind initially due to cost I was only going to collect Copic Ciao pens due to the cost, Ciao's are the cheapest option of all the Copic's sold, but sadly they only do 180 colours in the Ciao range and there are 358 colours in total.

The lovely Alyce from Kit & Clowder told me I would end up with some Sketches when she messaged me to chat about the classes and I laughed to myself and said "no way!", but guess what? Yup that's right I now have 5 Copic Sketch pens and more will be on the horizon. Initially Simon designed and printed the racks in my CCO (Copic Ciao Only) phase of my collection, you can see the Mark I version behind the lidded version in the photo.

The Copic only tray holds 6 pens, I'm now using that for my gel and glaze pens and glitter markers, the new trays only have 5 slots because Copic Sketch pens are wider than Ciao. I don't have any Copic Classic pens to see if they will fit, so we don't know the height and dimension of the Classic pens to know if they will fit, so if you are going to print the files please be aware that the Copic Classic pens may not fit! When I get a Copic Classic or can get someone to tell me the dimensions Simon has said he will do a revised file to print a tray that will accommodate all 3 sizes if Mark II doesn't fit them all. If and when that happens I will update this post.

I shared the Mark I pen rack in the Kit & Clowder Facebook Group and lots of people were interested, a few asked if Simon could print some for them but on the 3D printers he has each tray in the rack takes almost 8 hours to print, he does have 3 printers but it would still take time. That said if anyone out there doesn't have access to a 3D printer and doesn't mind the wait leave me a comment and I will get back to you and see what we can work out.  For those that do have access to a 3D printer, my hubby has given me his files to share, if you share them please credit them to Simon Cook @ Cooks Cards & Crafts thank you!

Copic Pen Tray Mark I - 6 Slots, fits Copic Ciao Pens ONLY!!! Also good for Sakura Gel & Glaze Pens.
Copic Pen Tray Mark II - 5 Slots fits Copic Sketch and Copic Ciao Pens.
Copic Pen Tray Lid - Fits both the Mark I and Mark II pen trays.

Excuse the silly smile of pride, but this is me after spending and hour colouring in a stamped image with my Copic pens 😍 Early in the day that this photo was taken I had a bad anxiety attack, but after an hours colouring not only was I calmer, but I was happy!

I've stepped on the colouring ladder, and thanks to Alyce I no longer feel that I can only share my colouring if its "Perfect", because I don't have to be perfect, I just have to keep colouring and each time I do my colouring and shading will get better. BUT every thing I colour is my best work EVER at the time of creation and I've learnt that I should celebrate ever piece of colouring I do like its a work of art and stop putting a shadow of perfection on it and say things like "I know the shading isn't right" or "my effort isn't as good as yours... blah blah".

Because every effort is our best effort, every try is a step in the right direction, colouring is something that evolves and the biggest part of the process is just relaxing in to it and going with the flow of the ink. Signing up to the Kit & Clowder classes has been one of the best things I have done for me in a very long time, the support from Alyce and within the group is tremendous, she goes above and beyond and does all she can to support the person doing her classes and not just provide colouring tuition. Take a look at some of the classes Alyce offers. I've started off with the free Marker 101 class and now have the Nov and Dec 2019 classes to work on. Colouring is therapy of the best kind if you just go with it, and learn not to beat yourself up with perfection, or tar yourself with the I can't do this brush, because you can and every thing you colour will show you that a little at a time.

Distress Bleaching Technique

Hey crafty friends, how's your week shaping up? We're all tickety boo here and I've been playing with some new stash, I was lucky enough to get the A4 Craftwork Cards Ultimate Florals with Sentiments stamp set in a recent Craft Stash sale for £4.38 instead of the usual £17.50 😁 They did a flash sale last week with up to 70% off most of the Craftwork Cards range, I picked up over £47 worth of Craftwork cards dies, stamps and an embossing folder for just £18, I love a crafty bargain. I couldn't believe my luck getting that huge stamp set with the flowers so cheaply, the stamps lend themselves to lots of techniques and I'll be playing with them a lot over the next few weeks.

As soon as I saw the stamps I knew I wanted to revisit some old techniques, I saw Jennifer McGuire do the bleaching technique with Distress Inks back in 2015 and I tried it at the time and was impressed, but I didn't do anything with the backgrounds I created. Now I know some of you will be concerned at the use of bleach, but the smell doesn't linger and you only use a small amount, I filled a water brush pen full and its still almost full after bleach painting 7 card fronts. You can use water, but the effect won't be the same, water will just lighten and whiten the area, there is some chemistry that happens when you add bleach to distress ink that alters their colours.

Before Bleaching

I've done a similar technique last year using Oxide Inks and water, the water lightens the image and then you can add another colour on top. I used distress inks on top of the oxide inks rather successfully. I did try bleach on oxide inks and the result wasn't brilliant, on oxide the bleach acted just like water does, not dramatic or even subtle changes of colour, just a white out, which is fine, but you may as well just use water on oxides right?

If you watch Jennifer's video on the technique linked to above you can see that she inks first, then stamps and embosses, but I wanted white images. First I cut my panels using some of my favourite wonky stitches dies and then I stamped the flowers from the set with Tonic Clear Hybrid Ink and added Clear WOW! Embossing Powder before heat setting the images. Once that was done I used a selection of Distress Inks to create some bright bands of colour, wiping off the ink that beaded up on the embossing with a microfibre cloth.

Now I've mentioned it, its a good time to say that I'm ditching baby wipes in favour of plain water and micro fibre cloths (or hand sanitiser for archival inks) and a Lawn Fawn Stamp Shammy, they do the same job, but instead of throwing the clothes away like I do with baby wipes, I can pop them in the wash and use them again. I do have a few packs of baby wipes left, but once they've gone I won't be buying any more.

After Bleaching

After I'd coloured all my images I went in with the bleach to lighten the inside of the petals and leaves and a few other details to lighten the change the colour on the images.

You can see here what the panels looked like before the bleach was added and afterwards. It really does make a difference, its subtle and not in your face which I like. 

When I'd finished with the images I put them aside whilst I worked on the card bases, I use the leafy vine stamp from another Craftwork Cards stamp set I got in the sale called 'Hedgerow'. I stamped using several different colour combinations of Hero Arts Ombre Inks, I love these inks because you can utilise them to make some pretty interesting backgrounds and images.

I went around the edge of the card blank wusing the stamp and my choice of ombre pad, leaving the centre blank, there was no point covering the whole area as the Stamped panel was going to get added over the top making work and using ink in areas that wouldn't be seen.

I knew I wanted to stamp the sentiment on vellum, I trued white initially, but it wasn't very distinct against the panels due to the white stems, so I switched to black embossing ink and used some of the sentiments from the Ultimate Floral's set.  Once all the backgrounds were completed it was time to assemble the cards, I didn't notice until after I'd put them together than the ink I'd used for the backgrounds had bled through to the inside of the card, I used some old Papermania Anita's A6 cards that are supposed to be 240gsm, the card is a little flimsy and rather porous, you pays your money and you takes your choice I guess. Once they are used up I won't be buying any more of them though as they really aren't that brilliant.

Once I'd attached the vellum and panels and "finished" the cards they bugged me, something was not right, I channelled my Grandad and went away and had a cup of tea (he taught me to do that when I had a problem and couldn't see the answer in life, and as crafting is an extension of my life, a cuppa was required!) When I came back I had the solution, I needed to pick up the black from the sentiment and echo it somehow! So I added some gloss black Nuvo Drops to the centres of the rectangle panels and some Peacock Feather Jewels from Lucy's Cards to the oval panel. Once the gems and drops were in place I was happy, although I went in with a Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen to add a little subtle sparkle.

If you don't already have Distress Ink pads getting a good selection of colours can be a costly endeavour, Aladine's iZink Dye Based ink pads are a good low cost alternative, currently on Craft Stash they are £1.50 each compared to the price of distress inks at £4 - £6 depending where you buy them its a pretty big saving. Granted there are only 20 colours to chose from, but they work pretty well for the price. If you haven't encountered this brand of inks before, you may find this video useful.

And that's it really, a quick and simple way of creating a batch of colourful cards, I have some for anniversaries now and birthdays for my box and I'll be creating some more for get well cards and some thank you cards. I also want to stamp and heat emboss in gold on dark cardstock and use metallic paints/inks to create dark versions. I've been collecting lots of craft items over the past few years to try a large variety of techniques, and I reckon I've tried about a 10th of the projects I've bought stuff for!

So I'm going to dig out the supplies and try my hand at all of them and revisit some old techniques like foiling, acrylic backgrounds with the gelli-plate, masking fluid backgrounds and so much more. I realised this week that I have to stop telling myself I can't do it, or it won't look as good as people like Jennifer McGuire. Of course my cards won't look that good, I'm not a professional crafter! I have to stop 'saving' things I've bought to do things because I may mess up and waste the supplies! It's a waste to my purse to buy them and not use them lol! So I'm going to try more and do more and if it works that's great, if it doesn't then the trials can be deposited in the bin or recycled somehow 😉

Nuvo Expanding Mousse vs Andy Skinner Lava Paste

I love creating things but for some unknown reason (maybe I was a chemist in another life?) I love to see how products work and I love comparing like with like to see if they give the same results or different, this comparison is all Jen Kray's fault, she asked how the two compare and I wasn't sure so I thought I'd do a test!

As both products were new to me I went in blind with no preconceptions of how the two products would perform, at the start of the comparison I didn't have a preference for either product, but I do now! Before I continue I want to say that my opinions are my own, nobody gave me the products to try or is paying me to try them, I bought them myself and I'm doing this to share with others who are Lava Curious lol! If anybody clicks on my affiliate links below I will get a little money from their purchase but this doesn't cost them anything.

So now I've done my public I'm an affiliate thing, lets start the comparison shall we? I started out taping a 6" x 6" square of black card stock to my glass media mat and dividing it in to two sections. I used a Tonic Nuvo Media Spatula to work with both products, the two products for comparison are Tonic Studios Nuvo Expanding Mouse in Worn Linen (62.5g, RRP £6.99) and Cosmic Shimmer Andy Skinner Lava Paste (50ml, RRP £4.99) both products available from Craft Stash via my affiliate links above.

Consistency wise Lava Paste (LP) is runnier than Expanding Mousse (EM), LP is similar to mayonnaise whilst  EM is more like buttercream, its stiffer to work with and to load on to your spatula.

I first applied the LP to the card and moved on to the EM. I don't know what the actual formulation of either of these products are, but I will hazard a guess that LP has more water in it than EM. By the time I'd finished applying the EM, the LP had soaked in to the card stock a little and I was worried I'd let it dry out too much so I thought I'd start heating the LP first.

Almost as soon as I started wafting the heat gun over the LP it started to react to the heat and 'puff' up there isn't a better term for it its like watching liquid popcorn create a pattern because that's the texture you end up with and its fun!

I've made a little video, this is only my second video so be gentle with me, I have a little way to go yet to get my videos right, the first was just still images with captions, so this one is an improvement and has some real time footage albeit speeded up. I now realise that being right handed the camera should have been on my left, and closer to the piece I was working on and I could do with better lighting and a microphone so I can do some chatting rather than having to caption. I'll get there eventually 😂 For illustration purposes you can see the results, sorry that my hand is in the way and you have to spend a lot of time looking at a large part of me 😊

I put the same depth of mousse/paste on the card using a stencil, it seemed only fair to test them using the same depth of product, I have to say I was amazed at the results. I truly expected them to both perform the same but they didn't!

The EM hardly did anything, you can see from the close up that just a few areas expanded above the initial level, now it could be that you're expected to add a thicker/rougher amount of Expanding Mousse for it to give a dramatic effect, but as I'd be using it with stencils most of the time I tested the products with the things I use them with. There was also a little 'bleeding' under the stencil with the EM, all the heat gun seemed to do on the EM was dry it off, it hardly reacted at all which was rather disappointing and I should add here that both the EM and LP were brand new unopened pots prior to this comparison. There was very little dimension and you could only just feel that there was a difference in texture from the card to the product applied.

Nuvo Expanding Mousse

By comparison the Lava Paste did an outstanding job at rising to the occasion, the same amount of product added as the EM rose to 3 times its height and had lovely popcorn bubble patterns all over, with no bleeding under the stencil, it was easier to apply as well. Once dried it has an absolutely gorgeous texture, its like the kind of patterning you get on blown vinyl wallpaper, you can press down on it (once dry) and the pattern springs back, its a lot more tactile as well, LP invites you to stroke it and play with it, EM left me with a Ughhh what's that reaction, its like running your hand over fluffy hard clouds vs running them over light sand paper, one is nice, the other not so unless you like running your hands over sandpaper lol!

Andy Skinner Lava Paste

If you look at this photo you can see a little more of the dimension of the two side by side, see how much more raised the Lava Paste is compared to the Expanding Mousse? You can also see more of the texture as well.

Expanding Mousse <---                                   -----> Lava Paste

The two swatches and products used.

Once both of the products were completely dry, I decided to add a few mediums to them to see how they would react, I started by masking off a third of the area and spraying it with water to which I sprinkled some Cherry Bomb Nuvo Shimmer Powder on to the surface and gave it another spray of water to move the powder around. The shimmer powder seemed to just sit on top of the dry expanding mousse. On the dry lava paste it sunk into areas, clung to others and allowed the texture to still show through.

Next I painted another third with some Iridescent Red Blue Pebeo Dyna acrylic paint, there was not much difference in how the products took the paint, but it looked less impressive to my mind on the flatter expanding mousse.

The final third of the test swatch I sprayed with Lava Red (how appropriate lol) Cosmic Shimmer Mist and once dry I rubbed a corner with some Empire Gold Pebeo Gilding Wax. You can see from the photo below that the gilding wax covered more of the EM and the card because there was very little texture to hold it above the card stock. By comparison the gilding wax on the Lava Paste gave a much better definition. I just quickly applied both with my finger tip, so wasn't massively accurate because it was just a test piece, I'd be more accurate on a project.

In this photo the Expanding Mousse is on the top of the picture and the Lava Paste at the bottom.

Because the Lava Paste has more texture it seemed to take the things I applied much better than the Expanding Mousse.

It's true to say that there are so many other things I could have tried, gelato's, distress crayons, and a variety of other paints and mediums, and each product may react differently, some things may work better on the Expanding Mouse rather than the Lava Paste and vice versa.

However, the products I've used here are ones I use in my projects (or variations of). One thing in Nuvo's favour is the Expanding Mousse comes in a variety of colours, Lava Paste is only available in the one colour. So me being me I thought I'd fiddle and see if it can be coloured and if it still works in the same way it did in its natural state before being coloured?

I took two blobs of Lava paste out on to my glass mat, and I added a wet medium (Chipped Sapphire Distress Reinker (yes I know I spelt it wrong on my test swatch lol), and a dry medium (Violet Brocade Nuvo Shimmer Powder). Now keep in mind that I didn't use a stencil just wiped on to a piece of card so the depth and coverage was a bit uneven. Both mediums mixed in well on the mat, I applied to the card stock and heat dried, the Lava Paste still did react, but adding the colours in my opinion has interfered with the way the Lava Paste works, so much so it rubbed off the cardstock. The white of the product wants to still fight through as well, giving a chalky washed out look, so I would add the paste neat and colour it afterwards, it gives a much better result.

So there you have it, Lava Paste comes out tops for me and as this is the first time I've played with Mr Skinner's products I can't wait to play some more. I should also add that when I washed the stencil off I used just warm water in the sink and rubbed my fingers on the stencil, all of the Lava Paste came off but some of the Expanding Mousse stayed behind. Sorry Tonic but in this instance you're not my favourite brand. Ease of use,  ease of cleaning and the dimension and texture make Lava Paste the winner hands down. Think I better stock up on the Lava Paste because I can see me going through a lot of it in the not too distance future.