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.

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.

Wreath Builder Templates: For the Boys

It occurred to me last week that all the card examples I've done so far to show the wreath templates have had a distinctively feminine feel about them. So this week I started creating some male themed cards with the templates, both of my  creations have a slightly robotic theme, perfect for the number one man in my life 😍

I used the the 5" x 5" template and just for a change I worked with black card stock, metallic inks and pens and threw in a little heat embossing.

The inks I used for both cards are the Delicata brand made by Tsukineko in 'Golden Glitz' and 'Silvery Shimmer', the second project I used the same inks plus their 'Celestial Copper' ink. If you haven't yet come across Delicata inks yet, I recommend you add some to your stash when you can, they come in 12 different colours and are some of the best metallic inks I've come across, that give some of the best results out of all the metallic inks I've tried and I've tried a good few brands believe me!

Delicata inks dry really quickly on porous surfaces and don't smear once dry like many other metallic inks. They are the latest generation of metallic inkpad's and give a superb, rich, bright metallic colour, the ink pads are water-based, acid-free and archival, and they are available as full sized ink pads and in cube inks, plus they also have re-inkers available, the re-inker bottles lend themselves to other techniques not just re-inking.

My second card was constructed from two large 7" squares  that I hand cut to be a hexagon, and the new 7" template. Once all the stamping was done I glued the 2 pieces together at the top to create a tent fold card. I made my own card blank from Limetree Craft​ 260gsm black cardstock, the best black card stock I've ever bought, I highly recommend Limetree for all their card, plus their Silky Smooth Ultra White 240gsm Card for alcohol markers is the BOMB!

The cog wreath was stamped in 3 different colours of Delicata metallic ink as mentioned above and I added 'Peacock Feather' Gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards to the silver inked cogs.

The sentiment and centre panel are cut with another of my go to sets, I have several sets of the Craft Stash Wonky Stitches dies in a variety of shapes, and if you've seen many of my cards you'll know I use the ovals, circles, squares and hexagons a lot, they are brilliant for giving an interesting edge to a card without being too fussy.

The robot in the centre (and the sentiment) are from a Woodware set called 'Rusty Robot', I heat embossed them with gold then used to metallic pencils to colour him in. Couldn't resist the addition of some wobbly eyes for a bit of playfulness 😉 Now I need to investigate other stamps that can create cards for men and now that we the 7" template it means I can use larger stamps, which should make it a lot easier!

Review: Koh-i-Noor Polycolor, Prismacolor & Spectrum Noir Colour Blend Pencils

When I first got my hands on the Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils, it was under the mistaken belief that they were oil based pencils similar to Faber Castell Polychromos pencils (but much cheaper), there are several YouTube videos and tutorials out there that compare polycolor with polychromos which started me off on the wrong path. But as I worked with the pencils and did further research, I discovered that Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils are in actual fact wax based, they do have an oily coating to help improve the performance of the pencil though, I put two and two together after reading the product description of the pencils on the Koh-I-Noor website: -

"The key components of POLYCOLOR professional coloured pencils are rich, top quality with perfectly dispersed pigments, carefully selected and purchased from renowned producers around the world. Their light permanency and dosed concentration also influence the final result and durability of the artwork. Therefore, a high concentration of pigment dosing has been prescribed for this product in its entire colour range. The final product is resistant to water thanks to the oily treatment.

This gives our coloured pencils, along with the addition of binders and other additives, an unsurpassable ability to make a unique stroke on paper or another medium. The pencils contain a set of unique components which ensure a convenient, full colour stroke without the necessity of high pressure. This handy feature is enhanced by the preparation of pastels in special oils. Thanks to the diameter of the lead, 3.8 mm, POLYCOLOR coloured pencils provide excellent artistic value to any user. Noble wood, from which the pencils are made, allows easy sharpening." So a better comparison for the Polycolor would be Prismacolor and Spectrum Noir Colour Blend, two wax based pencil brands that are available for sale in the UK, which is good really as I own a set of 24 Prismacolor Pencils, and a set of SN Colour Blend but only about 8 Polychromos, so I can do a few test swatches to share.

Sanford Prismacolor have been around for a while they were first made by Berol back in 1938, then in 1995 the Newell Company joined forces with Berol and merged to become a branch of the Sanford Corporation. Prismacolor are marketed as artist grade premium colour pencils, and have 150 colours in their pencil rainbow. They are sold in sets and come in tins with plastic trays inside the tin that holds the pencils. A set of 72 can be picked up on Amazon for less that £47.00, and you can buy the colours individually for around £1.50 - £1.90 each. The leads in the Prismacolor pencils are 3.8mm and the barrel has a diameter of 8mm, as of today I haven't been able to discover which wood the barrels of Prismacolor pencils are made from, if I do I'll add the info to this post. I do know that there has been a lot of problems with the Prismacolor since the company moved the manufacturing of them to Mexico several years ago and they have fallen from arty favour a little over the past few years.

Spectrum Noir Colour Blend pencils are part of the Crafters Companion family of crafting products and have 144 colours in their rainbow. They only come is sets of 12 and 24 ranging in price from £15 to £25 a set, you can pick up sale and bundle bargains, but if a particular colour runs out, you have to buy another set because they don't currently sell the pencils individually. The lead in the ColourBlend pencils is 4mm and the barrel has a diameter of 8mm, the barrels are made from Californian Cedarwood.

Koh-I-Noor Polycolor Pencils have 92 colours in their rainbow (as of May 2019) 72 of which are available in the coloured sets, plus Koh-I-Noor do a couple of sets of greys and brown tones and some of the colours in those sets (but not all) aren't in the coloured bundles, because of this unless you don't already have the duplicate colours already it may be better to buy the additional ones open stock rather than in the 12 sets.

I picked up the 36 set for just over £18 off Amazon when they were on special offer, a 72 set on Amazon is currently £39.96 marked down from £90. The lead in the Polycolor pencils is 3.8mm the same as Prismacolor and the barrel has a diameter of 7mm and is made from Noble Fir.

A lot of reviews for Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils say that they are not available open stock, meaning you can buy a single pencil colour instead of a whole set. However, I have found them available for 83p each from Cult Pens, and there are a few other places in the UK that you can find them open stock, that said I like Cult Pens, they are one of the cheapest places online in the UK for brands like Copic Ciao and Polychromos and they have the cheapest prices and a fast and reliable service. The Cult Pens page linked to above has a drop down that lists all 92 Polycolor colours by number and colour name. The sets that come in boxes only have the numbers on, but open stock pencils have the number and colour on them apparently, although I've seen some examples that don't so until I order some more I won't know for certain.

Speaking of colours, for some reason known only to the manufacturers, the colours on Koh-I-Noor's Polycolor Colour Chart run 0 - 72 (0 being the blender pencil), but on the open stock pencils we can buy in the UK the numbers aren't linear, instead they have numbers that leap around. To keep track of my Polycolor pencils I've created a printable document with the 72 main pencil numbers and colours on with a space for adding a small example swatch of the pencil colour. If you'd like a copy you can download it here Koh-I-Noor Polycolor Pencil Colour Swatch Chart.

Again there is a discrepancy in that some English speaking art supply websites list different colour names and numbers for the pencils. I've tried doing some translations of the colours listed in Czechoslovakian on the Koh-I-Noor website to no avail, I need to see if some kind soul can give me some literal translations. If in the future I discover that the colour name I've listed is incorrect then I'll update my chart.

All three brands are blend-able with products like Gamsol, Sansador and baby oil, Crafters Companion do their own blending solution that costs around £6 for 75ml. All three brands are light fast. Koh-I-Noor Polycolor pencils are supposed to provide excellent light fastness and water resistance (although YouTube and various internet sources have people saying that they aren't light fast) however the manufacturers website states that the Polycolor Pencils do have "light permanency").

Furthermore on the colour chart on the Koh-I-Noor website each colour has a series of stars, the stars relate to the light permanency of the colour with 1 star having the least amount and 4 stars the most, you can see which pencil is more light fast by clicking on the link.

Another difference between the three brands is that Prismacolor and Colour Blend pencils have round barrels, whilst the barrels of the Polycolor pencils are hexagonal as per my photo above. Which means, for me anyway, the Polycolor are far better because they don't roll away from me when I put them down on the desk, Prismacolor and ColourBlend have a tendency to roll off the desk, hit the floor and break if I'm not  careful 😢

Additionally, both the Prismacolor and Polycolor pencils have a barrel that shows the colour of the lead as true to the colour as the coating can get, but the ColourBlend pencils don't, the white ColourBlend pencil has a tip where the white looks almost pale grey as can be seen in the above photo and isn't an accurate representation of the colour that the pencil lays down.

It was a little difficult to do a proper hue for hue colour test as the sets all contain different colours, so in the end I went for the lightest and darkest pink and green shades from each set to colour the stamped images.

For my test I used 3 different card stocks: -

White = Crafters Companion Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, 216gsm.

Kraft = Tonic Studios Craft Perfect Brown Kraft Card, 280gsm.

Black = Limetree Crafts 'True Black' black card stock which is 300gsm and my go to black card stock for doing almost everything where I want a black base.

For the image I used a clear stamp that came free with issue 191 of Simply Cards & Papercraft, and for each test strip I stamped the images using a Tonic Studios Nuvo Clear Mark Embossing Pad and added some WOW! Super Fine Clear Gloss Embossing Powder, I wanted to focus just on the colour pencils and not highlight the stamp with gold, silver of black edges. Pencil colours/shades used I'm listing here and I'm listing the lightest first, the colours used were as follows: -

Koh-I-Noor Polycolor - Leaves (22 & 25), Flowers (131 & 177).
Prismacolor - Leaves (True Green & Grass Green), Flowers (Pink & Mulberry).
ColourBlend - Leaves (Jade & Pistachio), Flowers (Vivid Pink & Pink Violet).

I also added some squares of the white pencil for each brand to show the opacity. The top white square was blended with gamsol on all three swatches, the 2nd white is just as it comes out of the pencil, and I added a small swatch of the lightest pink of each brand. In Prismacolor's favour, I think the white pencil in their set is a more brilliant white than the others and I think I'd still use that along side my white Polychromos pencil to add highlights to images.

All 3 brands were blended using Gamblin Gamsol and Spectrum Noir Paper Stumps. I laid down a single layer of each colour starting with the darkest first then shading the lighter colour around it before using the paper stump and gamsol to blend the pencil colour smooth.

You can see the results of each colour pencil on the 3 different card stocks above, I want to focus on the results obtained on the black cardstock and specifically the opacity of the pencils. Once the applied gamsol had dried out the pencil with the most vibrant colour was the Polycolor, something I did notice was when I blended the Prismacolor and the ColourBlend with the Gamsol, the colour lifted off and resembled small flakes, the kind you get when you've used a rubber on pencil. There was no flaking with the Polycolor, the colours blended smoothly in to each other.

The Prismacolor did keep more of the light to dark gradation, but they were not as opaque as the Polycolor. The ColourBlend pencils are a lot more translucent than the other two brands, they work better on the lighter coloured cardstock, and personally I don't think that they are a good choice for using on darker cardstock, not unless you are going to add a layer of white first and build up a couple of layers of colour, which is fine if you want to take the time, but not if you want to do some quick colouring.

Polycolor pencils on Kraft cardstock

I've been using the ColourBlend and the Prismacolor for a while off and on, and until now Prismacolor were my go to wax pencils over the ColourBlend due to the opacity of the colour that Prismacolor has. But I'm afraid the Prisma's are going to get a lot less use in the future now that I've discovered Polycolor pencils!

Polycolor's lay down a nice amount of colour without the need for applying heavy pressure and the pencils can be sharpened to a fine point, without crumbling, I found the Polycolor a lot easier to sharpen than the Prismacolor and I think some of that is down to the lead being not as soft as Prismacolor and the wood being better quality, the fact you can get a nice point to the pencil when sharpened makes them really useful for adding details and working on small intricate images.

They also don't leave a wax bloom, at least not that I've seen so far, although the Prismacolor and ColourBlend do if you add a lot of colour. The rose example above was worked on Papermania Kraft cardstock using Gamsol and paper stumps to blend the colours.

The colours blend in to each other really easily and I found them very easy to use, they do leave a little dust (bits of pencil lead) if you apply the colour too heavily, but if you use a light touch they go on like a dream. I found its better to lay down colour, blend it out then add more colour on top if you want more saturation of colour.

They have a nice creamy feel and go on really smooth, the fact that there are less colours to chose from than the two other brands isn't really an issue because the Polycolor pencils blend together so well to help you achieve other shades and hues having less colours isn't really a problem. You can also use a standard eraser (the kind you would use to erase graphite pencil) to remove the colour! The colour doesn't go totally, there is a slight waxy residue left, but you can see the results of 3 shades being laid down a pale grey, dark green and a pink and one pass of a cheap eraser.

Two of the colours listed in the open stock Polycolor colours are Silver and Gold, I don't know if they are metallic or not, when I buy them I will update this post, I've now purchased them, and Polycolor #40 Gold and #39 Silver are indeed metallic pencils and work beautifully. I now intend to add all the Polycolor pencil colours to my stash, for the money they are fabulous quality and I can see me getting a lot of use out of them. Prismacolor definitely have metallic colours but only a silver and gold, and ColourBlend don't currently have any metallic colours, although Crafters Companion do do a set of 12 metallic pencils that can be blended with Gamsol, but they aren't part of the Colour Blend family and they are not as vibrant as Prismacolor or Polycolor.

So in summation and sorry for this mammoth post but I wanted to do a proper comparison, if you want a good quality blendable wax pencil with a good range of colours that give brilliant results then look in to acquiring a set of Polycolor pencils, maybe buy a few open stock colours before you plump for a full set, I think they are excellent value for money and they are now my new go to pencil colouring best friend! And before I go, nobody has paid me to review these pencils, nor have a I received any freebies or incentives to review, the review is based on my personal opinion of products I have bought myself to use in my projects.

Updated Cable Ring Wreath Template Set

It's been a little while since I posted about the Wreath Maker Templates on my blog, the sets have been evolving since Si made me the very first set last year, and I'm thrilled to be rolling out the new style template set today. As you can see from the photo above, we’ve updated the original version of the wreath template to allow for the templates to be stored together. The new design templates have holes in each template that allow you to thread the templates on to a Cable Ring to keep them together, we've sourced the perfect Cable Ring and one is included with each template set purchased. Going forward we won't be producing any more sets without holes because we think that the 'holey' ones are better, and with the holes you have the option to store the templates on the ring or off it.



The Cable Ring supplied is 50mm in diameter when both ends are connected together, the rings are made from stainless steel cable and they have a screw head lock fastener to close them. It’s the perfect way to keep your wreath templates together when not in use, so that you don’t wind up losing one of them to the Crafters Bermuda Triangle! I have lost 2 sets already, don't ask lol! Not any more though because my templates now hang together just next to my desk.

As a bonus, you can also use the cable rings to keep Tim Holtz Layering Stencils together and organised, or they can be used with tags to create colour swatches for inks, if anyone is interested in purchasing extras for these purposes we can make it happen, just ask.

The cable ring development isn't the only improvement to the template design we've made, each template now has a recess to enable you to place a magnet (not supplied) on to your template to hold it firmly in place.

This design change came about when I noticed that occasionally my template would slip in the Tim Holtz Stamping Platform, it didn't happen often but it was annoying when it did. I put my thinking cap on and realised that the slipping occurs because the template has a shiny underside and the stamping platform does as well and sometimes when the two meet it has the skates on ice effect and slipping can occur.

What I decided was needed was a means to keep the template in place, I had tried washi tape but it started to leave a sticky residue on the platform, easy to clean off but it can be a pain when you are working on a project. By placing a magnet in the recess the template is held firmly and more securely.  The slip doesn't happen in MISTI platforms because the black foam in the MISTI grips the template in place and prevents it slipping. I think this tweak will be the last for the circle templates because there isn't anything else that we can add.

Price Increase

It's not all good news though, we have to increase the price from £10.00 to £10.95, we like to be upfront about our costs, many of you have said you can't believe how cheap the sets are and we've pointed out that we are not out to make a massive profit or take advantage of our customers, but we can't be out of pocket either.

When we first began selling the template sets we posted them out second class post, that meant it took longer for the package to get to customers. I knew if customers were anything like me, once they placed their order they would want it as quickly as possible, so I started posting them out 1st class so they get to you the customer faster.

However we’ve only been including the cost of 2nd class postage in the original price, and now there is also the additional cost of the cable ring and we'd forgotten about the PayPal fee! So we are hoping that customers will appreciate our reasons for the small rise and not mind that the cost of the set has increased, if it ensures an improved product and faster posting? If you take a look at the video below, you can see a little demo of how the templates are made, the video also has a few facts that you may find interesting.

On the 3D printing front, we've now got a 2nd printer up and running and Simon has begun constructing a 3rd, recently I was trained in the art of starting prints to keep production going, allowing us to send out orders faster. We've also been contemplating colours, the new style templates are now a golden colour, we hope to keep to that colour but we hope that customers won't mind what colour they receive because that means we can alternate between several colours at times when the main colour goes out of stock at the manufacturers end.

Getting hold of the purple PLA that we originally started printing in is getting harder, so we've this week started printing in a golden hued PLA. We did dabble with a fuchsia colour but that's run out now and the supplier says its currently out of stock pffft. The gold is nice and bright making it easier to find on your desk, that part has been inadvertently tested on numerous occasions, I lost the purple ones frequently lol!

Finally a little inside gossip, the Man that Can and I put our thinking caps on and we've been experimenting with templates to create different shapes, a new set of templates to make a new shape that aren't circles will be available in the not too distant future, there's some more testing and some sizing to sort out. I've been playing with the new shape today and its gone back to the 'Man that Can' for tweaks and changes, its fun to be developing these templates together. I don't want to reveal the shape yet, all I'm saying is nobody is currently selling this shape and you're going to love it! 😁

Creative Craft Show NEC November 2018

On Friday I had a fabulous crafty day out thanks to my wonderful husband, I got to have a brief chat with Keren Baker one of my lovely Facebook friends who I've never met but she inspires me with her wonderful creations, you may know her? Keren is a designer and demonstrator for Fiskars, Winnie and Walter, Tonic Studios and Clearly Besotted. I played with Powertex, learnt to use the gelli plate correctly thank you Amanda Branston! I met an old friend and a new one, got oodles of new crafting goodies to play with and got the chance to try new products and techniques. Ooh yes and I wore a Unicorn headband and made a few people smile 😁

It was a day of discovery and even though I had a few mini panic attacks, Si was there to ground me and make me feel better/calmer, he's really amazing and senses when I'm having trouble coping and just appears and all is right with the world again. But I digress, and lets get back to why I'm writing this, we didn't arrive at the NEC until just after 10am the first thing I did was find the Lavinia Stamps stand so I could book a make and take session, so glad I did because Hazel informed me that there was just one session left at 4pm!!! On Facebook they had said to come early to book because the sessions go fast, I didn't realise how fast lol!

The hall where the Creative Craft Show was situated was very busy when we first arrived, so we decided instead of starting at row A, we'd go to the end and work our way back round, so pleased I did because we ended up in the 'Art Materials Live' area and wandered in to the Pebeo stand just as the lovely Jenny Muncaster started a mixed media demo using a selection of Pebeo products.

I truly didn't realise how versatile Pebeo paints were and that you could mix their glass paints with ceramic paints and also the Fantasy Moon and Prisme paints, and when you do, the effects are amazing. So much so, my first purchase of the day was a Pebeo Mixed Media Ultimate Kit, which contained loads of things to help me play with the techniques that Jenny demonstrated. Sadly though the Glitter Medium was missing, but the lovely people at The Art Shop Skipton who were running the Pebeo stand are already on the case and my missing medium will be sent out on Monday :) Heads up also if you have Amazon Prime, Jenny has a 6 part series on there called 'The Artist in You' where she shows some fab mixed media projects and other creative techniques.

After Pebeo I continued to wander and found the Crafts4Less stand which had lots of dies and other goodies for sale, Si liked the Sue Wilson Festive Industrial Chic Flying Santa die so I guess that die will feature on his Chrimbo card this year 😉

I also got the matching sentiment die to go with it and and a jolly set by Sweet Dixie called 'Christmas Jumper' that will make some quick fun cards. Whilst I was stood at Crafts4Less I heard someone call out my name, I turned round right in to a hug from my friend Sarah Jane whom I'd lost touch with. She is now the co-owner of White Gecko Craft Lounge in Dinas Powys and was there with her stand. It was such a surprise to see her there in the NEC with a stand but I was so pleased to see her, we're now Facebook friends so we can natter properly. As hard as it was I dragged myself away from Sarah and continued to shop and browse, I called at the Crafty Devils stand and picked up some Tonic Nuvo goodies and the Media Tool set to go with my Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat.

I found the Powertex stand and donned rubber gloves to have a play with powertex, and discovered that it wasn't for me sadly. I do like some of the their stencils, plaster embellishments and their pigment colours but I didn't like the feel of the powertex and I didn't like the smell either. Some of the things you can make with it are amazing, but its a messy craft that I don't have space for. Still that's the beauty of shows like this, you get to try before you buy, saving yourself from another costly start up project you think you may like, only to find actually you don't and you've wasted a lot of money.

We went for a little break in the VIP area and got free coffee and cake YUM! It was nice to be able to sit down on a chair, in previous years we had to sit on the floor, so this year Si treated me to the VIP tickets which gave us fast track entry, a goodie bag (which wasn't anything to write home about really), a free area to store your purchases and there were make and takes happening inside, but I didn't try any of them because I didn't have enough time lol!

After the first break I'd made a note to visit the Craft Stash stand and watch their Facebook Live, so off we set for stand E10 only to discover it wasn't there! That's because some numpty in her eagerness to get there took a wrong turn and ended up in the Simply Christmas hall. A quick turn around and mad dash back through the Creative Craft show hall and we found Craft Stash, hurrah and watched the FB live even getting to wave at my crafty chums as well.

Next I visited the WOW! Embossing Powder people, I was amazed to discover that they now stock Pink & Main dies and stamps. I'd seen Kristina Werner use a Pink & Main set called 'Flurries' the day before the NEC and loved the card she made with the set, and liked the look of the 3 inverse stamps. I had an idea for using the sets but knew that it wouldn't be easy to find the set in the UK easily, so you can imagine my joy when I found it at the NEC and lots of other Pink & Main goodies to boot!

Next stop was the Inkylicious stand where I watched Emma Redfearn do a demo which was incredible, she showed lots of new techniques and ideas to try, watching her was quite mesmerising. After Emma's stag card demo I asked her about using the Splatter Circle XL stamp and she very kindly gave me a demo and let me take the piece home that she demonstrated.

Emma used Distress Oxides for this demo piece but she said you can use any inks. The trick is to put them in a line using the edge of the ink pad and leave a small gap inbetween so as not to contaminate your ink pad. She said that to use the stamp its best to use a stamping platform as its so large.

Once you've inked up your stamp, spritz the stamp with water and when you place the stamp on to the card the water spread out and mixes with the inks to fill in the gaps. I think the water that Emma used for spritzing had some mica in as the piece has a shimmer to it. Emma also showed me how to use a white Posca pen to create stars, it was a light bulb moment. The other discovery was the white gel pen Emma used, I have one by Ranger which to be frank is PANTS! It's very hit and miss, so I don't use it, I have a white Sakura gelly roll but that isn't always useful.

The one that Emma used is a Uni-Ball Signo Broad pen that contains pigment ink. I picked one up when I bought my other Inkylicious goodies and I love it, making lines is so much easier, it writes straight away, non of this scribbling on paper first to get it to work like the Ranger pen or trying to write and it stalling like the Sakura pen.

I bought a few more Inkylicious stamp sets and a couple of stencils, I couldn't resist the bigger brother Unicorn to the one that Emma used in the example above and of course the new 'Cat Face' and the 'Silhouette Stag Deer' stamps. I also picked up a a stamp cleaning mat, it was only £2 and I've used it already to clean stamps yesterday and it gets right in to the details on the stamps and cleans them so much quicker and cleaner than a baby wipe.

I couldn't wait to have a play with some of my new goodies when I got home on Friday but I was so tired after all the walking and Saturday turned in to a rather busy day, but I managed to get some crafty time in on Saturday evening.

I taped the Inkylicious 'Snowflake' stencil down on to a piece of card and used Distress Inks (Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet and Chipped Sapphire) and Ink Duster brushes to create the snowflake. before I removed the stencil I spritzed the inks with some shimmer mist and blotted off the water.

I left it to dry for a while, and then whilst the stencil was still in place, I stamped the trees and the stag with Versafine ink in 'Majestic Blue'.
At that point I removed the stencil, cleaned it off and used a Chipped Sapphire Distress Marker to create shadows at the base of the stag. Once that was done I ran the panel through my Big Shot in a snow effect embossing folder.

I made a card blank using some gorgeous 300gsm Ocean Blue lightly textured card I got at the NEC from Limetree Crafts and adhered the panel to it, all that needed to be done then to add some white highlights with my new gel pen and add a few sparkly gems. I still need to add a insert to the card so I can stamp and write my message but the whole card took about 40 minutes to make. I reckon you could make 6 or more in a couple of hours if you did everything in batch stages.

I picked up some of my favourite Black Smooth 260gsm cardstock as well whilst I was there, I was down to my last 5 sheets so needed a top up, Limetree Crafts card and paper is absolutely brilliant quality and a fab price. I also picked up some of their water colour paper and some of the card for using with alcohol markers, I'll be giving it a try in the next few days and see how it performs.

By this time it was 3pm, so we went for more free cake and coffee in the VIP area and had a bit of a sit and chill, after that we had a lesiurely stroll through the stands again on route to my lavinia stamps make and take at 4pm.

I was pretty nervous, especially when Si decided to go and look at some of the other stands whilst I crafted, but Amanda Branston soon had us all laughing with her gelliplate spa night anecdotes. I explained to Amanda that I'd bought a gelli plate last time I was at the NEC in 2016, used it once fluffed it up, put it back in the package and its been there ever since!

During the make and take Amanda showed us how to use the gelli plate and how NOT to use it and we got to play with inks, stamps and glitter. I was impressed with my little self, although when it comes to anything I make myself, my ever critical eye looked at what I made and found flaws. I stamped the the lowest hollyhock in the wrong place, the purple ink just didn't take, but that wasn't my fault, Amanda discovered after the session that the pad had run out of juice and binned it lol!

I added some water droplets as well but added too many and they were more like blobs than droplets. Add to that I didn't put enough ink on the fairy so her leg looked a bit patchy, but considering how nervous I was I didn't do too badly.

Lets not get started with the carefully putting pearl drops on the piece and adding lovely sparkly glitter to it, then promptly putting your thumb in it smearing the glitter everywhere when you decide to 'ground' the fairy lol!

I am very taken with the new Versa Fine Clair inks and I'll be adding them to my inking arsenal in the not too distant future. A few at a time though as there are 24 in the set at around £5 per pad, that's a lot of cash to pay out for a full set of inks. So picking a few and then expanding the colours is the way to go.

I need more flowers and foliage stamps for my lavinia designs, one day very soon I'm going to do an inventory of what I have so far and then make a kind of wish list (one of everything 😉). I do have Inkylicious stamps that I can use and some new fairy foliage stamps from the new Crafters Companion 'Enchanted' range. There were other purchases made and stands visited but I think this post is long enough already. Suffice to say I had a wonderful day, yes I did almost not go at two points, that happens a lot I build myself up to doing something then chicken out at the end. I think I did spend a little too much but at the end of the day I ended up with lots of new goodies and things to allow me to try new techniques, and lets not forget reconnecting with Sarah Jane and literally bumping in to Sheila a new friend from the Stampin Up classes I recently started going to 💖😀

Retro Gaming Wreath Template Cards 🕹️

As today is my favourite day of the year, can I start this post by wishing those that share my love of it a Happy Halloween' 🎃and for those who don't celebrate then I wish you happy last day of October 😁 I know that the cards I'm sharing today aren't what I'd be expected to share on today of all days, but if you read on you'll discover that there is a halloween connection, honest!

Si and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody last night, I really liked it, it transported me back in time and my brain was awash with memories, from the first time I bought the double A side single Bohemian Rhapsody and Killer Queen and played in constantly when I was just 11 years old, in front of the bedroom mirror with a hairbrush microphone and dreams of becoming a famous singer lol! Incidentally Bohemian Rhapsody was released today (31st October 1975, see I wasn't fibbing lol!) and 43 years later that song still gives me chills and sets my blood pumping.

My memory banks cycled around a series of events including me chilling as a teenager listening to 'The Game' whilst doing my homework and getting told off by my Dad for playing 'Another One Bites The Dust' too loudly, everytime I hear that song I hear my Dad shouting "Turn it down NOW!" lol! Then there was dancing to 'I Want to Break Free' at my first wedding, talk about an omen, I should have run away as soon as the song finished. The memories kept flowing and when the film showed the live aid segment, my brain brought back my memories of watching Freddie's performance on Live Aid. I still recall how the hairs on my arms stood up listening and how electric it felt to be a part of something so unique. It hadn't occured to me just how much Queen and Freddie had been a part of my life, and yes all that flowed through my head because of the film.

The memories of being a teen and a young 20 something led to my recalling playing my first video games like Pacman and Space Invaders on a Spectrum 48K computer, I remember a time when you had to code a game before you could play it WOW I'm old lol! I've been a gamer almost as long as I've been a Queen fan, although I'm not sure playing Pong via a TV plug in counts as a gamer, but it was my Grandad that started me playing that and it all went down hill to Skyrim after that lol!

Before I knew it I was in the craft room making some retro gaming cards, partly for a Challenge, partly because I need to make more cards for giving to the men and boys in my life and partly because of the nostalgia. I got a couple of stamp sets recently that were perfect for what I wanted to do and one of them had a sentiment in that said "You're so old, you're retro!" and that tickled my inner gaming geek, its true but I don't feel as old as I am.

I used the 6" template for this card and the stamps on the Retro Gaming cards are from two sets, one by Hunkydory called 'Alien Invasion' (space invaders and old style joy stick) and a set by Pretty Cute Stamps called 'Game On' (sentiments and stars). I'm on the lookout for a now discountinued set by My Favorite Things called 'Level Up' and the matching console die, so far no luck but I'll keep searching.

I stamped the white version using Ranger Dye Ink Pads in the following colours: - Grape Soda, Wild Orchid, Blue Yonder, Classic Cherry and Electric Lime, these inks are fabulous and even if they go on blotchy they smooth out nice and even as they absorb into the card stock. The only thing I don't like about them is the limited range of colours.

I used my new favourite technique of embossing over the wreath stamped this time with an old Crafters Companion Embossalicious folder called 'Happy Birthday', I love the texture doing this gives to a card, it transforms it somehow without distracting from the stamped images. I coloured the joystick with a couple of Nuvo alcohol markers, very simple colouring and stamped the sentiment on a die cut panel used my trusty 'Wonky Stitches' circle dies. I use them a lot because I think the edge it gives looks better than a plain circle. The card was made in now time, the longest part was the stamping and that went by very quickly.

The old gamer in me was a tad niggled by the bright colours on white background, sure the pixelated images that we destroyed were nice bright colours, but back then the backgrounds to games were black.

As you will know stamping bright coloured dye inks on to dark card stock is generally a non starter, so I reached for the Distress Oxides for the darker retro look. I did manage to fluff up and smudge 2 of the aliens though when the oxide ink was still wet, but it doesn't look too bad lol!

Not all Distress Oxides look good on black, I wanted to use Wilted Violet on this card but it didn't pop, so I used the following colours: - Candied Apple, Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry, Cracked Pistatio and Squeezed Lemonade. As the sentiment I wanted to use was small I used a smaller die cut circle which meant that more of the green aliens were visable.

For the sentiment on this card I hear embossed it with WOW Opaque White embossing powder. The aliens are from the Hunkydory set and the sentiment, stars and joystick are from the Pretty Cute Stamps set. I will of course be making some more of these cards were the aliens are in neat little rows like in the old days, but I think the stamps leant themselves to wreath stamping very well. That's all for me for today, I have a few projects to get finished and I'm experimenting with different ways of using the stamped panels, more on that soon. Until next time, have a lovely day and happy crafting :)