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 😍

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 💖💋

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!

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 😉

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!

New Sizes of Templates Added

We're delighted to announce that we've added 2 new sizes of templates to the set we sell, that means the set now contains a 2" template, perfect for making small toppers for cards or cute little gift tags.

Plus a 7" template which means you can now create much larger wreaths and of course use larger sizes of stamps.

I'm very aware that not everyone has a stamp positioning tool, so I was delighted to discovered earlier this week that our templates can be used with stencils and don't require a stamp positioning tool to achieve fabulous results, and you can read more about this technique here.

The 2" template is perfect for making gift tags for any occasion, I did make a set with the 3" template but decided they were in fact a bit big to put on a small gift. So I asked the man that can to create a 2" template so that I could make smaller tags, and whilst he was at it I asked for a 7" template as well.

Much tinkering and playing with numbers and CAD software ensued and a few days later he presented me with the new templates to test out. I'm happy to say they worked like a charm, just like the other templates do, like the upgraded set from earlier this year each template has a recess for holding a magnet and a hole so that the templates can all be threaded together on a cable ring to keep them together.

Blossom by Blossom stage 1

The 7" template allows you to create designs that are big enough to add to 7" card blanks, or you can matt and layer your designs on to 8" cards. I've made some samples over the past few days for the launch of the new templates and I've had lots of fun taking the stamped squares and turning them into different shapes.

As I thought about it, it occurred to me that customers who already own the 3" - 6" set may want to purchase the 2" and 7" templates, so over on our Facebook store we've added the new sizes to the shop so customers can buy just the ones they are missing to complete the set.

I also realised that not everyone has a larger stamp positioning tool, some people only have a Mini MISTI, so a full set of templates would be a waste of money (unless they were going to use them with stencils) so I've turned the templates into 3 bundles: -

The final Blossom by Blossom card cut with a circle die.

Small (2" and 3") which will fit in a smaller sized stamp positioning tool with a stamp area of 6" x 4.75" such as the Mini MISTI.

Medium (2", 3" and 4")  For platforms such as the Original MISTI and any stamp positioning tool that measures 6.5” x 8.5”.

Large (2", 3", 4", 5", 6" and 7") Whilst the 2", 3" and 4" templates will work in smaller stamp positioning tools, we recommend the Tim Holtz Stamping Platform by Tonic Studios or a Memory MISTI for use with the 5", 6" and 7” sizes, the larger sizes will not fit smaller stamp positioning tools.

Each of the sets come with a cable ring and the price includes postage and packing. Over on the shop I have included prices for the UK, USA and the EU. As the new template bundle now contains 6 templates instead of 4, there will be an increase in the cost due to the fact that we're using more materials, more electricity to power the printers etc, so the price will increase by £4.00 going forward making the templates plus p&p cost £14.95 (posted to the UK), £17.50 (posted to the USA) and £16.95 (posted to the EU). Prices for the smaller sets and the 2" and 7" template bundle can be found over on the Facebook Shop.

If you have any further questions then you can leave a comment on the blog, or send me a message via our Facebook page and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Just Mermazing

Warm sunshine greetings everyone that takes the time to have a read of my blog, I truly appreciate you stopping by and love reading your comments on the posts I make, it makes me feel like I'm not alone 😘
I use this blog like a kind of journal, for every day stuff occasionally, but mostly for my crafting stuff because it helps me remember how I did something and more importantly WHEN I did it which is useful as projects go like this one.

I made the backgrounds on these cards at the beginning of April, I needed to do something crafty but as seems to happen a lot lately I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, so I got out some bits and just had a play. Having acquired a new stencil at the time I decided that I wanted to play with my VersaFine Clair inks using them for blending techniques rather than just for stamping.

Stupid I know but I've only recently realised that you can do blending and smooshing with inks other that Distress Inks and Oxides lol! So I made several backgrounds like this using a different combination of colours and put them to one side. I tried adding some big bold sentiments to them but it didn't look right, so they went in my maybe someday box along with some other panels I made during the same fiddling and faffing session that used a new Stampin Up stencil, VersaFine Clair inks again, and some Nuvo 'Moonstone' Glimmer Paste.

I used a My Favorite Things stamp set called "Mermazing" to stamp the cute little mermaids and the seaweed bits behind the sentiment, but I haven't got the matching die set so I had to fussy cut the mermaids out the best I could, I then went around the edge with a Memento Tuxedo Black marker pen, but I'm jumping ahead. I coloured the mermaids with some Copic Ciao pens, I started collecting them back in February and have 36 so far and the colourless blender, I tried to get some basic shades that are close together but I still have much more to learn about using them and there are another 143 pens to get, although I don't have to get them all, but I most probably will lol!

I've tried using Nuvo Alcohol markers which depending in the cardstock used with them work really well and blend well to, but there are not so many colours in the Nuvo markers I think I have about 60 and they recently released 2 x 3 colour blend sets that I haven't got yet. I've also used Promarkers, again I don't have many about 45 and not a good mix for all round, as I did with my wax based pencils recently, I'm going to stamp several of the same images on a variety of card stocks and see which set I like.

I also have about 2-3 sets of Spectrum Noir markers that I got when I first started experimenting with colouring but I didn't get on with them so they sit in a box. I'm wondering now if its the card stock I used at the time and think that when I do the comparison I'll add them to the list. The whole point of my comparison tests and subsequent posts is to help me decide which products to keep and which to say goodbye to. I now have so much stuff and new things keep coming out that I need to thin things out because I just haven't got the space to keep buying new products and keeping the old ones.

I had heard lots of crafters rave about Copic's but they were so very out of my price range initially because the ones I saw came in sets that were rather pricey, but I've found a place online that sells them for less than £2 each, so I can buy a few at a time. I do love the way the Copic Ciao pens blend together, they are so smooth, if you click on the mermaid above you can see that I've smudged my colouring a little and gone in to areas with the darker colours that I'm not supposed to and I haven't got the hang of shading with them yet, but I'm getting there.

It could also be that I haven't got the right shades to blend, that sounds odd but lots of my pens are very close together on the shade chart and I've recently read that there should be about 3 numbers apart to blend well. I'll get the hang of it with time and I'm hoping to take some online colouring classes over the next few months to help me improve with my copic colouring and pencil colouring. I've also just started collecting Polychromos pencils so I want to learn how to use them better.

To create my backgrounds was very simple to do I laid the stencil on to the front of the card blank and used a couple of Creative Expressions Smoothies to add colour through the stencil until I was happy with the colours I used only VersaFine Clair inks on these backgrounds as I mentioned above Warm Breeze, Verdant & Paradise for the green one and Purple Delight, Charming Pink and a little Fantasia for the pink and purple versions.

I cut 3 panels using one of my favourite stitched oval sets from Craft Stash and used black 'Nocturne' VersaFine Clair ink to stamp the sentiments. I added the seaweed with a selection of the same colours mentioned above on each colour card then used some glue to attach a small section of the mermaid to the sentiment panel and then added 3D foam pads to the panel and mermaid to attach to the card. The final touch was to add 3 small clusters of tiny gems to the cards and they were complete. I wound up feeling relaxed and creative when I'd sat down not knowing what to create and feeling a bit daunted, this seems to be happening the more my stash expands, with lots of things you'd think crafting with it all would be easy? Unfortunately I end up feeling overwhelmed and not nothing what to use or try, another reason to start thinning things out a little!

I'm still working on the samples for my oval beauty brush test post, hopefully that will come soon, I have my youngest nephew staying next week, so I won't get as much crafting time, but I don't mind, he likes cooking and growing things and gaming, so I'll be kept busy for sure lol!

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.

Bears, Bears and More Bears!

How are you today? Its been an interesting few months here at "All That I Am" towers and life is certainly being a lot more upbeat, I've dropped a jean size, discovered I like prawns, started making the back garden granddaughter friendly, spent more quality time with said 22 month old granddaughter and acquired 10 of the 12 new alcohol pearl inks by Tim Holtz and I'm smitten, more on them soon I promise! I've been spending lots of time getting healthier lately, more on that later, but the extra time spent walking and doing workouts has given me less time to craft, and crafting helps relax me and keep me sane, so I've been trying to balance things to make more time to craft and unwind and as a result I'm trying to set some time aside to craft at weekend.

My craft desk currently has some yupo rainbows on it and an assortment of bear themed projects and a few dinosaur affairs, I seem to be yo-yoing between dinosaur themed projects and bear themed projects this past few weeks and I'm loving it, although I do need to change my themes up a bit because I have a few female friends with upcoming birthdays that I have to make cards for, one is a crazy cat lady like me, so guess what her theme will be?

This weekend along side finishing the Easter wreath cards I posted recently, I also managed to finish 4 new baby cards for my box. I'm trying to get more use out of my stash and think of other ways to use dies, stamps and embossing folders and these baby cards are classic examples.

The 'cable' embossing folder came with some freebie Xmas stamps at the end of 2018 and the cute little bear is from a Christmas themed Stampin Up set called 'Cookie Cutter Christmas' that I acquired recently. I have the matching punch as well which makes making these little cuties a doddle! The set also makes gingerbread men, Rudolph, an eskimo and a Santa as well as the bear, the punch can also be used with another set of cute little halloween characters but I haven't been able to find them yet as they've been discontinued by Stampin Up sadly. The bears and the gingerbread men can be used for a few different themes and I've seen the Santa worked as a soldier and also a little leprechaun 😁

I have a few Stampin Up stamps and a couple of punches, I went to a class run by a lady who lives not far from me in June 2018, I resisted buying SU stuff at first, and I've been to a few classes since and have become a regular, its been a great way of meeting people who live local to me that love to craft and I've bought some SU inks and some of the stamp sets, I do find SU stuff a little expensive, but the quality is good and as long as I buy sets that I know I'll get a lot of use from its fine.

I admit most of the sets I've bought so far are cat themed or floral, big surprise there lol! In fact my next purchase will be the cat punch that goes with the 'Spooky Cat' set I got last year and the 'Nine Lives' set I got recently and hopefully they will release other cat sets to go with the punch in the future.

I joined the monthly Stamperette's club that Tracey runs, I spend around £15 a month and as well as my goodies, I get some little freebies, last month it was some butterfly papers that I turned in to this project, the colours in the papers are so vibrant.

I'm rather chuffed with my fussy cutting on the butterfly. I do like these floating pop cards, I first made some of them them in November last year and I've made them a few times using different themes, I think a birthday bear version is on the horizon, I sure have enough bears to make it happen 😁

Another bear card completed recently was for a challenge in a group I take part in on Facebook and is now in my box ready to send to a male recipient, I used a stamp and die set that I got free with a magazine last year and had never used, something else I'm endeavouring to do this year, play with things that I've got as free gifts but never created anything with! It's silly the number of things I liked and had to have but have never used!

This colouring on this card is the first time I've used my Copics to colour, I tried to create a fur like texture, not sure if I succeeded or not, but I'm really pleased with how this furry little chap turned out. I have 36 Copic Ciao's at the moment, they are very expensive but I've been buying a couple each month and Si has agreed to buy me 6 pens for every stone I lose as an incentive, gets my vote and I got my first lot of 6 last month. They do colour very evenly and blend like a dream, but I do need more practice, so I'm going to stamp some images and take my copic's when I go on holiday and do a little colouring in the evenings.

One of the other projects on my desk that need completing are these cute little bookmark bears, which are part of a bookmark project I'm making using Mama Elephant dies and stamps. So quick and easy to put together and I have the dog, bunny and cat dies to play with yet. The plan is to make some bookmark gifts for friends and family and to make some cats sets to give to the Cat's Protection to sell.

Finally before I go, I thought I'd share a quick health update... I have now lost 8.5kg since starting the Livewell programme on 4th Feb 2019, and this week my blood pressure is down to an average of 123/87 which the Doctor said was good, and I'm pretty damn pleased with the reduction I've achieved in just 2 months, a big difference from those earlier readings on the 4th and 5th of Feb!

My cholesterol levels were good, a reduction to 5 from 5.5 last year, all the other levels were fine save the triglyceride's which are just over the acceptable range at 2.1 but the doctor is happy that the level will come down by next year as I lose more weight. She was so happy with what I've achieved so far that she said I didn't need to go back for a follow up appointment, she has asked me to keep checking my blood pressure once a month and report back if it starts to increase, but for now I can proceed as before and continue to get thinner and healthier.

My positive progress is down to being active at least 30 minutes a day, eating healthier, I have 1,850 cals a day and I make sure that I burn that amount plus another 500 cals worth of calorie burn through exercise every day and its working. I have a lot more energy, I'm walking a lot faster without feeling like I can't breathe and I am a lot happier in myself, and because my blood pressure has come down so much, I'm now allowed to take part in the Livewell exercise sessions, its taken a few months to get there but I am and can't wait to get started 😁

Happy Easter Wreath Template Cards

These 6" x 6" cards are not traditional 'Easter' colours I know, but I started playing with some Altenew ink cubes and random Altenew stamps just making wreath's late on Friday night when I couldn't sleep not really intending to make any particular kind of card and these cards kind of evolved from that play.

When I began I was going to make some simple one layer cards, but when I finished stamping the green wreath I managed somehow to get a paper cut and got blood on the edge of the card. I used my sand eraser and managed to sand so much I ripped the card, swear words drifted in to the late night air and I drummed the table wondering how to fix the problem. Cutting the offending mess off seemed like a plan, so I reached for a circle die that would go over the wreath.

Once I'd done that, I spotted a pile of bunny die cuts on my other desk and a stamp set recently bought but not yet used which had a Happy Easter sentiment and my sleep deprived brain decided that I could make some Easter cards.

The gingham backing papers were printed off and I used the edge of the square that I die cut the scalloped circle from as a mat, waste not want not huh? The leaves are from an Altenew set called "Happy Dream" and the small star like flowers from another Altenew Set called "Crafty Friends". The large flower is from a DoCrafts Creativity A6 stamps set called "Trad Floral".

I've started taking a look at stamp sets in my stash and finding the small stamps that don't get much use and using them to create wreaths. On their own small and tiny stamps can leave you with a "how do I use these little monkeys?" kind of feeling, but take them and combine them with other small stamps to make a wreath and they come in to their own and you can create any kind of wreath for any kind of occasion.

Something I discovered whilst stamping these backgrounds, it should have been a no brainer and is certainly something I will do moving forward when making wreath backgrounds. It's something very simple really and I don't know why I didn't twig to it before now, but to get a better result, start your design using your lightest colour ink first, add the mid tones, then stamp the darkest colours on top, and the wreath builds up with more perspective.

I stamped the sentiment using Versafine Clair ink in "Nocturne" and once I'd layered the 4 cards up, all that was left to do was add some 'Dandelion Yellow' Nuvo Crystal Drops to the centres of all the flowers, save for those that are directly under the Happy Easter sentiment, and add the little bunny die cuts and I had 4 cards ready to send. 😀