Product Review Series | Irojiten Coloured Pencils by Tombow

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

To wrap up the year, and because it's Sunday I have a final product review for 2017. As many of you know I received a bunch of stuff for Christmas and I promised some reviews. Today I am doing the Irojiten Coloured Pencils by Tombow. If you haven't heard of these before, do some Googling and then come back here. I'll wait.

For those of you that have seen them and are interested in more information, sit back and relax, grab a cup of coffee and read on! As always, this is a lengthy post with lots of pictures and information.

• Wax-based
• Made by Tombow
• White barrel with painted end for colour identification
• Each pencil has a number and name directly engraved
• Each box has a list of colour numbers and names included
• Each set contains three volumes of 10 pencils (30 per set, 90 in the collection)
• They are pre-sharpened

Set one contains:

• vol 1 Pale tone 1
• vol 2 Vivid tone 1
• vol 3 Deep tone 1

For the purposes of this demonstration I will be using this set for the examples as I feel it gives the widest range of colours as well as what I consider to be "true" colours. Vivid tones is what I expect rainbows to be made of. 

I tested on my three most common papers - 110lb white cardstock, 65lb kraft cardstock and 65lb black cardstock. The stamped image is from Lawn Fawn's "Our Friendship Grows", stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I used P1 and P2 (Orchid Pink and Coral Pink) for this example. Basically, I'm testing to see how they lay down on each of the papers and how much they stand out from the background.

As you can see on the white cardstock that the colours are very pale - which I expected coming from the pale tones. They continue to be quite soft on the kraft but not so much that I would choose not to use them. They stand out magnificently on the black - obviously you cannot see the stamped image, but the colours stand out very nicely. Again, colour choice is important on a darker cardstock, and it will take some experimentation before you find what works for you.

Observations:

• Core is a medium hardness - definitely harder than Prismacolor Premier pencils, but softer than a Faber-Castell Polychormos.
• I found that on all three papers the pigment lay down evenly without a lot of effort and they layered very nicely.
• It did not hurt my hand to use them. I didn't feel the need to grip the pencil tightly nor did I have to apply a lot of pressure to lay the pigment down.
• The colours I chose for this were very close together so it didn't entail a lot of blending at this point.

For the blending test, I lay down V1 (vivid tones 1) Cherry Red, V7 King Fisher (the blue) and then over top V3 Dandelion. On the left of the swatches is blending with the pencil. On the right I am blending with Gamsol.

Observations:

• The colours do less blending and more sitting together. You can see this specifically in the green area, where I lay the yellow over the blue. It seemed to fill in the gaps between the blue streaks causing the colour to appear green. 
• This is very different than the Prismacolors that seem to blend and mix together on the page.
• These seem to just work "together" to look the way I wanted it to.
• On the right where I used Gamsol, you can see that the blending is smoother and there is less visibility of the tooth of the paper - the Gamsol reacts as expected with these as they are a wax based pencil.

For the erasability test, I lay down the V1 Cherry Red in two layers over the paper. On the left I used a regular white eraser and on the right I used the Tombow Mono Sand Eraser. I chose red as it is the hardest colour to fix errors with or to blend. Red is a nightmare in pretty much any medium from coloured pencils through to nail polish.

Observations:

• Both erasers did a decent job of pulling up the pigment. I wasn't expecting perfection as it is red.
• The regular eraser (left) was able to lift more pigment than I expected and if I should have a tick or a mistake in a piece I suspect it would work nicely.
• The Tombow Mono Sand eraser was able to pull up a lot more pigment as expected due to the nature of the eraser. If you haven't gotten one of these I highly recommend you check them out in the link above.

Set two contains:

• vol 4 Pale tone 2
• vol 5 Deep tone 2
• vol 6 Light Grayish tone 1 

I found their naming of Light Grayish tone 1 interesting as there isn't another one, but maybe in the future.... who knows?

This set rounds out the pale and deep tones that are found in set one and expands into muted tones. I would naturally gravitate towards the Light Grayish tones for background or shadowed areas in a forest or floral scene.

Set three contains:

• vol 7 Fluorescence
• vol 8 Very pale tone
• vol 9 Dull tone

If you are not buying the full set, this is the last I would recommend, and maybe that's why they put these together as they did. I don't tend to use very bright colours and I'm still searching for a reason to use the Fluorescence pack. 

The very pale tones (vol 8) just screams baby cards or Easter cards and I definitely cannot wait to use these in that way.

Vol 9 Dull tone reminds me of a swamp or a forest at night and I will likely use them as such when a project comes my way with those things. I highly suspect that this third set will be the least used.

Here I have completed my swatch pages for all the colours - I'll have an entire post about swatching and why it is important in the future but this will give you a basic look at the colours and how they have set out their palettes for this collection.

Overall Conclusions:

• These pencils are super pretty to have in my craft room. They just look classy. So far the packaging has held up quite well, but I haven't taken them to travel yet. Regular use in the craft room, they take up a lot of space when they are all laid out. If you aren't into the pretty packaging I would recommend a pencil case of some kind.
• The pencils feel good in the hand. They have a smooth round barrel that is comfortable and I don't feel like I have to hold tightly.
• They lay down very nicely overall, the pigment quality is quite good. If find them comparable to Prismacolor Premier pencils - though the core is harder.
• The colours are true - One pencil is called "apricot" and when I lay down the pigment I am not disappointed when I see the apricot colour. They also match their painted ends rather well, so well done there - no sneaky surprises when grabbing a pencil. We've all been there and it's a dark, angry place.
• The colours are very unique which is not something you see with a lot of other pencil brands. 
• There is a disgusting lack of grays. Out of the entire set of 90 pencils there are two grays. TWO!! I happen to like to use a lot of gray in my pieces for shading and animals and it was incredibly disappointing to find only two. Both of which are in the first set - another reason why I recommend that set the most.
• They sharpen nicely and I did not have any breaks. As always the sharpener I use and highly recommend is the T'GAAL multi-sharpener by Kutsuwa

If you are looking to expand your coloured pencil collection I highly recommend them. The unique colours and the range in which they come with this set will make an excellent addition to your pencil collection.

However, if you are looking for your first "Artist" grade pencils - these are not the way to go. I would only recommend these to people who already have or are planning to have another set, such as the Prismacolor Premiers or the Faber-Castell Polychromos. 

I hope you enjoyed today's review. If you have any questions about these pencils or a suggestion for a future review, please leave me a note in the comments section below. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook so you don't miss any future posts.

Have a Happy New Year

*disclaimer: I am not sent products to review nor am I paid to review them. I review the products that I have, that I find interesting and that I have paid for (or in this case received as a gift). I receive no payment, reward or incentive by the company to review the product. All reviews are based on my experience with the product and are my opinion only.

Coloured on Kraft Series | Hippo Birthday ft. MFT "Happy Hippos"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

As crazy as it sounds, I think the Holidays have me a little Lawn Fawn'd out. It wasn't until I was done the whole series that I realized 95% of the cards were based on Lawn Fawn. Whoops. It wasn't intentional. I just didn't get my hands on the Christmas stuff I wanted from other companies in time. (foreshadowing?)

Anyway, today I'm taking a little break from Lawn Fawn, don't get me wrong I still love them, but I just need to take a step back and take a different perspective. Today I have a card featuring MFT's "Happy Hippos" coloured on kraft with coloured pencils.

To begin, I cut down a piece of 65lb kraft cardstock by Recollections and stamped the hippo, balloons and hat from the "Happy Hippos" set with VersaMark ink. I chose to use embossing ink because it doesn't leave harsh stamping lines, and if you have followed this particular series for any length of time, you know just how much I love the no line colouring look.

I masked off the images and used my cloud stencil and soft blue pigment ink by CTMH to create the cloudy background. I had originally thought to make the clouds whiter, but that would have taken away from the panel being kraft - I mean, I would know and you would know, but would the rest of the world understand? So I left it as it was and I'm pretty happy that I didn't shake things up.

I started colouring the balloons using the Black Widow/Scorpion wax based coloured pencils (review coming) and was pretty happy with how they turned out. They lay down a little differently than other wax brands I have - but I'll get into that in the coming review.

For the Hippo, I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils - which are an oil based pencil and I'll have a review of those coming up in the new year as well. I used the warm grays to colour the hippo completely.

I can hear you now -- "what?? different brands of pencils? wax and oil? in the same piece???" Oh I know, not typically something I do. But here's the thing. Out of the 48 Widow/Scorpion pencils - there is one gray. One. And honestly, it isn't even really a good one - but again, I'll get more into that in the review. I promise. If I remember, I'll back link to this post so we can all be righteously indignant together.

To finish off, I mounted the kraft panel to the front of my A2 sized card base and then stamped the greeting from the same set using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think. I could use some cheering today, so even a hello would be great!

Floral Thoughts Series | Cheer Up ft Clearly Besotted "Sunshine & Smiles"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Now that Christmas is over, and we've had our white winter wonderland, I'm pretty done with winter. I'm done with the snow and the cold and the biting wind. If you look outside it doesn't look that bad, it looks crisp and clean - then you open the door and you're blasted with sub-zero temperatures that just make you want to curl up in bed with hot tea and a book.

In the hopes of spreading some warmth, today I have a bright card that I'm hoping will cheer us all up as we trudge through yet another week of temperatures in the -25C (-13F) range and snow halfway to our knees.

To begin, I prepped a piece of Strathmore 140lb cold press watercolour paper with my powder tool and stamped the sunflower (or maybe a daisy) image from Clearly Besotted's "Sunshine & Smiles" set with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with detail white embossing powder.

I used the Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers to add colour to the image; starting where I wanted my darkest shadows to be, then using my water brush to pull the colour out towards the ends of the petals and the leaves.

Working in relatively large sections, I wet the paper around the image then dropped in colour, pulling it to the edges of the paper to create a soft blue background.

Once the panel was completely dry, I stamped the greeting from the same set using CTMH Archival ink. I chose archival ink as it is waterproof and won't run if the paper is still a bit damp. If I were a patient person, I probably would have done the greeting in a mid-grey or even an ochre. But I don't have those in archival ink.

I used super strong two-way tape to adhered the panel to the front of a standard A2 sized card base. Then, to finish off the card, I added a scattering of yellow sequins across the piece.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

This card is for:

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
Anything Goes

Technique Tip | Silhouette Stamping with CTMH Inks

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

I thought I would try something that is a little different for me. We all know how much I love stamping the images and colouring them in, but the solid stamps in my sets generally don't get as much love as they should.

Today, I decided to give some silhouette stamping a try. This is a fun technique, that I think looks best of a non-white cardstock, where you stamp the image with a light colour, then stamp again, but offset, with a darker colour.

To begin, I cut down a piece of 65lb kraft cardstock by Recollections, and used a square die to cut a window from the middle. I then cut down a piece of 65lb black cardstock to layer underneath the kraft with a smaller window cut out, so that everything would look nicely framed up.

I adhered the black piece directly to the front of my standard A2 sized card base and set that aside.

I used CTMH White Daisy ink for the first round of stamping, using greenery from Verve Stamps "Great Friend" and the flower from Forever In Time Stamps "Sunshine Daisies" randomly around the kraft panel.

Once the white was dry (it takes longer because it is a pigment ink), I used CTMH Pear and Topiary inks for the greens and Smoothie for the flowers, stamping again slightly offset of the first layer.

I then used the "Thank You" stamp from Verve Stamps "Autumn Splendor" to stamp the greeting inside the window.

Finally, I adhered the kraft panel over the black panel to complete the card.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Coloured on Kraft | Vintage Belated Birthday ft. Lawn Fawn "Gleeful Gardens"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I have another card for the Coloured on Kraft series. I'm using new pencils today and while I haven't done a review of these yet, there is definitely one coming soon.

The pencils I'm using today are the Black Widow and Scorpion sets, at first I was a little put off as they aren't as vibrant on the kraft as the Prismacolor Premier pencils that I typically use, but as I worked through this piece, I found that I really liked the "vintage" look that they gave.

To begin, I cut down a panel of 65lb kraft cardstock by Recollections and masked off the bottom. I then stamped the images and greeting from Lawn Fawn's "Gleeful Gardens" using CTMH Cashmere ink.

I coloured the images with the Black Widow and Scorpion Pencils. I also used them to create my own grass to ground the scene and the dirt to fill in the bottom.

I tied a piece of soft blue baker's twine around the top below the greeting, and adhered my panel to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Christmas Haul - There's A Lot Coming for the New Year

Hi everyone, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you are having a fantastic day.

First off, I just want to say Merry Christmas to all of you. I especially want to thank all of you who are reading this on Christmas Day. It means a lot to me that you want to spend your time here on the Holiday. It means a lot to me every day, but you know what I mean.

I don't have a card or a project for you today, but I do have a haul post. I've never done one of these before, and while I would love for it to be a video - I'm still not set up for that. That is the goal for the new year, to spread out into the land of YouTube and I hope all of you wonderful readers will also become viewers. I'll keep you posted!

Santa was extremely good to me this year, and I cannot wait to do in depth review posts on everything!

This is the whole lot of it and I am excited beyond reason. The older kids are at their other houses and the littlest is watching a movie. My hubby got new noise-cancelling headphones so he's lost in video game land, so I've had an opportunity to play with my new stuff.

First up, my wonderful Mother and Father in law gave me the Birds of the Americas colouring book, super different than what I usually colour in, but I'm looking forward to it. It's an identification guide so there's Latin (yeah!) a picture of the bird then a large picture to colour in. Definitely going to be a challenge! Oh that's right.... I also colour! I guess I don't really post about that here. LOL now you know.

Next up, is the full set of the Irojiten coloured pencils by Tombow. You thought these were pretty in pictures? Holy CRAP! These pencils are stunning. I can't even tell you how hard it is not to include detailed pictures here - but you have to wait for the official review. I still have to swatch them and touch them and get to know them... but I cannot wait. I've been gorging myself on video reviews of these for a couple weeks because I knew they were under the tree, and interestingly I have found they are either a love it or a hate it - I haven't seen any in the middle and I'm dying to know where I land on these.

Next I got two, that's right TWO 160 slot pencil cases. These things have four zippers each! One for my Prismacolor Premiers and one for my Faber-Castell Polychormos. The cases were actually my hubby's idea because he hated the tin that the 132 Prismacolors came in. Then I showed him how half my Polychormos were in a tin and the other half were in elastic bands and so that's how two ended up under the tree. So far the cases are fantastic, I'll have a quickie review of them probably next week (hopefully).

And finally the Derwent Inktense Pencils. These only made the list because Amazon had a killer deal, like less than 50%, otherwise I could never get this full set. I am so excited to try out this new medium and share my thoughts with you all. From everything that I've seen there's a steep learning curve that will go with these and I'm jacked to get started.

The Derwent water brushes were a little extra stocking stuffer from me. I have water brushes, but these were also on for a smashing price, so I tossed them in the cart as well - and they're Derwent, so they had to go together, like star-crossed art supplies....

So that's what I have for today and I'm super excited to get to work on product reviews for you all, not to mention play and organize all my new stuff!

I hope you like today's post, I would love to hear what you all got for Christmas - drop me a line in the comments section below and share your haul as well! If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Crafty New Year!!

Clean and Simple Winter Birthday | ft. Distress Oxide Inks

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I have a clean and simple masculine birthday card, this card can be recreated in pretty much any palette. The Holiday series may be over, but winter is in full force here in Calgary, so I thought a winter birthday card would be appropriate.

I was really, really on the fence about the Distress Oxide inks, but I really try to give things a fair shake and try them out before I judge them. So I picked up a couple of oxides and at first I didn't see what the big deal was. I have most of the regular Distress inks, so why would I need the same colours in another formula?

But the more I used them, the more I liked them; especially for backgrounds. They blend so incredibly smoothly that I find myself reaching for them more often than my beloved Distress inks. And that's saying something.

To begin, I cut down a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth cardstock and masked the top and the bottom. I then used the Broken China and Salty Ocean Distress Oxide inks to blend my background with the darker being more towards the lower left side. I used the Distress sprayer to spritz clean water over the ink and get a nice splatter look. It's almost like a snowstorm.

Once the panel was completely dry, I used my MISTI and stamped the tree as well as the greeting with CTMH Archival ink. I prefer to use archival ink over the Distress Oxides as it is waterproof and won't run if the ink is still a bit damp.

I mounted the panel to the front of a standard A2 sized card base, then added some blue enamel dots to finish it off.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Have a very Merry Christmas!!

Happy Holidays Series | White Christmas ft. Lawn Fawn "Large Wreath" Dies

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

It's the final day of this year's Happy Holiday Series!! I cannot believe it's all done for another year. It's been such a fantastic ride, and I honestly could not have pushed through without all of your support and encouragement! The holidays are just crazy here with three kids and multiple extended families, so thank you all for your comments, shares and likes. They mean so much to me!

For a while it didn't look like we were really going to be having a white Christmas, we had summer time temperatures for most of November and the first half of December, but then last week the temperature dropped and the white stuff came falling down so we'll have a white Christmas after all.

Today's card is rather fitting, as I went with a classic white monochrome to finish off the holiday series.

To begin, I used the "Large Wreath" die set by Lawn Fawn to cut a bunch of boughs from shimmering white cardstock as well as from some white glittery cardstock. I cut the bow from silver cardstock and used Tombow Mono Multi glue to put it together and my reverse tweezers to hold it in place until it was dry.

I used the same liquid glue to adhere the bases of the boughs to the ring, filling it in with more pieces then adding the glitter boughs around until it looked just the way I wanted it to.

I adhered the bow to the bottom of the wreath then set that aside to dry.

For the background panel I used Lawn Fawn's "Wood Grain Backdrops" stamp with CTMH Linen ink to get a delicate tone on tone panel. I adhered that to the front of my standard A2 sized card base and then mounted the wreath to the front.

I had considered adding a greeting to the front of the card, but I didn't want to add any more to it. The simplistic design and the colours were just enough for me. So in a move that was completely unlike me I opted to not further embellish the card.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Elegant Encouragement | ft. Technique Tuesday "Butterflies", Prismacolor Pencils and Nuvo Gilding Flakes

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

In case you haven't noticed, I am loving these butterflies from Technique Tuesday. It's kind of funny, I bought them a couple years ago and never touched them. I really only got them because they were on sale as the store was closing down, and thought "hey, these are okay ... but the price is amazing!"

It's a single rubber stamp with three butterflies. It wasn't until last week that it occurred to me to cut them apart - which is weird because I cut a lot of stamps apart. Like a lot. Since then, they've been on my desk - which is also weird because I'm crazy OCD about cleaning up between projects.

To begin, I prepped a piece of 65lb black cardstock from Recollections with my powder tool and stamped the small and medium butterfly with VersaMark ink and heat embossed with Sticky embossing powder by Ranger.

I've found that the trick to using sticky embossing powder is to remove the heat as soon as the powder is melted. I get the heat gun good and hot before bringing it to my paper and remove the heat as soon as the powder melts, if I keep the heat on the powder too long it seems to cook and not be sticky; that just defeats the point.

Once all the powder was melted I used Nuvo Gilding Flakes in copper over the sticky lines, pressing down firmly with my finger then burnishing the rest away with a stiff brush. I do this over a piece of clean copy paper, so I can funnel the excess back into the container, all the while trying really hard not to breathe. These flakes are lighter than air and the smallest current sends them flying all over.

I then used my Prismacolor Premier pencils to colour the butterflies. I have done a bunch of cards using these pencils on kraft cardstock, but I think this is the first or second that I have ever done on black and again I am amazed at the vibrancy of the colours.

I started with just a dark and a medium purple, but then brought in a light purple to brighten it up a bit. After I was done, I felt they needed just a little something extra so I pulled in the aqua around the edges of the wings.

Finally, I decided it needed a greeting so I prepped the lower right corner with my powder tool again, and stamped the greeting from a Color Splash set with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with Copper embossing powder by Recollections. I could have used the same gilding flakes, but was concerned about how small the font is in the first part of the greeting. Sometimes the gilding flakes don't all come away easily and I wanted it to be clear.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Happy Holidays Series | Dimensional Goody Bag ft. Lawn Fawn "Goodie Bag" Die

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

For each seasonal series, I like to include a couple "not cards", generally a tag and a goody bag. I've already done the tag (which you can see here), today I have the goody bag or gift card holder - it will work for either. I wanted to kick it up a notch this time around, so I made a windowed goody bag with a dimensional scene.

To begin, I used the "Goodie Bag" die and cut a piece of kraft cardstock twice to form the bag. I then cut just the front panel of it again from a piece of "Perfectly Plaid - Chill" patterned paper. I then used the outside stitched rectangle to cut a window from the patterned paper and one of the kraft panels.

Using super strong tape, I adhered the patterned paper panel to the kraft panel. I used the "Stitched Hillside Border" dies to cut some snowbanks from 110lb white cardstock and trimmed them down to the width of my bag, adhering one to the outside of the bag to give even more dimension.

On a scrap of 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock I stamped two trees and the Sasquatch from "Lovable Legends" with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and cut them out using the Brother 2 Scan N Cut, then coloured them with Copics. 

For the inside back panel of my scene I sponged Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean and a bit of Faded Jeans Distress Inks to create a sky making it the darkest at the top. I used the Distress Sprayer to spritz on some water and give it a splattered look.

Once all my pieces were dry, I adhered some sparkling snowflakes that were left over from another project to be stars in the sky.

To get the dimensional snow, I used a Marvy Snow Marker to add snow to the trees and the tops of the hillsides. I've found the best way to use this marker is to press it down on an acrylic block and use a small cheap paintbrush to add it where I want it. I cannot control the flow from the marker directly and I have ruined more than one project trying to apply it directly - lesson learned.

I adhered a piece of acetate to the inside of my window and assembled my whole scene before securing it to the bottom of the bag. I used two layers of foam tape around the edges of the window and pressed the scene into place. Only when I was satisfied with its position did I finish assembling the bag.

This took a bit of time to put together, I recommend folding the bag together to see where all the pieces need to go without adhesive or with a repositionable adhesive before bonding it permanently. The end results are well worth the potential frustration, and with a bit of time and patience these can come together relatively quickly.

To finish off the bag, I adhered a few more sparkling snowflakes to the outside and used coordinating ribbon and baker's twine for the bow at the top. I didn't actually have mini bells, but I had brads that were bells, so I clipped off one of the pokey things and curled the other, then used some invisible thread and a needle to tie them into place.

I'm excited to create more of these for the seasons to come, but I'll definitely be saving them for those special friends who will treasure the bag as well as the gift inside.

I hope you like today's post and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Dino-mite Party | ft. Lawn Fawn Pop-Up Dies and "Critters From the Past"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Last weekend, my youngest got invited to her very first birthday party. She's obviously been to birthday parties before, but this one was a friend from her Kindergarten class and that meant it was super exciting.

When I called the mom to RSVP I was told that he likes dinosaurs. Immediately my mind began sketching card ideas and because it was such a special occasion for her, I used the Lawn Fawn Pop-Up dies to create the birthday card.

I love to keep the outside simple since the inside is going to be so much more involved. I think it kind of lowers people's expectations as well. Like "oooo .... thank you....?" then they open it and they're like "DANG!". It's kind of satisfying, really. LOL

To begin, I cut down a piece of kraft cardstock using the stitched rectangle dies and adhered it to the front of my A2 sized card base. I then stamped the dino prints around the edge using CTMH Saddle ink.

I stamped all my dinosaurs, the trees and the hat from "Critters From the Past" and the gift from "Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum" with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I then cut them all out using the Brother 2 Scan N Cut, and coloured them with Copic markers.

I set all my pieces aside and cut the Hillside pop-up from the same cardstock and sponged Cracked Pistachio and Mowed Lawn Distress inks to make the grass. On the top portion inside my card, I sponged Tumbled Glass to get a nice blue sky.

I then assembled the inside of my card, adhering all the pieces with strong two-way tape. I stamped the sentiment inside with Memento Tuxedo Black ink as well, so that the inks would match.

Once the inside was completed I adhered the dinosaur and the speech bubble to the front of the card.

While my daughter was eager for me to just leave her at the party with a super fast "see you later, mom" she was very happy to report that the birthday boy loved the card as well as the gift.

I think my favourite part about making all my cards - not just the selling or the gift sets - really being able to customize it to the recipient's likes. I think it really adds something special that they know how much thought and time went into something just for them.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Happy Holidays Series | Polar Skies ft Lawn Fawn "For You, Deer"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

A little while ago, I shared a card that I had created using alcohol inks for the background, with the little deer from Lawn Fawn's "For You, Deer" stamp set. I loved the card so much that I just had to make another one with the little polar bear.

This card came together quick and easy because I still had a piece of the alcohol inked background. I chose this particular section of the piece because it reminded me of the moon and the northern lights.

To begin, I cut down my alcohol ink background piece to fit at the top of my standard A2 sized card, I used two-way tape to secure that in place.

I stamped the front of the polar bear from Lawn Fawn's "For You, Deer" with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I coloured him with cool grey Copic markers and used the coordinating dies to cut him out.

I added a length of shimmering tape to hide the seam where the alcohol ink piece ends and tucked my polar bear behind that. I love that his little paws can hang over the edge, like he's really popping out to say hello.

To finish off the card I stamped the greeting using Lawn Fawn's "Black Licorice" ink.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Twinkling Wishes | ft. Technique Tuesday "Butterflies" and Twinkling H2O Watercolours

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Yesterday, I reviewed the Luminarte Twinkling H2O shimmering watercolour paints, and briefly showed a panel where I used them to colour butterflies. Today I want to share the completed card that I created for that review.

To begin, I prepped a piece of 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock with my powder tool and stamped the middle and smallest butterflies from Technique Tuesday using VersaMark ink, I then heat embossed them with sticky embossing powder by Ranger.

I have found that the trick to using the sticky embossing powder is to remove the heat as soon as it's melted. If you leave the heat on too long the embossing powder seems to cook and then it won't be sticky.

I then used Nuvo Gilding Flakes in gold to get the outlines of the butterflies.

I used my Distress sprayer to spritz water into my Luminarte Twinkling H2O pots to get them activated. With a light hand I added water to the wing then dropped in the darker colour near the base, and the lighter colour near the tips and blended them together.

I did one wing at a time, because I failed to use watercolour paper for this panel. Had I done more than one wing, the water would have just seeped in and then dried before the paint could be added and the blending wouldn't have been as awesome. I mentioned in the review post that it was very late when I decided to make this panel and honestly I just wasn't thinking. I definitely recommend watercolour paper for use with these paints.

Once all the butterflies were painted and dried, I prepped the lower right corner with my powder tool again and stamped the greeting from CTMH "Sending Smiles" with the VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder.

I then covered the back of the panel completely with strong two-way tape and adhered it to the front of my standard A2 sized black card base. There was quite a bit of warping from the watercolouring, so even with the entire back covered in adhesive, I still had some lifting. Nothing too bad though. One more reason to use the right kind of paper with this medium.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Product Review Series | Luminarte Twinkling H2O Watercolours

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Last week I had a poll going on my Facebook page to see what you would like to have reviewed this week. It was an incredibly close call but the Luminarte Twinkling H2O Watercolours won with 52% of the vote. Keep an eye out this week for another poll!

I currently have three packages of these that I feel give me a pretty fair palette of colours to choose from. Don't get me wrong, I would certainly love to have more, but for what I do and my needs at this time, these suffice.

As always, this will be a pretty long post, with a bunch of pictures. So grab a coffee and enjoy!

First Impressions:

• Vibrant colors
• Cute little pots
• Decent packaging
• Has the name on the bottom - I'll get to this
• They are Acid-free, Odorless and non-toxic - so good for kids to play with
• According to the website they are available in 210 colours!!
• Can be purchased individually in 5/10mL pots - but I was only able to find them in these packs of six at my local Michael's Craft store

There aren't really an "instructions" with the packages as to how to get them to work, so I was a little disappointed there. They have claims on the site about being child-friendly, but they don't work like any type of paint I have ever purchased for my kids. If I weren't crafty and these were gifted to one of my kids it would be disappointing because they don't work right out of the gate.

To use:

• Open the pot (obviously)
• Spray or add a few drops of water and let them sit for a few minutes. These paints are hard. Like super colourful little rocks inside cute little jars, by adding some water and letting them sit it softens the paint and "activates" it so you can actually use it.
• Paint and enjoy!
• You don't have to wait for the paint to dry out before closing it up. It'll dry out just fine with the lid closed - at least I have never had a problem with it. 

After using these, I found:

• They are incredibly pigmented - there is a lot of colour shoved into that little pot, so a little goes a long way
• Insanely shimmery - You know how I always mention that my camera doesn't pick up the shine and that makes me sad but in real life it really sparkles? With these, the camera picks up the shimmer as you can see in the large butterfly on the right. In real life, the shimmer is off the charts. I couldn't even believe it 
• They blend pretty well - to be fair it was very late when I made this card front and I didn't actually use watercolour paper. Normally I would have. So that being said they can be used on 110lb regular cardstock as long as you aren't going crazy with them - They would be excellent to add just a bit of shimmering highlight to an image
• Be aware that they will warp the page as they dry - just make sure you cover the entire back of the panel with a very strong adhesive so that it will lay flat.
• When the paint mixture is thin it is very transparent - so if you want to add a light wash of shimmer over another colour, you would be able to do so
• As the water starts to evaporate or continue to seep into the paint pot the paint will become very thick - at this point you can use it on dark cardstock (picture below) as it is very opaque and just as shimmery.

As my paints dried I used a couple of the colours on just a scrap of black 65lb cardstock by Recollections. The blue I found to be the most vibrant, but I think if the same consistency were reached with most of the others it would work as well. Obviously a very light colour like yellow won't be as opaque as a blue or dark purple but experimenting with them would be fun.

As you know I'm a fan of swatching - There's a whole big post coming up about it. I'm also a fan of knowing what my colours will look like on the paper I'm most likely to use them on. I mentioned above that there is information on the bottom of each pot about the colour - name, number etc. That's a problem for me, I like to refer back to the colours so I can remake an image or I can discuss it here in the blog, so it just spells disaster for me to have to look at the bottom of a tiny paint pot that I have just added water to. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

To solve this problem I use my 1" Recollections circle punch and punched out a circle from Strathmore 140lb cold press watercolour paper - which is my go-to paper for most of my projects.

I activated the paints, added water to half of the circle and dropped in the colour. Once they were dry, I wrote the name and adhered them directly to the top of the lid.

My overall impressions:

These are a nice to have in the craft room, but definitely not something I would recommend you run out and buy (not that I ever tell you to go buy something, but you know what I'm saying). If you are looking to add some shimmer to your piece and you want to try something new, then by all means these are something you may find interesting. 

Being able to use these on dark and regular cardstock to add just a bit of shimmer is a huge plus for this product. As long as you are using a light hand, I think you'll be incredibly pleased with your results. That being said, this product is something I feel you need to plan to use. Having to activate the paint and wait around for it to be ready, does not lend itself well to being a "spur of the moment" kind of medium.

If you are able to find them individually or want to give one a try, I recommend a neutral colour; a pearl or pale silver, if the paint is thin you'll be able to use it over something you have already coloured (provided it doesn't reactivate with water) to give it a wash of shimmer. 

Aside from these three packs that I had come across in my craft store, I haven't seen them locally since; even in the same store. They are available online - but without seeing them in person picking a selection would be difficult. 210 colours is incredibly overwhelming even for an experienced craft supply purchaser. 

I hope you enjoyed today's review, if you have any questions about this product or a suggestion for a future review, drop me a line in the comments section below, I would love to hear from you. If you haven't already please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts.

*disclaimer: I am not sent products to review, nor am I paid to review them. I review the products that I use, that I find interesting and that I have purchased myself. I am given no reward, incentive or payment to write a review. All reviews are based on my personal experience with the product and are my opinions only.

Happy Holidays Series | ft. Lawn Fawn "Toboggan Together"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today, I wanted to share a fun scene of the reindeer hard at work gathering the presents for Santa and his sleigh! Despite what looks like a lot of dimension, this card is relatively flat and costs no additional postage to send in the mail - and that is always a bonus.

To begin, I stamped the sleigh and masked the top then added the presents and stamped the reindeer from "Toboggan Together" as well as the trees from "Yeti, Set, Go" with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I cut them out with the Brother 2 Scan N Cut and coloured them with Copic Markers.

I then cut the stitched hillside and the Hillside Forest border from the same cardstock and used Distress inks to give the snow some colour, and to fill in the forest line trees.

On my very back panel I sponged Tumbled Glass Distress ink for the sky, once that was dry I prepped it with my powder tool and stamped some snowflakes using VersaMark and heat embossed them with "Snow" embossing powder by Recollections.

I then put my layers together. I was able to find some ultra thin mounting tape at my local dollar store, and let me tell you this stuff is fantastic. I think it's supposed to be for hanging stuff on the walls, but I've never known anyone that would use tape to do that. Either way, it works like a dream on cards and it's only about half the thickness of my regular mounting tape.

The very front layer and the reindeer/sleigh are popped up with this foam tape. It didn't occur to me to take a picture of the side to show just how thin this card is, but it's a touch thinner than a regular shaker card would be. That's exciting.

To finish off the panel I used a length of brown bakers twine to make the reindeer have reins and pull the sled. I then mounted the panel to the front of a standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Clean and Simple Note Card | ft. Technique Tuesday "Budding Poppies"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I have a super clean and simple, single layer note card. I had done a review of the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers last week, and while I had them out on my desk, I thought I would put together another simple card.

I have never used stamps from Technique Tuesday before and was extremely pleased with the quality of the stamp and the fine detailed lines I was able to achieve when stamping. Definitely a company I will buy from again.

To begin, I cut a piece of Bristol Smooth cardstock to 11 x 4 1/4" and folded it at 5 1/2" to create a landscape side folding card. I then prepped the front with my powder tool and stamped the poppy image from Technique Tuesday and the greeting with VersaMark ink and heat embossed both with gold embossing powder.

I then used the 029 Geranium Red Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker to add a line of colour at the base of each petal and my water brush to pull the colour up towards the edges. Even though the Bristol paper stops the ink from seeping in and drying too quickly, I still work one petal at a time so I don't get a harsh line of colour.

I then added a strip of gold glitter tape across the bottom as an accent and to avoid having it look as though the flowers are floating in the middle of nowhere. An accent strip adds just a little something extra and grounds the image.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Happy Holiday Series | Dimensional Slider ft. Lawn Fawn "Beary Happy Holidays"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

I've done slider cards in the past, where the critter slides across the card; it's fun and interactive. I wanted to take that to the next level and have my little critter sliding across a dimensional scene. I had originally wanted him to be skating across a shaker background so that it would look as though it were snowing, but it started to get too bulky.

In the end, I'm glad I went the direction I did. This little guy is so cute and I have a bunch of other dimensional sliders planned, stay tuned!

To begin, I stamped the bear from Lawn Fawn's "Beary Happy Holidays" with Memento ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock and cut him out using the Brother 2 Scan N Cut. I coloured him with Copic markers and set him aside.

I cut another piece of cardstock with the Lawn Fawn "Forest Border" die and used Distress ink to add colour to the trees. To make a bit of a shadow on the hillside under the trees I used some soft blue Copic markers so it wouldn't look flat.

I stamped the ice flow from "Critters in the Arctic" and used a medium oval die from Spellbinders to do a partial die cut for my window, and fussy cut around the top of the ice flow. On the front panel I stamped my greeting and then prepped the panel with my powder tool. I heat embossed some snowflakes using "Snow" embossing powder by Recollections.

I sponged Tumbled Glass Distress ink on the front of my A2 sized card base to create the sky, then adhered my hillside with trees directly down on the front.

To create the slider channel, I used the short "Slide On Over" die in a piece of acetate and lined it up so the bear could skate across the ice. I trimmed any excess acetate away and adhered it down using some strong two-way tape.

With the front panel completed, I added two layers of foam tape to pop up the panel and ensure that my bear wouldn't get stuck. I have tried to get away with using only one layer of foam tape in the past, and it has always failed me. I like to minimize the bulk on a card, but I like the interactive cards to work properly more.

I adhered a penny to the back of my bear and a small piece of foam tape to line him up in the channel. I then use another penny on the other side so that he won't escape his channel. A penny works perfectly with this size of critter, but for something smaller I would use layers of cardstock. Essentially you create a sandwich so that the foam tape is between the two pennies, just remember to put him in the slider channel before adhering the bottom penny. Otherwise it's a nightmare to get him in the channel and you risk ruining the piece.

Once he was in place, I adhered the top panel to the front of the card and it looks like he's skating across a pond in the park! Lots of fun dimension and it gives you a completely different way to create a slider card.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think!

Gilded Wings | ft Nuvo Gilding Flakes and Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

A little while back I did a review on the Nuvo Gilding Flakes and showed how you can gild an image and then colour it afterwards with Copic markers. Today, I have a card that uses this technique but instead of using Copics I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers (which I also recently reviewed) to add the colour to the image.

To begin, I prepped a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth cardstock with my powder tool. I then stamped the small and medium butterflies from Urban Stamps "Butterflies" with VersaMark ink and then heat embossed them with Sticky Embossing Powder by Ranger.

I have found the trick to using the sticky embossing powder is to remove the heat from the paper as soon as it is melted. Get your heat gun good and hot before bringing it to the paper and remove it as soon as the powder melts. I discovered that if you allow the heat to stay after the powder melts it won't be sticky, it just cooks. And that defeats the purpose. It has taken me some practice, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Once the powder was melted I used the Radiant Gold gilding flakes, pressing them down with my finger, then burnishing them away with a stiff brush.

I then used 022 Carmine Red and 052 Bright Yellow Zig Markers to add the colour. These markers are fantastic on the Bristol paper. The smooth surface stops the colour from seeping into the paper and drying too quickly. For this card, I drew a thin line of the red at the base of the wing then a thicker line with the yellow and used my water brush to pull the colour out to the edges. You could also skip the water and use the lighter colour to pull the red out to the tips, but I wanted a softer watercolour look.

To finish off the card, I added the greeting from Stampendous "Happy Messages" with the gilding flakes as well, then mounted my panel on a top folding A2 sized black card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

If you hop over to my Facebook page, I currently have a poll going to see what you want to have reviewed this week. Voting closes December 14th 2017 at about 1:00pm MST, so if you want to vote click on over and do so!

Happy Holidays Series | 4x4 ft. Lawn Fawn "Mini Wreath"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

I typically do all my cards in the standard A2 (4 1/4 x 5 1/2") but every now and then I like to mix things up a bit, so today I have a sweet 4x4" card. This could easily be done in the standard A2 size format, and give you room for a greeting.

To begin, I used the "Mini Wreath" die from Lawn Fawn and cut 4 wreaths from dark green cardstock and 4 from light green cardstock. I used the mini bow that comes with the set to cut two silver and two gold bows, then used the little berry dies and cut those from red glittering cardstock.

I assembled my wreaths using liquid glue and then set them aside to dry.

I then cut a piece of 65lb kraft cardstock down 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 and used the Wood Grain Backdrop stamp with CTMH Chocolate ink, then sponged Gathered Twigs Distress ink around the edges to darken them up.

For the next layer I used the same dark green cardstock and adhered that down to the front of my card base. I then added the wood grain layer and added the wreaths.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Birthday Surprise | ft Newton's Nook "Newton's Birthday Bash"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

It was my sister's birthday yesterday, she's always been a fan of kitties, so when it came to making her a card, my choice was pretty obvious. I didn't want to just make a plain card so I thought I would jazz it up a bit with a "surprise" gift card door.

To begin, I cut down a piece of 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock to fit the whole front of my standard A2 sized card base. I then used 1/4" strips of Post-It tape to mask the edges and across the panel.

I sponged Twisted Citron, Peacock Feathers and Mermaid Lagoon in the three little windows I made. Once that was completely dry, I used the largest die from Lawn Fawn's "Lift the Flap" die set to cut the flap for the gift card.

On a scrap of the same cardstock, I stamped this kitty image from Newton's Nook "Newton's Birthday Bash" along with the greeting in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and coloured it with Copic markers.

I added clear Wink of Stella to the bag to make it shimmer. I then popped it up on foam tape and adhered it to the door.

I used super strong two-way tape to mount the panel to the front of my card base and then added some coordinating sequins for a bit more interest.

Under the flap and hidden by the gift card I stamped this additional greeting from the same set, also with Memento ink.

To ensure that the flap would stay closed, I added a drop of Tombow Mono Multi glue and allowed that to dry completely before closing the door. This glue is amazing as it can be permanent if it bonds when wet, but is repositionable if it bonds after it is dry. Perfect for cards with doors or flaps that you want to open and close.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Product Review Series | Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and a Completed Card

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

This past week on my Facebook page, I ran a poll to see what you were interested in for this week's review. Well the votes are in and 65% of voters wanted to see the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers.

In April of last year, I did a post about these Zig markers and about the gauntlet I went through to get my hands on them. It didn't occur to me until just recently that I never actually did a review of them! Whoops!!

So here it is, as always this review will be long and full of pictures, so grab a coffee and enjoy! And don't forget there is a card at the end!!

My current storage system has them broken into three groups; neutrals, cools and warms. This isn't ideal, I'll be honest. I would love to find another way to store them but frankly I haven't gotten to it yet. I like the three mini mason jars as they just sit on my desk but when I come up with something new, I'll be sure to share it.

So a couple of things:

• These are super vibrant. A little goes a long way - and that's good because they are pricey.
• They blend super well. Don't feel like you need to buy the whole lot to get a good range of colour, any colours you may not have can very easily be created with a little practice.
• Can be used with or without water (I'll have examples below)
• They will reactivate after drying if new moisture is applied. Very handy for those times you may slip out of the lines.
• They have an actual brush tip. It doesn't just look like a brush, it is a brush, so in a lot of ways it's like painting.
• These come in open stock as well as packs of 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and finally 80 (If you checked out my other post - linked above - you'll see why I got the 60 pack instead of the smaller one that I had originally wanted)

Here I just wanted to show you a close up of the brush tip. It is amazing. Like any other brush don't apply a lot of pressure - more pressure means a wider stroke and that's okay just be careful not to damage the tip.

There are about a million printable swatch cards online for these guys and that's fantastic. However my printer doesn't take watercolour paper, or Bristol paper or any paper that it doesn't like the look of depending on the day, so I made my own. This way I could keep them in basic colour groups, I could arrange them the way I wanted and I could omit any markers that I didn't actually own. 

Swatching is good for a couple of reasons (and I have a post coming up all about it), firstly it gives you a basic idea of what the marker feels like when you use it. How fast the pigment comes out and how much pressure to apply. It will also show you the true colour. I know they try and try to put the colour on the bottom of the marker or the pen but really they don't always match up - and that's frustrating to find out in the middle of a project.

There are two ways that I personally use the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers.

The first is with Bristol Smooth paper. I use Strathmore 100lb Bristol Smooth - it's white but almost has a creamy colour to it. It's incredibly smooth and mostly useless for coloured pencil but it works like a dream with these markers.

In the picture above, I have stamped this floral image from Clearly Besotted with CTMH Archival ink. Using Archival ink is incredibly important as it is waterproof, and these are water-based markers, so you see where I'm going with this.

I work in small areas, adding the darkest colour where I want the deepest shadow to be, then add the lighter colour and blend the two together. The smooth surface of the Bristol paper keeps the marker from drying as quickly as it would on regular cardstock, allowing you to blend. Don't wait too long though as it will dry. 

I keep a paper towel handy to wipe clean my lighter colour. While the brush will pick up the darker colour it will not seep up into the brush nor will it ruin the tip so feel free to blend away.

For this second example I am still working on Bristol Smooth paper because I love the smooth texture, but this can be done on watercolour paper as well.

I prepped this piece with my powder tool and stamped the rose image from Clearly Besotted with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder.

For each petal I added a fine line of my blue and then pulled it out using the clear Wink of Stella glitter brush pen. You can also do this with water, but I wanted my flower to sparkle. I repeated this process with each petal, wiping off the glitter pen whenever it was picking up too much colour.

I did the exact same process with a green for the leaves and stem. I wanted to show this close up as it is also the completed card for today. There are only two markers used for the colouring of this entire flower. One blue and one green. 

Overall I'm incredibly happy with these markers. You can use them the way I have described above, or you can scribble them on a palette and pick them up with a brush. These have all the best things about watercolours and all the best things about markers - rolled into one!

For this completed card, I coloured the flower from Clearly Besotted as I described above, I then masked it off and lay down a stencil and spritzed a light blue mist through it. Because this is Bristol Smooth paper, the areas where the liquid pools in the corners of the stencil will be more intense than if it were pulled into the paper.

Once that was dry I heat embossed the greeting in the same silver.

I hope you enjoyed today's review and card. If you have any questions about this product or a suggestion for a future review, please drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. 

*disclaimer: I am not sent products to review, nor am I paid to review them. I review the products that I find interesting, that I use and that I have purchased. All reviews are based on my experience with them and are my opinions only. I am not given reward, incentive or payment to write a review.

This card is for:

Muse Challenge 

Challenge #245

 Thank you for voting for this card!