Time to share my exciting news!

 "Hello there". 

I have some exciting but also nerve racking news to share with you. 

I'm going to be on Hochanda this bank holiday Monday at 8am! I still can't believe it. Wow!

So how has all this come about I hear you say? Well as you know I am on a couple of TV Design Teams and Lou Withers (whom I do samples for) was approached by Hochanda to see if anyone she knew would like to do some work for a company who wanted to go on Hochanda.

And so the rest is history as the saying goes and here I am learning something new, being a new guest and bringing a new company to Hochanda!

Little bit of history for you. 

Tombow, if you didn't already know is a Japanese manufacturer of office supplies. 

The company was founded in 1913 and has grown into an international business, based in Tokyo and has two overseas production facilities in Thailand and Vietnam and they have brilliant Water based pens and so much more for us crafters to create with.

And so as I have often admired other peoples handwriting, especially brush lettering I now  have the perfect opportunity to learn a new skill using the Dual Brush Pens and like anything new, it doesn't happen overnight, it takes practise, and slowly and surely I'm getting there but in the meantime I'm going to show you what else you can do with these fabulous pens, as they are so NOT  just for handwriting. 

I can't wait to show you what else I have discovered using these beautiful vibrant water based pens and of course the other items on the show, especially the Tombow glue which has been my 'Go To' glue for many years.

The first project I would like to share with you today is a framed picture with a watercoloured background, stamped images and a hand written quote. I wanted to go with a more subtle colour tone for this project so I use the Dual Brush Pens as water colours.

Items used for this project

* Dual Brush Pens

*Aquarelle Watercolour paper

*Blending Kit (Set comes with 4 pieces for mixing the Dual pen colours and creating colour gradients. Contents: 1 x blender pen, blending mister, blending palette which is laminated and blending technique instructions).

*IndigoBlu  'Take Flight" &  "Anemone and Daisy" Rubber Stamps

*Black StaZon Ink

*White Picture Frame

 

These pens have two tips - one fine tip, and one soft brush-shaped tip and its the brush tips I'm using to lay down some colour. They are water-based, soluble ink which means that different coloured pens can be blended together with water to create amazing backgrounds.

For this project I started with a piece of Aquarelle Watercolour paper which I wet down on both sides (this stops it from curling) then used Cyan (476) pen to lay down some colour on the Blending Palette which comes in the Blending kit. 

After adding some water to it I used a paint brush to add colour all over the paper.

 I then added Rhodamine Red (725) to the palette, this time spraying the colour lightly with water and laying down the blending palette on top of the paper to add the colour.

 I used my heat gun to dry off the paper then added more of the Rhodamine Red (725) as the first coat had mixed with the Cyan a little to much but that didn't matter as it had produced a beautiful purple.

 The Bird was then stamped out using StaZon ink as this is a fast drying solvent ink which wont move when adding more water colours. (As I had used water colour paper I used my stamping platform to make sure I got a good crisp image). 

 Now to colour the bird in. 

I wanted to keep to more muted tones so I didn't colour directly onto the image with the pens, I scribbled colours onto the blending palette and used the blending pen (This pen is a colourless blender pen. You use it by picking up colour from the Dual Brush Pens and add the blended colours to your image. The pen is self cleaning. When you have finished adding colour just draw on a clean piece of paper to remove excess colour. You may find some colours stain the tip but doesn't effect the pen).

 Using the blender pen produces some beautiful colouring so you don't get those harsh lines.

 To finish off the bird I created a shadow around it using a Cool Gray 3 (N75) Dual Brush pen.

To write the quote out I used pieces that come in the beginners Lettering Set, first of all writing the lettering out in pencil, then drawing over it with the Black permanent pen. When dry I used the eraser to rub out the pencil lines.

 After I wrote the quote I felt I needed to add something else to the bottom half of the page so stamped out the Anemone and coloured that in with the blender pen as well.

All that's needed now is to pop the picture in the fame and I have a completed piece.

 Thanks so much for stopping by and watch out for more from me on my Tombow Creative Journey.

Happy Crafting,

Sue xx 

IndigoBlu in Bloom

Hello to you and thanks for stopping by. You may have seen that Kay Halliwell-sutton from IndigoBlu was on Hochanda today show casing her beautiful floral stamps and the fluttering birds, bees and dragonflies. If you didnt get to see her live shows then check them out on Hochanda.com. First show was at 10am with Leonie Pujol and the 2pm show with  Matt Macnamara. (These links are only good for two weeks).

Being on the TV sample making team for IndigoBlu im lucky enough to have these stamps sent to me to experiment with and I have had so much fun creating different things from cards to mixed media pieces.

Here are the samples I create for these show's, lots of fussy cutting and I also put some of my paint pours to good use.

This card was made using the 'Spring Meadow' stamp at the top of the card with a few extra butterflies cut out from the 'Nature III', sitting on one of the word plates from the stamp set 'Happiness'. The colours used on the card were from the Luscious Powder range.

I wanted to keep this card simple to show off the beautiful Orchids so stamped in black ink and used clear embossing powder to create a resist when I coloured the blooms in with Pink Luscious. Once dry I fussy cut the image, cut out some slender leaves and set everything into a little wooden flowerpot painted with the porcelain Luscious powder.

For this sample I wanted to use the Orchids again to decorate the shoes I cut out using a Sizzix die as I thought it went well with a sentiment from the 'Meadow Flowers' stamp set. 'Stroll through a meadow, breathing in the sunshine & believe in miracles'

The wooden base was painted with Black Gee-Soo-good and a layer of the IndigoBlu Watercolour card was stamped on with the flowers and herbs from the same 'Meadow Flowers' stamp set.

The shoes were kept simple, as well as the stamped images all finished off with little touches of Bisque Liquid Pearls.

I love the colours that came out on the Paint Pour I used for the background to these beautiful flowers from the stamp set 'Peony' and I used Coral and Orange Luscious Powders to give these flowers a lovely shine. 

The orange was also mixed into some super slap it on which I put through the 'Scrip' stencil over the flowers to add a little texture, then cut and dry embossed so leaves and added linen thread under the flowers.

Now I really love this New Humming Bird Stencil by IndigoBlu and hope that Kay follows it up with a Hummingbird stamp. (I'm sure you will know why I love this so much)! I used this stencil in a slightly different way as I drew around the hummingbird lines. I then used a Tombow Glue Pen to add patterns. Once the glue was dry I used Tombow Brush Pens and Blender pen to add colour to the differnt sections of the bird over the glue which acted as a resist so you get a interesting patterns emerging.

I then masked off the Humminbird and using a wet wipe put some blue Gelatos through the IndigoBlu Dottie stencil and finished the card off with some green pearl dots. The sentiment was stamped and black embossed onto vellum.

For this piece I used another of my paint pour mini canvases and picked out the blue in it by painting Rice Paper with Blue Luscious, stamping about 10 of the 'Peony' heads in Stazon blue ink onto the rice paper and cutting each flower out and layering them up to create a dimensional flower.

I added the sentiment 'You are Bloomin Marvelous' from the stamp set 'Meadow Flowers'

This next piece I created was using a base from a toy that rocks and I thought it might be fun to add the 'Butterfly#2' and the 'Giant Dragonfly' on wires to make them look as if they were fluttering and hovering above the flowers. Unfortunatly the camera didnt like the shine that was coming of the painted pieces as I used the Luscious Powders again so it hasn't captured all the detail that are in the stamped images.

I stamped, coloured and cut out the Peony and leaf images from the 'Marigold and Peony' stamp set and added them around the sides and the top of the rocking base, filling the top with some paper flowers from my stash.  

The Giant Dragonflies had some silver glitter added to their wings and different coloured gems were added to the bodies.

I wanted to use my Tombow Brush pens again so I stamped out the beautiful floral collage from the stamp set 'Nature III' and enjoyed colouring it in so much decided to stamp and colour in more images and turned them into a Stepper Box Card.

Each draw was decorated with parts of the images I coloured as well as single images inside each box base.

Hope you have enjoyed taking a look and some of these samples inspire you. 
If you would like to see some more of these fantastic stamps then please check out Julie Atkinson's blog. 
Be ready to be amazed!

Happy Crafting,

Sue xx