Thursday, October 6, 2011

End of the Week Technique #2 Blender Pens & Pastels

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Hey Y'all! It's Thursday and I have a few minutes so I thought I would go ahead and try and get my second installment of End of the Week Technique in the bag and on the web.

This week's technique is using blender pens and pastels. Did you know you could use your blender pens to color with your pastels? I've been stamping off and on for about 5 years now and had no idea! Who Knew?!? Well apparently there's this thing called You-Tube and you can find all sorts of cool ideas and techniques there and well, that's just what I did! :)
Here's this week's card-

For the life of me, I can't think of the name of the stamp set but it's in the current Stampin' Up catalog. Isn't it Cute? Want to know a secret? It's not 6 different stamps. It's one long one, and I just masked off the ones I wasn't stamping and stamped them one at a time. Gives you a totally different effect. I used Poppy Parade for my card base and Just Add Cake Striped DSP for the second layer. I stamped the images on Whisper White cardstock and then used my 1inch punch to punch out each of the images. I then mounted them on 1 1/8 inch squares of So Saffron, Wild Wasabi and Pacific Point Cardstock. I sponged the edges of both the white and the colored cardstock with matching colored ink. I used Tombow Adhesive to adhere all the layers so they would really stick and then stamped my sentiment with Basic Black in the center bottom.

So, for today's technique I took my blender pens and stroked them over the Stampin' Pastel Color block that I wanted to use and then just colored. How easy is that? Let me tell you, it is so much easier than using the little Q-tip swabbie things that come in the Pastel kit! Plus there are only 3 of those. Boy, I wish I had known about this earlier! I can't tell you how much easier it is to apply color, especially in small areas with your blender pens. It's also easier to get the color off your applicator. When you're done with one color simply make some strokes on your grid paper (scrap) until no color shows and then go to your next color. With the blender pens you can also add depth and intensity to your color. I Totally Love this technique! One thing to remember is to not push down on your blender pen tip. You don't want to smoosh it, you want to keep it nice and angled. BTW- a really nice bonus on the blender pens, they come in packs of 3 and they're double ended, so plenty of use there. When you use them with your ink pads they will get stained, but don't worry, they still work fine, just always swipe them clear when you're done with one color and you will be good to go.

Here's a picture of the card's inside- you know I usually like to put a little something extra in there as well.
Two things about this picture-
1- after I colored, cut out,and adhered my image, I used my Two-Way Glue Pen and Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to add a little sparkle to the image. You can see it a little in the picture. After all, you can never have to much Bling or Glitter, right? Besides, why shouldn't the inside of the card be just as pretty as the outside?
2- If you look real close at the left hand border of the image you'll see the black outline of an image. That's right, it's an OOOPS! Here's the thing- You know I love Clear-Mount Stamps right? I love that I can see exactly where I'm stamping, which reduces my OCD-Stress etc., they take up less space, cost less, I could go on. The one downside is technique related. You have to make sure you take the time to adhere the stamp to the block correctly. Press and hold for at least a count of three. You can not rush this! Also make sure to use the correct size block for your stamp. Ask me how I know? Well, you can see how I know, just look at my card. I didn't take the time to make sure the stamp was secure and I had the first image, which is probably about 3/4 of an inch of a 4-5 inch image on the edge of small stamp block, with the rest hanging off. When I went to stamp, it fell off the block and onto the edge of my card. OH NOES! OK, that's not really what I said, but let's not go there. :) So I had to find a way to fix my boo-boo. Hence, the stamped and cut out image, which is, yes, sitting at an angle. No, it's not your eyes playing tricks on you. You can see the edge of the outline because I felt the image would look silly if I had a bigger border. However, in real life it's really not that noticeable and I'm still really pleased with how the card came out.

So, hopefully you learned two things this week, I know I did!
Some of the items used for today's card are listed below. Remember you can shop for them and more 24/7 at my online store. Just click HERE.

Blender Pens


Stampin Pastels




Just Add Cake DSP





Well, that's it for this week. I hope you let me know what you think and I hope you give this technique a try. I know you'll love it as much as I do! If you liked today's card, I would love it if you left me a comment. It's great when I get to hear from you! Also, if you liked today's card, please feel free to +1 or Pin it. I've added the buttons to my side-bar for your convenience. Friends and Followers are also welcome. :)

I hope you all have a fun, relaxing and safe holiday weekend. Hope you'll check back in soon.

Be Safe,
Shan
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Thanks so much for taking the time to share a little love with me. I hope you find this blog to be as much of a blessing to you as you are to me. :) Be Safe- Shan