Blendabilities - Tips

Evening everyone, my big order of brand new products arrived on Monday and although I was itching to have a play I had to sort them all out first and find a home for them so that I knew exactly what I had, I'm weird like that. I've now had a chance to have a play! One of the new items I ordered were the Stampin' Up! blendabilities which are brand new alcohol based markers. These are available now in six different colour sets and a skin tone set, the next set of six colours come out in August. Each set contains a light, medium and dark shade of your chosen colour, which make them perfect for shading and blending together. There is a brush end for larger areas and a pointed tip end useful for smaller areas. Below I will show you in steps how to use them but I would definitely recommend watching the Stampin' Up! video (Click here to view) as this is really helpful.

In this tutorial I am using the Rich Razzleberry set but the same tips apply to all of the colours. You can either start with the lightest moving to the darkest or the other way around, I prefer to start with the darkest shade but it is down to personal preference so have a play and see which works best for you. Here I have used the tip end of the pen rather than the brush end simply because I was in an excited rush to see how they turned out and I tend to be less careful when rushing (as evident in the last two photos where I went out of the lines, not the pens fault that was all me!) I feel the brush end needs a bit more concentration as it can cover large areas quickly.

Start with the darkest shade in the centre of the flower (see above) using straight or circular motions. Then apply the medium shade (see below) other the top of where you have already coloured and edge further up the flower. Do this using small circular motions so that it blends nicely with the dark colour rather than leaving a band where the colours meet.

Finally add the lightest colour over the top of the previous two colours and fill in the rest of the flower again using small circular motions. You then end up with a beautifully blended image as shown below.

A couple of tips worth remembering is that the colours really pop on the recommended whisper white card stock, I did try it on some other white card just to see the difference and the colours were not as bright and slightly dull. Use the recommended memento black ink to stamp your images and leave these for at least 30 seconds to dry, other ink types tend to smudge and cause the colours to 'leak' out of the edge of the image. When colouring try to work quickly as it is harder to blend when the ink has dried. As you will see in Friday's post I have used these flowers to make a birthday card and for those I did each petal one at a time and the overall finish looks better. Another thing to remember is that the inks do carry on spreading out slightly once you remove the pen so it is better to leave a small gap at the edge of your image as the ink will spread out to fill it in, leaving a nice crisp finish. You can always add a little bit more ink if it doesn't spread as far as you expect.

Have fun experimenting with these as they are great fun to use. I am off on holiday on Friday so I have got a few posts scheduled to go live while I am away. Hopefully all will go to plan but please bear with me in case they all go live at the same time or none go live! Happy crafting!

Supplies:

All supplies are from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise stated.

Stamps: Flower Shop

Card: Whisper White

Inks and Pens: Tuxedo Black Memento Ink, Rich Razzleberry Blendabilities

Tools and Embellishments: Pansy Punch

If you would like to order any Stampin' Up! products feel free to contact me using the details at the top of the page or alternatively you can order from Stampin' Up! directly using the button on the right remembering to find my name in the demonstrator list before completing your purchase!