Single Markers are Available Now for a Limited Time

Just posting to let you know about this great promotion from Stampin' Up!, running from the 10 until the 30 November 2008.

Stampin' Up! Marker Pens are usually available in sets only; there are 5 sets in total, one for each of the colour families of Bold Brights, Earth Elements, Rich Regals and Soft Subtles plus Neutrals. But now, you can buy individual markers.

The individual markers are available for $4.95 each which is competitive with the pricing of the SU! marker multipacks as well as other marker brands. The advantage of SU! markers over other brands is that they match the SU! card stock, ink pads, and embellishments. My personal experience with using SU! markers to colour directly onto stamps before "huffing" on the rubber and stamping the image onto card stock is that they don't dry too fast on the stamp and the image is very clear, with no patches of missing colour. This gives you time to successfully colour up more detailed stamps with 2 or 3 colours.

If you don't buy anything else, consider buying Bordering Blue or Almost Amethyst to outline your water-coloured image. This is very easy to do and while subtle, it makes your image "pop" out of the page. It is a little tricky to demonstrate using photographs, it is much easier to see the difference between an outline and no outline around the image "in the flesh" but here's the type of outline I'm referring to:

While you're at it, get yourself some SU! Watercolour Paper. It's a bit like your cooking being improved by a high quality frying pan. Your watercolouring will be greatly improved by the use of watercolour paper. I find it hard to use anything else now. Here's the whole card:

(Inspired by Makeesha Byl's Inkspirations)

I've got plenty of other tips on using SU! markers which I'll be including, along with my favourite marker colours, in my November newsletter (due out later this week). Please send me an email if now if you would like to subscribe to my newsletter.

And do yourself one last favour, head over to the website of Alisa Tilsner, a very talented Australian paper-crafter famous for her "colouring in", for her tutorial on using markers.

Bye for now,

Love from Crafty Kim