Mid month shares and trying out Arteza brush pens

Morning Peeps, a scheduled post and done in a bit of a rush as I had totally forgotten we are away for a long weekend and the date of our mid month inspiration posts for Stamping Sensations and Penny Black and More falls on Sunday.

These three cards were a test run with my new Arteza Brush Pens, I thanked the company for their prompt dispatch and delivery (less than 24 hours which was amazing) and they said they would be very happy if I wrote a review on my blog, so here it is. As is always the case when I do this I write as I find.

The purpose of purchasing was specifically for direct to stamp inking as it's the technique I use much of the time and from which I gain crafting satisfaction. For years I have used Distress Markers, but the price of them has been steadily increasing and when I came to order 16 replacement ones for the colours I use more frequently, the cheapest I could find was £2.50 and on some sites £3.75 and no one site had all the coloured I needed. So I decided to give the Arteza pens a try and bought the full set of 96 for £56.09 (after 15% discount) so amazing value compared with many other similar products on the market.

My thoughts here are based purely on using them as a medium to ink direct to stamp, friends tell me they are excellent for colouring in but this is not something I do often or even enjoy, but I might give it a try to see how they compare. With 96 pens to choose from the colour range is excellent and the set comes with a water brush as well so in terms of value for money can't be knocked.

Now onto using them for the purpose I purchased, early thoughts are that they are not as juicy as Distress Markers and it took quite a few re-stamping's to build up the colour using my Timmy stamp platform, I can usually achieve what I'm after with three or four repeat stamping's using DM's. I started as I always do with laying down the colours on the stamp and giving a good spritz of water for the first stamping, this usually gives a nice spread of colours merging into one another, however with the Arteza pens the colour stayed pretty much where I put it despite the water and was reluctant to move.

I built up the colour with more inking and stamping in the hope the colours would dispersed but they stayed pretty much set in place, the Butterflies below are a good example of what I mean, normally I would expect with the persuasion of water that the two colours will bleed into each so there are no set lines between colours. So in this regard I am rather disappointed but wanted to share the finished projects otherwise there is little point in me writing the review!

But I've not given up on them yet and want to experiment more, I haven't tried them on any of my Brushstroke floral's yet so that will be a job for next week and I will report back when I have played a bit more and hope I can be a bit more positive. I will also give them a whirl creating backgrounds to see where that takes me.

If anyone else has had success using them as I have done and perhaps followed a different process I would love to hear so please do share.

Back to my work, apart from the two smaller Butterflies which are Chocolate Baroque, all stamps are Penny Black as is the die on the Bird card, the sky on the top card was created with DI's and bleach, some decoupage papers and DI's on the tag, everything else was coloured direct to stamp with the Arteza pens.

 Those leaving a comment on any post on this blog do so in the knowledge that their name and blog link are visible to all who visit this blog.