My Reaction to Stampin' Blends

Hi, welcome everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Canadians! I had time this weekend to play with my new Stampin' Blends and I just wanted to give you my reaction to them from my first use of them. Let me start by saying just how excited I was to hear that Stampin' Up! was bringing out a new line of alcohol markers, because I loved the Blendabilities, despite their manufacturing problems and I've really missed having them, That being said, I like these new Stampin' Blends better for a couple of reasons that I'll go into in a minute.

Demonstrators have access to these until October 15th, and we don't yet have a release date for the public, but it shouldn't be too long from now! You'll hear it from me as soon as I hear it from Stampin' Up! But if you don't want to wait, there's an easy solution: Just sign up to be a demonstrator and get them in your Starter Kit! The starter kit is a great deal at any time! I never hesitate to recommend it to anyone, even if they're not actually planning on selling product. Because there's no risk involved, it's just a great way to get a good amount of product, with some free product thrown in ( $30 worth to be exact) with free shipping and it's completely customizable. The choice of products is up to you! (To get the Starter Kit, click on Join My Team and follow the prompts!)

I worked on a couple of projects over the weekend that I want to show you, and talk about the features of the Stampin' Blends while I do it:

• First I stamped the gorgeous dahlia from the You've Got This stamp set. I realized that I'm now going to have to get some more outline stamps, because I didn't have a lot to work with for the Stampin' Blends. Because other forms of colouring in images just don't give the spectacular results that you get with with alcohol markers, I had stopped getting so many of the outline stamp sets. I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. This is a water-based ink which is important to use with alcohol based markers because it won't dissolve in the alcohol and bleed.
• I really like having a light shade and a dark shade for each colour, rather than having the three shades like the old Blendabilities had. I find that it's really all you need and it makes the process much smoother and less complicated. For this image, I used the two shades of Pink Pirouette, Rich Razzleberry, Daffodil Delight and Old Olive. I used the light shade of Smoky Slate as a shadow around the outside of the image.
• I also made liberal use of the Colour Lifter pen and, unless I'm mistaken, it seemed much more effective than the colour lifter we had with Blendabilities. It cleaned up any marks outside the lines very well and blended colours and created highlights with ease. It's one of the series that you really need to have.
• My other favourite thing about the new Stampin' Blends is the NAME!! Thank you, Stampin' Up!, for going simple! I still have my fingers stumbling all over themselves every time I try to type Blendabilities. It just doesn't flow naturally. Stampin' Blends is short, sweet and to the point!
• I love that you can work on regular Whisper White cardstock and you don't need special paper for them to work. The alcohol doesn't cause the paper to pill like water will.

Here's another quick project I completed on the weekend. I used all three of the Seasonal Chums characters as practise figures for my Blends, and I die cut them as tags and snipped them apart at the top to make a front and a back design of each of the three. Then I thought I'd get out those Mini Pizza Boxes I'd ordered and use these little figures to dress them up a bit. They'd make great holders for 3" x 3" greeting cards, or a cookie or two. This one was my Fall/Halloween version. Can you see the shading in the pumpkins? The spiders' webs and the bats are die cuts from the coordinating framelits, Seasonal Tags. I'll show you the other two another day.

Today and tomorrow are your last days to take advantage of the World Cardmaking Day Sale!

Don't forget to contact me today or tomorrow if you have something you want to order.

Here are the 15% off deals:

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.


Product List

You've Got This Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139575]	You've Got This Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139572]	Seasonal Chums Wood-Mount Stamp Set [144945]	Seasonal Chums Clear-Mount Stamp Set [144948]	Seasonal Chums Wood-Mount Bundle [146076]
Seasonal Chums Clear-Mount Bundle [146077]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Rich Razzleberry 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [115316]	Pink Pirouette 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [111351]	Basic Black 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121045]
Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad [132708]	Basic Black 3/8" Shimmer Ribbon [144129]	Seasonal Tags Framelits Dies [144685]	Big Shot [143263]	Mini Pizza Boxes [144645]
Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Mini Stampin' Dimensionals [144108]	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332]	Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Glue Dots [103683]

**Stampin' Blends Alcohol Markers - not available to order yet