What else can I do with Promarkers??

You all know by now that I love stamping, particularly using stamps from a wee Scottish company called Sugar Nellie, and of course I like to colour them with my promarkers and this is what I teach and demonstrate.
But there is so much more that you can do with your promarkers, they are not just for colouring stamps on cardstock - because I'm well aware that not everyone wants to do that.
Most of you will already be able to do the basics, like colouring ribbons, bling and pearls to match your project - if you haven't tried it already then give it a go - just use the broad nib of the promarkers to colour them and the best advice I can give you is to experiment. I've tried all kinds of organza, grosgrain, twill, ricrac, satin, lace - even patterned ribbons can look quite funky with a bit of promarker colouring. Clear bling and pale pearls can also be coloured with your promarkers - for deeper darker colours leave each coat of colour to dry in between. Why not try other embellishments like brads, fabric and paper flowers, buttons etc. So you will always have embellishments to match your project.


So here are a couple of fun things you can also use your promarkers for...
at one of my classes last Saturday I was asked how well promarkers work on fabric, well I've tried out a couple of things here. Firstly I stamped directly onto Claudine Hellmuth's sticky backed canvas and coloured in the image - now you can't be heavy handed with this and the best technique seems to be to lightly touch the nib to the fabric and remove the nib pretty quickly, the longer the nib is in contact with the fabric, the more it will bleed. Also, you can forget the blending methods that I usually use, so it's a good idea to give some thought to where you want your darker and lighter areas and just how dark or light you want those areas to be.

 Image: Number 1 Fan from Sugar Nellie, I've stamped him with Memento ink onto Claudine Hellmuth's sticky backed canvas then coloured him with the following promarkers...
skin: Sunkissed Pink, Blush and Ivory. top and eyes: Bluebell and Prussian. trousers: Mandarin, Pumpkin and Gold, Hair: Cocoa, Cinnamon and Tan. Ground: WG1 and 3


Next up is another fabric idea, this time I airbrushed the sticky backed canvas with the Letrajet system and Purple, Mulberry and Orchid promarkers, then sprinkled a little blending solution over it. 

I then stamped Hero Arts - Stencil Flower CG194 twice with Memento ink onto the now coloured canvas. I used the Purple promarker to accent the edges of the petals and the centre of the flower - remember you need to have a very light touch or the colour bleeds like nobody's business. Then I cut out one of the flowers, and just the middle petals of the second flower.


And the last one I'm going to show you today features a bit of recycling. I know a lot of you are fans of Tim Holts and you may recognise this technique from one of his 12 Tags of Xmas last year. I bought a new embossing folder on Saturday and kept the plastic front of the packaging.
I cut part of the packaging away so I was left with just the recessed area and the short walls (this saves any excess blending solution from running off and messing anything up that you have lying around.)
I then took Aubergine, Purple, Mulberry and Orchid promarkers and randomly scribbled all over the inside of the plastic packaging, once I'd done that I sprinkled some blending solution over it. This is another technique where there is no right and wrong way of doing it, you can use just a wee amount of solution or if you do use a little more you can always tip the plastic tray around for another fun effect.
Leave this to dry. Trim off the walls of your tray so that you are left with a flat piece of plastic. So that you don't mark the inside of your embossing folders I've found it's best to cut a sheet of paper or very thin card to the same size as your plastic and place it between the inked side of the plastic and the inside of the embossing folder.
Run the embossing folder with plastic and paper through your die-cutting machine and voila.....

Now I'm going to try and show you over the next few days what I'm going to do with these projects hopefully, so remember to check back.
In the meantime, remember to enter the Letraset Blending Pairs competition, and Enfys is also running a wee competition in conjunction with Letraset for the blending sets too.