I still craft - well a little....

I haven't blogged anything crafty for such a long time. The main reason for that is I haven't done anything crafty for such a long time other than the odd card here and there... So let me tell you about my new pens!

They are called Spectrum Noir, they are alcohol based markers  - so like a copic or promarker -  developed by a crafter, for crafters, right here in the UK. One end is a bullet tip the other a chisel, they are chunky without being too fat, and they come in hassle free packs of 6 colours so you always have colours that blend. There are 168 colours in total. The best bit is, they work seamlessly with Stampin' Up! colour collections and I am in the process of creating a  'best matches' and 'works with' colour chart to show how compatible they are. I do love my Stampin' Up! Stampin write markers but they are not alcohol pens and get used in an entirely different way.

I have never used an alcohol marker before and was looking to buy a big set of copics - although I was dithering over which set to buy - thankfully I dithered for weeks - as I was able to use the money I had saved for some copics to buy almost the full set of colours of Spectrum noirs and only had to add a little extra to it.

So - I don't have any experience with other makes to compare - but I really love these pens. They are juicy, the bullet tip is nice and fine for detail, the chisel tip is broad for big areas, there are more than enough colours to choose from. You can get replacement nibs, and they are refillable - so no need to ever buy another pen, just refill.

Here are my first attempts at a bit of colouring in!

This was my first try - and I scanned the result so the colours didn't show up as vibrant as they are - although to be fair i did choose fairly muted colours for these.


and this was the next go - much more confident but still lacking in some basic skills, such as staying in the lines *rolls eyes* but love the colours and the shading and the way outlining in the light grey makes them pop off the page.

As soon as the SU!/SN colour chart is finished I will upload details. For now, as I've already ran today, and now its chucking it down - I'm off to colour in a bit more....