Little Things: Day 2

Important Note: Lots of people answered yesterday's questions via email rather than commenting directly on the blog. Email responses will NOT be entered in the drawing. If you read Simplicity in your email, you must click on the title of the post in the email and leave a comment on the blog to be entered to win. Feel free to leave an anonymous comment...just make sure you leave your name or screen name in the body of the comment.

Using Stickles Without Your Ink Bleeding: Several of you commented that you have trouble with Stickles making ink bleed. I think this happens when you use an ink that is water soluble...like SU's classic ink. If the ink is water soluble, adding liquid glue over it will probably make it bleed. Using a water resistant or waterproof ink prevents this. I have used my Stickles over Memento, VersaColor, VersaMagic, Palette, Ancient Page, and Memories inks without the inks bleeding. Copics, Bics, Sharpies, and Memento Markers are all bleed-proof, so you can use Stickles over them without a problem. Hope that helps!

Today's LITTLE THING is the Sakura Stardust Clear gelly-roll pen. Oh, my golly gracious! What a handy little pen! An employee at Archiver's first introduced me to to them years ago, and I've not been without a couple in my stash ever since because you can do really cool--and FLAT--things with these pens with almost no effort at all.

For example, you can make fish scales shimmer:

This cute fishy is from Oceans of Joy, a clear set from Hero Arts. I colored it with Memento Markers (quick review of the markers: colors are darker than the matching pads and don't cover as well as Bic/Sharpie markers, but I still like them because the light colors are lighter than the Bic/Sharpies and they don't bleed through PTI white cardstock).

To color the fish, I used two shades of pink and London Fog gray; then I accented random bits of the fish with the clear Stardust pen. The shimmer below is exaggerated by the photo, but you get some idea of the shimmer a simple swipe with a pen can give. It takes a few minutes to dry, so be careful not to smear it!

I liked this so much I made a blue one, too!

Just adding this shimmer to an image can help turn an ordinary simple card into an extraordinary simple card. I find myself reaching for these most often on Christmas cards but really should use them more to accent flourishes (I could make curls of steam shimmer as they leave a coffee mug!), flowers, and all sorts of other images.

Today, there will be two winners picked at random. Each will receive a two-pack of the Sakura Stardust Clear pens. Just answer the following questions in the Comments section of this post. Entries will be closed 48 hours after this post. Please leave only one comment!

Stardust Pen Give-Away Question
What one LITTLE THING makes you realize that spring is finally going to arrive? For me, it's walking out my door early in the morning and hearing the robins singing in chorus.