Paul Lewin's Blog

It's time to say goodbye to blogger and hello to Letrasets new spangly blog. Its got all sorts of bells and whistles attached to it. So, pop open the fizz, set off the fireworks and reset your reader to the new blog HERE

(Don't worry, the new blog contains all of the archives from this blog too!)

We are still feeling a little patriotic here after yesterdays enthralling celebrations. So, to continue eeking out every last drop of "Everything British" I thought it would be fun to get you flexing your ProMarkers/Aquamarkers again. The colour combos are Red, White and Blue and you can choose any old theme you like.

Here is a take on the colour combos but you can choose whether you make an ATC, a card or a scrapbook page - in fact anything you can colour onto with your ProMarkers/Aquamarkers.


We would love to showcase all the entrants on a blog post next week so if you do fancy giving this challenge a whirl, leave a link to where we can find your project and we will showcase them all on our NEW and exciting blog - coming next week!

PS: Have you read the blog post below? There is a giveaway for one lucky commenter on that post too!

Have you used this paper yet? Oh my, 'tis a thing of beauty.

Having heard so many new customers struggling to get the colour lay down of their ProMarkers right, it is apparent that the quality of paper is a strong factor into the undesirable finish. I've been there myself and I was unhappy. With it being so easy to reach out for the printer paper (because its inexpensive and abundant) we tend to just muddle along. However, the coarseness and saturation of the paper tends to not reflect a true colour lay down from a ProMarker pen and inevitably, the colours will bleed over the lines. Then I was introduced to Letrasets Bleedproof paper and could see why I had been unhappy with my finishes. It was a light bulb moment and since then, I've used nothing but.

If you watch this 5 minute video, I will demonstrate the difference between the two papers and show you how to recover from any ProMarker blues, simply by investing in Bleed Proof Paper from Letraset


And here are the comparison stills to show you just exactly what I mean:

Standard copier paper:

Letraset bleedproof paper

Standard copier paper (notice how coarse the paper is)

Letraset Bleedproof paper

To be in with a chance of winning a pack of Bleedproof paper, leave your name below.

And as for the colour challenge two weeks ago, we have chosen a winner! SUE? You win a choice of 5 marker pens! Congratulations. If you can contact me here, I will arrange you get 5 pens of your choice!

Some of you, by now, will have seen these markers in your local arts and crafts stores. Some of you may own a set and some of you may have come unstuck when trialling them out with your rubber stamping. Well, I just wanted to touch on a few basic techniques with you to fire up your engines and get you to trial them in an easier way.

The video below explains the basic principles when starting to water colour with your rubber stamps and put all your fears at rest. I can't believe how incredibly juicy they are and when mixed with water and other colours combined, it sure brings a certain freshness to the often stale same-old, same-old colouring techniques we can often resort to.

Enjoy!

Aquamarkers are available here and can be bought singly or in sets of 5 or 12.

It's incredible to learn how versatile Aquamarkers are. Not only are they great for water colouring but also fantastic for art journaling and creating backgrounds too. And with only 40 colours in the range, you needn't feel disheartened with such a small number of colours available. Because, with their superb blending qualities, you can mix and match these colours in thousands of combinations to create hundreds of different shades and tones. All you need to do is add water and a bit of inspiration.

Take this background here.
Used with just two colour Aquamarkers, a spritz of water and a resist technique using clear embossing powder. And from those two individual colour markers, you can achieve various shades of blue, yellow and green with a simple squirt of water!

Watch the video to see how the background came together (skip through the heat gun process, its a little noisy!).


If you are intrigued with how else you can use Aquamarkers, check back in a few days for more ideas with these juicy little numbers! Meanwhile go and check out the Aquamarker ranges from Letraset to start or build on your collection today.

Tammy Tutterow has a love of eclectic, vintagey mixes with inking thrown in for good measure. She is not strictly a paper crafter bu thtat doesn't stop her experimenting with Letraset's top selling marker pens. We asked her some question a while back and this is what she had to say:


Tell us about you and where you live
I am a full time papercraft designer and teacher. I love to blog about the things I create and love to share how I create with others. I am married and have three children (21, 17, and 7). My husband is a police officer and I work part time as a 911/police/fire/ems dispatcher. I live in Belleville, Illinois (USA) which is near St. Louis, Missouri. When I am not creating, I love to work in my garden, read, and exercise.

I don't know if its my age, but green is a colour I turn to the most when Im selecting a tonal range. My particular favourites are Pear Green, Olive Green and Moss Green. It's a multi genre colour and is so pleasing on the eye. In fact I dont know anyone who doesn't like, at least, one shade of green.
So for fun, Im going to set you a challenge to create something predomininetly green. You can make whatever you wish - a card, a journal page, a paper flower.......whatever! Share your projects with us by posting a link to your projects "home". We encourage you to be as experimental as possible.
I made this recently featuring my beloved Pear Green and Olive Green mix. I don't think it will be sent as a card as I love it so much, so instead I can admire it in my office as part of the decor.

I will pick a winner next Friday and they will receive a choice of 5 replacement colour pens or 5 new pens to add to your collection.

Winner of the Safmat from three posts below is: FIONA - congratulations!

Letraset met Birgit out at CHA in Los Angeles, January just gone. I, myself, have known Birgit for a number of years through a mutual friend and I immediately knew that Birgit would warm to both Promarkers and Aquamarkers. Letraset kindly sent her a sample range of product and since then, there has been no stopping her.

Here is what we learned about her:

Hi! My name is Birgit Koopsen. I'm married to Erik and mom of 3 beautiful kids (Anne (girl) 1994, Lennart (boy)1995, Marlijn (girl) 2002). I live in a little village called Winsum in the north of the Netherlands.

I started scrapbooking, officially, when my youngest child was one year old but actually I've been doing it since I was a teenager. I always enjoyed photography and always "pimped" my photo albums, I just didn't know there was a name for it and that there were special products to buy. I've tried several crafts before I started scrapbooking; oil painting, model drawing, sculpted and much more. But after a while I always got bored with using the same technique over and over again. I was so happy when I found scrapbooking and being able to use whatever technique I wanted in this hobby! Besides that I love how it keeps all the beautiful memories of special events and everyday life alive. Especially for my children! In the last 7 years scrapbooking slowly turned into a job. I teach and demonstrate in my own studio at home as well as in scrapbook stores, at scrapbook events (in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany) and for the Dutch wholesales company Kars.

I work for magazines, do design team work (Prima Marketing, Tattered Angels, Infocrea, Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L^tm and MyStamp Box and last year released my first paper line with Infocrea and my second paperline is to be released soon.

Birgit likes to colour in her plain letters with Promarkers, it sure beats buying full alpha sets in different colours. Now it makes sense to buy just white lettering and colour them in to match her projects perfectly.

My favorite colors are lime green, turquoise, pink and orange in combination with black and white. But basically I just love all colors. I love flowers in all shapes and sizes, border punches, letter stickers, (spray) paints, canvas, patterned paper, transparencies, stamps, acrylic gems and bookpaper (and much more).

My style goes from clean and geometric to “busy” layouts with lots of details and colors, I sometimes love to "go freestyle" and play with paints and inks and use non-scrapbooking products! Besides layouts I also love to make mini albums and altered projects.

I just recently discovered Promarkers and Aquamarkers and I think they’re wonderful. I love that you can use them on every surface and that they have 2 different tips. My favorites are the Aquamarkers. The blend so easily when used with a water brush and give you beautiful water color effects. And the colors are amazing, warm and bright.

You can see other beautiful projects over at Birgit's blog, HERE.

Judging by the number of new Promarker users, it seems a good margin of artists are finding that blending is not something they can get to grips with. And really, it is not that difficult. A number of factors can contribute to their woes and we want to explain a few things that should hopefully combat that feeling of dismay.

Firstly, there is colour pairing. As there are so many tones and hues in the 148 Promarker range (300 with Tria), unless you are working with them everyday, its easy to forget which pen matches which. Luckily, Jak Heath recently worked with Letraset to offer, in her opinion, which pens worked together best and the combinations were so welcoming that Letraset have brought out Blending ranges as a result. Basically, they are 3 packs of "6 sets of two hues" that blend together perfectly.
Of course, this touches just the basic colour ranges and there are still hundred of combinations to trial yourself to enjoy the full compliment. But its a start! We also hope you like the new blister packs which have been designed with storage and portable solutions in mind.

For skin toning, take a look at the video below. It shows you how easy it is to achieve a seamless blend of tones without a hard line. We realise skin tones can be difficult to master as a beginner so hopefully this tutorial will put you on the right track.


What you might like to know is, at the moment, Letraset have a multibuy saver option where for every 5 pens you buy, you can choose one for free (discount to be taken off at check out). This is across the marker range including Tria and Aquamarker.

Then there is the blending pen itself. Little is known about the magic of this pen to some artists but as this video clip explains, all will become a lot clearer and perhaps your view on the blender pen will change - maybe you might actually use it!


We are grateful to Lily of the Valley stamps for sharing this video on YouTube.

Another headache with blending (and indeed bleeding) is the quality of paper you are using. Its so tempting to just grab a sheet of printer paper from the home print system and go. But what a large number of people don't realise is that its more likely to be a standard 80gsm paper weight which is prone to bleeding with alcohol based markers. Letraset provide such a simple solution to this headache by way of bleed proof paper.
The beauty of this product is the saturation and the marked results of no "creeping". Which, when rubber stamping, will prevent colour leaking over the edges. There are heavier weight cardstocks and papers on the market that can also prevent bleeding too although any bleedproof option will restore your faith in your markers. But in the interim, standard copier paper is more likely the main factor to explaining why your colours are bleeding. Consequently, if the colour bleeds, the blend won't particularly work too well, either.

We hope to have covered the basics for you on blending techniques but in the meantime, if you have any questions, do contact us in the comments section below and we will address them for you in another blog post.

Safmat is one heck of a versatile product and is used by many creatives including graphic designers and crafters for their cardmaking and scrapbooking. What I like about Safmat is its ability to adhere to most surfaces, in particular glass, so that I can decorate my projects with either words or images in one fell swoop. I can't think of a product out there that I can adhere to glass without messy glue or certainly one that I can decorate using my computer graphics in the mix.

Cue the new look Safmat by Letraset.

If you haven't heard of Safmat then brace yourself to a whole new world of opportunities! Simply put, Saftmat is a printable, self adhesive film that is virtually invisible when applied to most surfaces. Allow your computer to work wonders in software programs such as basic word processors right through to photo editing software - even CAD. Create formats such as lettering, intricate artwork right through to photographs; whatever your printer can print will be suitable for this excellent product. Then print out onto an A4 sheet of Safmat, peel and adhere to virtually any craft surface. You can even apply it to a piece of card or paper and run it through a die cutting machine, if you want to get extra fancy!

I looked around a number of blogs and websites and found some truly inspiring ways to use it including this candle decoration by Debbie Hodgson. Debbie decorated the candles as a gift for the birth of her friends baby. Remember, if using Safmat on candles is to apply it to pillar candles only (the ones that burn down the middle!)


Its a fantastic way to get type onto small card pieces, such as seat planning at events. Belinda created these great name plates for a recent celebration. There is no way a printer could take cardstock that small, so to achieve a "printed finish", Belinda printed details on Safmat and applied to the name plates.


The same goes for small pieces of "off cuts". Its a complete nightmare to print directly onto little bits and bobs, so Vicky Sheridan (using Safmat) applied her greeting onto the small piece of patterned paper. It sure saves the hassle of throwing it away when it would have come in handy for that little extra on your cards.


For scrapbooking, Safmat looks incredibly slick on both the photo and cardstock combined. Think of how streamline Safmat works as you merge both these surfaces together with an overlay of printed imagery. On cardmaking you can create your own "rub ons" with your favourite computer graphics. And of course Safmat looks superb onto of Acetate too.

But my favourite use of all? Well, its this project by Kirsty Neale. I have got to say, it BLEW me away! For starters, have you seen how pricey decor tape can be? Well, fret no more because you can make your own by creating a pattern on Safmat and using it just like decor tape. Here is what she made but for a full tutorial, please visit her blog here


Graphic designers use this product a great deal for packaging mock-ups, too. Products like blister packs and bottles benefit from the sheer brilliance of Safmat as it works as a pre-cursor to a product being finally packaged - we all know that packaging is key to a products potential sales. The beauty of Safmat is that it allows the products to be checked out and applied to "packaging in test mode", in-house, before being shipped off to the manufacturers; which is a costly service if the product comes back and it doesn't look "right".

**edited to add - Ive just received a link to a very special project that I insist that you all take a peek at on this bloh HERE. A picture of the project is below but really, go and see just how she decorated this tin storage unit with Safmat!
Isn't it ingenious?

Safmat is available from a great number of retailers and Letraset direct.

Do leave a comment if you have found other uses for Safmat that we can share with other readers. One lucky commenter will receive a pack of Safmat, to be drawn next Friday.