I Love Pens!

When I was in middle school/high school, I collected stationery and pens like nobody’s business. Sanrio was my favorite store in the mall. I still have a drawer in my room at my parents’ house overflowing with markers, pens, and writing utensils that have since dried out after 15 years of storage. In addition to stamps, the perfect set of markers are essential in a stamper’s tool belt. So you can imagine my delight when the super awesome folks at Jetpens.com sent me some goodies to test out:

Here’s a pack of Akashiya watercolor brush pens and three different types of white color pens: a Pilot, a Uni-ball Signo, and Sakura Glaze.

If you haven’t stopped by Jetpens, it’s an amazing site with thousands of top quality pen products (really, it’s a great place for pen-o-philes like me). They have everything from calligraphy pens to Copic Markers, which are the hottest pens since sliced bread. *drool* I LOVE Copic markers. They’re really big in the stamping world right now because they come in 322 colors and are great for shading and skin tone coloring. Artists can even get Copic Marker certified to prove their Copic worthiness. I tried looking for Copics in random art stores around the city but only a few carry them. My husband just told me there’s no room in our house for 322 markers– he thinks I only need the six primary/secondary colors. “Just mix them together like you would watercolors. It works the same, right?” Um, my husband will never understand my obsession.

Over the weekend, I finally tested out the Akashiya watercolor pens from Jetpens and I LOVED THEM. I used them with a Pentel Aquash Waterbrush, which is the same pen as Stampin’ Up’s Aqua painter brush. The Akashiya pens are smooth and easily blendable. They’re very easy to use and the results yield bright, punchy colors. Some of the artwork that can be created with these pens is really quite cool. Here’s my sample:

Project Recipe (all supplies SU unless noted): Humor in High Heels stamp set, A Muse sentiment, card stock in kiwi kiss, pretty in pink, watercolor paper, Stazon in ink brown (so that outline wouldn’t bleed when I watercolored the image), ribbon in kiwi kiss, designer paper in Delicate Dots (Sale-a-Bration catalog), soft subtles buttons, scalloped edge punch, white embossing powder & Versamark ink, stampin’ dimensionals

Next in my blog queue, I’ll post a cool faux stitching technique using the white gel pens shown above.