Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Product Review - Spray Inks

Welcome to our first product review here at Auntie Em's Scrapbooking and Beading!

Today I will be looking at different spray inks including:


1. Smooch Spritz by Clearsnap
2. Glimmer Mist Chalkboard by Tattered Angels
3. Perfect Pearls Mist by Ranger
4. Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels


Spray inks can be alot of fun to change the look of items - you can custom colour paper, flowers, ribbon and a whole lot more with these items.  There are several 'resist' items on the market now including Pattered Papers (Ranger, Pink Paislee Mistables, Prima canvas etc.) For our purposes I have simply stamped with versamark and clear embossing powder to give you a simple look at the different sprays.


Smooch Spritz - 0.37 oz glass bottle (Colour I used is Mixed Berries)
I love the rich colour of these sprays, Clearsnap really offers up a deep pigment with these inks.  You can un-screw the top and use the plunger straw to 'flick' larger specks of colour too.  There seems to be a small amount of glitter in the bottom, but it is a pretty opaque coverage. I find that with the smooch you get an even and fine mist of colour, however I do find that they get clogged easy, and the glass bottle is worrisome to me, that it will get crushed in my bag and I'll have a shimmery mess to clean up combined with glass shards.



Glimmer Mist Chalkboard - 2 oz (colour I used is Concord)
Very little shimmer, and a more opaque coverage.  Available in more than 20 colours it offers a very rich colour, and a fine mist. Almost a flat colour, if you are simply looking to change the colour of something, but do not want to give it a shine, this is the spray ink for you.





Perfect Pearls Mist - 2 oz (Colour I used is Heirloom Gold)
If you are looking for lots of shimmer, this is the spray ink for you!  The perfect Pearls Mist comes in 24 different colours. These inks work great on both light coloured papers and especially dark coloured papers.  They pack alot of shimmer to them, much more than its hot selling competitors.  It comes with a ball bearing in the bottle to aid in the mixing.  My favorite colour is Heirloom Gold - strangely it smells great, like vanilla to me. 




Glimmer Mist - 2 oz (Colours I used are Weatfield and Olive Vine)
The most popular of the spray inks, and the catch-all name for spray inks.  I find that Glimmer mist tend to be very light in coverage, but very shimmery.  I must say that I have quite the collection of Glimmer Mists, it is available in dozens of colours.  Tattered Angels also sells sets of 4 glimmers in smaller 1 oz bottles, a great starter kit if you want to try out different colours and feel that 2 oz is far too much to get started with.  My favorite go-to colour is Wheatfields - it is a light beige with a touch of green to it, great for antiquing!



You can click on the photos of the tags that I stamped with the various spray inks for a close up view.  Better yet, come to Auntie Em's and see them in person, much more inspiring!


Let me know your experiences with spray inks and your likes and dislikes.

~Lorena~

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

February Page Maps Challenge

It's time for another exciting reveal of the Auntie Em's Design Team challenge.  This month using the Sweet Tooth collection from Bo Bunny.  I have worked with this line before - I made a mini album that turned out great.  You can see some more samples of this collection in the store; Michelle made some amazing cards.

The challenge for this month is to create a unique journaling spot with the aid of boarder punches.


YUMMY
Laura did an amazing job with that by playing up the cooking theme of this paper line and creating an apron to tuck her journaling into.  She did three journaling tags, the first with an extension of her title "Yummy" her second tag is a recipe card, and the third tells the story behind her page.  She did alot of fussy cutting on this layout.  The theme on the sketch was a grid pattern, which Laura created with mounted squares behind her photos.


BEACH BUM
My take on the challenge involves slicing up my photo.  I had a great shot of my daughter at the beach last summer, the colours in this photo were perfect for this paper line.  I printed the photo off in a 6x6 size and I cut the photo up into 1.5 inch squares.  I also used a heat embossing technique on vellum to do my journaling.  I tried to mimic the sand in the photo with Distress crackle paint and stickles. I love how this turned out! A little stitching, some tags and ribbons and voila there you have it.

Auntie Em's will be announcing the new Design Team next week, so please keep your eye on the blog.  I think you will be quite pleased with the results!

~Lorena~