I love colouring with a variety of materials, and experimenting with new techniques. Take watercolour pencils for instance. Did you know that you can get different looks with watercolour pencils? The most common way I see people use them is to colour, and then ‘activate’ the pigment with water. You don’t have to of course, you can also use them dry just like normal colouring pencils. But have you tried using watercolour pencils with a Blender Pen? I like this method because it smooths the pencil lines while leaving really vibrant colour. It’s what I did for today’s project.

I started my bookmark with a 2″ x 5-1/2″ strip of Thick Whisper White Card. Then I shaped the top and added the ribbon slot in one go using the Scalloped Tag Topper Punch.

For my image I went to the Hey Girlfriend Stamp Set. All three of the girl images in this set are perfectly sized for a bookmark, and today I chose the girl with the curly hair.

After stamping my girl using Tuxedo Black ink I then stamped “always be yourself…” from the same set towards the top.

Then I was ready to start colouring.

ONE SET OF PENCILS

Stampin’ Up has two watercolour pencils collections and today I only needed Watercolor Pencils Assortment 2.

For her dress, shoes and headband I used the Night of Navy pencil with Coastal Cabana on the flower. Then I used Flirty Flamingo for her skin and Cherry Cobbler for her lips.

To create her hazel eyes I first coloured them with Crushed Curry and then went over that with Cajun Craze. Using Crushed Curry again, I coloured over all her hair.

Now it was time to bring out my Blender Pen. This looks like a fine-tipped marker but has no colour. Instead it’s filled with a special solution that blends water-based marker ink. Or as I planned today, watercolour pencils. The beauty of using a Blender Pen is that it’s more controllable and doesn’t wet the card the way Water Painters might.

BLENDER PEN

So with a piece of clean white scrap paper beside me I began to use the Blender Pen to smooth out the pencil lines. I started with the hair making sure to use a light touch so as not to break up the card surface. Then I wiped the nib of the Blender Pen on the scrap paper until it showed no more yellow pigment.

Now I could move onto the next colour, wipe the nib off when done and so on. Eventually I had smoothed out all the colour but I wasn’t finished yet.

It was time to go back to the pencils and add more to certain areas. I wanted her dress to have some additional definition so went back over parts of the skirt with the Night Of Navy pencil. Then I changed her hair from yellow to a more orange look with additional squiggles of Cajun Craze. I also added a little more Cajun Craze to her eyes. Then as before I smoothed out the colour with my Blender Pen.

Finally for the ground I scribbled horizontal lines using the Granny Apple Green and Garden Green pencils. I didn’t use the Blender Pen here as I liked the contrast between the smooth colour on the girl and the more subtle colours beneath her feet.

To complete my project I cut four 6″ pieces of Night of Navy twine from the Well Suited Twine Combo Pack. I folded the strands in half and threaded the loops through the hole at the top of the bookmark. Then I threaded the cut ends through the loops and pulled them tight.

With that I was done, and I had a pretty redhead bookmark. If you’ve never tried a Blender Pen with watercolour pencils do give it a try. It’s just another way to get even more from your craft supplies.

For another bookmark created using the Hey Girlfriend Stamp Set see my blog post Hey girlfriend recommend me a book.

PRODUCT LIST