Reviews Archives - Studio Katie

DIY

DIY Enchanted Iridescent Stenciled Tray

[According to FTC regulations, I must disclose to you that I did receive free product and payment from DecoArt in exchange for this post, however all opinions and project tutorial are my own]

Scroll down for tutorial.

Hey y’all! It’s been a while since I posted a fun mixed media tutorial, but I’m back today with one! I really wanted to show you this cool product that released this year: Americana Enchanted & Enchanted Shimmer. These are acrylic paints with an iridescent shine that I just love. They are new from DecoArt, now at Michaels! I used them to make the DIY Tray below. Here’s a short blurb about them from DecoArt:

The dazzling glow of iridescence has made a recent appearance in many industries; fashion, automobiles, jewelry, art, & more. Many crafters want to add the look of this special glow to their own pieces. Americana Enchanted is an iridescent topcoat that can create this magical look. Americana Enchanted Shimmer delivers the same iridescent look with an added subtle glitter effect, but still quite distinct from glitter paint itself. Create projects that pop with shimmer and iridescence with these translucent topcoats. Millions of luminous particles recreate the unique sparkling shimmer of a butterfly wing, as they dance in shifting angles of light. For the most dramatic effect, use over Enchanted Ultra-Black Basecoat or other dark paint colors.

DIY Enchanted Iridescent Stenciled Tray

Okay, time for the DIY!

Supplies:

Wooden Tray (The tray I’m using is from Walnut Hollow)
Enchanted Ultra-Black Basecoat
Americana Enchanted or Enchanted Shimmer, Available in five 2-oz shimmering colors
Paint Brush
Paint Knife
Blending Palette
Stencil (I used these 8×8″ Succulent Stencils from DecoArt)
Gel Medium

What are the differences between Enchanted and Enchanted Shimmer?

Enchanted is an Iridescent Topcoat Acrylic, it’s more of a solid shine rather than glitter.
Enchanted Shimmer is an Shimmering Iridescent Topcoat Acrylic, it is less opaque, with more of a iridescent glitter effect.

I swatched them in my sketchbook, as you can see below. Iridescent paints work best over a dark background and are nearly invisible over a white background. The color will shift depending on the angle of the light.

I also tried mixing Enchanted in with some different mediums with mixed results: Modeling paste dries white and it dulled the iridescence slightly, whereas gel medium dries clear, so it let the Enchanted paint do it’s magic while still adding some texture.

(Above: Enchanted on the left, Enchanted Shimmer on the right.)

Step one:

Shake the Ultra-Black Basecoat well. Using a wide brush, paint your tray with the Ultra-Black for a dark base. Let dry.

Step two:

Use a palette knife to mix a bit of Enchanted Shimmer in with Gel Medium on your palette. I recommend about a 40/60 ratio.

I’m using two different colors of Enchanted for this project: Violet and Magenta.

Step three:

Use the palette knife to scrape the gel medium/paint mixture through your stencil and onto your tray.

It’s helpful to have some baby wipes or paper towels on hand to wipe off and excess paint you might accidental get past the edges of the stencil.

Note: I love the texture that the gel medium adds, however, if you want to use Enchanted as a more solid look and avoid streaky brush stokes, Use a soft brush in long vertical strokes and while still wet, brush over in long horizontal strokes for a uniform finish.

Step four:

Remove stencil, wipe off, and repeat, adding designs across your tray.

Step five:

Let dry. As it dries, you’ll see the white fade away and the magic iridescent start to shine!

I wish you could all see these stenciled succulents in person, because seeing how the Enchanted paint changes in the light is so cool. Remember they’re Now available at Michaels, so go grab some and get crafting!

Want more DIY’s? Check out some of my past DecoArt projects:

Reviews

How to Organize Your Tombow Dual Brush Pens +…

This post contains affiliate links, which help pay for this site. That being said, I never promote anything I don’t love! If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Let’s say you’ve recently gotten the big pack of Tombow Dual Brush Pens, how do you organize them? I’ve had mine for a while, but I just got a replacement set (perks of being a part of the design team.) and wanted to do show you how I organized them!

organize your Tombow Dual Brush Pens & Learn what those numbers on the side of each marker mean! @tombowusa @studio.katie

Color Designation Numbers:

First let’s talk about what those numbers on the sides of the markers mean:

On each Dual Brush Pen you’ll find 3 numbers. These are hue, chroma and value.
For example, the first 2 digits denote the hue and chrome, so 00 to 10 are yellows, 10 to 20 are greens, etc.
The last number on each pen marks the value of each color, with 0 being the lightest and 9 the darkest.
The grey/neutral markers are numbered slightly different so you have to keep that in mind. Instead of the first number they have an N for Neutral. This is followed by 2 numbers: the first is the value, 1 being the darkest & 9 being the lightest (opposite of the colored markers where 9 is the darkest), and the 2nd number denotes the temperature of the gray from cool to warm. 1 being cooler, 9 being warmer.

Now to organize my Dual Brush Pens I printed off the free 108 Dual Brush Pen Color Tracker from Tombowusa.com. Next I followed the chart from the back of their Blending Palette which actually has all of the marker colors on there from 020-N00 organized by their designation.

As I placed each marker in the case, I also swatched it onto the chart so that I will have a handy reference if I ever want to see all the colors together (and incase I need to know where it goes again.).

If you don’t want to swatch all of yours, Tombow also has a printable chart that is colored already. Get it here.

And that’s pretty much it! Knowing what the numbers mean can come in handy if you’re choosing colors to go together, choosing markers with a similar value makes for a lovely palette!

I hope you learned something! I learned most of this from classes with Marie Browning, and her book Brush Marker Magic.

Want some Tombow tutorials? Check out my online class, Tombow Techniques! or check out my Tombow archives here on the blog.

Reviews

Product Review: Totally Tiffany Embossing Station

Do you ever do much heat embossing?

Totally Tiffany sent me their brand new Heat Embossing Station to try out and review, so today I wanted to share with y’all my thoughts about it & the little project I made to try it out!

According to FTC regulations, I must disclose to you that I did receive free product in exchange for this post, however all opinions are my own. 🙂

First let me tell you a little bit about this product (blurb taken from the Totally Tiffany website):

Using your embossing heat tool can be cumbersome, awkward, and dangerous when you’re trying to hold everything in your hands. You need a heat tool caddy! With the Desk Maid Embossing Station from Totally-Tiffany, your hands are free to hold your project at the exact angle and distance. This sturdy holder will keep your heat tool steady while you work. Clip your project onto the separate paddle while you’re embossing, then set it in the angled slots to cool while you work on the next one. There’s even a pocket to hold your anti-static tool so it’s always where you need it.

Designed to fit most craft heat tools, this embossing heat tool caddy also comes with a removable sizing ring for smaller-tipped tools.

The Embossing Station includes:

Stand for craft heat tools
Removable sizing ring for different size tool applications
Convenient storage pocket
Cooling/drying rack
Project paddle with removable clip
Compact storage slots for paddle and tool cord

Dimensions: 11″ tall x 4″ wide x 9″ long (28cm x 10cm x 23cm)

Do you love to heat emboss? Read my review of Totally Tiffany's Heat Embossing Station on my blog, studiokatie.com @studiokatie

When I opened up the box, the stand was already completely put together, so I didn’t have to worry about that.

The Embossing Station is designed to fit most heat guns, but it also comes with a sizing ring adapter for smaller tools. mine is by The Paper Studio and was a bit too loose in the stand so I did end up using the sizing ring (which you can see in the photo below). Which worked great, I just attached it with a bit of Tombow Xtreme Putty.

I do a lot of heat embossing on my handmade cards (which is, oddly enough, something I don’t post about too often), but I am so bad about getting the heat gun too close to my fingers & burning them. Ouch. So I’m glad this product came with the paddle! It also came with a large clip to hold you project to the paddle with. I love the clip, but I wish there had been 2, for both sides of the paddle.

To test out the Embossing Station I decided to make a couple of cute embossed notebooks!

Here’s an easy diy:

Stamp your notebook covers with your pattern using embossing ink.
Pour your embossing powder on top, then knock off the excess powder.
Clip your notebook to the project paddle, & hold it underneath the heat gun until you see the embossing powder completely melt, moving it around a bit so that the heat isn’t focused on 1 area for too long.

The stand also includes angled slots on the back to hold your project before/after embossing. My notebooks were a bit too thick to slide in there, but I imagine it will be super handy when I’m making a bunch of cards at the same time, rather than having them spread out everywhere.

It also has a little tool pocket on the inside of the stand. I stuck my Tombow Blending pen in there that I use for embossing.

To learn more about Totally-Tiffany and to get more tips on organizing your craft supplies, make sure youfollow them on facebook.

You can find the Embossing Station available for purchase here, and learn more about it here on the Totally Tiffany website.

For more product and book reviews, You can see more of my previous reviews here.

(This post is sponsored by Totally Tiffany, however all opinions are my own.)

Reviews

Product Review: Desk Maid XL Pen & Ink Palace

Hey my friends, I have a fun product review to share with you today! Have you heard of Totally-Tiffany? Totally-Tiffany is a company that makes creative storage solutions for organizing craft products and supplies, and I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined their Blogging Troop! This means that I’ll have the opportunity to try out their products and share my reviews with my readers, YOU.

Also, according to FTC regulations, this also means that I must disclose to you that I did receive free product in exchange for this post, however all opinions are my own. 🙂

For my first product review, I am trying out the XL Pen & Ink Palace by Desk Maid (a brand included in the Totally-Tiffany family).

Need an easy shelf to hold your markers and/or inkpads? Read this review of the Desk Maid XL Pen & Ink Palace by Totally-Tiffany on the Studio Katie blog.

The XL Pen & Ink Palace is 15″ wide and is the bigger version of the original Pen & Ink Palace which was 9″ wide. One thing I liked was that this didn’t need any assembly! Yay!

Okay, as you all know, I love my Tombow Dual Brush Pens! I use Tombow’s marker stand to hold my 108 set, but I actually have a good number of color doubles. I thought about storing them on one of the Pen & Ink Palace shelves.

They do fit, but they’re longer than the shelves, and I didn’t like how much they stuck out, so I won’t be storing them here.

What I’m storing on the shelves of the XL Pen & Ink Palace:

So instead of my Dual Brush Pens, here’s what I’m storing on the XL Pen & Ink Palace shelves:

Tombow TwinTone Dual Tip Markers. (These are shorter than the Dual Brush Pens and they DO fit really well on this shelf.
Paint Pens. I use these for DIY’s and in my art journal, so it’s handy to have them all on this shelf. These are mostly the DecoColor brand.
Inkpads. The rest of the shelves I’ve filled with my inkpad collection, and they all fit really well. I don’t have just one brand, so I have Umbrella Crafts, A Beautiful Mess, Stampin Up, Tsukineko, Memento, Stampabilities, ColorBox, StazOn, and Distress Inks.

One feature that I would like to point out is that the shelves are removable so that you can pull them in and out, say, if one of your smaller inkpads gets shoved too far back.

I do wish that the shelves were different depths though. They’re interchangeable, so the shelves are all the same size. With the staggered design, you might think that the bottom shelf would be much deeper than the top shelf, but it’s not.

Overall, I do really like this stand. I am expecting to get some new markers soon, so I may reorganize things once they arrive to see if they fit!

To learn more about Totally-Tiffany and to get more tips on organizing your craft supplies, make sure you follow them on facebook.

You can find the XL Pen & Ink Palace available here.

For more product and book reviews, You can see more of my previous reviews here.

(This post is sponsored by Totally Tiffany, however all opinions are my own.)

Reviews

Book Review- Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache by Agathe Singer

Have you ever used Gouache? I have in the past, and honestly I didn’t love it. But I recently found this book all about Gouache at my library so I thought I’d give it a go again.

The book:

Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache: An artist’s guide to painting with gouache on the go! by Agathe Singer

What is Gouache?

Firstly for anyone who doesn’t know, Gouache is a paint that is a bit of a cross between acrylics and watercolors. Like watercolors, the paint is mixed with water before use. Unlike watercolors though, gouache is opaque instead of transparent.

I think the reason I didn’t like it before is the type of gouache I have. It’s not a very high quality paint brand, so I think if I bought a more artist quality I would like it more.

Anyhow, despite not liking my paint, I did learn a bit from this book!

About the Book:

Here’s the official blurb from the book:

Take a fresh look at an up-and-coming art medium with Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache!

Gouache paint has a long history, but it’s often associated with watercolor and multimedia art. Until now, that is! Trendy artists with large social-media followings are reinvigorating gouache, making this the ideal time to add this medium to your toolbox…or start your art journey with it!

Like the other books in the Anywhere, Anytime Art series, Gouache explores this medium in a portable, approachable, and contemporary way. Basic painting topics, such as tools and materials, techniques, and color theory, are presented in an easy-to-read, visual style. The subsequent step-by-step projects focus on various subjects that artists can find anywhere, whether they’re home or out and about. Artists can learn to paint their favorite things, including plants, flowers, cats, patterns, and more.

Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache is filled with vibrant, colorful artwork that’s sure to inspire any artist to give gouache a try and get out there and paint!

I liked this book because the author/artist really broke down color theory and tutorials for you! Agathe included some great tips for choosing colors, mixing colors, and even painting on the go.

There’s 12 project tutorials in the book that are really fun. So even if you’re someone who thinks they can’t draw/paint, you can follow her tutorials to get a fun piece of art!

Inspired by Agathe’s paintings, I painted these little Gouache Branches in my Aaron Arts Sketchbook.

Learn more and find this book on Amazon here.

This post isn’t sponsored in any way, I actually checked this book out from my library and decided to share about it here. I hope you liked this little peek into it. Do you like these book reviews? You can see more of my previous reviews here.

Reviews

The Color Guide to Tombow Dual Brush Pen Sets

Tombow recently launched three new limited edition Dual Brush Pen sets: Holiday, Desert Flora, and Citrus. I’ve gotten a few questions about how much color crossover there is with previous sets, so I took some time to swatch out all of the sets I have side by side to do a little comparison and I’m sharing the results here with you!

Tombow Dual Brush Pen Sets:

Citrus (limited)
Desert Flora (limited)
Holiday (limited)
Custom Pack (limited to the Sept 2018 VIP box)
Primary
Grayscale
Pastel
Bright
Galaxy
Secondary
Landscape
Portrait
Muted

That is:

130 markers in total.

67 Colors.

54 Doubles.

9 Blending Markers.

I had included the Limited Edition Custom Pack in my swatch, but now I’m realizing that it was limited only to the Sept 2018 VIP subscription box and isn’t available anymore. The Custom Pack included 2 colors that weren’t in any other sets: 703, & 373, but the other 8 markers are found in other sets.

Tombow also used to make a Manga set, but it’s not for sale here anymore.

So if you want all of the colors, it’s definitely best to buy the 96 pack. If you buy all of the sets, you’ll have to purchase the other 29 colors individually.

But I’m not saying don’t buy the sets. The Tombow Dual Brush Pen Sets are fantastic because:

They’re affordable! and Tombow also has great sales that make them even cheaper.
They have great color schemes that are so helpful when working on projects.
They are good for beginners or anyone starting out that aren’t sure if you want all of the markers yet. (but trust me, you probably will.)

Let me know if you have anymore questions about the Dual Brush Pens! Hopefully I counted all of these colors right! 😉

Want some Tombow tutorials? Check out my online class, Tombow Techniques! or check out my Tombow archives here on the blog.

Reviews

Unboxing Tombow’s September V.I.P. Box

Hey guys, Today I am unboxing Tombow’s September 2018 VIP Club box! and it has a really cool new product in it!

If you want the September box, they have limited quantities available and once they’re sold out they’re gone. so get it now.

Alright, let’s get to it:

What I love about Tombow’s VIP (Very Inspirational Products) box is that you can see what you’re buying before purchasing it (I’m not a huge fan of surprises. lol).

Included in the September box:

New Product: Fudenosuke Colors, 10pk.

The fudenosuke -my favorite brush pen- Now comes in colors! I’m so excited to finally have these, These markers have a hard brush tip, making them perfect for learning hand lettering, and they come in 10 different colors.

New Product, Exclusive Item: Dot Grid Journal:

I think this is really cool: a journal! Tombow included a hard cover art journal in this box, and one can never have too many journals in my opinion! It has 160 pages of 90g bright white paper, with a light dot grid on the paper and a foil stamped cover. I love the thick papers, So far in my testing nothing has bled through!

MONO Drawing Pens, Sizes 01, 03, 05:

These are not new product, however they are really fantastic pens. I love the multiple sizes and they write so smoothly. I use them in my sketchbook all the time.

You can read my review of the MONO Drawing Pens here.

This VIP box is a $54.65 value.

Currently these products are only available in this VIP box, but I’ll update this posts with links to the individual items when/if they’re sold separately.

You can purchase the September 2018 VIP Box here for $30 + Free Shipping here.

For future VIP Boxes, you can sign up to get notified as soon as they’re available, on the Tombow VIP Club email list here.

Want more Tombow tutorials? Check out my online class, Tombow Techniques! or check out my Tombow archives here on the blog.

Reviews

Unboxing Tombow’s July 2018 VIP Box

Hey guys, Today I am unboxing Tombow’s July VIP Club box! and it is AMAZING AND HAS A HUGE VALUE.

If you want the July box, they have limited quantities available and once they’re sold out they’re gone. so get it now.

Okay, let’s open up the box:

What I love about Tombow’s VIP (Very Inspirational Products) box is that you can see what you’re buying before purchasing it (I’m not a huge fan of surprises. lol).

Included in the July box:

The Desktop & Carry Marker Case

This case is a great improvement on their previous marker stand. The new case holds up to 108 Dual Brush Pens and other writing instruments. (So you can also store a handful of your go-to pencils or Fudenosukes in it as well. The accordion style design allows you lots of versatility when deciding how to display it on your desk, and the snap on lid is perfect for when you’re on-the-go.

The Custom Dual Brush Pen 10-pack

This 10-pack includes colors from the 96-set of Dual Brush Pens, so these are not new colors, this is just a new assortment. So if you already have the 96 pack, you may not NEED this extra set, but it’s a fun bonus for sure! It’s a gorgeous set! It includes some of Tombow’s most popular colors, it does not include a Colorless Blender Pen though.

The new XL Blending Palette

A blending palette sized at 8×10″? Yes please! This is great for a larger surface area for blending. The back includes a color chart and blending tips.

This VIP box is a $61.97 value.

That’s incredible, y’all. I got this box as a part of the Tombow design team, but if I hadn’t, I would be buying this for sure.

I’m excited about both the Limited Edition Dual Brush Pen 10-pack and the XL Blending Palette, but I’m extra in love with the new marker case. I got a sneak peak of it back in January and have been waiting for it since then!! It has an accordion design, so it will fold out on to your desk, or you can fold it up and snap the lid on to take it on the go.

Right now I’m using it to hold my 96 Dual Brush Pen set, and then using the extra 12 slots to hold my MONO Edge Highlighters, MONO Drawing Pens, Fudenosukes and MONO Twin Permanent Marker.

Currently these products are only available in this VIP box.

You can purchase the July 2018 VIP Box here for $30 + Free Shipping here.

To get notified of the VIP boxes as soon as they’re available, people can sign up for the Tombow VIP Club email list here.

Painting

How to Swatch your Watercolor Pan Set

Hey everyone, I recently made a swatch of some of my watercolors and wanted to show you the process, in case you’re curious about doing it for your own pan sets.

Today’s post is also a bit of a product review, because I just bought this watercolor tin palette, and since I’ve gotten some questions about it on instagram, I’m doing a review!

Let’s start with the swatching:

Step 1: Start by cutting down a piece of watercolor paper to fit into the lid of your palette.

Step 2: use a ruler to sketch a grid out onto the paper that matches the paints inside your palette. This tin holds 40 half pans, so that’s the grid I made.

Step 3. Fill up your pans. Obviously you’d skip this set if your palette is already filled. I, however, am using this tin to hold all of the tube watercolors I own. I actually left a few empty in case I bought new colors.

Step 4. As you fill up the half pans, write out the name of each color into the spaces on your swatch paper.

Step 5: Use a clean paintbrush to swatch each color into the matching spaces on the paper. It’s helpful to have a couple of jars of water nearby, so that you can continuously clean your paintbrush so that the swatches are true to color, and not contaminated with the previous color.

Now you can keep this inside your palette, and refer back to it when you’re painting so that you know exactly what each color will look like on paper.

Okay, let’s review this palette:

What is it?

Fclub Watercolor Tins Palette Paint Case with 40Pcs Half Pans Carrying Magnetic Stripe on The Bottom

Why I bought it: I wanted some empty paint pans so that I could squeeze my tube watercolors into a palette.

I was just going to buy some empty half pans on amazon, but when I saw this tin had Van Gogh’s Starry Night printed on it, AND it was only a couple of dollars more than just empty pans by themselves, I wanted to try this.

What’s cool about it: Well, besides the Starry Night (Nan Gogh fangirl here)? Each half pan has a magnet on the bottom, so that they stick to the tin and don’t fall out.

Any cons? well, when I first opened it, half of the pans had come away from the magnets. The magnets turned out to be some cheap self adhesive magnetic strips on the bottom of each one, that aren’t actually that “sticky” so the adhesive didn’t hold to the half pans. Easily fixed by me reglueing them to the pans with a stronger glue, but I was bummed that I had to do that at all.

I did actually remove a few of the half pans on the bottom row, simply because I had some extra full pans with watercolors that a friend gave me and I wanted to include in the tin as well.

Overall, I’d totally recommend it, if you want a new palette tin, and if don’t mind possibly repairing the magnets, and you love Van Gogh. Although it is available in different patterns on the outside as well.

You can grab one on amazon here. Note that this isn’t a paid post, and not an affiliate link. I just really like this new palette and wanted to let you guys know about it! 😉

What other art product reviews would you like to see here?

Reviews

Tombow April VIP Club Unboxing + NEW Tombow MONO…

This post contains affiliate links. which help pay for this site. That being said, I never promote anything I don’t love! If you purchase using them, I might get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Hey guys, Today I am unboxing Tombow’s April VIP Club box! If you want the April box, they have limited quantities available and once they’re sold out they’re gone. so get it now.

Tombow has recently made some changes to their VIP (Very Inspirational Products) box, the main things being: It is no longer a subscription box, and you can see what is included before purchasing! Which I kind of like.

Now, let me show you what is in this months box!

Fudenosuke 3-Pack Calligraphy Markers

The fudenosukes are my absolute favorite for brush lettering, and the 3-pack is nice because you get to try all of them out.

Irojiten Colored Pencils, Tranquil Set

Irojitens are Tombow’s artist quality pencils, and the tranquil set is really lovely, especially for spring. They have a really nice, dense led that doesn’t break easily.

MONO Edge Dual-Tip Highlighters (These are a NEW release!)

These are a brand new product from Tombow USA, just releasing today in fact. They’re dual-tip highlights, featuring a chisel tip on one end and an extra fine bullet tip on the other.

OLNO Swift Mechanical Pencil

This mechanical pencil has a really unique feature- IT allows you to extend more pencil lead out by bending the body of the pencil, or doing it the traditional way by clicking the eraser. My favorite thing? It doesn’t squeak. I always hated mechanical pencils when I was in school because they squeaked whenever I wrote and I couldn’t stand it. This one doesn’t, and I love it.

Tombow Pencil Pouch

How adorable is this Tombow pencil pouch? It even fits the long Dual Brush Pens!

As I mentioned above, the MONO Edge Highlighters are brand new and are currently exclusively available in this VIP box. I was really excited to get my hands on them, so I immediately used them to sketch out a fun portrait in my art journal. It’s very bright, but I love it.

Have you ever drawn with highlighters? I want to see! Leave me a comment!

One last thing- This box is priced at $30, but includes $60 worth of product. Awesome! You can learn more and purchase the box here.

You can also sign up to the list to know when the next box is available.