Stampin’ Up!’s Markers and Blends are both great to use, but they should be used in different ways. Here is some information about each as well as some tips on how to best use markers and blends.
Stampin’ Write Markers
Stampin’ Write Marker’s have been around for a long time and they come in Stampin’ Up’s full colour range. For every Classic Stampin’ Ink pad colour that there is, there is a Stampin’ Write Marker to go with it.
The ink in the markers is the same type of ink as in the Classic Stampin’ Pad. You can even use the corresponding ink refill to refill your marker.
What Do You Use Markers For?
- If you stamp something in a particular colour and it doesn’t quite come out 100%, you can carefully touch it up with a marker of the same colour.
- You can use Markers to colour in a stamped image. It is best to stamp the image with StazOn ink and make sure it is dry before colouring.
- If you would like to stamp an image of more than one colour, you can use a marker to colour different parts of the stamp. For example, you may want the leaves to be coloured Old Olive and the flowers to be Poppy Parade. If you have never tried doing this before, check out this blog post on how to do it.
One thing that you can’t do with Stampin’ Write Markers is shading.
Some Tips When Using Markers:
- There are two tips – a brush tip for colouring and a thin tip for writing.
- There is a line at each end of the Marker near the lid. The thick line shows you the end which has the brush tip, while the thin line shows you the end that has the thin tip.
- Just use the marker gently so you don’t damage the tip.
Stampin’ Blends
Stampin’ Blends are a more recent addition to Stampin’ Up!’s products. They are high-quality, alcohol-based, dual-tip colouring pens used for blending.
What Do You Use Blends For?
They are used for colouring an image to show depth and shading. Each colour is available in a light shade and a dark shade to give you the best blending experience.
You shouldn’t use Blends directly on your stamps as they contain a permanent ink. You can’t just clean the stamp to remove the ink like you normally can.
Some Tips When Using Blends:
- Blends are alcohol-based. This means that you must stamp the image you are going to colour with Memento black ink so that it doesn’t smear when you colour it.
- Some people prefer to colour with a light blend first, then add a dark blend. They may then use a light one again to blend the colour further. Other people prefer to start with a dark colour. The contrast of the dark and light allows you to blend and create shading.
- It is best to colour one small area at a time so you can blend the dark and light colours. This is because the ink will still be wet and blendable. If you colour a large area and then come back later to blend the colour, the area will have dried and you won’t be able to blend the colour effectively.
- Blends also have two different sized tips, like markers. One is a bullet tip and the other is a brush tip. They have a thick and thin line on the pen to show you which end is which.
- The lids are tight to put on. This is intentional. This is to make sure that the Blends have a tight seal, otherwise the alcohol in the pens would evaporate and the pen would dry up. You shouldn’t leave a Blend with a lid off for longer than necessary.
- There is also a Colour Lifter Blend pen which will help to remove the colour. This is useful if you go over the lines or if you wish to create highlights by taking out some of the colour.
Here is a blog post with a video on how to use Blends if you would like to see it in action.
The flower image below is from the Forever Blossoms stamp set. The image on the left side has been coloured with Blends and you will see more shading than compared with the right side. The right side has been coloured with Markers and is darker. In both images, the colour of the flowers are Rococo Rose and the leaves are Old Olive, but they still look quite different.
I hope you now understand the differences between Markers and Blends and that you have learned some tips for each.