Stencil, Fantastix, and Cat Eyes

Hi all!

 

My first crafty post here...  of course, it is a scrapbook project.  As much as my mother tried to get me to love sewing above all else, my true crafty love is scrapbooking.  Don't worry, though, mom.  I still love sewing.  Just not as much as scrapbooking.  Here is my final 2 page spread and I will tell you how I used the tools to create it:

 

 

So cute, right?  I love looking at my wedding pictures and these pages turned out to be some of my favorites so far of my wedding album. 

 

My sister-in-law got me a few scrapbooking supplies this past Christmas and I love them.  Among other things, I got this lovely stencil (which I forgot to take a picture of before I used it, hence the brown ink):

 

 

She also got me some cat eye ink pads, which you see here, and these interesting little tools called Fantastix.  I'd never hear of them before: 

 

 

The Fantastix worked like reusable markers, where you soak up ink from your desired color of ink pad and then dob the ink onto your stencil.  I loved the result:

 

 

But they were a little troublesome to work with sometimes.  Let me explain.  There were very vague instructions.  I had to look up how to use them on the internet and even that was a little sketchy.  You see the part of the branch that is dark, dark brown?  That was when I tried soaking the Fantastix in water first.  All that did was soak my paper and make my ink extra dark.  No bueno.  So I pulled out another Fantastix and began afresh.  I taped down my stencil onto the paper I was inking onto to hold it steady. 

Another note about the Fantastix--they don't seem very reusable to me.  Even after washing them out immediately after using them, there is still brown and blue ink in the tips of them.  Am I doing it wrong?  Anybody know? 

Here's my art after I removed the stencil (with a nice finger shot in the bottom corner...oh, well) :

 I then used a "Believe" stamp with the brown color box ink and stamped it onto a wooden tag. 

 

I also wanted another saying on the other page on a wooden tag, so I hand wrote the word "eternal" with my permanent brown marker in as close of a copy of the "Believe" stamp as possible.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I inked the edges of some of my corresponding paper using brown cat eye ink and put it all together with some flowers as embellishments. 

I think it turned out fabulous.  The background 12x12 paper is from a pearl colored elegant stack, and the 8x8s are from a stack I picked up years ago that I use off and on.  I like that there are several different patterns and textures and the coloring is just lovely. 

I'd love to here suggestions on using Fantastix markers if anybody has a better way of using them.  Thanks for reading!

-Jana Lynn, Life With a Grin