 Hi everybody it's Sam at Mixed Up Craft, thank you for watching today. So I have received these Nova watercolour markers, all of the design team got these and also a selection of the alcohol markers. So I've already shared that video and I'll link that one up here if that's something you're interested in because they're really nice and I've been using them behind the scenes, I use them on a lot of my commission work now as well so it's nice to have something else to play around with. But I am a huge watercolor fan, it's what I've done since school, is what I just find to be very easy for me because I've done it for so long. So I do like using pens, you have a lot more control with a pen as opposed to just using a pan of watercolor or actually a tube of watercolor paint and a paintbrush. But that's something that I've done like I said through school and I done A level art so that was what I used a lot. So but for anybody that wants to get the effects of watercolor and don't want to go down the paint route then pens are perfect for that. So I've already swatched the brights out and they are really vibrant. For watercolor as well that's not hard to do because there's lots of it out there but generally you get a lot more of a lighter shade with watercolor because that's the purpose of it, it's that much softer medium to use. But if you go into it in its raw form without adding the water you can keep that richness of the color which you'll see there. So on the left is all the just the raw color okay so nothing's been added to that and then slowly here you can see where I've started to introduce the water. So they are really nice they they you know they um they dissolve really well in the water. You you have to I would say don't leave them too long because they will just settle into the watercolor paper and then you will have can you see there I've slightly got like a line that's not a bad thing but if that's something you don't like then I'd say that you don't want to lay this down go away and do something and come back to it again you're not going to get all of the pigment to dissolve as you would if you've done it instantly which is what I'll show you in a moment. But nonetheless it's still really really nice um I love these colors here I think they're beautiful really really rich this one as well the greens you get two nice kind of tones that's more of a limey green but I think for the brights you get a really nice mix there and especially if you're someone that just loves bright colors then this is a perfect pack because generally with watercolor markers you get your browns you get your you know black and things like that so it's quite nice not to have that and just have these really kind of rich colors but you do have the option to get them if you wanted to with the neutrals so yeah I mean I'm not going to sit here in swatch and go through all that I want to get right into creating a card so I've just got my one of my water brushes here you can use a normal paint brush so you get dual tips you get your brush nib which is this one and they are extremely I've already been using these by the way so they are extremely pointy like very very pointy I don't think my other ones I mean I might do a comparison video with all of these because I've got about five or six different watercolor brush pens but this one just stood out to me as being incredibly pointy so it's perfect to get into all those little details and then the other end is just your kind of bullet it's like a felt tip kind of end there you can see so yeah standard kind of a pen in that sense so let's just start using them so what I went ahead and done is had a play around first of all so I stamped out these images here they're beautiful they're the ones that I was really excited to get from the Cumberbottom magazine it must have been creative stamping and it's the Christmas florals by Pinkfresh Studios so I've just pulled out a selection there and then just kind of played around with them on here and I thought I'd try and color that like a Halloween house even though it's got a little wreath there you can I could put a like a I could do like a black bat over that and I think that looks quite cool so I might turn that into a card and maybe do three more and have like a haunted house but I love these markers look at them look at the effects you can get I think it looks really really nice I wanted to create like a so I had the highlight on the top so it almost looks like the flowers are curved and you can see here just where I've kind of used the two greens together and then what I've done there is I've just colored it with just the red and then I went over it with the dry pen so I didn't add any water just to create that darker depth same here just to keep that kind of real darker blue there I just went into it dry didn't add any water and then here just love it really really like them again I hope you can agree just how vibrant those colors are so what I have done I've got the same image again and I have stamped it on this piece of four and three quarters by six and three quarters so it's going to sit on a red five by seven card base so you'll have a nice red border and I've used my gold in Boston powder so I've used the paper maniac gold okay and this is a really fun way to use watercolors if you're someone that is maybe first time using them and you're worried about the control of the water if you stamp your image with an embossing powder the image will obviously have the raised edges from the embossing powder so it will create like a little barrier so whatever you color so say I was to color like yellow here it's not going to bleed into these sections here so it's quite easy to control the water so maybe give it a go if it's your first time try coloring a stamped image that's embossed because like I said because it's raised it will act as a little bit of a barrier so I've already gone ahead and stamped some more of them on here because I'm going to do like a decoupage so I'm going to fussy cut these and then have them you know a bit more 3d on top of this I'm going to put a nice sentiment in the middle and you'll see all that at the end also if you are using watercolour VersaFine is really really good to use just make sure it's completely dry but you don't get any bleed and you get that crisp black you can also use this one which is the Nouveau hybrid however I don't find the black to be as intense so if you want to keep that real crisp black I still love the VersaFine with watercolors okay so I'll pop those two there okay so just coming a bit closer there so I've already like said gone ahead and done this because I just didn't think you needed to watch me stamp that if you do want to see me do embossing check out my embossing video here sorry I forget I'm zoomed in just up there um because there's lots of really good useful tips on there to get great results when you're heat embossing so colors for this I want to do the reds again because it's Christmasy so I'm going to do the reds and the greens um and that's probably it so I'm just going to use these three colors I want to check I have got the red there yeah that's the red um so basically what all I'm going to do is I don't want to leave it sitting for long so I want to be able to make sure that all of the pigment dissolves and becomes a water color so I'm just going to start on this one here it doesn't matter if you go over the gold because it will resist against it it's almost like water off of a duck's back you know it's like an oily kind of effect so I've just done a really deep red there and actually I'm going to do a deeper red on the ends here as well but I'm just going to leave a white section in the middle there and then I'm just going to add the water and just start to pull that color and come up here like so so just get it to join I'm not really touching this you notice I'm just touching the ends here and then if you just come back along here with the bit more of a drier brush so I've just got my old rag that I like to use okay and then again just kind of bleed a little bit more of that color and just let it kind of run into the water and it will do its own thing and that's the nice thing about watercolor you just have to move it a little bit there we go so I want to keep this kind of highlight here because once I do that on everything again it should give the illusion that the flowers are kind of curved so I'm going to carry on with that same way on the rest of these and I'm going to do that one up there as well so I'm just going to speed that piece up okay so that's those colored and doesn't it look like the lights like hitting here it just gives the it's well to me it looks like that one is very 3D it looks like it's just curved over and that one there as well I think it's such a simple technique just joining you know just having dark at both ends and then just leaving a little bit of light and you can keep going in and just like so just dry off your brush and just just pick up the color next I want to use the green so I want to go in with the lighter one first and then I'm going to use the darker one to add again that depth and shadow now I am going to do these red in a minute as well but I thought I'd leave them for a minute and do the green leaves just so you can kind of see that so again you can really see this is this is quite a detailed image but because of the point on this I can go right in here it's brilliant really is so I'm actually going to end up covering all of this with the lighter green first and then I'm going to go in with the darker so I'm just going to cover most of that again I don't want to leave it sitting there too long these are green as well and that one there and I think I know that's not there so we'll leave that so again just make sure I've cleaned that off and then then just start to dilute the color you're just dissolving it and again I want to keep actually no I want to do that same effect so to get that I'm just going to lift a line just kind of lighter through the middle there you kind of see what I've done yeah I'm just lifting it just there it will all kind of work out in a minute these ones I'm not really going to bother they can just stay green all over do that one there and I'm just going to do this one here okay so I'm going to go back to this one again and now I'm going to come in with that darker green I just want to focus on the bottoms of all of these little leaves here and if it's still wet enough it will slowly start to just I can see this is already starting to bleed in so I might not even have to end up doing anything to that I might just let it just move and do its own thing and then again down here a bit darker there and I also want to do darker there and then do a little bit there and that again so you see it's starting to move I don't know how well you're seeing this but all I'm going to do is just dab it and it will just do its own thing I said you do have a lot more control with the pen and you can also go into this wet you don't you know it's up to you how you do it well I've gone on dry but now you can go in wet as well so if I just wanted to keep this still quite dark down here I can keep dipping this into the actual water there and it will just move and do its own thing so you can see that I've got a really nice little blend put a bit more around here just help it along there but you need such a tiny amount of water so it dries very quick there we go around here I'm going to do exactly the same again okay so that's that and then with the berries I just went over the whole thing and I'm just going to go over them all kind of lifting some of the color just create a little bit of a shadow I'm just kind of adding water just to a little bit you should see it just stays darker I'm picking up yeah it is you can see where it's lighter there where I've picked it up or added the water and it's still darker there you don't have to do that at all but that's just me just keeping everything kind of matching if you go over the lines you can pick it up just make sure you've got a clean brush so that one again I'm going to do all this here okay if I just bring that up just so you can see so I've just got darker there and then slightly lighter but it looks so so nice so using that same technique I'm now going to do all the rest of this red these flowers here red I'm going to fussy cut the ones that I've already done on here and then I'm going to go back in with the raw color without adding water just to add a bit more depth to it but I'll do that when I'm back so I decided I was playing around with my sentiment and I decided to use the stamped image that came with the stamp set so I've just used the Merry Christmas there and popped it there but I'm going to put a few sequins kind of here and I'm unsure whether to use these because I don't know I just think they're just going to cover up because I don't really like them just floating like that I'd rather have them like set like I don't know I just I don't think I want to use them so once I put it on the actual card I may well do but I just want to go in and just add a little bit of depth to a few areas bring you nice and close again I'm just going to go into the berries and just kind of just cover half of the berry with the dry pigment and it will again just give the illusion that you know the lights hitting from one side you see that again you don't have to do these things it's just little ways to add a bit more depth so then do a few little flicks as well and that's the nice thing with these you can get some really thin little lines see looks lovely really really like this this is why I was so eager to get this stamp set because this is the kind of card I wanted to create again just going to keep it nice and dark in the corners here and you can always go back in again with the water so if you feel like you've gone then too dark you might have too much of a kind of solid line then you can obviously do so but just let it dry in between and you will be fine like so I really like that one and then these I'm just going to do just to kind of circle in the centre there because there isn't really any other that was where those were to go over maybe if I take the white off don't have a little border and just have it right over there maybe kind of hanging over the side of the card I might try that you'll see that at the end if I decide to so I'm just going to do the same what I've done there over at this side and I'm going to do the same with the green just right at the very ends there and then the very bottoms and the very bottom of all these leaves okay there you have it I think it looks beautiful in fact I'm not going to do anything more there I don't think I'm even going to add these I think I'll keep them for something else because I just think that looks absolutely stunning so I've just got a red five by seven card blank I think I'm going to stick this using some foam because it's slightly warped ever slightly I could just flatten that if I just pop it in a book overnight run it through my dye machine a few times which I might try doing but you do have to be careful with the dye machine because it can kind of flatten the embossing powder and actually just makes it quite dull and you kind of lose a little bit of that shine so I probably won't do that I'm just going to pop it on some foam and just stick it on like so okay so I've just realised I didn't do the inside still so I'm just going to pop just some yellow just down I'm not going to add any water because there's such tiny little dots there you wouldn't you know it's not going to make any difference I'm just going to pop some yellow I think that'd be quite nice like so and then I'm just going to add a few of my I want to get the clear iridescent sequence there get my words out so I'm just going to pop on there I want to keep them quite close to the the flower let's try those for the minute okay and there is the finished card I think it looks good just love the way that the light catches that embossing powder and like I said these here they just look we almost look like they're like satin fabric they just look so shiny so I'm really pleased with how that's turned out so that was on a five by seven card and yeah it's really really straightforward to do just you know focus your darker colours on the inside there and on the outside and then kind of bring them together and you'll get that lovely highlight effect or just keep it dark on the end in the centre there and just pull the colour out so you get it you know just kind of fading towards the ends there's lots of ways to do these but I just thought that was a fun way to show you love all these I think I'll fussy cut them and use them on the card I'll probably do that as a kind of bundle on something and then this one as well but yeah they're really vibrant really easy to use lovely colours so these are I think they're $9.99 on Amazon I'll share the links below so you get the packet 10 the brights or the rainbows and then the neutral so I'll share all those links below but yeah I hope you've enjoyed the tutorial hope again you've managed to get something from it if you've got watercolor pens you've not used them go and give them a go just have some fun with it and yeah thank you for watching so and I will be back again soon with another tutorial see you soon bye