Hunky Dory - Card stock and Toppers Review

Hello! I'm back again today with more from Hunky Dory. This time I chose a block of card stock - Ink Me! 6" x 6" Essential Card Block - and a packet of toppers - Watercolour Wings Topper Deck. Toppers are not something I would naturally choose, as I am more of a stamp and colour girl, but I like to try new things and thought it would be good to have something different to review.

I tried several things with the Ink Me! card block. I really like the size as I can cut it down to size for a standard US A2 or UK C5 card blank without too much wastage. It is also a nice thickness and very smooth, so I tried both ink blending and some Copic colouring:

1. Ink Blending with Distress Inks and Distress Oxides with Stencils

I had a play around with various distress inks and oxides and a couple of stencils. They were really easy to use with both a blending tool and my ink duster. I used some stencils from my stash from Funky Fossil Designs and Clearly Besotted Stamps and they worked really well. The ink went on nicely, didn't smear and I blended two colours together easily. I used Spun Sugar on one and managed to build up layers easily to get a darker colour. 

I now have several of these pretty butterfly bride to make up into cards - perfect for birthdays, weddings, engagements. I do love a good stencil session!

2. Toppers and a card

  Part of the reason I got the topper pack was because I loved the designs. I am a huge fan of owls and when I saw the watercolour designs, I thought they could be used for lots of different projects - and even be cut out - I do love a bit of fussy cutting.

On this card, I took a card blank from my stash (a C5) and cut the stencilled background I'd made from the previous stencil session (birch tree background) down to size to fit. I adhered it with some double sided tape. As I already had my distress inks out, I decided to do something I rarely ever do, distress ink the edges. I thought this went so well, I inked up the edges of my card blank as well. I then attached the topper onto the background with some foam pads. Easy as pie and I really like the outcome.

The toppers are also a really nice quality card, the designs very pleasing on the eye - watercolouring being quite the thing at the moment - and they can be easily made up into cards.

I used my own card blanks, but Hunky Dory also have a range you can use to make your final cards with:

https://www.hunkydorycrafts.co.uk/papercraft/card-making-supplies/card-blanks.html 

3. Copic Colouring

  I do a lot of Copic colouring and use speciality cardstock for it, but I always like to try any new card, especially if it's nice and smooth, which the Ink Me! is. I wouldn't recommend it solely for Copic Colouring, but I managed a decent blend on this Stamping Bella image without much bleeding, which I find can get with Neenah, the alternative I sometimes use. I definitely wouldn't dismiss it for the Copics, for quick colouring, if you have it to hand.

A thank you to Hunky Dory Crafts for having me and for giving me the products to review. None of my links are affiliates and my views on the products are entirely my own. I hope you've found this useful, and if you have any questions, please leave me a comment or drop me an email.

Hunky Dory - Stuart Hillard Fabric and Stix 2 Glue Stick Review

Hello! Things have been quiet on here for a few weeks, haven't they? Etsy got busy, Easter holidays happened and small children got sick and took quite a long time to get better, all of which impacted on my blogging. But....... I have an exciting blog post today..... read on....

A few weeks ago a very nice lady from Hunky Dory contacted me about doing a review of some of their products for them. I've heard of them, and indeed seen them on Create and Craft and had a very fixed idea of what they did. Card stock and toppers is what I had marked them down as. Before I said yes or no, though, I had a good root around their website Hunky Dory Crafts and imagine my surprise when I saw they also sell fabric and sewing notions as well as card stock, stamps, paper, toppers, pens.... So I said yes, picked my items and I'm here today to show you what I managed to do with 3 fat quarters and a glue stick...

So let's talk about those fat quarters. I use a lot of fabric in my Etsy shop, Bagageddon and I was very pleased with the quality of these. I have used fabric from the Craft Cotton Co. before and sometimes it can be a little hard even after washing. This was lovely from the start and washed up beautifully. You should always wash your fabric before using it to minimise future shrinkage. I also find that blues and reds can bleed quite a lot on the first wash, so this also helps, although with these there was no issue at all. I chose these for the beautiful Japanese style patterns which complement each other nicely, making them very easy to use for mixing and matching.

The fat quarters I chose were:

Kimono by Stuart Hillard - Fat Quarter - Waves (navy)

Kimono by Stuart Hillard - Fat Quarter - Abstract Flower (cobalt)  

Kimono by Stuart Hillard - Fat Quarter - Dragonfly (white)

You can also buy this fabric in metre lengths, and I think it's a good price for a metre of nice quality cotton (£2.50 a fat quarter, so £10 a metre), given you can pay up to £15 a metre these days.

So what did I make? You really can get a lot out of fat quarters for lots of small projects. Here's my list and I have half of it left for more. I haven't given instructions on how to make them as that would take too long, but there are many easy to follow guides on YouTube.


1. A set of reusable make up remover wipes and a small drawstring bag to keep them in. You can easily get 6 sets of these out of 2 fat quarters. They are 2.5 inches each and backed with cotton or bamboo terry. A really great way to get into zero waste items. You can use old towels for this project too.

 

2. Two glasses cases - one slightly wider than the other to accommodate larger sunglasses. These are padded with fusible fleece and use two different fabrics. One for the lining and one for the outer. I use around half a fat quarter for each one.

 

3. A lavender eye bag - I discovered these at yoga and wanted to make some myself. Here's a picture of me down in my sewing basement using it. This uses about a quarter/third of a fat quarter with a muslin bag inside filled with lavender.  

Throughout my sewing, I used the Stix2 Fabric Glue Pen. It's a washable pen that keeps your fabric together while you sew. It was really easy to use, not really sticky and I liked that it was pink so that I could see where I had put it. I used it on most of my initial sewing and was impressed at how well it kept the fabric flat, even when sewing the terry towelling for my wipes. That's a big win for me as pins and sometimes clips can even ruck the fabric slightly. I had absolutely no problems sewing with it - no residual stickiness or issues of any kind.

It comes with a refill which is good as I did use quite a lot of it. I found it a useful tool to have in my arsenal. Not something I would use entirely instead of pins and clips, but something to have for smaller projects where clips can overwhelm the project. I will be doing some more research - particularly with zips as they can be a big nightmare, and also stretch projects. I can definitely see it as being very useful for applique as it keeps fabric flat for sewing.

It's a definite thumbs up from me for both of these items. The fabric for the quality and quirky patterns. The glue stick for a useful addition to my sewing notions.

I hope you found this useful and if you have any more questions, please leave me a note in the comments or send me an email. I will be back tomorrow with more, this time with paper crafting! Thanks for reading and Happy Crafting, Everyone :)