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Sunday 10 February 2013

We all do it...

...just some of us do it to a greater or lesser degree.

"What?" I hear you ask.

Buy stuff because we have read about it or seen it demonstrated...it then becomes a 'must have' and when we get it home it gets put to one side...often because we can't remember how we were shown to use it.

Sound familiar?

That was me with the current craze about "Pan Pastels" - I had heard a lot and seen them demo'd on TV. I had even had a little play (probably a couple of minutes) at a local store - I was hooked and had to have some, and some I got. Did I do anything with them? - did I heck.

So when Andy at Pinnacle Crafts advertised a Saturday morning 'try it' session; I booked.

Now Pan Pastels are not the cheapest product in the world...at £6 per pot they become a considered purchase when you take into consideration that there are 80 colours/shades. However, as Andy showed us - you use so little of the product that they will last an extemely long time (most crafters would probably never have to buy a second pot of a colour unless they used it on absolutely everything and went about it very heavy-handedly).

Andy had lots of lovely samples prepared for us to "Oooo" and "Ahhh" over and he showed us how easy it was to obtain super results using a variety of techniques.

Here are the pieces I produced...
This was my first effort and I have to say I was as 'taken' with playing with the stamps as I was with the pastels (Joanne is trying to obtain supplies). The background was created using four different shades of pastel and a bit of post-it note masking for the moon. The scene was then created using the Stampascene stamps from Stampscapes and black Memento ink. I love how you can use an eraser to take the pastel away from areas you want to. I did this on the rocks and part of the water to give the effect of the moonlight catching those areas.

This was my second piece...
...and probably my favourite of the morning. Using the DL card 'portrait' rather than 'landscape' gave the opportunity to create more depth of field. I used a dark grey, orange, dark red and dark magenta to achieve the background colours and instead of taking colour away...I used the orange to colour the rocks a little more.

We also got to play with stamping in Versamark before using the pastels...
...and embossing.

The pastels really pick up the details of the stamps as can be seen here (I used a script stamp to show the crispness you can achieve).

This piece was created using one of the new Cronology embossing folders, a quick swipe of "Teal zeal" Memento and then some pastel shading.

It was a very enjoyable morning and now perhaps I'll actually get my Pan Pastels out of the bag LOL....................

12 comments:

voodoo vixen said...

I love what you did with them Toni! I think sometimes we see stuff and think we can get the same results... but you really need a hands on class like this one to get the technique right. Your second card is my fav too... love the muted tones.

Wendy said...

Those are absolutely gorgeous!

Glen said...

Ooo...ahhh...fab pics Toni and yes, I am guilty of buying something and not remembering how to use it! *Ü* Good for you that you took a class. At least it is a reminder. TFS. ~Glen~

MiniOwner said...

All your pastels projects are amazing, Toni!
Sue x

Suzy said...

Ooh gorgeous I have been considering these so.might need to.bite the bullet and get some

Emy said...

Thanks for sharing your results - It's always great to see what people can do with new materials. Glad to hear you had fun :)

KarmaCraft said...

Gorgeous work! I have a few pan pastels myself. :)

KarmaCraft said...

Gorgeous work! I have a few pan pastels myself. :)

House of Bears said...

Really love the results of your class, it looks like great fun, we haven't tried pan pastels.... Yet, but your work makes us want to have a go.

Jenny1676 said...

Looks like you had a good time at the class - I wish I had booked in now! The cards you made were lovely!

The Scrapbook Lady UK said...

They are absolutely amazing! I went on a Pan Pastels workshop with Kay from Indigo Blu at Harrogate when these were just new and they are fabulous! Hope you are well! You have had lots of visits today! jenx

Linda said...

These are fab, must now sit on my hands/hide the credit card as am now tempted to try them! :)