Heat Erasable Pen Review

Whoa that's a catchy post title, I don't think!

However, I think heat erasable pens are great- at least 5 orders of magnitude better than air erasing pens for embroidery projects, in my opinion, and thus worthy of a post!
I really enjoy embroidering, both by hand as well as freehand machine embroidery and it's great to draw your design straight on the fabric.

However, I really haven't had much luck with my purple air erasing pens. I have only tried two brands before giving up on them though, so others may be a lot better (please let me know if you've found a great one). I find that it either disappears very quickly, within a matter of minutes, or that I have to remove it with water when I would prefer not to. I was advised to store the project in an airtight grip seal plastic bag but even then it didn't last. In the project above, from last year, I used tissue paper but that can take an age and a lot of patience to remove afterwards as tiny pieces are always left.

Then I discovered heat erasable pens. I had been using them for a good number of years as a regular writing pen without even thinking of their crafty potential. They are available in a variety of colours but all basically are accompanied by a "rubber" (or eraser if your prefer) either on the lid on the bottom of the pen itself. The ink can then be erased by rubbing this against the writing and the heat from the friction causes the ink to disappear as if by magic, very handy if you make a mistake.

The first one I ever used on paper was Pilot's Frixion and thought it was great.

There is actually a warning on the back of the packaging to not expose the ink to extreme temperatures (-10degC to +65degC) and this gave me the idea that high temperatures from an iron might also cause the ink to vanish. This could be just what I needed and sure enough it was- Yay!! 
It works just perfectly, it writes on fabric nicely with a 0.7mm line and leaves no sign after heat is applied. I find the best place to buy them is online but you can sometimes pick them up on offer, Tesco have a pack of 3, one each of black, red and blue, on offer at the moment for £5. However, a pack of one black and one yellow highlighter is £6.25. I've never tried the highlighter but the other colours all work just as well as the black.
The next brand I found was in the lovely Japanese shop Muji, which is full of great stationary and other household bits and bobs. Muji's erasable pen is £2.50 and works well on fabric and erases without a trace as soon as the iron gets near. It's also finer than the Frixion at 0.5mm and writes on fabric smoothly enough.

However, it turns out that not all friction pens are equal when it comes to erasing from fabric. After not being able to get hold of a Pilot's Frixion late on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to try Papermate's Replay Max available from Wilkinson's for £1.20. The packaging informed me this time that the ink becomes permanent after 24 hours. This was potentially bothersome but I thought it could still be used for projects completed in a day. 
Well I thought wrong! 
Although the ink may be erased with the rubber, heat does nothing at all except perhaps spread it and therefore it's no good for fabric. This is a shame as it's the cheapest. However, this one is good for writing projects where it would be handy to erase a mistake but you want the result to be permanent in the end.

Another shop I really like is the Danish store, Tiger, it sells all sorts of lovely things. The stores used to only be located around London but much to my delight they're all over the UK now, yippee! 
Their erasable pens come in a pack of 2 in black for £3. Unfortunately, just like the Papermate, they're no good on fabric either. They don't budge with heat and leave a mess around the writing :-(

I would highly recommend the use of the Pilot Frixion or Muji for sewing projects (the others are great when used on paper though).
Please let me know if you have any thoughts or know of other pens to use out there.
Thanks for taking the time to read my post. Until next time, craft in earnest! Craftin' Ernest x

Ding Dong The Bells Are Going To Chime

I do love a wedding, it's such a delight to share in a couple's "Big Day".
I can totally appreciate all the hard work that goes into making the day so special and all the decisions that had to be made along the way.

I also love a bit of wedding related crafting! It's the most perfect time to get busy with the pearls and crystals, lace and ribbon.

I recently had the pleasure of making my close friend's sister-in-law-to-be's beaded tiara and the bridesmaid's hair accessories! (Not great pictures sorry)

Also, as I mentioned in previous posts I had the great honour of being part of my friends' Becky and Steve's wedding. For part of their wedding gift I thought I would make them something personal to commemorate their special day and decided on a cushion.

I used transfer paper for inkjet printers to copy an image of their hands with their wedding rings onto white fabric. It took a few attempts as the instructions didn't mention anything about letting the image cool after ironing before peeling off the backing paper. Probably very obvious (especially as it's not the first time I've used it) but I forgot so trial and error certainly played a part, as did some choice words.

Once I'd finally got it right, I machine embroidered the lettering. I used white tissue paper to space the words just as I wanted them.

I went over each letter a number of times with two different colours. To finish it off, what else but a few buttons- heart shaped, shell buttons were perfect for this project in my opinion.

I think the happy couple were pleased were the result, it's certainly very personal to them.

We have a few other wedding this year to look forward and to keep me busy :-)

Until next time craft in earnest, Craftin' Ernest x

Springtime Artwork

How unpredictable is the weather in the UK at the moment? It's almost June and I'm sat here wrapped up in two blankets! After a beautiful Bank Holiday Weekend, where my husband burnt the back of his neck because he forgot to apply sunscreen there (silly billy), it's turned most chilly and hasn't stopped raining. This Spring has certainly been a mixed bag. I am eagerly awaiting my alliums to burst into flower to add some colour to the garden. I'm by no means at all green fingered but I loved them so much I planted some bulbs a few years ago and they were certainly worth the effort - not that is was all that difficult. They are just starting to open and each day I look forward to seeing how they are progressing. In the mean time I'll have to settle for a picture from the Royal Horticultural Society (here's a link to their advice on growing alliums- trust me it's not hard if I can do it http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?PID=316)

With the alliums comes the butterflies. I truly love butterflies, they were the theme at my wedding and I now have them dotted round the house.

Here's a wonderful, little webpage  about which flowers are great to attract butterflies and includes all three of my favourites- alliums, chives and cosmos- there's a variety of cosmos called "Chocolate Cosmos", it's a beautiful dark browny red and yep, you guessed it, smells of chocolate- what's not to love?!

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gardenerscorner/issue_02/spring_04_06.cfm

To get a little taste of Spring on the dull days like today I have sewn a little canvas. Using freehand machine embroidery and some fabric with a large flower print, I "drew" round an individual flower motif with stitches and in a contrasting colour wrote "flutter by Butterfly". Then using some transfer paper, the kind used with your home printer and a iron to transfer the image to fabric, I transferred a picture of a butterfly to some plain white cotton and cut it out. The great thing is the transfer process gives the fabric a bit of structure. I added a few beads and stitched the body of the butterfly to the picture, allowing the wings to stand out.

It's a little bit of Springtime when the outside thinks otherwise! Though the photo makes the colours seem more muted than they really are

I hope you like it?

Until next time, craft in earnest, Craftin' Ernest x