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

Embroidered Button Earrings

Although it's now Thursday (where do the weeks keep going). I had an amazing weekend mainly because my bestie/sister returned from a two week holiday on Sunday so we had a catch-up shopping trip/smoothie drinking session. I also had a lovely coffee morning with old friends, bliss. The other reason was due to me having a major button bargain on Saturday morning- I bought 4kg of buttons for £3!! That meant five hours of blissful sorting on Saturday afternoon (I should have been finishing a knitting project but that's a different story).

Amongst my treasure trove there were a lot of fabric covered, shank- backed buttons and most of which were in pairs. This gave me the inspiration to make some into earrings. By gluing an earring finding to the back of each the jobs a good'un in about 60 seconds flat but I wanted something individual so decided to embroider a simple design on each using embroidery cotton and satin stitch.

To make them you need:
A pair of fabric buttons
Embroidery cotton
Sewing needle
A pair of earring posts with backs
Scissors
Glue
Piece of paper (at least as big as the buttons)
Pen

Make a stencil by drawing around one of the buttons then draw and cut out your chosen design. I went for a simple heart so folded the paper in half to cut the heart.

Using the stencil draw the design onto the button. I used a pen whose ink would be visible but not startling obvious so was not the easiest to pick up on the photograph.

Split 2 strands of the cotton and thread onto your needle, with the needle in the middle giving your cotton 4 strands of thickness. Sew the first stitch from the centre of the heart down to the tip at the bottom, do not completely draw the thread through but leave a millimetre or so protruding- this will be hidden under the satin stitch and means there is no need for an unsightly knot.

Following the outline and using satin stitch (http://www.wikihow.com/Satin-Stitch) "fill in" your design.

Once the design is complete, sew a long stitch under the design and cut the cotton. Repeat the process for the second button.

Glue and earring post to the back of each. The buttons I chose had a piece of material as the method for sewing them onto something. I cut this way in order to glue the posts to a more secure surface. If your button has a shank snap this off.

Once the glue has dried completely, you're all done!
I now plan to make a pair in every colour.
Until next time craft in earnest, Craftin' Ernest x

Threads Galore, Crafty Bargains!

There's a great shop in my home town called "Serendipity" which sell an eclectic mix of mainly second-hand items, with some real absolute bargains to be had! Well it topped itself this week with a truly fabulous find.
My husband spotted two white, plastic cases....

Inside each of them was a large selection of 1000m reels of thread! One case ranging in colour from pale pinks to deep purple and the other every shade of blue you could wish for! In total there was 115 reels and my husband who enjoys a bit of haggling (the exact opposite to me) negotiated the lot for £25, that works out at 21 pence per reel!!

They're fantastic quality as well. WAHOOOO thank you! I had never heard of the make before- Ackermann Isacord, but I've had a look online since and think we did very well.
http://www.redrockthreads.com/isacord-thread/isacord-thread.asp

Things only got better when we went to a car boot sale on Sunday- to replace all the stuff we got rid of when we did one ourselves a couple of weeks ago ;-) and I picked up some bargain goodies there too. I saw a cardboard box with a couple of large embroidery hoops poking out and lots of paper bags. I asked how much the hoops were and the lady said it was £5 for the whole box, no haggling from me, I handed £5 straight over. I couldn't resist, even just for the pleasure of delving into the box to discover what was in there at my leisure was worth the money. I certainly wasn't let down, as well as the hoops there was a pin cushion with lots of needles, some cross stitch aida and loads of embroidery cotton skeins. There was two segmented storage boxes, one filled with cottons already wound onto bobbins and 84 cotton skeins- all Anchor and DMC. I was beaming by the time I had finished. Another bargain!

I don't do cross-stitch myself but I do like to embroider, however I thought I would use some of them to crochet flowers. I made a small pansy to stick on a teeny card and really like how it turned out but I want to go smaller! I'll let you know how I get on.

Have you had any crafty bargains? Leave a comment and let me know all about it.
Until next time, craft in earnest! Craftin' Ernest x

V&A Museum

I mentioned last time my day trip to London to meet with a friend. As London has so much to offer we had a very busy day but spent the majority of the morning in The Victoria & Albert Museum. I love museums and was really fortunate to do some voluntary work at the Natural History Museum a few years back (actually 15 to be precise, ooh that's longer than I thought?!) It is right next door to the V&A Museum so I spent many of my lunch breaks there. The Science Museum is just behind the NHM too, South Kensington is a must if you're a museum fan & in London!

There's so much to see, for example Room 40: The Fashion Galleries. There's some truly beautiful items on display ranging from the 18th Century to today http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/f/fashion/

I had two favourites as I couldn't decide between them, both dresses from the Thirties but I think they're just timeless

Another must-see is the work by Martha Edlin. There's a collection of incredible embroidered items, from the later half of the 17th Century, including a sampler, a casket a pin cushion. All of which are stunning and exquisitely made. Then there's a jewellery case embroidered with beads- incredible. What makes it truly remarkable is when you read the information and find out how young she was when she made them. Have a look at this video and keep in mind she embroidered the casket when she was eleven! http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/videos/m/video-martha-edlins-casket/

She made the above beaded jewellery case when she was just thirteen, oh so talented

I got some decorating ideas too ;-)

Definitely worth a visit!
Until next time Craft in Earnest, Craftin' Ernest x