Jenn Colours My World

Jenn Skurkus aka Creative Chick that is. I think since discovering Jenn at my very first big box event in September 2022 she's bought the magic of stamping, Copic colouring and my love of Lawn Fawn back into my life. Apart from the fact she's an awesome teacher and has great colouring guides she actually makes really bright and cheery cards. She is on the design team for a lot of companies and often I see what she creates for launches and go OMG that is so pretty and then I look at what the other DT create and I go nuh that'll be what I would create and save my pennies. Check out her blog in the link above to see some examples of her creations.

I have taken a few online classes with Jenn already working with various Lawn Fawn stamps, her Distress Watercolour Pencils was amazing plus recently Copic 101 which again if you're thinking of starting out with Copics is well worth purchasing.

But back to my latest Virtual class with her "Creative Art Journey June 2023" which I thought should I or shouldn't I enroll for. It was the usual $175 USD to buy and then shipping (I chose the middle option of her USPS options which was approx. $70 USD) and my kit turned up within 2 weeks which shocked me. I chose this same option for the Copic 101 class and my workbook spent 2 weeks at somewhere in the New York airport; so took 4 weeks to get to me and arrived 2 days after the class.

Jenn had already said that the products in our box was approx. $100 USD but she needs to also get paid which is fine and the event was two days long and approx. 6 hours of videos each day plus the handout and unboxing videos etc so I get it and I'm off to SENZ soon paying $69 for a class and getting a $20 stamp but the shipping always hurts on top plus our conversion rate to USD lately is pretty horrendous.

But OMG I am so glad I did sign up, this maybe is my favourite virtual class ever!!  My first shock was when my box arrived everything was in wee bags labelled card 1 - card 13. Most of the stamping and die-cutting was done for each card. Panels with background dies, scalloped rectangle panels, platform die cut out of DSP. Each card bag also had either Neenah White #80, Ranger Distress watercolor or Ranger heavy weight cardstock in it. All the stamps and dies I received are seriously cute and the big shock was Stampers Anonymous and Tim Holtz made a Creative Retreat EXCLUSIVE stamp set for us (there are 350 of us). Apparently the images in the stamp set are on various stamp sets but they have been combined and to a different size than normal, that alone is worth it's weight in gold IMO. I must admit I was totally blown away by all the prep that had gone into each box as I am so used to doing homework for days before a Virtual event normally. I still have to provide my own card bases and I had to stamp approximately 5 images but so minimal I was rapt I could just enjoy the Journey and Copic colour and make fabulous backgrounds = my kind of heaven. So lots of work goes into each box as well. I can see why limited to 350 boxes, Jenn did get help from crafting friends to do the box. I know Breann from The Ink Stand stamped and die-cut out all my vegetable images (I'm guessing but about a dozen veggies) I'm sure she would have die cut out all the images and then had a template in her MISTI to stamp the die-cut but OMG that is still substantial work.

Well it's 2 weeks since the live event and I have managed to finish day one's 2 videos which really are colouring all the things plus we got to make one card, even Jenn was laughing about it at the end of day one which ended up being six and a half hours long (there is a break in the middle). But we have coloured up lots and lots and everything will be ready to be assembled.

So here's my first colourful card which I love.

This card uses products from Gina K Designs (flower stamp: Bold Blooms), Newton's Nook (stencil), Pinkfresh Studios (sentiment), and sequins (Trinity Stamps) that we got in our box.

This was one of the cards we had to stamp (a) directly onto the card and (b) onto some masking paper to make a mask. This is the first time I have ever "coloured" up a flower grey but isn't it cool. I've also never used Glossy Accents (RNG) to make wee dots, my card was left covered in a pile of Prisma Glitter when I went off to bed and for the most part my dots are pretty good, the ones that look smudged I'm not sure if I made the drop too small or whether the  glitter squashed it but probably the former. The ink blending has been done with Distress inks on Ranger Distress Heavy card stock which Jenn provided. She also demonstrated using the new Picket Fence paper pouncers which looked amazing. I am now regretting selling of my full Distress Ink pads years ago, when oxides were released they were so much easier to blend with I actually sold off my full collection at the time of Distress Inkpads for half price and started buying my favourite colours in Oxides and mini inkpads. Space is always an issue when you have a bedroom as your crafty happy place. Back then blending tools weren't as good as what we have now and I would have been happy with my Distress Inks if I had today's tools to blend with.  For this card as I didn't have any paper pouncers, I used what was new for me, some mini blending brushes from Altenew for the stencil layer and I am pretty happy with them. How Jenn explained it is with delicate stencils using our normal swirling/circular motion it actually moves the stencil where if you are pouncing watching her its a more up and down motion. I am not sure how it would work with my mini inkpads and I know in my next big box event (this September) we're getting a pouncer in our kit as Picket Fences are sponsors this time around for that event.

For your interest these are my really colourful images waiting to have backgrounds prepared for them:

Hopefully I should be able to churn out the cards but we have a 4-5 days of grandkid minding coming up whilst mum and dad away so "watch this space".

Jenn is now selling the resources for this class i.e. the handbook and colouring guide plus access to the class videos etc for $30USD I think if you are even slightly interested in doing something like this when it is offered next year it would be a great idea to buy the Virtual Class as most of the stamp set and dies are readily available to purchase at the mo, apart from out exclusive Tim Holtz one. This is the link to where there is more detail about the class on Jenn's website CLICK HERE. The background techniques I can assure you will be worth the $30. I know Jenn mentioned she is having a Summer Sale for her classes soon but that is normally for older classes she still offers.

Well I guess I will be waiting online to register when registration opens next year as this is top of my list for Virtual Card Events to do.
✿ Karen ✿