Oh Scrap.

I have been secretly watching this show on TV called Scrapbook Memories, or something like that. It's a PBS show, but they show it on the BYU channel every day at noon. Don't judge me. Ok? Anyway, the show features these pretty neat people from scrapbook supply companies - and they always have the latest and coolest scrapbooking techniques and tools. Most of it is pretty interesting. Anyway.

One of the things that I keep seeing on the show are these lovely little Souffle pens - they are supposed to have 3-D opaque ink and I have seen them used on metal, acrylic, paper, and lots of other things and they looked pretty danged cool. I decided that these would be my next "save up" item because. . . they cost $19.99 for this pack of ten. HOLY SCRAP.

So I wasn't so keen on spending twenty bucks on pens, but I decided that I really wanted them, so I got a paper and used the %50 off one item coupon and on Monday I trotted down to Robert's and purchased my long awaited Cool New Thing. I was so excited!!!11! Now this is the part where I really need to get into using my video camera, because I think that it would be really cool to make my own show about scrapbooking techniques. But on each epsiode, there will be a segment that is really useful to people, because it will be called, "This Scrap Doesn't Work!" Srsly. Learn from my mistakes!!!!!!!!

The pens are actually pretty cool. The colors are vibrant and bold and they will be great for journaling and yes, they DO work on surfaces like metal and plastic and acrylic and cell phones. Ahem.

It is my technique here, that failed, and I would like to show that with you today, viewers, so you do not mess Scrap up like I did.

I thought it would be fun to use these bright neon-ish colors on some black paper, and make some black and white and bold colored cards for spring. Something fun and pretty and different. So I cut a piece of black cardstock, and found an old template and went to work.

I taped the template down to the paper and started coloring with my beloved Cool New Thing Souffle pens. The colors are actually really pretty. . .

I noticed right away that the ink - when it first comes out of the pen, is kind of runny. It also takes a little bit to dry. At first, you color with it, and then you go hmm, that doesn't look quite right. But after it dries for a little bit, the color really starts to show up and pop - kind of like those galaxy markers. I did wait for the ink to dry - and I reapplied another coat of ink, to make these butterflies and flowers really stand out. I was so excited, I started searching my patterned paper for cool things to use on the cards.

I waited for the ink to dry really well - and then I lifted an edge of the template to see how things turned out. Well, I TRIED to lift an edge of the template. What I found, was that the template was completely stuck to the paper. At first I thought it was just around the edges where the ink was, but no. After prying and lifting up gently, this is what I found under the template.

The colors ran together underneath the template. The paper stuck to the template and ripped up in some places - the ink - which starts out pretty runny at first, got underneath all of the template, and was even so wet, that it kind of warped the cardstock. Worst of all, I used up quite a bit of ink from my awesome New Thing Souffle pens. I almost cried when I saw these results. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, PEOPLE.

So, my scrapping blog can't all be about things that turn out to be pretty or fun or cute. Some days, you have to mix in a little bit of ugly to give it balance. I think that I did an awesome job of that here. In fact, I was thinking of saving this page of scrapped-up template ink flowers and butterflies, so that I can make a scrapbook page called FAIL. Sweet!