Review Jane Davenport Watercolor Palette Sets

Jane Davenport Petite Watercolor Palettes and Aqua Brushes

Jane Davenport and American Crafts partnered to create this beautiful line of "Petite Watercolor Pallets" in Brights and Neutrals, as well as her new aqua brushes.   Each of the Jane Davenport watercolors pallets come with 12 half pans of watercolors in two different colored metal watercolor tin boxes that can hold more than just the 12 half pans.  If you put a piece of magnet down the center, you can six more half pans to the box, which is a nice feature in these sets.

The Jane Davenport Watercolor Tin

The packaging on these sets is rather simple compared to the acrylic paints, which offer a mini tutorial on the back.

Jane Davenport Watercolor Packaging

Back of the Jane Davenport Watercolor  Box

However, she does have the fabulous video (below) showing how she uses these new paints on her YouTube page, as well as other pieces of her new collection (like the aqua brushes). Additionally, you can sign up for some free tutorials on her website. It is a fairly easy process, just add the free tutorial to your shopping cart and check out.  There is no charge to the user but you do have to go through the whole cart process so that the website is able to track who wants to be emailed when each tutorial is posted.  For those who do not have time to look around her whole website for the free product related workshops, click on this link to go a page that explains the process.


I also purchased the Jane Davenport Aqua Brushes that work beautifully with the watercolors. They are really easy to use and fill with water.  I have had them for two weeks and have not had a single leak yet.

There are two different tips on the brushes and they are marked "A" and "B".

I found that the metal watercolor tins are not very well made, I broke my neutrals one the first time I opened it.  However, I plan on putting them into a larger Meeden Empty Watercolor tin that can hold all 24 colors and a aqua brush.  I thought I would warn you so that you use care when using them and they don't break for you.

Anyway, the tins are lovely and have ring on the bottom to make them easy to hold in your hand when on the road.

The Brights Petite Watercolor Palette comes with 12 colors.

Jane Davenport Watercolor Palette - Brights

I swatched them on the card that came with the watercolor tins. These are bright beautiful colors.

Jane Davenport Brights Watercolor Swatches  on watercolor paper.

Since the swatch paper included in the tin was not a watercolor paper, it really did not give me a good idea of what the colors would look like on watercolor paper. Thus, I swatched them onto a hot press watercolor paper to see what type of results I could get on them. I made the sheet big enough to fit into the travelers notebook so I have it on hand when I need it.

Jane Davenport Petite Watercolor Pallet in Neutral

The Jane Davenport Petite Neutrals Watercolor Palette comes also features 12 colors. These are great for mixing and creating your own skin shades. Again, I swatched the colors onto watercolor paper so I could get a better idea of how the paints will look on various watercolor papers.

Here are both of the cards that were included in the Jane Davenport Watercolor Tins so you can get an idea of how they look on non-watercolored paper.

She does include more information on the colors (like pigments and Light fastness) on her website. Jane Davenport truly understands that many of us what more information and happily provides it on her website.  She has really put a lot of thought into this product line.


NOTE: I do not work for Michaels, American Crafts or Jane Davenport.  I purchased all the above items with my own money at Michaels.  I am not affiliated with any of the above companies, either.
My opinions are my own, and may vary from others who use and review the same products. Also the colors of the paints will vary in accordance to the equipment the viewer is using.  I personally love the product line and hope they add more colors to both the acrylic paint line and watercolors.

Mixed Media Pocket Travel Journal Video Tutorial by Jeannine Stein

This week Stefanie Girard at the Craftside blog posted a fun easy to follow tutorial on how to make

Mixed Media Pocket Travel Journal with a map.

a mixed media pocket travel journal, featuring author Jeannine Stein.

Jeannine Stein is known for her book Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books in which she teaches how to make mixed media books out of a variety of materials.

Her other book is  Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials which teaches basic book binding techniques and has some fun projects for the reader to make.  Re-Bound has 16 pages of patterns and templates, with excellent step-by-step directions that include hand drawn illustrations.  The book serves as a book binding primer for anyone who is new to book binding or just interested in the process.  Jeannine also includes some great repurposing book binding ideas that will inspire anyone to want to try their hand at making a book.

If you have ever wondered how to make a handmade book or just like working with paper, then the video posted today could just be the answer.  The video gives a short "How To Book Bind" tutorial that shows the viewer how easy it is to make a fun multi-media pocket travel journal with a pop out map (although you could substitute some other paper item in the place of the map).
 Note: if you look between Stefanie and Jeannine,

 you can see the cool re-purposed purple Guittards chocolate box book she made.




If you prefer written directions, Jeannine also wrote a great step-by-step tutorial of the pocket travel journal which Stefanie has also posted on the Craftside blog.   Below are some pics of other handmade books that Jeannine Stein has made.

So check out the video and leave comments to let the publisher know what types of videos you would like them to to put on YouTube (  I will forward any comments to the publisher).

Disclaimer :  No payment received for this post.  Stefanie and Jeannine are friends of mine who I think are really talented and create some pretty neat stuff.

A Review of the Create Mixed Media Retreat 2013 Artist Faire in Irvine, California

  This year's  Create Mixed Media Retreat was held on May 29 through June 2, 2013 in Orange County at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, California.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the "Create Mixed Media Retreat", it is a great event put on by the people from Interweave Press and Cloth Paper Scissors.  The Create Mixed Media Retreat events take place in various locations the U.S. and offers a variety of classes which can vary from making art journals to jewelry making.  They also have a great selection of technique based classes like art journaling methods, surface designs (including metal work), sewing, collage, polymer clay, power tools, and more.
  Joanne Sharpe (author of Cloth Paper Scissors Workshop Artful Lettering: Tools and Techniques for Discovering Your Style) taught a "Free Motion Tapestry" class where students learned to

Joanne Sharpe

design and create their own hand painted fabric.  They also got to learn some free motion sewing techniques that brought dimension to the finished pieces.  As you can see in the picture below, the pieces came out gorgeous.

Hand painted material by Joanne Sharpe

Lisa Englebrecht (author of Modern Calligraphy and Hand Lettering: A Mark-Making Workbook for Crafters, Cardmakers, and Journal Artists), also taught three classes at this venue.

Lisa Engelbrecht

Lisa taught a fun class on how to write on fabric and make some pretty terrific banners.  Some of the projects can be viewed on her flicker account.  She also taught a really cool "Hand Lettered" t-Shirt class.  The students got to create their inspiration t-shirt using the techniques that Lisa taught them in class.  In the past Lisa has also taught a variety of calligraphy classes and lettering techniques. Below is a video that is a sample of one of her writing technique demonstrations.



The third class she taught at this show, was a fun "Fascinator" class.

Sample Fascinator from Lisa Engelbrecht's class.

In this class the students learned the basics to designing their own Fascinators from a variety of materials, including feathers from sustainable farm grown flocks.  They were quite impressive to see in person (for pictures from her class, just check out Lisa's FB page to find a link).

Assorted materials and sample Fascinators for Lisa's class

They also have a great "Artist Faire" which is free to the public.  This is a great opportunity for the public to go and make purchases from a wide variety of art materials as well as work from the various artists in attendance.  One set of tables had four different authors in attendance, showing off their their artwork, crafts and books.

Amy Morinaka, Stefanie Girard, Jeannine Stein, and Lisa Englebrecht

I had a chance to talk to each author and take a few pictures of their work.  The first author is Amy

Morinaka, who's first book "Zakka Handmades: 24 Projects Sewn from Natural Fabrics to Help Organize, Adorn, and Simplify Your Life" was just released. For those who are unfamiliar with Zakka style, it is a fashion and home good designs style that has spread from Japan.  It specifically refers to hand-sewn items for the home, as well as simple clothing.  On her blog "Chick Chick Sewing", Amy has some great projects that vary from simple to advanced.  Like her book, the projects include some very clever and lovely designs made from some beautiful fabrics.

Amy Morinaka

Amy is an accountant who's love of fabric combine with her sewing abilities has inspired her to design some very fun projects for this book.

I also got to spend a few moments speaking with Jeannine Stein, the author of two books

(Adventures in Bookbinding: Handcrafting Mixed-Media Books and   Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials ). Recently, her work has also been featured in the "Pages"magazine from Cloth Paper Scissors.

Below is a beautiful examples of the many creative ways, Jeannine uses ephemeral to accent the handmade books she makes.

This is another great example of the books she makes with both new and recycled materials.

The next picture is of a recipe book she made from a recycled box of chocolates.

Here is a peek at the inside of the book.

And a look at some of the ephermal kits she had on hand.

The kit below has some cool recycled materials from books, labels, and more.

Stefanie Girard, who blogs for Craftside blogger and Craft Gossip (recycled crafts), was also on hand.

 If you have never visited the "Craftside" blog or the "Sweater Surgery" blog, you are in for a treat.  Stefanie often posts some tutorials and other tidbits from the new books that are being released.

Stefanie Girard, is also the author of the book "Sweater Surgery: How to Make New Things with Old Sweaters".  In her book, everything is made from recycled sweaters with a fun variety of projects like the messenger bag below and the cute red cowboy boots for infants (behind the purse).

If you like learning new technique from some great teachers then I highly recommend the "Create Mixed Media Retreat".  Check their website to find out when one is coming to your area.

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