LET'S TALK TUESDAY | No. 5 :: Pens + Gold Foiling

Hello hello!!! It's our 5th segment of "Let's Talk Tuesday" folks and I'm soooo ready to sit down with you again for some girl talk! Grab your cup o' joe (mine looks something like this),  and let's get comfy!!

QUESTION #1
What pens do you use to do your hand-lettering? (and doodles). Monique S.

A: First, just in case you didn't know, I absolutely LOVE pens and have a slight addiction to them. (Hence "pen" being part of the name of my blog and brand). Anyway, I always carry around this little bag of assorted pens with me everywhere I go. It's small enough to stick in my purse and it keeps me occupied when faced with long waits. (I also always have a clipboard of clean white sheets of paper on hand too - or a sketch book).

I keep an assortment of writing tools in this bag - everything from ball point "gel" pens to sharpies to fancy brush lettering pens.

For sketching and hand-lettering, I keep a graphite pencil, click eraser and a couple of different sharpeners in here too. (I like the Prismacolor Sharpener for catching shavings and sharpening my watercolor pencils and a super sharp magnesium wedge).

Here are a couple of my favorite brush lettering pens - Tombow Fude Brush Pen, Pentel Fude Touch Sign Pen and here's the link to both the soft + hard set of Tomboy Fude Brush Pens. I also have a set of the Tombow Dual Brush Pens but haven't used them much since purchasing them a few of months ago - I guess because they are colorful and I seem to like to stick with the black ink.

With that said, not pictured in this post are my go-to pens: ZIG, manufactured by Kuretake. I love this 5-pack of ZIG Millennium Collection pens because it contains all five of the different tip sizes and they are great for lettering, drawing and scrapbooking.

Not that you care much about my "every day" pen but since we are talking pens I figured I may as well show you my current favorite. (current as in the past couple of years). *wink* And I prefer to write with it on stacked white paper instead of a hard surface. Is that weird?

So that's it for pens - I hope that was helpful?

QUESTION #2
Hi Jessica. Love your blog. I thought somewhere I'd read that you have a gold foiling machine?
Is it the Heidi Swapp one? And do you think it's worth the money? Alex J.

I DO have the Heidi Swapp Minc! And I LOVE it!!
For those of you who don't know, it's an amazing tool that allows you to gold foil anything you've printed on a laser jet printer. It's technically called a "gold foil applicator" because it's a way for you to get gold foil sheets to"stick" to the black ink from a laser jet printer.

If you love crafting and DIY's and gold foil, of course, it's totally worth the money because the projects turn out SO darling!!  For instance, here are some personalized "Sparkle + Shine" stars I made for Ella and each of the girls on her gymnastics team last year.

So fun, right?
And do you remember the "Keep Your Fingertips Sprinkled With Stardust" art print I made?

TIPS: Don't have a laser jet printer? Neither do I. I just have everything printed by Office Depot and then bring it home to gold foil it. Although I am contemplating purchasing this HP LaserJet, recommended by Heidi herself! It's quite affordable. (Have a laser jet you love? Let me know).

If the 12" Heidi Swapp Minc is out of your budget, there is also a 6" Heidi Swapp MINI Minc for half the cost.

Do you have one already? If so, do you love it?

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So that's it for this week my friends...
but before we rush about and get on with our day here's some...

Random Girl Talk
1. For those of you who don't know...Barbie has a new body. 
2. Did you know Hershey now has "Candy by Color" available? You can find colored kisses (and other candies) in a variety of colors to match your events! Check out the Pink Foil Kisses, Blue Foil Kisses, Purple Foil Kisses, Green Foil Kisses and there's red, black and light blue, light green, and more.
3. Did you know there were TWO colors when Pantone announced their "Color of the Year 2016"? Loving the Rose Quartz. Serenity is pretty okay too.


P.S. Keep sending me your questions! I love hearing what you are curious about!!

DIFFERENT WAYS TO SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS
1. Email me directly: pnpflowersinc AT gmail DOT com
2. Leave a question on my Instagram feed anytime.
3. Leave it as a comment here on the blog.

KEEPiNG iT REAL
It took all the energy I had to finish this post you guys.
Still dealing with a nasty cold and finally went to the doctor yesterday and got some antibiotics.
But nothing was going to stop me from our Let's Talk Tuesday! I actually really look forward to these posts and I hope you do too.

Now...I think I'd better go take a little nap before I get the kids from school.