Product Review: A little peek into the USArtQuest Napkin Kit!

I will be showing projects with this kit, but for now I thought you might like a little peek inside the tin and a little review of it all!

After playing with the contents of this kit at Susan's workshop, (that's Mrs USArtQuest, Susan Pickering Rothamel, yes, name dropping here, again, lol!!) I was so excited to get my tin... and, oh, Christmas came early, I couldn't get the lid off quickly enough!!!!

But, before I begin on the napkin kit contents, I have a little confession to make, when I ordered this kit (and others) for the shop, I also ordered a number of individual items too, one of them was at the top of the list, I had a yearning for it that I cannot explain, I think you well know how that fluttery feeling of gathering crafting stash excitement goes...

Anyway, the kit I yearned for containing pots of uber fine, ultra weeny, tiny itsy bitsy particles of crystal shimmer was, boo hoo, out of stock!!! If any of you that order from us think we don't understand your disappointment when you want something that we are out of, do understand that we truly KNOW how gutting it is.  But...Imagine my excitement to find a little pot of that shimmery loveliness in the napkin kit, yay, those miniscule sprinkly bits from heaven had decended to surprise me!!

And here's that precious pot, unfortunately the photo does not do it justice at all, believe me it is the finest stuff you will ever find to sprinkle!  It's not even the usual fine glitter, that will seem lumpy in comparison.  I'll tell you more about it and the best way to sprinkle it another time:)

Ok, with a deep breath I'll move on to the rest of the kit.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the USArtQuest products are top quality, I'll be explaining more about the adhesive another time as it is MUCH more than just a glue and if you buy the kit you will be very impressed with the brushes too.

Susan has gone down the top quality route by including the excellent detail painting and flat brushes, and I have found them fantastic to use.  It's such a refreshing change to have good quality brushes in a starter kit, it makes a big difference to the quality of the work you can produce. 

Moving on now to the napkins themselves, every one of them in my tin has been WELL stroked, and you know the dilemia, which to use first, or can you bring yourself to use ANY of them?  Phew, my hands were flapping about stroking and chosing before I made my first and final selection.

I can honestly say that there isn't one that I don't like, there were no horrid ones sneaked into the bottom of the tin which may have cut the price of the kit in other's hands, and many of them have a lot of images on so I can see the kit really earning its keep for many more projects than I first thought.  Plus they are 2 and 3 ply so you can colour and use the underlaying tissue layers too.  Some had a faint print of the original pattern too, ah, an added bonus! 

Some of the napkins have 4 main images with pieces left over that you can use for other collage work, others have multiple smaller images all over that you can use individually and again the leftovers of these can be used very effectively.

The next pic shows a napkin that says it all, inspire, with a little peek at a part of the mica paint palette that is also included.  How fab are the colours of those napkins!!

A few more napkins, the smoothing sponge and one of the studio cups for using with glue or sprinkles oh, and a little peek at the instruction sheet.

 

Now to the Mica Watercolour Paints!  You get this palette of  6 luscious colours to paint on the napkins when you have fixed them in place on your project.  Pick out some of the detail in the napkin, then add the shimmery mica paints.  Believe me, it'll make then pop!  

USA

If you are reading and feeling a bit scared about the 'artiness' of this kit, well, Susan has provided you with 24 ATC size blank canvas' in the kit, well not canvas in the texture, but thick board that is not over facing to work with for your first projects.  When you have made them they will be like toppers or the main focal part to add to a card.  She's taken the scariness out in the kit and I'm sure that by the time you've used up those 24 cards you will be ready to move onto bigger projects.  We will be getting extra packs of those ATC blanks in stock if you wish to continue using them though.

You get 12 white and 12 black ATC/topper boards.  Plus there is the tin itself that can also be decorated!

A final peek at the kit contents...

At the start of our day at Sue's workshop we were drawn to her examples while we had our first welcome coffee.  They were truly and utterly amazing!!!  Just as I remembered they always were.  

All my classmates were in awe of her artwork too, there was LOADS of awesome stuff she has made with the products but there were some extra special pieces that looked like they were painted by hand, honestly we really thought she had hand painted them, but they were napkins with the extra detail added with her mica products and her acrylic paints.  I am amazed how nice napkins can look on artwork.

I hope you've had a good weekend and are keeping safe and warm!

Jill