Review & Giveaway: CRI-Kits Gel Pens!

I have to say I'm super excited to share today's post with you.  I was asked to review and create a few projects with CRI-Kits gel pens.  I had a blast working with them and now you can too!   These pens are meant to be used in a cutting machine like a Cricut, Silhouette, Pazzles or Sizzix eclips, so instead of cutting your paper, you are drawing the images.  Pop them in your cutter to draw detailed designs, add extra embellishments or perfectly scripted text.   And even if you don't have one of these machines, the pens are still excellent to use by hand.  There are tons of crafting possibilities for using them.  So here are a few of my project ideas & how the pens work.

There's a special holder that uses a rare earth magnet to hold the pens firmly in place.  Super easy to load:

Simply swap it in where your blade housing normally is and presto!  You're ready to draw.

The pens have a nice consistent flow - no worries about ink blobs or smearing.  And they dry lickety-split, so as soon as you're done drawing, the ink is dry!

There are several inks available too - Regular & Neon, Glitter, Pastel, Metallic and Swirl, so there are lots of looks you can create.  Swapping the pen colors is easy too thanks to the groove in the holder.  When you've got limited crafting time (like me) the less time required to set things up, the better.

But what can you make, you ask?  Let's have a look - 

I'd seen cute butterfly specimen cutouts before, but by adding a little detail from CRI-Kits metallic pens, this one stands out from the crowd:

I used different colors from the metallic set to add the delicate embellishments.  

The trick is to do the cutting step first and then hitting "load paper" to set things back to get the right spot to draw on.

It is perfect for creating unique cards & scrapbook pages.  I used my Sure Cuts A Lot software to mix several free svg files & fonts I already had to make this one-of-a-kind card with the Regular & Neons:

When you have horrible handwriting & no drawing skills like me, writing things on by hand always seems to wreck all the pretty crafting work already done.  But using the CRI-Kits pens means I can "write" in any font I want, so things look perfect every time.

And this means that personalized stationary is all within reach too.  I created this envelope with the Glitter pens, SCAL & scrapbook paper, so it could be pretty on the inside & out:

I really love how much detail the pens can do - even when the shapes are very small.  Cutting blades can struggle when things are tiny or very fine, but not the pens:

The pens do great on all sorts of paper, but aren't meant for slick surfaces like vinyl or vellum (but there are some new CRI-Kits products that will coming soon).  I used some card stock & attached it to flat magnet paper to make these little magnets for the fridge too:

  

I'm kind of embarrassed to say that when I bought my Cricut Expression last year I purchased a set of these pens, but didn't really do much with them.  Now I've got loads of ideas and wonder how I crafted so long without them!

CRI-Kits will be giving away a pen kit & holder to one lucky Sew Can Do reader!  The winner will get to select their choice of pen kit compatible with their machine.  

And here's a special offer for everyone!!

For a limited amount of time, Sew Can Do readers can use the purchase code "hedgehog1" to receive a 5% discount on all purchases through the CRI-Kits site

Here's how to enter:

• Visit the CRI-Kits site and check out the pens.  Then comment below on which set you'd like if you won

For additional entries (leave a separate comment for each one):

• Become a follower of Sew Can Do
• Become a fan of Sew Can Do on Facebook
• Become a fan of CRI-Kits on Facebook
• Mention & link to this post on Facebook

The giveaway will be open through 11:59pm ESTApril 27th is closed.  The winner will be chosen randomly and announced on May 2nd at the Craftastic Monday party.  Good Luck Everyone!