Tulip Fabric Markers–Worth it?

DragonCon is over…AWA is yet to come…and I no longer have a pressing cosplay to finish (unless you count Megumi from Food Wars…but I’m not going to call that pressing), which means back to making things for Holly Days!  They officially accepted me last week, so it’s really going to happen! (November 10-11, mark your calendars!)

Tulip Fabric Markers

Instead of stressing out, I’m trying to figure out all the bits and pieces I’m going to need to bring with me, and I need fabric markers if I’m going to make stuff out of coloring fabric.

These are Tulip, and I’m regretting not buying the dual tip ones.  This pack was $20 for 20 markers (at Joanns, I used a coupon), but the dual tip ones come with 14 colors for the same price.  I thought more colors would be a better deal.  I may have changed my mind.

Candy Fabric Colored in

As you can see, they bleed–my mom and I colored around the edges of my test strip.  Once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t so much of a problem, but certain colors (like blue) bled more than others and I really had to remind myself not to color too close to the lines.

Red and Purple Lolipop

I also felt that the color was a bit too wishy washy.  I got over it after a while and pretended it was watercolor–but then I discovered that you can layer them!  Please keep in mind that you still have the bleeding problem, but it is possible to make the color stronger.  The purple and red lolipop on the left is probably my best example of this.  The light red and purple are before, the dark red and purple are from the second layer.

You can also layer different shades together to make a better color.  The half of a green lolipop in the middle/bottom was closer to the light  green of the candies on the right.  I then layered neon over the “dark green” and voila!  An actual, honest to goodness, saturated color.

I’m going to keep playing with it.  I’ll probably end up buying the dual tips to test out the fine points (they have really thin points on the dual tips), because I feel like the markers do what I want them to do.  Just not perfectly.  And if I’m going to bring some to my booth to sell, I want to make sure I’m bringing something I would use myself, that I can instruct someone else on how to use.

I’ll be trying out the “Colore Premium Fabric Markers” 20 pack in a few days–more reviewers claiming that they don’t bleed.  I hope I like them better!

Visit my Etsy shop here to buy a downloadable PDF of Coloring Bookmarks Eat Sweets! (The candy pattern on the bookmark)

I’m slowly but surely putting my DragonCon pics up on Instagram ( scribblerex ), so follow me! (And let me know who you are, if I know you!)