Hi fellow Silhouette users!

Have you fallen in love with the sketch option of your Silhouette like I have? I love that I can journal and draw nearly anything from my Silhouette. I first started “sketching” when I, like many others, was unable to get the famous Studio Calico “Lost Boys” add-on kit which had the over the moon stamp set. The had offered the digital stamp set and I imported it into my silhouette software. I definitely fell in love with the results (you can see where I had posted about it HERE)

After that, I was hooked, I bought every silhouette sketch pen that was on the market. The most popular being the sketch pen starter set.

These pens run about $20. While they worked great for me for the first few times, the ink stopped flowing consistently and i ended up with skips in my design and journaling. I did love the free sketch shapes that came with the pens. I found, like gel pens, if you tap the top of the ball point on paper before using it works a little better. Unfortunately I still had the skipping problem so I purchased the ballpoint pen holder also from silhouette.

While this is not a bad solution I was REALLY limited on what pens I could use in it. some ballpoint pens fit and some did not. It left me more frustrated than happy. I still really wanted to utilize the sketch designs I had. I began searching for another option or maybe an aftermarket pen that would fit and that’s when I stumbled upon the Chomas Creations website. She had pen holders of all types for different machines. Now I was skeptical and  hesitant to purchase one of these. I saw YouTube videos using the pen holder and it LOOKED like it would be a good option but I was nervous that I would have the same problems i had already experienced. I decided to give it a chance and purchase the pen holder first (she has a marker holder as well), this is what it looks like:

I was so pleased with how this little pen holder worked, and I put it to the test with several pens and every time I was very happy with how the sketches came out. Chomas Creations really knocked it out of the park on this one! The pen holder is not some cheap plastic thing but sturdy.

I emailed the owner of the Chomas Creations, Amy, and let her know how much I loved her product. she emailed me back within hours and thanked me for my email. She told me that she was a small home-based business (4 years old now) and they manufacture their product right here in the USA. You can really tell the quality when you hold one of these pen holders. While they could of saved money producing a cheaper product in china they produced a high quality product here in the states that will really last and not fall apart.

Now the only negative thing I could possibly say about this pen holder is that it does not hold ALL pens but it does hold most. My favorite pens to use for silhouette sketching and Amy’s holder is the Staedtler fineliner marker pens and the Signo uniball white gel pen. I got a small set of the Staedtlers at michaels in the art section of the store. You can also purchase them HERE at Jetpens.com (my favorite online pen source) Chomas Creations does carry a marker holder as well that I need to order. I am hoping the marker holder might fit some of the other pens that I have. Did you know you could even put a stylus in the holder and do some dry embossing?

Good stuff, my friends, good stuff! I love supporting small and home-based businesses when I can. Amy told me that there is a sale going on right now for 10% off your total purchase. Just use the code JUNE13 when you check out. I wholeheartedly recommend this “Pickle Product Pick”!

Happy Sketching!