Category Archives: Taylored Expressions

Over the Rainbow! Taylored Expressions Kit!

Posted on May 12, 2020 | 1 comment

Happy Tuesday, Friends! It’s been dreary here in the midwest, and the best thing about this Tuesday is the Somewhere Over the Rainbow Kit that is launching today from Taylored Expressions!

Can we talk about the RAINBOW goodness!

  • Two adorable rainbow stamp sets,
  • Super cute Over the Rainbow Die
  • Rainbow Cloud Duo Dies
  • Over the Rainbow Masking Stencils with alignment guides
  • Super fun and BIG RAINBOW sticker
  • Envelope with super cute seals and an adorable carry all pouch
  • YES, PLEASE!

For my first card, I used almost the whole kit with a pastel palette of inks to create this super soft rainbow explosion. The colors used here are:

  • pink champagne (warmer tone of the champagne pairs perfectly with the peaches and cream and pineapple rings below it!)
  • peaches and cream
  • pineapple
  • mint julep
  • confetti cake
  • lavender glaze

The awesome thing about the Masking Stencil – Rainbow is the double set with the rainbow inserts. The alignment guides (an original, creative brain genius idea of my friend Laurie Willison!)  allow you to switch back and forth with perfect line up. The included inserts help you keep sections clean as you cover and mask only on color at a time!

Tip: Be sure to clean your stencil in between colors with a cleaning cloth. 🙂 

 

 

After masking your rainbow stripes, the adorable rainbow accent stamps allow you to finish off. My stamped colors for accent between the blending were Peaches n Cream and Mint Julep. LOVING THIS COLOR COMBO! 

My clouds are spritzed with TE Liquid Watercolor Shimmer. All of the cardstock is Sugar Cube, but the shimmer makes the clouds stand out just a bit!

 

 

 

I loved crafting with this kit! Next,  I used the rainbow die-cut pieces and the negative pieces to create the 7 ring rainbow. I’ve paired it with puffy clouds. The flat bottom clouds in your Somewhere Over the Rainbow kit will be perfect to hide the ends of the negative snipped rainbow pieces when you create something similar.

My panel is cut from Petite Scallop Stacklets – put these on your wish list – and splattered with a little white paint. Rainbow set in the clouds for a wispful vision and finished off with the cute oh happy day sentiment from the kit!

My last card came together so quickly! Again I grabbed the Petite Scallop Rectangle Stacklets with Twinkle background and simple sentiment. You’ll love who easy these cards come together with a perfectly curated kit!

The entire Somewhere Over the Rainbow kit can be found here in the Taylored Expressions store. I’d suggest you hurry because this one will be a sell out!

Be sure to visit the Taylored Expressions blog for lots of rainbow goodness and inspiration, and I recommend a fast-grab if you like these adorable rainbows. I think they’ll be around about as long as the occasional rainbow beauties in the sky!

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Posted in Rainbow, Taylored Expressions

This is My Happy Face

Posted on January 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

Am I right? I do get accused of a having a grumpy face sometimes, to which I say, “if I’m grumpy, you’ll know it!” LOL None-the-less, I love Big Grumpy at Taylored Expressionsand his ! So much that the new Big Grumpy Valentine sayings arrived on my doorstep this week – can’t wait to make a few loving cards with those. LOL

A week or so ago, I found a YouTube watercolor tutorial done by Jessie Banks through a mutual Facebook group. I loved the layered, dreamy look of her vibrant color, and knew I wanted to give it a try!

[youtube]https://youtu.be/9fr5X2MGInI[/youtube]

Isn’t that video fun to watch? (Please leave Jessie some YouTube love and a thumbs up!) Trust me, it was even more fun to paint!!

Like Jessie, I masked my images with masking fluid. I love this Moltow Masking Fluid Pen, and unlike others I have bought and tried through the years, this one doesn’t gum up on me between uses. I didn’t cover my entire image with masking fluid – just about a 1/2″ border to keep him clean.  You can see on the left side of the sign that I got thin coverage in a few spots, but I was really pleased overall. Lifted clean after sitting on my watercolor paper for several days.

The background was painted with Daniel Smith Watercolors that I purchase from my dealer, Lydia Fiedler’s Watercolor Split Group on Facebook in convenient half-pan splits! It’s a great way to purchase beautifully curated collections of top-quality, beautifully granulating color. Above is the mixing chart created with my Janes Split from Lydia. Look at all of the color created with 15-16 colors! Gorgeous color in a tiny palette!

Big Grumpy and the sign were colored with a fairly new watercolor, the Karin Brushmarker PRO from Marker Universe. I love the vibrant color and fluid ink flow from these pens. You can use the color straight from the nib for watercolor or hand-lettering or create a palette. They blend beautifully straight from the nib with a watercolor brush, but I do prefer to paint with the grays from a palette I just scribble on a piece of plastic or acetate.

For the white gauche step, I used  Winsor Newton white gouache. love the rich, opaque look. If I’m being super lazy, I use the liquid Dr. Ph Martins Hydrus in a bottle. It’s great for quick and easy splatter.

Can’t wait to try this technique again and improve my “clouds”, but overall I love how this turned out. Let me know if you try it!

I’ve been busy prepping for a guest release spot that I’ll share on Saturday, so stop back by! Have a fabulous Thursday!

 

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Posted in Daniel Smith, Karin, Taylored Expressions, watercolor

Love, love, love… TE Release Day

Posted on January 7, 2020 | 2 comments

Welcome to the January Release for Taylored Expressions. Super cute stuff to LOVE today. And, if you’re here to check on my Seasons Givings Taylored Expressions gift certificate winner, stick with me to the bottom of the post!


Release Day at Taylored Expressions, and how awesome are the Hexagon Masking Stencils? I loved playing with these at an impromptu crafting day last weekend!

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Posted in Taylored Expressions

Seasons Givings Year 8

Posted on December 31, 2019 | 223 comments

Welcome to Seasons Givings Year 8

Edit 1/5/2020 – 10:00pm – Thank you for stopping by. Comments for my entry are closed. Winner will be announced Tuesday.

One of my favorite posts of the year, and thank you to my dear Latisha for inviting me to participate again. I love the season of giving, and I especially love being able to give back to our community!

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Posted in Daniel Smith, Karin, Marker Universe, Taylored Expressions

a Winter Noel and a Taylored Expressions Blog Hop

Posted on December 10, 2019 | 4 comments

Welcome to the Taylored Expressions Blender Brushes Blog Hop! Christmas crafting is among my favorite of favorite activities, and I the addition of this Layer It Cardinal die in the fall release made me smile. Like many families, the cardinal was a special sign to my grandma, and now I think of her every time I see one.

I used my blender brushes and the Taylored Expressions masking stencils to create this soft blue background with Confetti Cake and Gumball TE Premium Inks. Before I lifted the mask, I gave it a spritz with Liquid Shimmer mixed with water in spritzer – I love the Nuvo Spritzer – even, fine mist. LOVE. I’ve been using my extra to spritz my Christmas Cactus plants… time to order more! lol

Next, I cut the Layer It Cardinal die and the Pine Clippings die from watercolor cardstock and painted them with TE Liquid Watercolors. I mixed a little pink with Cherry POP for a cooler red, and these are a series of layers of color to build depth. After painting, the pine boughs are splattered with a bit of liquid white watercolor for snow. So easy!

Something fun to share today is the TE Holiday Gift Guide! So, just go ahead and hand your significant other or kids the link… For every $100 they spend, you’ll get a $20 voucher to be used in January… oh who am I kidding!? Just order what you want! LOL

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I know the rest of the hop team has lots of pretty paper goodness today, please check them out:

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Posted in Christmas, Taylored Expressions, watercolor

The Falliday Six-Pack

Posted on November 4, 2019 | Leave a comment

It’s a super fun time at Splitcoaststampers with lots of great Falliday Fest challenges this week to get you into the spirit – and ahead of the curveball for holiday crafting. I’m hosting a fun challenge today. You can get all of the details HERE. I hope you’ll join us for the fun!

This is a set of tags I made in a flash with the new Speed Tagging single stamp and die from The Greetery. SWOON on stamping and cutting so much pretty at one time!

Super easy and impressive with the coordinating die that cuts and embosses sweet details into each tag with a single pass through the die-cut machine.

Love the colors that I’ll pair with white and kraft wrapping paper on December 23rd. LOL  These Pinecones from Taylored Expressions have become my holiday favorite go-to! I usually line the steps up on my MISTI and cut a slew at one time. I have about a dozen left on my desk, ready to go for my next project!

Including these so you can see all of the extra tags I have from three inks and passes with the Speed Tagging stamp and die combo. SET.

I hope you’ll join my challenge this week. I’d love to see all of your creative tag ideas! Happy Stamping this week! I’ll have more to share tomorrow!

 

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Posted in Taylored Expressions, The Greetery

Holding You in my Prayers – Square Masking Stencils

Posted on October 24, 2019 | 2 comments

Thanks for stopping by on Day 3 of projects to showcase the new Masking Stencils from Taylored Expressions.

I must confess that several times in the last few weeks, I’ve sent store-bought-cards to people I care for. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed in any way, the thoughts are what’s important, but that has driven a little bit of my theme this week in creating cards that are easily mass-produced, or at minimum made in multiples because handstamped is always my preference to send. The Masking Stencils are awesome for that!

My first card features Wildflower Background and Sympathy Strips (which were a gift to me at Stamp Joy a few weeks ago – coming soon!) with the Simple Strips die. My background was created with the small Masking Stencil – Square and Confetti Cake ink, splattered with Sugar Cube ink and spritzed with Liquid Watercolor Shimmer. The background layer features my favorite embossing folder ever, Dotted Lattice.

Next up, I have needed several cards that speak peace and promise over a friend, and this small dove die is perfect for that. I created my background by blending Peaches ‘n Cream, Cupcake, Lavendar Glaze and Gumball inks inside the largest Masking Stencil – Square with Taylored Expressions Blender Brushes and splattered with Sugar Cube ink from a paintbrush.

I also blended a second piece of cardstock that I used to emboss and die cut the sentiment at the same time! I added a few scored lines across the bottom for visual weight, and called it done. Like my Christmas card yesterday – it would be easy to crank out a half dozen of these bases in 15-30 minutes. #winning

Finally, I have a simple fall hello with my favorite Plum Punch ink blended inside theMasking Stencil – Square. I added a leaf and a sentiment from Simply Stamped Leaves. 

There is plenty of inspiration today from the TE Team… I would love to thank them for inviting me to celebrate my friend Laurie Willison and these fun, new tools this week. Be sure to visit them for more fabulous ideas:

Thanks for stopping by!

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Posted in Taylored Expressions

Glory to the Newborn King

Posted on October 23, 2019 | 3 comments

Welcome to Day 2 of ideas to celebrate new Masking Stencils from Taylored Expressions! I love that Taylor was able to work with my dear friend, Laurie to bring this idea to life!  While these stencils quickly became a favorite tool for me, I’ve really been inspired by all of the projects I saw shared yesterday! Loved all of the ideas!

As the calendar shifts closer to November, of course my card-making brain starts thinking about Christmas cards – pretty but mass-produceable Christmas cards. That’s what I feel like I am sharing today.

In years past, I would never have attempted a design like this for mass-production because of the time-consuming tape off for the clean square background. So really, this year, Taylor has brought two awesome products to simplify and speed up this technique: Masking Stencils and Blender Brushes.

Glory to the Newborn King features a stenciled backdrop with the Masking Stencil Squares and a feature of Gumball, Plum Punch, Blueberry and Jelly Donut Taylored Expressions Premium Ink. I’ve brushed the background with my Blender Brushes.en I like to use Taylor’s Sugar Cube cardstock or Bristol smooth for this blending method >>> like butter.

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Posted in Taylored Expressions

New Blender Stencils from Taylored Expressions

Posted on October 22, 2019 | 4 comments

Very excited to be sharing a brand new product this morning from Taylored Expressions – in collaboration with my friend, Laurie Willison! If you do any kind of ink blending, you’ll love these stencil masks for basic shapes that allow for beautiful one-layer cards!

In collaboration with my friend Laurie Willison, Taylored Expressions is releasing 4 shapes today for blending stencil backgrounds: ovals (as show on my God of Hope card above), circles, squares and rectangles.

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Posted in Taylored Expressions

Farmhouse Lantern for All Seasons

Posted on October 2, 2019 | Leave a comment


Thrilled to be sharing a few projects today featuring a new set available tomorrow from Taylored Expressions called All is Bright. I was immediately drawn to the lantern because I have several decorated lanterns here at home that I love to switch around for the seasons.

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Posted in Christmas, Taylored Expressions