Aug 07, 2013
Taylored Expressions August Sneak Peek: Back to School
Gooood Morning! It’s another exciting day at Taylored Expressions! I think today is my favorite day of sneak peek products! All of the new products we’ve been sharing over the past several days will be available at the TE web store on Thursday, August 8th at 8am PST. Can’t wait until Thursday morning? Then join us on our Facebook page for the August Preview Party tonight starting at 6pm PST for our Preview Party! You’ll get an early look at many of our new products and a chance to start your wishlist!
There’s just something about the excitement of ‘back to school’ that gets me every year. I’m long since out of school myself and I don’t have kids in school yet either, but I still find myself wandering the back to school supply aisles at Target to replenish my stock of pens or find a super cool new container to hold them all! Grade school was an especially memorable time for me and I vividly remember making my teachers little crafty gifts. So as the designs were coming together for the August release I tried to keep memories of my own school days at the front of my mind.
My first project uses A Classy View, a set of back to school window scenes to coordinate with the previously released Arched Window and Picture Window dies:
I used one of the Mini Tear Off calendars and sized the entire piece to fit in the desktop calendar case. I thought it’d be the perfect addition to any teacher’s desk and a perfect Christmas gift (after I finish the rest of the months, of course!). I stamped the image and colored it with Copics and then added a piece of transparency over the top before gluing the scene inside the picture window. The ABC border along the bottom is from the Extra Credit stamp set. And I also added a pencil that was die cut and assembled from pieces in the From the Desk Of set of dies.
For my second project I used the Chalkboard Elements stamp set. This set was a concept brought to us by Jami as she wanted to have separate elements often seen in chalkboard sentiment design that could be pieced together to create chalkboard style sentiments for many different occasions. I also paired my chalkboard sentiments with the Blackboard and Accessories die set for these cards:
I used chalkboard cardstock (now available at the TE store!) and embossed the sentiments in white embossing powder. I know lots of people swear by the Stamp-a-ma-jig for lining up elements like this, but I think I’m just too lazy to drag it all out. So I used my grid line acrylic block and eye-balled the placement of each of the elements. They’re not perfect, but that adds to the hand-crafted charm!
I also wanted to show you how our Graphic Greetings series of stamps fits perfectly inside the Blackboard die:
This time I used a piece of wood grain patterned paper from the Vintage Bliss 6×6 pad to cut out the blackboard frame. And the little eraser and piece of chalk are also part of the Blackboard & Accessories die set. The layered flower is from the Friendship Blooms die set.
Here’s a small sampling of the different ways you can put together designs using the Chalkboard Elements set:
The Baker’s Dozen gals have even more ideas for using Chalkboard Elements and the back to school stamps and dies we’re releasing this month so make sure you stop by their blogs!
Carole Burrage
Charmaine Ikach
Heather Jensen
Jami Sibley
Jen Shults
Joan Ervin
Kerri Michaud
Nancy McKinney
Sankari Wegman
Shannon White
Shelly Mercado
Stephanie Kraft
Tammie Edgerton
Taylor VanBruggen
Wanda Guess
