You know that I love a good craft kit.
I do have to confess that I’ve been surprised at the prices of kits these last few months. It feels like they doubled in price. I’ve actually cancelled all my monthly kit subscriptions with the exception of the Simon Says Stamp kit and the Altenew Mini Delight Kit. Simon Says Stamp sends you an invoice for the kit each month when you sign up for the subscription and you have the option to choose not to get a particular kit if you don’t think it’s something you will use. The Altenew Mini Delight is $7.99 a month and you get a mini stamp and die that is always a delightful little treat. The kit is aptly named!
Taylored Expressions has offered the last two months. The July kit was a cute snowman building kit that looked interesting, but it was pricey and I do have snowmen stamps in my stash. I just couldn’t justify it. The August kit however, really piqued my interest. It had several stamps and stencils that I looked at and realized they would be perfect not only for cards and scrapbooks, but for my mixed media projects. I’ve been looking for stamps and stencils that will add interesting textures and patterns to my projects. I thought about this kit for a few days though because it was pricey.
I was delightfully surprised when I got the kit. It came in a nice mesh plastic zippered bag. There were 3 stamp sets, 2 stencils with both the stencil and the mask, a die set, envelopes, and envelope seals. I love when a company thinks about how you can organize a product and includes that with a kit. It’s a thoughtful detail and it made the kit feel like an upper end kit. After spending several days playing with it, I know this will be a go to set for many future projects and it was well worth the money that I spent.
I’m looking at my purchases and thinking about how I will use something before I make my purchases. It needs to be multifunctional for me to spend my small crafty budget on it!!
I ended up creating 3 cards and a mixed media background for my art journal that I loved! I spent several afternoons experimenting with different media and playing with adding layers to get something I liked. I actually have a process video to share with you so you can see it from start to finish.
Here are the end products:
These cards were created with the piece of gessoed card stock that I was using to sop up the leftover ink from my intended background and it was used to clean my stencils! I considered it junk until I selectively cut it into three pieces to use for card backgrounds.
The florals are from one of the stamps in the kit. I stamped them onto watercolor paper and watercolored them in. I used the dies in the kit to die cut them out.
I love that card! That background was not created in any intentional way. It is one of a kind and can’t be recreated! I love that about it. I was just using that paper to clean up left over ink I used to just blot up with a paper towel. Wow!!
This experiment taught me a lot! I discovered that when you dry a layer and add a layer of ink spray on top, that ink spray can actually deepen the pattern below it. I also love this stencil from the kit. It feels like the center pattern has been highlighted. That grid stamp from the kit is fabulous stamped in that metallic gold, isn’t it?!
How great is it that you can sop up ink layer upon layer and use it for a card background?
I actually started out experimenting with adding gesso to regular 110# cardstock. I wanted to create some backgrounds and try out different color combinations.
There were at least two points where I almost chucked this in the garbage. I just kept adding layers and when I finally pulled out the watercolor paints and added some color to the stamping I had done on the background, it all fell into place for me. I’m still not in love with the big rectangle of blue ink spray, but I will love looking at this in my art journal when I bind all my backgrounds together in a couple of weeks.
This was several afternoons of adding layers and let them dry and trying new things with new stencils that I got from Stencil Girl and the Taylored Expressions kit. Plus I pulled out my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors and played with those. They are AMAZING watercolor paints.
Look at the depth I got with just a few layers. A professional mixed media artist would not consider this enough layers, but it was just right for me! This is the level I’m at right now at this point in time.
I love the results and I love how relaxing creating all of this was. I also love how much I learned about how these materials behave on gessoed cardstock!!
Check out my video and make sure you watch until the end!
Supply List:
Are you interested in the products I used? To make them easier for you to find, I have linked them below. (Affiliate disclosure ) Your purchases help keep my blog running at no additional cost to you and I thank you for the support!
Thank you for stopping by! I hope you find some part of creating that fills you up and relaxes you!!
