"New" Product Tuesday: Taylored Expressions Balloons and Rainbow Brights

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my new weekly blog series: "New Product Tuesday."  Tuesdays are special in the Entertainment industry.  New albums and DVDs are released every Tuesday.  Back in the day, people used to line up and get excited about the new releases.  I'm sure some people still get as excited these days, but in the digital world... we are so used to having things at our finger tips that the idea of "waiting" for something seems to be a thing of the distant past.

In honor of "New Product Tuesdays" - I've decided to start a weekly blog series featuring a new craft product.  However, I must clarify my definition of "NEW" when referring to a new craft product in this weekly series.  These products are NEW to ME.  They may fall into a few categories:

• New Product Releases: new products that just entered the market within the last month or two.
• Products I've purchased but haven't opened: you know the feeling when you have one of those 40% or 50% off coupons at Michael's or you see something on clearance and you just want to try it out?  Well, here's where I'll try it out. It'll also force me to use the products in a creative way.
• Products I've inherited or received as gifts: occasionally friends will give me products to try... perhaps they're gently used or perhaps they've never been opened but were sitting in the closet collecting dust.  They're still new to me!
• Product I've rediscovered (i.e. stashed away in my storage closets or boxes): this just happened to me last week.  I found an unopened box of colored pencils that are probably 20 years old.  I've had a blast using them to make cards this week.  So fun! 

Anyhow, enough of an introduction.  This week's post features some fun products from Taylored Expressions: the Up Up and Away Cutting Plate and Rainbow Brights Paper and Sequins.  Here are the cards:

Balloon shaker card

Balloon Distress Ink Card

These products haven't been out too long -- the Up, Up and Away cutting plate was released in September 2014 and the Rainbow Brights paper and sequins were released in January 2015.  

                

 

The cutting plate is so cool.  It also comes with two separate balloon dies (a round one and an oblong one) which you can layer on top of the cutting plate, or you can die cut you own designs.  I also love the paper and sequins!  These remind me of my rainbow loving days of yesteryear -- wait, who am I kidding?  I still like rainbow colors today!  My old sticker album from 3rd grade featured pages and pages of rainbow stickers... some things just don't change!

Directions on how I made the cards are listed below.  Enjoy!

Balloon Shaker Card:

• Materials:
  • Pink cardstock: 4.25"W x 11"H, scored at 5.5" mark
  • White card stock: 4"W x 5.25"H
  • Taylored Expressions:
  • Up, Up and Away Cutting Plate
  • Rainbow Brights Patterned Paper (rainbow striped pattern)
  • Rainbow Brights Sequins
  • Happy Birthday Stamp
  • Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles die
  • Adhesive tape runner
  • Foam adhesive
  • Pink pen for the balloon strings
  • Acetate sheet for the window
  • Liquid adhesive
• Directions:
• Use the largest stitched rectangle die and cut the card front
• Use the stand alone balloon dies to cut three balloons on the white card
• Using the pink pen, draw balloon strings down towards the bottom of the card
• On the back of the white card:
• Cover the balloon windows with acetate.
• Use foam adhesive and section off the areas for each balloon
• Carefully fill each well with Rainbow Brights sequins.  I paired two colors for each balloon (pink+purple, yellow+green, blue+white)
• Add foam adhesive to the rest of the back of the card.
• Cover the back with the striped rainbow patterned paper.  Make sure the patterned side shows through the windows.
• Stamp the "Happy Birthday" greeting on a piece of white card stock.  Cut this down to a strip approximately 3.5"W x 1"H.  Cut a fish tail on the left side.
• Cut a piece of rainbow striped paper slightly larger than the sentiment banner to add a decorative border.
• Adhere the sentiment to the front of the card and curl the ends up by rolling the ends around a pen or pencil.
• Place the card on the pink card base and you're done!  Shake it up, up and away!

Balloon Distress Ink Card:

• Materials:
• White cardstock: 4.25"W x 11"H, scored at 5.5" mark
• White card stock: 4"W x 5.25"H
• Taylored Expressions:
•  Up, Up and Away Cutting Plate
• Happy Birthday Stamp
• Distress Inks
• Three shades each of red, blue, yellow and green
• Adhesive tape runner
• Versamark Ink Pad
• Ranger Liquid Platinum Embossing Powder
• Directions
• Use the stand alone balloon dies to cut two oblong balloons and two round balloons
• Use the Up, Up and Away Cutting Plate to cut the front panel of the card
• Use Versamark Ink and the embossing powder to cover the balloon strings on the front panel.  It's okay if you cover some of the balloons, because we will cover them with the colorful balloons
• Stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment in the lower right corner with Versamark and emboss this as well.
• Use Distress Ink and shade the balloon die cuts.  Here are the colors I used for each set of balloons:

                      

                  

• Adhere the balloons to the front of the card.  You're done!

Hope you enjoy these cards!