Taylored Expressions-The Monsters

As promised, I'm back today with the new Taylored Expressions mini release! If you stopped by yesterday, then you probably saw my Father's Day card, but if not, you can check it out HERE! Today's a busy day on the blog, so if you've come for either the Reverse Confetti Blog Hop or the SugarPea Designs Mix It Up Challenge post, please scroll down! I'm celebrating it ALL today; Moms, Dads, Grads, and birthdays! To start things off, let's begin with the adorable new stamp AND die set called Little Monsters. This is a stamp/die combo that is sold as a set and it is so much fun!

I'm in need of some fun/non-floral birthday card designs and these monsters are the perfect thing, especially paired with these super cute sentiments. Both of the sentiments are heat embossed in white onto black cardstock. I love how crisp and clean the sentiments look when they are embossed in white!

For both designs, I used Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, and Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide Ink to create a bright blended background. Speaking of blended backgrounds, I have a funny story to tell: I was taking my daughter to school yesterday and there was a car in front of us with the license plate number "2TONEBG". As we got closer, I told my daughter that they must be a cardmaker and used the license plate to say "TWO TONED BACKGROUND". My daughter said,"Mom, what kind of car is that?" I replied that it was a VW Beetle. She said,"Like a BUG, right?...It means 2 toned Bug, Mom!" LOL! Of course that's what it meant! silly me, thinking it was a 2 tone background mobile! Ha ha! Of course I didn't REALLY think it meant that! It was just fun to imagine that is was! LOL!

Anyway, once I got the backgrounds blended, I got to work stamping and coloring the cute monsters and accessories. For this card, I really just colored the images exactly like they are colored on the cling sheet that they come on. I thought they looked so cute, why mess with what works, right? Once they were all colored, I die cut them with the included dies in the set. I also die cut some circles from white cardstock leaving some portions straight to create an offset design. These were easily added to the 3 Tone blended background {hee hee} using foam squares. I also added some googly eyes to the blue monster for some added whimsy and detail.

The polka dots at the bottom of the medium circle are just piece of Washi tape that I picked up at the Dollar Tree recently. I simply adhered it to strip of cardstock and then ran it through my Cuttlebug with the same circle die. I just added it with regular adhesive. I also added some black ink splatters using my Color Spritzing Tool.

 This card uses all of the same design elements as the previous card, just arranged differently, of course. These monsters got colored differently and I only used one black circle to showcase the punny sentiment. The googly eyes made a reappearance because you USE googly eyes when you CAN use googly eyes, am I right?

I didn't add and black splatters to this design, but opted instead to add a spritz or 2 or 3 of Shimmer Spray before I added the die cut pieces. I also added some Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the Sully-esque monster holding the party blower! I also added some white dots and details to the monsters using a white gel pen. These cards make me happy and I can't wait to give them to a deserving recipient!

My next 2 projects for today use the new Inky Fingers-Monsters stamp set. These are so much fun to use and your fingers will indeed be inky! My cute kids are in the middle of end of year testing and my 2nd grader's teacher sent home some cute notes of encouragement and praise that we could give to our kids each day. I thought it was such a cute idea so i've been using them for ALL of my school aged kids each day. I have just been buying their favorite snack or treat each day and they come home and find it on the counter and get excited. I ran out of notes last week, so I thought this Inky Fingers-Monster set would be just the ticket for my cute boys {and girl}.

 Two of my boys have missing teeth and just their big front chicklet teeth are grown, so these little monsters are so perfect! I just stamped them in black and then used different colored ink and my finger prints to ink them up.

The ones that say "Eye think you're the Best" on the outside, say "I love you so much it's scary" on the inside and vice versa for the other two. I used the same Washi tape that I used on the cards because it looks so cute with the gumballs. I put the gumballs in pretzel cellophane bags and tied them up with ribbon and the cute tags!

Here are 3 of the monsters that have just found their cute treats! They were tickled with them which always makes me happy!

 My last card of the day is super CAS, but I love how it turned out! I used the Caps Lock Dad die to die cut it 3 times using black cardstock. I glued them together using liquid glue and adhered them to the white panel using tiny strips of foam tape. 

I stamped the "Your little Monster Loves You" sentiment in black just underneath the DAD word. I was wishing it said MONSTERS, since I have so many, but I ended up using the "Happy Father's Day from your little monsters" sentiment on the inside with a monster to represent each of them.

I also stamped my favorite monster at the top and inked my finger up in red. This particular monster reminds me of my 7 year old, especially the teeth. The fact that it looks like a devil is even more fitting! LOL! Anyway, I had so much fun working with these Monster sets! Thanks for fluttering by!