Taylored Expressions Blender Brushes

I have a set of Taylored Expressions sympathy cards to share with you today, as well as some new ink blending combinations. Sympathy cards are so hard to make, yet unfortunately they are needed from time to time. I’ve made sympathy cards in the past while I was grieving, and that was tough. I don’t want to do that again, so now I keep several on hand for myself.

A few months ago, Kristina Werner did a YouTube series on Distress Oxide blends. There was a particular video (link here) that I fell in love with, and inspired me to make these cards.

Last month, Taylor introduced a genius product: Blender Brushes. I have to admit, besides my die-cut machine, they are the most-used tool in my craft room. I love working with inks, and making my own backgrounds. and these brushes blend ink like a dream!

I stamped and white heat-embossed Big Blooms-Lily onto two panels of Sugar Cube card stock. I also stamped and white heat-embossed the Simple Strips Background (another TE genius product!), and used the coordinating die to die-cut the sentiments. I picked two sympathy strips for this project.

I used TE Raspberry Sherbert, Peaches and Cream, and Pineapple inks for this first card. I started with Pineapple ink and my yellow Blender Brush, and worked my way down the panel, changing brushes for each ink, then back up. I find this technique for me gives me the best blending results.

For my second card, I used TE Pineapple, Spearmint, and Mocha inks. I don’t know why I pulled these colors out to use, but I am so glad I did. This was my favorite blend of the day.

I trimmed the panels to 3.75×2.5 inches, and used foam adhesive to pop the panels up on the card bases. I used thin foam squares to add the sentiments.