Joyful Creations with Kim: Taylored Expressions: Light of the World

One of the many things that first drew me to Taylored Expressions was their variety of faith-based stamps. Check out their Spiritual section here. They have cute flowers and elegant flowers, Christmas and Easter, hope-filled sets and princess sets!! I love the stained glass set Light of the World.

I thought long and hard about adding a sympathy sentiment due to the soft colors in the stained glass, but I just kept coming back to how I feel when I look at stained glass - I rejoice!!

I embossed the stained glass with a White Pearl embossing powder. To get a very soft background, I used a very watered down blue from a Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolor set. I used a soft brush and swooshed it over the entire piece letting it pool where it wanted to pool. (I did go back at the end and, using a finer brush, put a slightly less watered down version toward the bottom and around the outer frame - it just felt like it needed to be more grounded.)
Before the first layer dried I took pieces of paper towel and used a corner to pull up most of the blue from the cross and from some of the leaves. I'm sure I could have painted around them to begin with but it was so much easier to color all over with the blue - and it picks up beautifully with a paper towel.

I really struggle with regular watercolors in small spaces so I pulled out my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker in Olive Green to add some color to the leaves and my Zig Marker in Ochre to add a golden tone to the cross.

I took my pictures outside which is not my norm (mainly because my crafting typically takes place at 5 a.m. before I get ready for work!) I had to do it this time because the sequins are iridescent and they take on really odd colors when I use my regular photo studio. This is my favorite photo of the batch. I didn't use it as my main photo because of the shadows but it shows the soft metallic finish of the sentiment which is done with a platinum embossing powder.