More is More

Happy Monday!  Our weekend was so incredibly jam-packed busy that I really need a day of rest! But that’s not going to happen since CHA starts on Saturday and I have a ton of things to do before heading out to L.A. for 3 days.  CHA is the Craft and Hobby Assocation Trade Show and I get to go with Taylored Expressions and walk the show looking for the newest and most awesome  papercrafting products to stock in the TE Store, plus hook up with stamping friends from across the country! (If you’re going to be there, please let me know!) One of those sweet friends is coming into town on Thursday and I’m excited to spend some time with her before the craziness of the show starts.

Today I want to share a sweet baby card I made for a friend who is just about 3 weeks away from her due date to deliver her 3rd little boy!  I’ve never had a lot of baby stamps and my current go-to set isn’t totally a baby set – Hangin’ Out from Taylored Expressions.  I do love the possibilities with this set for baby and lots of other things as well. (Click on photos to see them larger.)

I was excited when I had the idea to use the Heart Border Die from TE as the clothesline!  Cute, huh?  I used the Cosmo Cricket Circa 1935 Mini Deck for a vintage-y feel and kept the card really simple – just paper-pieced the elements and added a litle copic shading.

One of our big activites this weekend was getting my parents’ 38-foot 5th wheel trailer out of storage and bringing it to our house to live.  Curt is still working on building gates and a gravel pad for it to sit on at the side of our house, but it’s on our front lawn for now.  We’ll be getting rid of our motorhome soon.  I love our motorhome and will be really sad to see it go, but this trailer is much newer and much bigger and it’s a win-win for us to be able to use it and for my parents to not have to pay storage fees.  It has 3 slide-outs and when they are all popped out, it’s REALLY BIG!  Here are a few photos we took yesterday afternoon after getting the interior cleaned (it’s amazing how dirty stuff gets just sitting in storage!)

This is a view of the back half of the coach with both slide-outs popped out.

Here’s the kitchen.  Sofa is in one of the slide-outs.

Dining table is across from the kitchen.  Photo taken from the sofa.

Full-sized stand up shower.  The bathroom is quite large and there is a separate small water closet.  This is quite different from our motorhome!  I didn’t get any bedroom pictures yet because I still need to get the bed made up.  We’re just really excited that you can walk around the bed and not be snugged up against a wall, so Curt won’t have to climb over me to get out!  We need to start planning a little trip soon to figure out how everything works!  Anyone in SoCal have any suggestions as to where we should go first?   Here’s my criteria for the first trip: within a few hours drive, full hook-ups of course, dog-friendly, pretty area.  Let me know if you have ideas!

Well, I’ve got to run and get busy before my to-do list chokes me!  Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great day!

Happy Saturday!  Class last night was a blast as always.  Have I told you lately that I love my stampers?  *grin*  Just popping in with a quick post ot share the 3rd card we made last night.  I CASEd this card from the incredibly talented Baker’s Dozen team member, Karen Giron. You can view her original card in the TE Gallery where I found it.  This card features Love Everywhere which happens to be one of 4 Valetine sets on sale at TE for 20% through tomorrow.

Designer paper is SU as is the ribbon and cardstock (Real Red, Early Espressso, Whisper White.)  We used the Taylored Die Heart Border at the bottom of the card.  I just LOVE that die!

Thanks to all the ladies who stamped with me last night!  My next class is set for Friday February 18th and the focus will be Stampin’ Up! (which I do once or twice a year.)  I’ll have a regular class – 3 projects for $15 – plus I’ll be the hostess for a Stampin’ Up! Sale-a-Bration order.  If you’d like to place an order though me (whether or not you can make it to class), just let me know before the 18th.  For every $50 in product that you order, you get to choose a FREE SAB product and they have some SUPER CUTE stuff this year!  If you want to enroll in class you can mail me a check or Paypal me.  Just send me an e-mail to let me know.  Class space is limited and I cannot hold your spot until I get your class registration fee in hand (non-refundable.)  I’d love to have you join us!

I’ve gotta run.  Packed weekend ahead.  I hope yours is fantastic!

Happy Friday!  My stamp class is tonight, so I’m back to share another one of the projects we’ll be creating.  This card features my newest stamp set concept at Taylored Expressions – Seasonal Wreaths.  Our first offering in the series, illustrated by Nancy McKinney, was the Wreath of Love.  Of course there is also a coordinating Taylored Die that will fit all the upcoming sets in the series as well.  The little stamp sets are Petite 5.5″ x 3″ panel sets and sell for only $7.95.  Here’s the “Love” themed card we’ll be making tonight.

What do you think?  I’m tickled pink with this card.  Hope my girls love it tonight as much as I do!  *grin*  Not only will we be making three cards tonight, but we’ll be enjoying some dessert as well.  Yesterday afternoon I baked up a batch of these super yummy Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cookies.  I think they work equally well for Valentine’s as they do for Christmas! YUM!

I’ll try to get back tomorrow to share the 3rd card we’re making tonight, but I’m not making any promises.  I have a jam-packed weekend ahead and not sure I’m even going to make it to all the events we have on the calendar!  I hope you have a fantastic weekend.  Thanks for dropping by!

Happy Thursday!  My monthly stamp class is tomorrow night and we’ll be making three Valentine/Love themed projects.  All of my samples are made and I’ll be prepping everything today.  I thought I’d share a peek at one of the cards we’ll be making.

This is a super simple design, but really elegant I think.  Colors are vanilla and Riding Hood Red.  Ribbon and sentiment are SU and the butterflies are from a Taylored Die from TE.  The die has stamps to match, but I love just using it on different patterned papers too.

I’m planning to do a little baking today so I’ll have dessert to serve tomorrow night. I made Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cookies a couple of weeks ago and they were awesome!  I have 1 more bag of peppermint kisses left, so I want to try the recipe with different chocolate chips to evaluate which I like better.  I originally used Ghiradelli Bittersweet chips and tomorrow I’m trying Nestle Semi-Sweet Mini chips.  BTW – I don’t use the peppermint extract that is optional in the recipe.  Everyone who tried these cookies seemed to love them.  You should seriously print out the recipe and save it for next Christmas (since the peppermint kisses are a holiday item.)

On tha yummy note – thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a sweet day!

Taylored Dies used:

Happy Wednesday!  Do you remember being at the park as a little kid and trying to jump onto a merry-go-round that was already spinning?  Do you ever feel that way about aspects of life as a grown up?  I know this sounds weird, but that’s how I’ve felt about stamping and blogging lately.  I have tons of “toys” to play with and there are challenges all over the place I want to play.  I look at the blogs of so many talented women in my Google Reader and I think “hey, I wanna play”, but for some reason lately I just haven’t been able to jump on the merry-go-round.  I know that a lot of it has been the overwhelming mess that has been my stamp room lately and another big factor has been all the holiday craziness and just trying to catch up afterwards.  So I have to admit that I was just a little hesitant to sign up for the Taylored Expressions Blast from the Past Blog Hop this month.  I kind of waited till the last minute and decided to take the plunge.  I’m so glad I did!

I got my stamp room partially cleaned up and spent several hours yesterday working on samples for my class coming up Friday night (still ONE spot open if you want to come) as well as my card for this hop.  And IT FELT GOOD!!!!  The theme for this month’s hop is LOVE and we’re featuring TE stamps sets that have been available for 3 months or longer.  I knew i wanted  to play with one of the Animals in Love A la Carte images and ended up choosing the Scotties in Love.  Patterned paper is Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck Circa 1934 (TE seems to be out of stock at the moment).  I love the vinatge feel of this paper! 

I mentioned earlier all of the challenges swirling around in cyber-land and I have several I really want to play.  One of them was Karen Giron’s 100th Sweet Sunday Sketch and I found that it worked wonderfully with the image I chose.  My card is 5.25″ square.  I added a little interest with some zig-zag stitching, bisque liquid pearls, and the TE Heart Border die (seriously love that thing!)  My bow turned out a little skimpy because I was on my last pice of the polka ribon and it barely fit.  I probably should have settled for a knot.  Oh well.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today.  I have some class samples to share over the next couple of days and now that I’ve hopped on the merry-go-round, let’s hope I can keep the momentum (and the mojo) going! 

Time to check out the rest of the hoppers today.  If you’re not playing with us today, I hope you’ll sign up to play next month.  One lucky winner will be drawn for the TE stamp set of your choice!

It’s Day 2 of the January Sneak Peeks for Taylored Expressions and I’m excited to play along with the Baker’s Dozen today.  I think this may be the BIGGEST TE release ever and I know you wan’t want to miss a thing!  Everything being shown this week will be available in the TE Store Friday morning at 8 am PST.

Today we’re showing you 4 new Petite stamp sets.  Those adorable Apple Doodle Ink Penguins are back in 3 different Valentine sets and several of the girls will be featuring them.  The 4th Petite set is called Wreath of Love and I’m especially excited because this is one of my concepts amazingly brought to life by Nancy McKinney in the Whimsical Wishes line.  I thought it would be fun to have a wreath die and lots of seasonal wreaths to all fit in the one die.  So we’re starting off this month with an adorable heart wreath that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day or to express love year-round.  And to coordinate is the Seasonal Wreath Die and the Basic Bow Die too!  I have 2 projects to share today.  I have to apologize for the photos – had to take them late in the evening and struggled with getting decent lighting.  ETA: I’ve retaken the photos outside – although it’s quite dreary out, so not sure how much better they are.

My first project is a very simple tag.  I stamped the wreath in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and die cut it with the wreath die before coloring it with copics.  The wreath was layered onto a Spellbinders Label 9 and I highlighted the hearts in the wreath by covering them with Ranger Glossy Accents.  The papers I used are from the MME Fine & Dandy Tickled Pink collection.  I used the butterfly dies introduced yesterday to accent my wreath.  They work wonderfully with patterned paper – I didn’t even stamp them first.  I used the Basic Bow die at the bottom of the tag, but it also looks great on the wreath itself!

My second project is a mostly-white card…so not typical for me and yet it was the first thing I wanted to make when I got the staamps and die.  It has been floating around in my head and I’m honestly just tickled with how it turned out.  Aren’t those little birds so cute?  I always love it when Nancy does birds!

The TE Choice White Cardstock is the perfect weight for a card base.  I scored a frame with my Scor-Pal and added some sticky tape and StarFire glitter around 3 sides.  That adorable little heart border is another new die!  Isn’t that fun?  The wreath was stamped, die cut, colored with copics and Smooch and popped up on foam dots.  Really – thinking about this card probably took more time than actually making it!

Let’s see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up today!

Charmaine Ikach

Danielle Lounds

Donna Baker

Jackie Pedro

Jami Sibley   <—- You are here!

Jodi Collins

Karen Giron

Karen Motz

Melissa Sauls

Nancy McKinney

Regina Mangum

Sankari Wegman

Taylor VanBruggen

Tori Wild

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy the hop!

Taylored Dies used in today’s projects: