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September Birthday Bash and Release

• At Taylored Expressions we are celebrating our 3rd Birthday and you are invited to our Birthday Bash!
• Sneak peeks Monday through Wednesday – lots of fun eye candy and inspiration!
• All of the new products will be available for purchase on Thursday, September 1st at 8 am PST. You’ll find it all in the Fresh out of the Oven Department at the Taylored Expressions Store.
• Every order placed Thursday – Monday will include a FREE Party Favor.  Details coming Thursday morning..
• To celebrate our 3rd Birthday, you have 3 WAYS TO WIN!

      1. Help Spread the Word! Grab our Birthday Badge from Taylor’s blog and post it on your blog for the week.  Then come back and    leave a comment with a link to your blog to let us know you’re spreading the word. You will be entered into a drawing for a $25 TE gift certificate. 

      2.  Join us on Facebook for an early reveal of all the new stamp sets Wednesday night beginning at approximately 6 pm PST.  You will have until 8 pm PST that night to comment to enter to win each new set.

      3.  Join us in our SCS Forum for a contest that will begin Thursday morning.  In the meantime you can see Baker’s Dozen sneak peeks there and chat with us!

Today’s sneak peeks feature three petite stamp sets (Autumn Wreath, Spooky Wreath, Moka Tabitha) and the Fall A la Carte stamp.  I have so much fun each month seeing what Nancy and Taylor have done with my seasonal wreath concept.  Both of the new wreaths this month are so super cute!  I think Autumn might be my favorite one of the bunch.

For my sample today I combined the Fall A la carte image with the Autumn Wreath Petite stamp set and of course I used the Seasonal Wreath Taylored Die.

I used papers from two different 6×6 pads – Echo Park Victoria Gardens and Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 – along with Really Rust and Early Espresso cardstock.  I stamped the Fall image on TE Choice snow white cs (should have used the buttercream, but I fixed that with some Antique Linen Distress ink and a sponge) and die cut it with the Frame It Up 1 Taylored Die.  I colored the image with copics and cut around the “L” so I could slide in some linen thread to hang the wreath from.  All of the acorns are covered with clear glaze pen.  I used the TE Medium Scallop Border Die at the bottom and the trim is some more from that batch I got on vacation. Some chocolate pearls finish it off.  The wreath was stamped and colored with copics before being die cut with the wreath die and popped up on foam squares.  The squirrel was stamped and cut out and adhered separately.

Now it’s time to see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up for today!

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild
• Wanda Guess

Thanks for stopping by.  Tomorrow is Release Day when everything will be available in the store and we’ll all have even more fun samples for you covering everything in the release!

Dies used today:

September Birthday Bash and Release

• At Taylored Expressions we are celebrating our 3rd Birthday and you are invited to our Birthday Bash!
• Sneak peeks Monday through Wednesday – lots of fun eye candy and inspiration!
• All of the new products will be available for purchase on Thursday, September 1st at 8 am PST. You’ll find it all in the Fresh out of the Oven Department at the Taylored Expressions Store.
• Every order placed Thursday – Monday will include a FREE Party Favor.  Details coming Thursday morning..
• To celebrate our 3rd Birthday, you have 3 WAYS TO WIN!

      1. Help Spread the Word! Grab our Birthday Badge from Taylor’s blog and post it on your blog for the week.  Then come back and    leave a comment with a link to your blog to let us know you’re spreading the word. You will be entered into a drawing for a $25 TE gift certificate. 

      2.  Join us on Facebook for an early reveal of all the new stamp sets Wednesday night beginning at approximately 6 pm PST.  You will have until 8 pm PST that night to comment to enter to win each new set.

      3.  Join us in our SCS Forum for a contest that will begin Thursday morning.  In the meantime you can see Baker’s Dozen sneak peeks there and chat with us!

Today’s peeks are all about Halloween which is Taylor’s favorite stamping holiday.  I’m not big on Halloween, but I must say that both of the full sized sets we are showing today are super cute and really fun to play with.  My sample features Fangtastic illustrated by Doug Applegate for the Apple Doodle Ink line.

I just love this fun haunted house image.  As a kid, I remember spending hours with my best friend drawing haunted house pictures to put up in our front windows at Halloween time.  And for some reason I’ve always been drawn to all sorts of house stamp images.  I know it’s not politically correct in the stamping world to say this at the moment, but I’ve got to be honest and say that sometimes I get tired of coloring with Copics.  There I said it.  Waiting to see if lightening strikes…..no?  OK then…  For this card I decided I wanted to do some watercoloring, so I heat embossed the image using black pigment ink and kaleidascope embossing powder on confetti white cardstock.  I watercolored with Derwent pencils and an aquapainter.  It was fun to go back to watercoloring for a change.

The moon was created by punching a circle out of a piece of cardstock and placing that cardstock over my image panel.  I dabbed on Versamark ink through the hole and then stamped the bat image before embossing with clear embossing powder.  Then I sponged peach and saffron ink around the moon.  I masked the house and sponged gray and plum ink to create the dark moody sky.

I used Karen’s Sweet Sunday Sketch (SSSC132) turned on it’s side for the layout of this card.

The cardstock and patterned papers are from the Spooky Project Pantry being introduced today.

Taylor is doing something a little different this month with the Project Pantry.  As you know, the idea behind the Project Pantry is that when you want to bake up a yummy dessert you head to your pantry for the ingredients.  When you want to create a sweet papercrafting project, you can head to our Project Pantry for all the coordinating elements.  We’ve found that some of the best cake and cookie recipes are the ones based around a basic batter or dough recipe with lots of options to spice it up according to your tastes.  This month we are offering our Basic Recipe Kit along with optional Spice It Up Ingredients that you can pick and choose from to build the kit just the way you want it.

The Spooky Project Pantry Basic Recipe Kit is $11.95 and includes:

Echo Park Apothecary Emporium 6×6 pad

10 sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ cardstock in coordinating colors

6 yards of ribbon (2 yards each of 3 different styles)

Optional Spice it Up Ingredients (choose any or all) are:

Black Sparkly Fluff

Black/White Enamel Accents

Orange Rhinestones (used on my sample)

Black Pearls (used on my sample)

Halloween Button Assortment

Spooky Cardstock Pack

Spooky Ribbon Bundle

When you go to the Spooky Project Pantry in the store on Thursday you will see the optional items linked under the Basic Recipe kit, so you can pick and choose what you’d like to add to your cart.  We know you’ll have fun customizing your kit!

And now let’s see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up with the Project Pantry and the two new Halloween sets:

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild
• Wanda Guess

Thanks for stopping by.  Tomorrow is all about Autumn!

With the coming September Release, Taylored Expressions will turn 3!  I’ve been along for the whole ride and I can’t believe it’s been 3 years since that initial release of three Cuppie stamp sets! We want you to celebrate with us!  Here’s a run-down of what we have going on this week.

September Birthday Bash and Release

• At Taylored Expressions we are celebrating our 3rd Birthday and you are invited to our Birthday Bash!
• Sneak peeks Monday through Wednesday – lots of fun eye candy and inspiration!
• All of the new products will be available for purchase on Thursday, September 1st at 8 am PST. You’ll find it all in the Fresh out of the Oven Department at the Taylored Expressions Store.
• Every order placed Thursday – Monday will include a FREE Party Favor.  Details coming Thursday morning..
• To celebrate our 3rd Birthday, you have 3 WAYS TO WIN!

      1. Help Spread the Word! Grab our Birthday Badge from Taylor’s blog and post it on your blog for the week.  Then come back and    leave a comment with a link to your blog to let us know you’re spreading the word. You will be entered into a drawing for a $25 TE gift certificate. 

      2.  Join us on Facebook for an early reveal of all the new stamp sets Wednesday night beginning at approximately 6 pm PST.  You will have until 8 pm PST that night to comment to enter to win each new set.

      3.  Join us in our SCS Forum for a contest that will begin Thursday morning.  In the meantime you can see Baker’s Dozen sneak peeks there and chat with us!

Today the Baker’s Dozen will be sharing peeks of two new full sized sets, Build a Treat and Buikd a Treat Borders, both concepted by the fabulous Sankari Wegman and illustrated by Nancy McKinney.  These two sets have coordinating die sets that you are going to love as well!  Plus we have a Birthday A la Carte stamp and a Petite Cuppie set on the menu.  Lots to see!

My sample features Build a Treat plus the Build a Treat Tops & Bottoms Taylored Die set and the Tiny Toppers Taylored Die Set.  Build a Treat allows you to create an almost endless combination of cupcake and ice cream treats with 30 images for options for solid stamping, coloring and paper piecing.

The cupcake on my card was created with separate top and bottom images from the stamp set which were stamped onto patterned paper and then die cute with the coordinating dies.  The little cherry on top is from the Tiny Topper Die set.  Isn’t that so fun?  I used papers from the MME Lost and Found Two Blush 6×6 pad.  I <3 this pad – it’s so yummy!  The Eiffel Tower and French sentiment are printed on one of the papers and I thought they would be wonderful with a paper-pieced confection!  I covered the frosting with clear glaze pen and added Baby Bling pearls  The focal panel was cut and layered with Spellbinders Labels Four and Labels Four Small.  I added a Want2Scrap pearl flourish as well as Liquid Pearls in Flamingo.  The crocheted trim is from the batch I picked up at an antique store on our vacation and the ribbon is SU.  A Webster’s Pages Little Whimsy finishes it off.

And here’s the inside of the card.

I layered Spellbinders Double Ended Tags over Fancy Tags for the sentiment. Th ecardstock sI used are Pool party and Basic Gray from SU.

And now let’s see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up:

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jen Shults – welcome to our Guest Desisgner!
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen – get all the info from our Founder
• Tori Wild
• Wanda Guess

I’ll be back tomorrow as we switch gears into Halloween.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Friday!  It’s time for another Taylored Expresison Sketch Challenge and I hope you’ll play along.  TE stamps are not required. You have two weeks to play and one lucky player will be drawn to win a gift certificate to the TE Store!

Today’s sketch came from Crew Member Rachel Sztonyk.

I pulled out Green Acres and the August Key Ingredients featuring Echo Park Country Drive.  When Green Acres was in development, I remember being excited to stack the animals on top of each other.  But then when the set came I had so many ideas for it, I just never got around to doing that.  So this card is a long time coming.

Images are colored with copics and I sponged some Baja Breeze ink around them.  I used the Picket Fence Taylored Die for the element on the right side of the sketch.  Spellbinders used are Labels 4 and Wonky Rectangles.  I just wasn’t happy with the card and kept staring at it until I realized it needed a very narrow black layer to make it pop.  Yep, that did the trick.  Embellishments are Stickles (yellow and fruit punch), KaiserCraft black pearls, and a couple of buttons from my stash.

Now let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has in store:

• Cassie Trask
• Jami Sibley <– you are here
• Lisa Hjulberg
• Lori Craig
• Margie Cortina
• Monika Davis
• Rachel Sztonyk
• Taylor VanBruggen <– get all the deets to play along here
• Tracy Clemente
• Guest Stamper:  Kelly

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Happy Thursday!  I wanted to be sure to share the third project from my class last week before too much times goes by.  As soon as I saw the Now You’re Cookin’ A la Carte stamp and the Domestic Goddess designer paper in the SU catalog, I knew I needed them.  First they remind me of my 40’s kitchen and second, I coordinate a Summer Supper program at our church and I knew they would be perfect for thank you cards for the team leaders!

I had this idea rolling around in my head and then I saw a card on JanTink’s blog that solidified it.  At least I’m pretty sure that’s where I saw it because I can’t find it now.  The image was stamped with white craft ink on Kraft (Crumb Cake) cardstock and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  It’s SUO except for the little black scallop mat behind the image that I die cut with a Nestie. Looking forward to playing with that stamp some more!

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ll be back tomorrow morning with a new Taylored Expression Sketch Challenge.

Happy Hump Day!  Just a quick post to share one of the projects we made in my class last week.  Even though I am no longer a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, I still like to hold a New Catty Class once a year and take an order as the hostess.  So here’s an SUO project featuring the Box #2 Die and the Four Frames stamp set.

I purchased the box die quite some time ago and I hate to say that I had never used it.  It’s an adorable little favor or gift box and these went together in a snap.  I checked and Ghiradelli squares will fit inside, among other things.  😉  I picked up several packages of the crocheted flowers from the SU clearance rack awhile back, so I pulled the color scheme from there.  Sweet and simple!

I hope you’re having a great week!  Thanks for stopping by.

So…I typed up most of this post a week ago.  I was in the middle of editing it when SCS went down and took my blog with it.  UGH!  I haven’t been feeling well for the past week, so I never had the energy or the heart to come back and see if I had any part of it saved as a draft, until now.  Well fortunately, I did.  So when you read “last week” below, it’s really week before last…

Last week we spent Monday through Thursday in a beautiful Bed & Breakfast in Santa Barbara and we took Tessa with us.  This was our first time traveling with her (other than in the 5th wheel).  Santa Barbara is, hands down, our very favorite destination and we are so fortunate that it’s only a 2 hour drive away (barring any nasty traffic.)  We usually stay at Cheshire Cat which is a B&B we adore, but when we called for a reservation we discovered that they wouldn’t allow us to bring Tessa (although we had previously been told it would be ok.)  So we went searching for a pup-friendly B&B and we found the Old Yacht Club Inn.

On the way up, I told Curt that I wasn’t expecting much because I didn’t want to be disapointed.  But the low expectations were totally unneccessary.  The Old Yacht Club Inn was lovely!  We had a very large room with the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in away from home.  The bathroom was quite large and well-appointed.  Best of all we were just a short one block from the beach.

I have a few vacation pictures to share. (click on them to see them larger) They were all taken with my phone because, although we did take a camera it turned out to have a dead battery in it.  *sigh*

On the way to Santa Barbara we always like to stop at the Summerland Beach Cafe for lunch.  Fortunately they have an outdoor patio that allows for dogs.  Across the street is a lovely little park with a  beach view.

On Tuesday morning we took a long walk along the beach down to the pier.  In the afternoon we enjoyed an awesome Farmer’s Market on State Street.  In fact we got all kinds of yummy stuff (fresh bread, almond butter, pesto hummus, Gaviota strawberries, pluots, cheese, pistachios) and made a dinner out of it.  Here’s a photo of me and Tessa on our morning walk.

Did I mention that I lost a conatct lens the first night and had to wear my glasses the whole time?  No sunglasses – ugh!  My face hurt from squinting for 3 days!  But the weather was wonderful!  It was about 65 when that photo was taken and I think the warmest it got the whole time was maybe 75.  Love love that cool weather!

Here’s the front of the B&B.

And here’s the beach view we got when we walked about 50 yards.

I hadn’t wanted to take Tessa actually onto the beach because I didn’t want her to get all covered in sand when I had no way to bathe her.  Plus, although I LOVE to look at the beach, I’m not much of an actual sand and sea person.  But on our last morning we decided we should see how she would react to beach and sand.

Oh my goodness – she loved it!  She just wanted to run!  We kept her on leash because we really weren’t sure if dogs were allowed on the beach. You know it’s funny – I’ve never talked to so many people on a vacation.  People constantly stopped us to say cute Tessa is and to ask what kind of dog she is.  (Curt says he wants to get a sign made for around her neck that says “we don’t really know!”  LOL!)  We even took her in a store that had a “no pets” sign (Curt was holding her in his arms) and the owner walked right up to say how cute she is and ask about her.  It was quite an experience!

On the way home we stopped in Carpenteria to browse in a few shops.  I scored in an antique store that had a drawer full of all sorts of vintage trims.  These made me think of my friend Melissa Sauls.  Now if I can just channel some of her incredible talent!

Those tiny glittery jingle bells are sooooo CUTE!  Now I need to set aside some time to sit down and play!

Do you stamp as much during the Summer as the rest of the year?  I find that I’m just not motivated to create as much in the Summer.  I really have no idea why, since I’m not an outdoor girl.  Just wondering if other people feel the dame way?

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a great week!  I had my monthly stamp class last Friday night and I have a couple of samples to share from that.  I hope to get back her in the next dew days with those.  For now, I’m off to work!