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October Release At a Glance

• We have sneak peeks to share Monday through Wednesday.  All of the new products will be available for purchase on Thursday, October 6th at 8 am PST. You’ll find it all in the Fresh out of the Oven Department at the Taylored Expressions Store.
• Join us as a fan on Facebook for an early peek at the stamp sets, as well as a SPECIAL Facebook GIVEAWAY, on Wednesday night (tonight) beginning at approximately 6 pm PST.
• Mystery Baker’s Dozen Blog Giveaway: Each day, one lucky blog commenter will be chosen by random draw to win a $10 TE Gift Certificate.  Winners will be chosen from a different Baker’s Dozen blog each day and will be announced on Taylor’s blog on Release Day!  Be sure to hop around to see all the sneak peeks and leave comments on each and every blog for more chances to win. Limit one comment per blog per day, please.  Comments close Wednesday (tonight) 10/5 at 7pm PST for the drawings.



Welcome to Day 3 of Sneak Peeks for the TE Holiday Release!  So, have you liked what you’ve seen so far?  I know I sure did a lot of oohing and aahing as I hopped around the past couple of days!  Today we are featuring two Mini Stamp Sets.  Mini sets come on a sturdy 4.75″ square (CD sized) full color panel.  My sample was created with Wreaths of Joy.  It’s been so fun all year to see the different wreaths Nancy McKinney has illustrated from my original seasonal wreath concept.  Well, when it came to Christmas wreaths, we just couldn’t stop at one.  So instead of a Petite set like all the other wreath sets, we included two for Christmas along with some beautiful sentiment combos and are bringing you a Mini set instead.  It’s especially cool because one of the wreaths leans a little more to the fun and modern side (the one I’m showing today) and the other is a little more elegant and traditional.  And the Mini sets retail for just $12.95, so you are getting an awesome deal on this double wreath set!

I truly love the way this card turned out and it would really be do-able for mass production.  I used the 12 Days Project Pantry Basic Recipe Kit (cardstock, patterned paper, ribbon) and added some Kaisercraft Lippy Red Rhinestones (one of my very favorite colors!)  I colored the wreath with copics before die cutting with the Seasonal Wreath Die and then I covered the ornaments with Glossy Accents (super duper shiny and dimensional.)  The bird was stamped, colored and fussy cut by hand and then popped up on some foam tape.  The border was created with the Scalloped Eyelet Border Taylored Die and the image is layered onto Spellbinders Labels 4 and Labels 4 Small (I so love having the two coordinating sets for layering!)

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

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

If you want to see all the sets early, be sure to join the party on the TE Facebook page starting tonight at 6 pm PST!  Products will all be available tomorrow morning at 8 am PST and we’ll be back with one more round of samples too!

Thanks for stopping by!

October Release At a Glance

• We have sneak peeks to share Monday through Wednesday.  All of the new products will be available for purchase on Thursday, October 6th at 8 am PST. You’ll find it all in the Fresh out of the Oven Department at the Taylored Expressions Store.
• Join us as a fan on Facebook for an early peek at the stamp sets, as well as a SPECIAL Facebook GIVEAWAY, on Wednesday night beginning at approximately 6 pm PST.
• Mystery Baker’s Dozen Blog Giveaway: Each day, one lucky blog commenter will be chosen by random draw to win a $10 TE Gift Certificate.  Winners will be chosen from a different Baker’s Dozen blog each day and will be announced on Taylor’s blog on Release Day!  Be sure to hop around to see all the sneak peeks and leave comments on each and every blog for more chances to win. Limit one comment per blog per day, please.  Comments close Wednesday 10/5 at 7pm PST for the drawings.

Oh my!  You are going to LOVE the peeks today!  We are featuring full sized set Woodland Winter plus the coordinating Trim the Tree Taylored Die Set, Mini Set Banner Holiday, Petite sets Moka Betty and Moka Hope and Word A la Carte – SNOW.

I have 2 samples today featuring Woodland Winter and the coordinating Trim the Tree Taylored Die Set.  Honestly when my package arrived the very first thing I wanted to play with was the tree die set.  I actually made 4 cards in my first sitting because I loved it so much!  I’m sharing 2 today and I’ll share the other two at a later date.  It coordinates with the tree stamp in Woodland Winter, but in both samples today, I used the tree without the stamp.  I also used the Frame It Up 1 Die on both cards.

My first card also incorporates the new holiday sentiment set Banner Holidays which includes 16 sentiments formatted to fit into the Banner Day Dies 1, 2 , and 3. This mini set was illustrated by Taylor for the *te* collection.  I used Banner Day 2 Die along with a banner frame image from It’s a Banner Day 2.  The scalloped edge was created with the Medium Scallop Taylored Die.  That adorable little mouse is from Woodland Winter.  Papers are from the Echo Park 6×6 pad Holly Jolly Christmas.  The layered pieces of the tree die are just slightly smaller than the whole tree, so I cut various patterns with the layers and adhered them to a white whole tree and then added sugar sparkly fluff for the look of snow on the edges..

On my second card I cut green layers from patterned paper and curled up the edges before attaching them to a green whole tree as the base.  This card is a little more clean and simple and I used the Scallops and Circles Impression Plate on the red layer and the Musical/Swirls Imapression Plate on the white layer to add texture. The little squirell is popped up on foam tape.

Woodland Winter is a full size stamp set on a 5.75″ x 8.5″ full color sturdy storage panel.  It features 21 images and sentiments illustrated by Doug Applegate fro the Apple Doodle Ink line and will be available Thursday for $21.95.  Just wait till you see all the samples created by the Baker’s Dozen.  So so cute! I’m dying to get more time to sit down and continue playing with this set!

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

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

Thanks for stopping by.  Please come back tomorrow for Day 2 of Sneak Peeks!

Happy Friday!  What on earth happened?  I had grand plans of stamping and blogging every day this week….hmmmmm.  Well at least I didn’t miss the new Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge!  This is another really good one with tons of possibilities. I hope you’ll play along with us.  TE stamps are NOT required to play and there is a prize up for grabs by random draw.

Here’s my card featuring Embrace Beauty along with gorgeous elements from the MME Lush collection.

I created this card to coordinate with a paper bag album that we made in my class last week.  I hope to have photos and a video of that project up tomorrow.  For my card I stamped the image onto patterned paper with Chocolate Chip Craft ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder before die cutting with a circle Nestabilities.  That was layered onto a mat die cut with Lacey Circles.  The scallop was created with the TE Medium Scallop Border Die.  The little element in the upper left corner was created with two SU oval punches and a big pearl brad.  I added some piercing, taffeta ribbon and chocolate liquid pearls.  The sentiment is from Celebrate Life.

This is an anniversary card for a very special couple, so I will finish off the inside with anniversary wishes.  Now let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has in store:

• Cassie Trask
• Lisa Hjulberg
• Lori Craig
• Margie Cortina
• Monika Davis
• Taylor VanBruggen <— Get all the info to play along here
• Tracy Clemente
• Guest Stampers: Bonnie, Michelle

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you have a great weekend.  I’ll be back soon (in a day or so) with the paper bag book.

Happy Friday!  It’s time for a new Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge and I know you’ll really like this one.  Lots and lots of possibilities!  I decided to use the Crafty Petite set Sew Happy.  I love the Crafty Petites, but I’m ashamed to say that I had not ever inked this set before.  SEW glad to finally make some time to use it!  (Sorry for the photo – I was running late and had to take this at night.)

My card is 4.25″ square and I used the smallest die in the Spellbinders Labels 9 set for my images.  The images were stamped on TE Choice Buttercream cardstock and sponged with Crumb Cake ink while still in the die, then colored with Copics.  The middle image is popped up on double thick 1/8″ foam tape.  I used Want2Scrap Baby Bling Pearls for the heads of the pins – they are perfect!  Patterned papers are from the MME Lost & Found Two Blush 6×6 pad – I think this is my current favorite paper!  I added a Webster’s Pages Little Whimsy flower on top of the bow for that special little sumthin’-sumthin’.

Now lets’ see what the rest of the Sketch Crew came up with:

• Cassie Trask
• Jami Sibley <– you are here
• Lisa Hjulberg
• Lori Craig
• Margie Cortina
• Monika Davis
• Taylor VanBruggen <– get all the deets to play along with us here
• Tracy Clemente
• Guest Stampers: Jessica, Chris

I hope you’ll give this sketch a try.  TE stamps are not required to play and there is a prize drawing!  You have two weeks to enter.  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  Thanks for stopping by!

• All of the new products are now available for purchase! Check out the Fresh Out of the Oven Department for all the goodies!
• More projects from the Baker’s Dozen to inspire you.  Just follow the link list below.
• FREE Party Favor with every order! Every order placed between Thursday, September 1st at 8 am PST and Monday, September 5th at 10 pm PST will receive a FREE Party Favor ranging in value from $2.50 – $10.00.  These are all fun products from the TE Store.  We’ll chose a favor for you based on the amount of your order.  If your order total is over $100 (before shipping and tax) you will also receive the Sweet Party Petite stamp set as our FREE gift to you!  The set will NOT appear on your order, but we promise to include it in your shipment!
• One more chance to win… head on over to our forum on SCS and tell us your favorite stamp set from this release. We’ll be choosing one person to win their favorite set FREE!  You have until Sunday, September 4th at 6 pm PST to enter to win.

I have one more sample to share with you for the Taylored Expressions Release and Birthday Bash.  Ok, so I know I said I’m not into Halloween, but I just had to play with Toil & Trouble.  I think one of my very favorite things to do in stamping is scene building.  This set (illustrated by Nancy McKinney for the Whimsical Wishes line) has so darn many possibilities.  I’ve paired it with the Apothecary Shelf A la Carte Stamp for today’s 5.25″ square card.

I used kraft cardstock for my card base and papers and ribbon from the Spooky Project Pantry Basics kit featuring Echo Park Apothecary Emporium.  I stamped my scene piece by piece (using my beloved stamp-a-majig) on TE Choice White cardstock and colored it with copics.  I used some crumbcake ink and a sponge to dirty it up a bit.  I had intended to use my TE grass border die for that top strip of paper, but of course I couldn’t find it, so I used a Martha Stewart icicle punch.

Now that I’m staring at the card to write about it, I think I may go back and add a little sparkle to the webs and candles – perhaps some stickles or a Spics Glitter pen.

If you haven’t done much scene building in your stamping, this would be a great set to start with.  It has lots of elements that work together very easily.  And here’s my little tip when you want to start a scene:  take a piece of copy paper (you know, something sitting in your printer that you didn’t really need to print out and are never going to use) and just start stamping the elements you think you might want to use together.  Don’t worry about perfect placement, just eyeball it for this step.  From this you will get an idea of how much room your images will need and what things look good together and what you might need to add for balance.  You might do this step 2 or 3 times.  Once you get a basic idea that you are happy with, then you can move on to cardstock and a stamp-a-majig.  Start now with your largest image or any image that will appear to be in front of the others. (You will need to mask the “front ” image if you want things to appear behind it.) It’s really fun and not scary at all!  For those of us who can’t draw a lick, this is the closest we get to creating a painted scene!  Enjoy!

Before you head off to shop, how about a little hop around to see what the Baker’s Dozen has cooked up?  You’ll see samples of ALL the new releases!

• 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!  Happy Shopping to you and Happy Birthday to Taylored Expressions!!!

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!