Taylored Expressions Sneak Peeks Day 1

So are you ready to see What's Cookin' at Taylored Expressions today!? The TE team has been looking forward to sharing our sneak peeks with you since we got these stamps in our hot little hands!

We have lots of goodies to share today including 2 full size stamp sets, a Big Background stamp, and 2 new dies so I better get started! Our amazing illustrator, Nancy McKinney, has been a busy bee creating the stamps we're sneak peeking today. Make a Wish is the latest addition to our Giving Tree series! If you're not familiar with the Giving Tree, each quarter we introduce a new stamp set to support a different charity. When you purchase the Make a Wish stamp set during the months of September, October, and November, TE will donate $7.00 to a national children's charity that grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

It is important to note that sets in the Giving Tree Program are the same high quality deeply etched pink rubber on EZ Mount (just like your other TE stamps), however, unlike our other sets you will need to trim these images from a sheet of rubber. This allows us to cut manufacturing costs and donate even more to our charities. If you've never trimmed a stamp set before (or maybe you just need a refresher), you can check out my video HERE. Trimming your stamps is easy with the help of a sharp scissors and we hope you'll agree that supporting a great cause is worth a little extra effort!

So are you ready to see my sneak peek projects!? I started with the most recent Blast from the Past sketch challenge for the card. Can you pick out our new dies? First is the scalloped eyelet border die! The border die measures 5.5" long and I just love the petite scallops and wide holes. The holes are large enough to dot with Tiny Twinkles or Kaisercraft rhinestones. We also have a new set of balloon dies! The balloons come in a set of three different sizes that can be used with the coordinating balloon images in the Make a Wish set. After die-cutting the balloons I covered them with Illuminate Smooch and popped them up. On the right side of the card I embossed the star border from our new Borderlicious set in white embossing powder. These borders are a super fun addition to the Make a Wish set, but I've found myself reaching for them on every project I've created lately! After finishing the card I started on a little gift box using the Scalloped Lid Favor Box. I covered a piece of cupcake chipboard with patterned paper and Espresso Dimensional Pearls for chocolate frosting. Then I sprinkled some real sprinkles onto the cupcake 'frosting' while it was still wet.

You've probably noticed all of the coordinating supplies I used on these projects! Today we're also introducing the Make a Wish Project Pantry to coordinate with our new stamps.

For just $18.95 you'll receive all of the coordinating supplies pictured:

• 20 sheets of double-sided & spot embossed patterned paper from the Imaginisce Bday Bash collection
• 12 sheets of cardstock (2 sheets of each color pictured)
• 5 yards of ribbon (1 yard each of 5 different styles)
• 1 bottle of Espresso Dimensional Pearls
• 10 yards Baker's Twine (red & brown)
• Cupcake Chipboard
• Red Glitter Candy Dots
  

We've done all of the coordinating work for you so when you receive the Project Pantry kit you'll have everything you need to create lots of perfectly coordinated projects! All of the products we're sharing today will be available for purchase beginning Friday, September 3rd at 8AM PST!

So I know this has been a marathon blog post, but you won't want to miss what the rest of the Baker's Dozen has created using Make A Wish, Borderlicious, and the Bubbles Big Background stamps! Thanks for stopping by today! Hope to see you back here for more sneak peeks tomorrow!

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jackie Pedro
• Jami Sibley
  
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Karen Motz
• Melissa Sauls
• Nancy McKinney
  
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild

Baker's Dozen Announcements

Good morning! Before I get to the stampy stuff I wanted to let you curious ladies know that there were no poopy diapers during our babysitting adventures on Friday! And now on to the news...we're getting ready for a big week at Taylored Expressions as we begin sharing sneak peeks of our latest stamp sets and new dies! I can hardly wait to show you the goodies! We're also looking forward to celebrating our 2nd birthday with a big birthday bash on Friday!

Before the Baker's Dozen gets started with sneak peeks tomorrow, I have some design team developments to share with you. It's always hard to say farewell to members of the TE team. These girls are amazing month after month and I am so thankful for their contributions! But time brings change and I'm happy to wish them all the best in their creative endeavors.











Alex Maldonado's signature distressed style and whimsical color combinations always put a smile on my face! I'll miss seeing her beautiful TE creations each month, but I know I can always visit her blog for a cheerful "Good morning sugarmuffins, lovepuffs, doodlebugs, etc.!" Thanks for sharing your talent with Taylored Expressions, Alex!

If I had one word to describe Carolina Buchting, it would be clever! Her mind works in wonderfully creative ways and she always puts a unique spin on her projects.... anything and everything from cards to cupcakes! Thank you for sharing your sweet tooth and your creativity with Taylored Expressions, Carolina!

Jeanie Witmer continually wow's me with her gorgeous coloring and her signature big and beautiful bows! While I'd love to continue seeing Jeanie's creations using TE stamps, I know her 'hen house' and amazing cards are just a click away! Thank you for all the time and talent you devoted to TE, Jeanie!

While these ladies leave big shoes to fill, I am super excited to introduce you to our three newest members of the Baker's Dozen!! I hope you'll join me in welcoming them to the team!











Regina Mangum (The Stamping Bean) has been a long-time supporter of Taylored Expressions and has won many past sketch challenges with her clever cards! It has been so fun to see her skills develop over the last year! She also recently finished in the Top 5 of the PaperCrafts Gallery Idol competition! I am super excited to see what she has up her sleeve over the next several months!

I had the pleasure of meeting Tori Wild (Wild Sprinkles Stamping) in March at a Copic Certification event in Des Moines. I was in awe at her amazing coloring skills and have kept track of her on her blog for quite some time! Her layouts are always perfectly layered and I can't forget to tell you...she's from Iowa too!

And last, but certainly not least Danielle Lounds (Fat Cat Stamper)! I've been perusing Danielle's blog for several months and enjoying all of her beautiful creations! She can do it all from clean and simple to lots of layers! I can hardly wait to see what she has in store for us with the latest TE releases!

I also want to extend a huge thank you to Stacey Schafer, our Guest Designer for the past two months! She brought her signature style to TE and you won't want to miss any of her beautiful creations! You can see them all right here in the TE gallery!

And so with Stacey's departure I'm excited to introduce our next Taylored Expressions Guest Designer for the months of September and October, Barbara Anders! She does everything from cutesy to elegant and in between. I was initially attracted to her beautifully colored designs using Copics, but she does equally beautiful work with silhouette images. I'm really looking forward to seeing her TE creations over the next two months! You'll definitely want to stop by and check out her blog: Paper Pursuits!


Whew...that was a lot of announcements! I hope to see you right back here tomorrow for our first day of sneak peeks!

Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #126

Good morning and Happy Friday! What a week this has been! We live near an elementary school so it's been fun to see all the kiddos off to school each morning. I've been having flashbacks of myself in elementary school... wearing my New Kids on the Block T-shirt and carrying my New Kids on the Block backpack with my New Kids on the Block lunchbox inside. Yes... I was obsessed! *grin*

So are you ready for the weekend? We're babysitting our nephews tonight and I already have my response ready for the statement, "Aunt Taylor, I pooped." "Well, you better go find Uncle Jon and tell him." Do you think that will work? It's worth a try, but I'm all about changing a diaper if it means getting to spend time with these cute little guys! Hopefully this weekend means some crafty time for you and I hope you'll try this week's sketch! Here it is:



Just create a card using the above sketch as inspiration. You're not required to use TE Stamps in your sample, but I love it when you do! Link your creation below by Friday, September 3rd at 8am PST. I'll choose the most clever and creative cards to be included in the TESC Top Crops on my blog! Each of our Top Crops receives a blog badge to proudly display on your blog sidebar and a link on the TE blog for all to marvel at your beautiful creation!

And now here's the inspiration from our fabulous Sketch Crew:

Created by Alice Wertz: Alice's Little Wonderland

Created by Taylor VanBruggen: Taylored Expressions

Created by Lisa Hjulberg: The Craft's Meow

Created by Lori Craig: Make a Difference

Created by Monika Davis: M.A.D Stamper

Created by Rachel Sztonyk: Gingerbread Gallery

Created by Rosie Hughes: Love my Craftroom

TESC126 - Thanks Snow Much

I've been dying to use the new Mitten Weather Mini Deck from Cosmo Cricket and I finally got my chance yesterday when I sat down to create for the sketch challenge! I love the pale purples and light aqua blues mixed with the traditional red and green in this patterned paper collection! We also have a Mitten Weather cardstock pack available so you'll have the perfect solid matches for your patterned paper! I decided to stick with just the purple/aqua combo for this snowy card. I started by cutting out snowflakes from a Spellbinders die. While the paper was still within the die, I airbrushed the snowflakes with BG72 and V95. I popped the snowflakes up on foam tape and embellished them with Crystal Twinkles and Starfire Glitter. For the layout, I started by scoring the lines onto the purple polka dot paper with my Scor Buddy. Then I took a sanding block and lightly sanded the scored lines to reveal the white core of the paper. I added the Ecru mini pom trim, faux stitched around the image panel, and added the 'thanks snow much' sentiment from A Year of Sweet Sentiments. I know I didn't follow the sketch exactly, but that's what makes sketches fun. They give you a starting point and allow your creativity to flow!

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

Center of Attention Product Spotlight - Frame Your Imagination Stand

Each month the Baker's Dozen and I put one fantastic product at the center of attention during our product spotlight. This month we're excited to showcase the Frame Your Imagination Vertical Stand! These stands are hand-crafted exclusively for Taylored Expressions using high-quality unfinished wood. They're sanded to perfection and ready to accept a coat of paint, stain, or mist as soon as they arrive on your doorstep! As always, our Center of Attention product is 15% off through the weekend (August 26-29) so you can pick up your very own stand for just $10.99 and start framing your imagination!



So here's my 'before and after' stand. I gave the stand two coats of green acrylic paint and antiqued it with some brown distress ink. I love the aged look I got with a few splashes of brown ink! So that whole process took about 30 minutes in between waiting for coats of paint to dry.

I had several uses in mind for my stand, but the one I worked on first is a home decor piece using the Discover Your Wings stamp set. I started by creating the frame for the artwork. I cut a piece of chipboard at 6" x 7" and used my Xacto knife to cut out the inside of the frame. I spritzed the entire piece with Brown Maya Mist, laid the Arabesque stencil over the top, and spritzed again with Copper Metallic Maya Mist to get the pattern on the frame. For the artwork inside, I started with a piece of Choice Buttercream cardstock. I stamped the flowers in Dark Brown chalk ink and covered them with clear embossing powder. Then I used the same Arabesque stencil along with my Copics to airbrush the fall colors behind the flowers. I used a combination of YR21, YR23, and E07 to get the graduated color. Then I stamped two of the butterflies from Discover Your Wings in Memento Rhubarb Stalk ink, cut them out, embellished them with Crystal Tiny Twinkles, and covered them in glossy accents. I also created a chipboard "backing" for the frame so I can slide a different photograph or piece of artwork inside the frame. I'm so excited to see this on top of the shelf in our living room! Now there are so many things to do with these stands that I thought I'd show you couple other storage ideas. As you can see, I love using my Crafter's Workshop stencils, but I often forget about them if they're not right at hand. Each of the stencils is 6" x 6" and fits perfectly in a 6" x 6" page protector. So I thought, "Why not store all of my stencils in page protectors and hang them inside the frame!?" I can easily flip through all of the designs and the side loading page protectors allow me to grab only the stencil I want to use. So I'm pretty excited about having this sitting next to me while I'm creating! OK, I have one more storage idea for the Frame Your Imagination stand, and this one would make a great Christmas gift too! Again, it's about getting what you have out in front of you so you remember to use it, and in this case...wear it! I have a ton of earrings that were getting tangled inside my jewelry box and seldom worn because I just didn't remember that I had them! I purchased a really inexpensive sheet of plastic mesh from Michaels. These sheets come in lots of different colors and can be cut to whatever size you need for your project. Wouldn't this be a fun Christmas gift to personalize!? I love purposeful gifts and this one definitely serves a dual purpose in my bedroom...pretty and functional!

Now you are definitely going to want to check out the rest of the Baker's Dozen projects!

Donna & Melissa used their stand for recipes!

Jodi & Karen G. framed a calendar!

And Charmaine created a home for her beautiful scrapbook pages!

Taylored Expressions August Customer Blog Hop!

Today it's time for another Blast from the Past Blog Hop! We've gathered almost 50 of our amazing customers and challenged them to create a card using TE stamps released at least three months ago. It's always so inspiring to see what everyone creates! I leave the hop thinking "I have to ink up that set soon!"

Sankari Wegman (one of our talented design team members), provided this sketch to jump start our creativity this month. As always, using the sketch is optional which is good because I was so into creating something using Trick or Sweet and Frightful Night that I completely spaced on the sketch challenge! Oopsie... but I still wanted to post it here because you'll probably be seeing a lot of it along the hop! The two stamp sets that I used were our very first releases almost 2 years ago. I absolutely LOVE Halloween and these two sets are still among my favorites! So while the Blast from the Past Challenge is to give some older stamp sets some love, there's nothing preventing us from using new papers and embellishments. I had so much fun pairing these stamps with the new Cosmo Cricket Matilda patterned paper! I paper pieced the house and added black ice glitter to the door and the roof. I also paper pieced pumpkin Cuppie's wrapper. I embossed the sentiment in white embossing powder directly onto the patterned paper and then finished it off with a bat brad.

Would you like to join us on the hop next month? We've set the date for our September customer blog hop and would love to have you join us! Click HERE for all the details. As always, one random participant will be selected to win the Taylored Expressions stamp set of their choice and another fabulous creation will be featured in an upcoming TE newsletter!

Thanks for stopping by today! You can keep hopping by following the links below!

TESC124 Top Crops & Santa Came!

So where I have been all day? Well, Santa came today! Or I guess it could have been a late birthday present. The FedEx man knocked on my door this morning and delivered a wonderful box from Apple... a new iPad! This is especially cool because I don't have an iPhone either and I've been totally chomping at the bit to download some of the apps all my friends are talking about! Hey Melissa... I'm planning to download Urban Spoon and Karen... I'm totally getting that ruler app! You just never know when that might come in handy! *grin*

Anyhow, I was super excited to play with my new toy so that's why I'm late posting the Top Crops today. But here they are...fabulous as always!








Congratulations (from left to right): Stephanie, Jean, Lesa, Julia, and Mary Dawn!

You can click on each of the snippets above and you'll be taken to the designer's blog to see the full card and all the details! This week's Top Crops will soon receive a blog badge to display on your blog! There's still time to participate in this week's TESC125 challenge! Don't forget, this time I'll be choosing one of the Top Crops to participate along with the Sketch Crew and create a sample for the sketch challenge! Click HERE to see the sketch and get started!

See you in the morning for the next TE Blast from the Past blog hop! I can hardly wait!!

Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #125

Happy Friday! Do you have big plans for the weekend? I'm getting ready to head down to my stamp space and play with all the Basic Grey & Cosmo Cricket stuff that arrived this week! This week's sketch is super fun with lots of circles. I hope you'll try it out:


Just create a card using the above sketch as inspiration. You're not required to use TE Stamps in your sample, but I love it when you do! Link your creation below by Friday, August 27th at 8am PST. I'll choose the most clever and creative cards to be included in the TESC Top Crops on my blog! Each of our Top Crops receives a blog badge to proudly display on your blog sidebar and a link on the TE blog for all to marvel at your beautiful creation! NEW: I'll also be choosing one of the Top Crops to sample the next TESC sketch with the rest of the Sketch Crew!

Here's the inspiration from the talented sketch crew this week:

Created by Alice Wertz: Alice's Little Wonderland

Created by Jami Sibley: More is More

Created by Lisa Hjulberg: The Craft's Meow

Created by Lori Craig: Make a Difference

Created by Melissa Sauls: In Stamping Mode

Created by Monika Davis: M.A.D. Stamper

Created by Rachel Sztonyk: Gingerbread Gal

Created by Rosie Hughes: Love My Craftroom

Created by Taylor VanBruggen: Taylored Expressions

TESC125 - Rock Star

Good morning! It's time for another beautiful weekend! I'm soooo looking forward to spending some time outside now that the hot and humid weather has been tamed. And I'm hoping to have some uninterrupted time in my stamp studio to play with lots of the new goodies that arrived at the store this week. We received several boxes of new Basic Grey goodies yesterday so I had to play with one of the new collections on my sketch card today! I love the masculine colors in the Wander collection and the coordinating Woolies were the perfect addition to complete the circles in this week's sketch. I thought the You're my Hero stamp set would work great with these papers so I stamped the rocker image in Memento Rich Cocoa and quickly poured some clear embossing powder over the top. I had to be quick since the Memento inks dry super fast. After embossing the image I cut around the edges, colored the guitar in green, and popped it up on foam tape. Then to finish it off I added a row of glitter brads along the bottom.

Now I hope you all have a fabulous weekend with some time to create! Give the sketch a try... this one's quick and fun!