Tiny Little Thing.... Great Big Blessing!

Good morning & Happy Friday! I have quite the announcement to share today so I better get right to it. Jon and I are so excited to announce that we’re expecting our first child in September! It still seems surreal to me, but it’s getting more real each day as I notice a little more ‘bump’ added to my belly. I’m diving head first into the role of nursery decorator, baby gear researcher (who knew there were so many strollers to choose from!?), and all around BIG eater! I’ve made it through my first trimester and food actually sounds good again (and stays inside my stomach) so I’ll admit I’ve been indulging my cravings!

We’re so excited to welcome our little miracle into the world, and the question of the day is “Will I be sharing my Copic markers with a Little Man or a Little Miss? Will I need a pee-pee teepee for diaper changes or not!?” We found out the sex of the baby a little over a week ago. Wanna know what we’re having? Well, not so fast! We have a super fun release planned next week (with some new baby rubber mixed in) and I’d love to give some of it away. So here’s a fun little contest. Just leave a comment on this post with your boy or girl guess. I’ll be announcing the sex of the baby a week from today (on Friday, May 6th) and I’ll pool all the correct guesses together and draw one name randomly to win one of each of the baby stamps from our May release!

New Products @ the TE Store!

We're always adding new products at the TE Store and I thought I'd make special mention of a few of them that just arrived this week!

Have you heard the buzz about Nestabling? These fabulous new rhinestone and pearl designs by Want2Scrap coordinate with our favorite Spellbinders dies! Each of the individual designs is connected together by a stiff adhesive making them quick and easy to apply just perfectly! We have over 30 design and color variations available at the TE Store and you can find them all HERE! Here are a few of my favorites:

Also just arriving this week are the fabulous new Glubers by Cosmo Cricket (click the photo below to see them in the store). When I initially saw these at CHA, I must admit I thought "They're just giant glue dots... what's so special about that?" But then I did the make and take and created by own rolled rose using fabric. Since then I've been experimenting with making my own flowers using zipper trim, pom pom trim, fabric, and much more!

 There are so many possibilities...here's one of the photos we took at the Cosmo booth at CHA:

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you all have a wonderful day! Psst... mark your calendar to stop back on Friday for a big announcement!

Easter Blessings

Sending you Easter Blessings! May your day be filled with warmth and sunshine and the good news that He is Risen! Here's a card I made using the Easter Blessings stamp set. Hope you like it!

Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #137

Good morning and Happy Friday! I'm so glad the weekend is finally here, but it's still rainy and cold in Iowa. What happened to spring!? I'm heading up to Minnesota to visit my grandpa this weekend so perhaps the sun will be shining there! I'm crossing my fingers! I hope you'll join in the fun of the next TESC sketch challenge. You can find this week's sketch info both in the SCS TE Forum and right here on my blog:

Just create a card using the above sketch as inspiration. You're not required to use TE stamps to play, but there's a bonus prize if you do! To be entered into the prize drawing you must upload your card to Splitcoaststampers using keyword TESC137 by Thursday, May 12th (that gives you two weeks to play along!). And here's the prize that's up for grabs:

1. I will randomly select one person from all of the challenge uploads to receive a $10 gift certificate to the TE Store!

2. If you used predominantly TE Stamps on your project you’ll receive an extra $10 bonus for a total $20 gift certificate!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the TESC136 sketch! Once again there are so many inspirational entries! You can see all of the entries HERE. The winner of a $10 gift certificate to the TE Store is:

Niema (Rhayven) for this sweet card! Congrats, Niema!

Just like always, the fabulous sketch crew is back at it again with beautiful samples to inspire you!

 Created by Dawn Easton: Treasure Oiler Designz

 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 Tracy Clemente: Eat, Sleep, Stamp

 Created by Taylor VanBruggen: Taylored Expressions

April Blast from the Past Blog Hop

Good morning and welcome to our April Blast from the Past Blog Hop! Each month we issue a theme and sketch to our fabulous customers and we all get crafty with our 'older' TE stamps. It's a great way to get inspiration for the stamps already in your collection and meet fellow TE lovers along the way! If you'd like to join us on the hop next month you can find all of the details at the end of this post. As always, the wonderful Sankari Wegman has given us a jump start with another fun sketch. The sketch is a great jumping off point, but it is optional for participants. And the theme this month (actually I considered it more of a challenge than a theme myself!) is Clean and Simple. I'd say I need some more practice on this one. I have this overwhelming urge to add more, more, more little details. This time I actually had to force myself to stop!

The idea for this card started when I remembered a cute card that Lea Lawson had made with Cozy Cottages. I loved that she had simply stamped the houses in colored ink instead of coloring the images with Copics or pencils. And I still had all the pieces from my Hello Luscious card kit spread over my desk so I decided this would be a great way to use up a little scrap. I matched up Warm Red and Aquamarine chalk inks to the patterned paper and stamped the two houses directly onto the back of one of the Basic Grey Hello Luscious papers. I loved that it had little specks of blue thoughout the paper so it looked more like 'sky' and not so stark white. Then I added the strip of patterned paper, rhinestones, ribbon/bow, and sentiment. The entire card took about 15 minutes and that was the amazing part! I'm usually so busy fussing with all the little details that my cards take an hour to complete (that's usually also when the TV is on in the background and I can't tear my eyes away from The Mentalist *wink*).

So like I said above, I think I'll be doing some more practice on my CAS, but it was certainly good to step outside of my comfort zone! I can't wait to see what the rest of our hoppers created so I'm off to hop along!

We'd love to have you join us for the blog hop next month too! You can find all the details here. Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you all have a wonderful day!



 

Taylored Expressions Special Release!

Good morning! It's a rainy Tuesday in mid-April and new stamps might be the last thing you were expecting from TE today. But we all love surprises, right!? We are simply bursting at the seams with so much sweet new rubber that we couldn't fit it all in during our regular monthly release. So today we're excited to bring you the mid-month release of 3 new stamp sets: Labels of Love, You're my Type Lower, and You're my Type Upper. And if that isn't exciting enough, these new sets were designed to coordinate with Spellbinders dies and everything we're showing you is available for purchase TODAY (hooray!! no waiting!).

Today the Baker's Dozen and I also want to send a huge thank you to Spellbinders who generously provided us with a Grand Calibur die cutting machine! I've had lots of fun experimenting with my new tool and the super large Grand dies and I'm super excited to show you what I've made with all of these wonderful goodies!



Here's the Labels of Love set that I designed for the *te* collection and to coordinate with the Spellbinders Ribbon Tags Trio 3 dies. There are 31 frames, images, and sentiments made from the highest quality deeply etched rubber all packed into one versatile stamp set! Each of the frames can be used in conjunction with one of the three ribbon tags from the Ribbon Tags Trio set of dies from Spellbinders or stamped separately.

I made this simple card using Labels of Love and supplies from the Hello Luscious card kit. The ink colors I chose are Colorbox Warm Red, Colorbox Lime Pastel, and Memento Rich Cocoa. It was super quick and easy! The only things that I used that weren't part of the card kit are the wooden button and the thread to tie the bow.

QUICK LINKS
Labels of Love - Set of 21 - $21.95

Labels of Love Inspiration Gallery

Ribbon Tags Trio 3 Dies - $19.99

Labels of Love Bundle (stamp set & dies) - $41.94 

Here are the new You're my Type sets! These are the first alphabet sets that we've ever offered and I am loving them! The alphabets and numbers are the perfect size for so many uses, but today the Baker's Dozen and I are pairing them with the Spellbinders Nested pennants & Lacey pennants. I also decided to try out my new Grand Labels 4 on a scrapbook layout of my newest nephew:

I started by gluing squares of patterned paper from the Basic Grey Life of the Party collection onto a sheet of Choice Buttercream cardstock. Then I taped the largest of the Grand Labels 4 dies to the quilted section and ran it through the Grand Calibur. The large cutting surface is great for using with the Grand dies, but also comes in handy for cutting several dies with one pass through the machine!

After cutting out the large quilted piece I used it as the focal point for my layout. I stamped the letters in the background by leaving them all in place on the storage panel and using that as my "block" to ink and stamp them in various parts of the background. I used the Spellbinders Lacey Pennants and trimmed several of the smallest size from Choice Buttercream cardstock. Then I stamped and embossed the letters of his name onto coordinating colors of cardstock and punched them out with a 1/2" circle punch (which coordinates perfectly with both the upper and lower stamps).

QUICK LINKS

You're my Type - Upper

You're my Type - Lower & #'s

1/2" Circle Punch

You're my Type Inspiration Gallery

And as a special offer to celebrate our mid-month release both the NEW Nested Pennants and the NEW Lacey Pennants are 30 % off while supplies last! That's just $13.99 for each set of these popular pennant dies!

Thanks so much for stopping by for our special release! You'll definitely want to check out the creative projects that our talented Baker's Dozen has created with these new sets:

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

Thanks for stopping by today! As I mentioned above, everything is available for purchase right now so head on over to the TE Store to check it out!

A Busy Week on the KI Blog!

It's been a busy week at TE as we put the finishing touches on all of the Key Ingredients kits that we'll be shipping out tomorrow! That means I haven't had a lot of time to create this week, but there's been no shortage of inspiration being shared on the Key Ingredients Blog!

Each month the fabulous Key Ingredients design team takes the supplies from our monthly kit and shares creative inspiration along with their tips and tricks. Here are a few of the projects using the April Key Ingredients kit to whet your appetite. Make sure you stop by the KI Blog for all the details!

And just in case you missed the big news earlier this week, I want to introduce you to a newest member of the Key Ingredients design team, Stephanie Kraft! I'm so excited to have Stephanie join our other talented designers to provide inspiration using the supplies from our Key Ingredients kits! I have long-admired her creative work, the beautiful combinations of patterned paper and colors and her crisp photos make her projects shine even more! Make sure you stop by Stephanie's blog to see more of her creative work: HandKrafted by Stephanie! She'll also have her first KI project to share on the Key Ingredients blog tomorrow so make sure you stop back!

New April Key Ingredients now available!

Good morning! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! It was 90 degrees here yesterday (crazy!) so I got to spend lots of time outdoors tootling around. But Iowa spring weather can change in an instant and we're back down to 60 degrees today.

Yesterday we debuted our April Key Ingredients kit and it's a beauty! It features the new Girl's Paperie Kitch patterned paper. The combination of bright colors and vintage patterns makes this paper a must-have! We've also included self-adhesive pearls, miniature roses, and coordinating ribbon and cardstock in this month's kit. If you're not familiar with our Key Ingredients kit club, each month we take the guesswork out of your papercrafting by delivering perfectly coordinated embellishments, patterned papers, and cardstock packaged together in a perfect little storage case. The unique patterns and colors chosen each month will help you step outside of your comfort zone. And the best part is that you get to experiment with all of the latest products and they're delivered right to your doorstep each month! It's the perfect kit for any stamper!

I kicked off Key Ingredients week over on the KI blog yesterday and here's a closeup of the project I created... it's a pegboard frame for my kitchen and I even made my own push pins! I had so much fun creating with this kit and I know you will too!

So if you're not yet a subscriber, come on over and see what all the fuss is about! ;) The rest of our talented design team is sharing their fabulous inspiration this week and you won't want to miss it! And you can find more of their inspiration in the April KI Gallery and by downloading the April project inspiration sheets!

Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #136

Good morning and Happy Friday! First, I just have to say rain rain go away. It's been so dreary here the last couple of days and I'm hoping the sun peeks out for the weekend! But if it keeps raining I can just stay inside my stamp studio which wouldn't be all that bad! You can find this week's sketch info both in the SCS TE Forum and right here on my blog. I hope you'll join in the fun! Here's the sketch:

Just create a card using the above sketch as inspiration. You're not required to use TE stamps to play, but there's a bonus prize if you do! To be entered into the prize drawing you must upload your card to Splitcoaststampers using keyword TESC136 by Thursday, April 21st (that gives you two weeks to play along!). And here's the prize that's up for grabs:

1. I will randomly select one person from all of the challenge uploads to receive a $10 gift certificate to the TE Store!

2. If you used predominantly TE Stamps on your project you’ll receive an extra $10 bonus for a total $20 gift certificate!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the TESC135 sketch! There were so many amazing entries...WOW! You can see all of the entries HERE. The winner of a gift certificate to the TE Store is:

Lisa (smallwafflefries)! And Lisa used all TE Stamps on her adorable card so I'll be increasing her gift certificate to $20! Congrats, Lisa!

You might also recall that I've been searching for a new member of the sketch crew. All of the entries were incredibly beautiful making it a really tough decision! You can see all of the sampler entries HERE. I couldn't pick just one so we'll have two new sketch samplers joining us starting in April 22nd. I hope you'll all join me in welcoming:

Dawn (TreasureOiler) & Tracy (scrapgirrl). You can click on their names to see the fabulous cards that sent me over the edge!

And just like always, the fabulous sketch crew is back at it again with beautiful samples to inspire you!

 Created by Rachel Sztonyk: Gingerbread Gal

 Created by Melissa Sauls: In Stamping Mode 

 Created by Lisa Hjulberg: The Craft's Meow

 Created by Taylor VanBruggen: Taylored Expressions

 

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

 Created by Lori Craig: Make a Difference

 Created by Jami Sibley: More is More