Taylored Expressions: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Taylored Expressions September Sneaks - Day 3

Good morning and welcome to our final day of sneak peeks before all of the new products are available for purchase on Thursday morning at 8am PST!

I hope you haven't missed anything from our big Birthday Bash, but you can easily catch up on everything by reading the details below:

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.
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!

And now for today's sneak peeks! The Baker's Dozen and I are featuring lots of A la Carte stamps and Petite sets today, all illustrated by the talented Nancy McKinney! Here's a rundown of what you'll find as you hop around to all of the blogs linked below: Autumn Wreath, Spooky Wreath, Moka Tabitha, Spooky A la Carte, Fall A la Carte, & It's Your Birthday A la Carte! I decided to focus on the two new wreaths in the seasonal wreath collection originally concepted by Jami Sibley.

I started with Mojo Monday Sketch 205 for both of these cards. For the Spooky Wreath card, I started by stamping the wreath onto Kraft cardstock. I embellished the wreath with Black & White enamel accents and Carrot Smooch and then trimmed it out with the Seasonal Wreath die. To separate the layers on the card I used the fabulous new Spooky Fence border die. All of the patterned paper, cardstock, and embellishments are from the Spooky Project Pantry Basic Recipe & Spice It Up Ingredients.

For the Autumn Wreath card, I started by stamping the wreath in Memento Rich Cocoa ink and coloring it with Copics. I also stamped the squirrel separately and cut him out by hand to sit within the wreath. Again, the wreath was cut out with the coordinating Seasonal Wreath die. The patterned paper is from the new Jillibean Homemade 6 Bean Soup 6x6 pad. And for the borders I used the open scallop border punch and the Spooky Fence border die.

Here are the dies I used on my projects today:

As I mentioned above, there are sneak peeks of 6 new stamp sets and a la cartes, and I've only shown two of them on my blog today. So you'll want to hop along to see what the rest of the Baker's Dozen has to share:

And don't forget to join us on our Facebook page tonight for our Reveal Party and a chance to win all of our new stamps just by leaving comments!

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Taylored Expressions September Sneaks - Day 2

Good morning and welcome to the second day of our September sneak peeks! Our sneak peeks yesterday were all about birthday in honor of our 3rd Birthday Bash celebration.You won't want to miss out on how you can win prizes throughout the week so make sure you read all the details below:

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.
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!

Our sneak peeks today are all about Halloween as the Baker's Dozen and I have created projects using two fabulous new Halloween stamp sets! I LOVE HALLOWEEN! I can hardly wait to dress our little girl and our two cats in their Halloween costumes and put out all of our spooky decorations and the 8 ft. tall blow up spider in the front yard! Yes... we're one of those 'crazy' families!

For my project I used the new Fangtastic stamp set illustrated by Doug Applegate for the Apple Doodle Ink collection. This set includes 21 images and sentiments made from the highest quality deeply etched rubber. There are endless possibilities, but I found myself drawn to the super fun haunted house. It was just begging to be paper pieced, don't you think? I used patterned paper from the We R Memory Keepers Spookville collection for the card and favor box. The spooky silver take out boxes are a new offering just in time for your Halloween treats! I used many of the smaller images in the set, punched them out, and adhered them to the sides of the favor box. I haven't had a chance to pick up any candy from the store yet, but I'm planning to decorate York Peppermint Patties and stack them inside the take out box for our nephews and neighborhood kids.

Today the rest of the Baker's Dozen will also be sharing projects using Toil & Trouble, a spooky alchemy set illustrated by Nancy McKinney for the Whimsical Wishes collection, along with the Spooky Project Pantry kit!

We're doing something a little different this month with the Project Pantry and I think you're really going to love it! 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. Well, when you want to create a sweet papercrafting project, you can head to our Project Pantry for all the coordinating elements. I've found that some of the best cake and cookie recipes are those based around a basic batter or dough recipe with lots of options to spice it up according to your tastes. So this month we're 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 Basic Recipe Kit is $11.95 and includes the following coordinating supplies:

Echo Park Apothecary Emporium 6x6 pad
10 sheets of 8.5" x 11" cardstock (2 sheets each of 5 different colors)
6 yards of ribbon (2 yards each of 3 different styles)

When you go to check out the Spooky Project Pantry on release day you will see the Spice It Up Ingredients linked under the Basic Recipe kit, so you can pick and choose the additional coordinating supplies you'd like to add to your cart. I hope you have fun customizing your kit!

Here's a picture of the basic recipe kit along with a project created by Wanda Guess using supplies from the kit. You can find all of the details for this project on Wanda's blog!

Thanks for stopping by for our second day of sneak peeks! I hope you see something you like! Make sure you hop along and check out the inspiring eye candy from the Baker's Dozen:

Monday, August 29, 2011

Taylored Expressions September Sneaks - Day 1

Good morning and welcome to the first day of our September Release and Birthday Bash! We're so excited to be celebrating three years of satisfying your creative sweet tooth! Thank you for joining us on the journey! We love to party so this week we're bringing you lots of ways to win your favorite stamps, free party favors for joining our birthday bash, along with sneak peeks of almost 20 new stamps and dies!

You won't want to miss out on anything, so make sure you read all the details below:

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.
To celebrate our 3rd Birthday, you have 3 WAYS TO WIN!

And now for the sneak peeks! Today the Baker's Dozen and I are featuring two new stamp sets concepted by Sankari Wegman and illustrated by Nancy McKinney for the Whimsical Wishes collection. The sets are called Build a Treat & Build a Treat Borders.... can you guess what that means!? It's like "Build a Bear" only with cupcakes and ice cream! Both of these sets have lots of coordinating dies to mix and match and create the treats of your dreams... calorie free too! *wink* Each set has options for both coloring and solid stamping making them a must for any birthday stamp collection. The Doodlebug Cake & Ice Cream patterned paper seemed to be perfect with these stamps. I started by stamping the tops in three different colors and cutting them out with the coordinating die. I stamped the cone directly onto the paper and then popped up the scoops over the top. I added a cherry die cut to the top and covered it (and the cone) with Stardust Stickles. Each of the ice cream scoops was highlighted with Smooch (Sassy Pink, Luscious Lime, and Grape Soda).

In honor of our Birthday Bash, we're also sharing sneak peeks from a new Cuppie petite set, Sweet Party! Three years ago, Jessie Oleson started us on this journey with her adorable Cuppie illustrations! In this image Cuppie is surrounded by all of his friends for a totally sweet party. I stamped the image in Memento Tuxedo Black and colored it with Copics to match the Basic Grey Indie Bloom patterned paper. It has such funky colors, perfect for a party! I used an old TESC sketch because I thought the awning would be a cute way to highlight the party going on inside. The sentiment was cut out with a label die from the Spellbinders Ribbon Tags Trio 3 set.

That's it for my sneak peeks for today! Below are the new dies I used on my Build a Treat project. And you'll want to make sure you check out the rest of the sneak peeks from our fabulous Baker's Dozen:

See you tomorrow for the next round of sneak peek inspiration! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Birthday Bash - Spread the Word & Win!

Good morning! I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend! We're putting the finishing touches on our September release...the sneak peeks start tomorrow! Did you know that we're also celebrating our 3rd Birthday with this release!? Time flies when you're having fun, and we've been having lots of fun over the past three years.

We're starting off the Birthday Bash today and we want you to join in the fun!! Just post our Birthday Bash badge on your blog sidebar by grabbing the code below. Come back here and leave a comment on this post with a link to your blog to let us know that you're helping spread the word. Everyone who posts the badge will be entered to win a $25 gift certificate to the TE Store! I'll announce the winner here on the TE Blog when the new release is live on Thursday, September 1st at 8am PST.

One more thing before we start our sneak peeks tomorrow. I'm super excited to introduce our new Guest Designer for September & October, Jen Shults! Jen will be joining us for all of the sneak peeks and I can hardly wait to see what she has in store for us with her amazing coloring skills and fabulous layouts! Stop by her blog today: Deconstructing Jen, for a special TE treat and give her a warm welcome too!

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope to see you back here tomorrow morning for the first day of peeks!

Friday, August 26, 2011

Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #145

Good morning & Happy Friday! I hope you all have a fun weekend planned! The weather is supposed to be beautiful in Iowa so I'm planning lots of long walks as well as getting ready for our big Birthday Bash and release next week. But in the meantime, the Sketch Crew and I have another sketch for you to try. I hope you'll play along! Here's this week's sketch designed by Rachel Sztonyk:

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 TESC145 by Thursday, September 8th. 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 TESC144 sketch! Once again there are lots of pretty entries! You can see all of the entries HERE. The winner of a $10 gift certificate to the TE Store is:

jc11278! Check out the adorable holiday card she created HERE!

And because she used Taylored Expressions stamps, we're adding another $10 to the gift certificate for a total of $20.00!

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

Created by Tracy Clemente: Eat, Sleep, Stamp

Created by Taylor VanBruggen: Taylored Expressions

Created by Rachel Sztonyk: Gingerbread Gal

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

Created by Margie Cortina: Oh Bumble is Me

Created by Lori Craig: Make a Difference

Created by Lisa Hjulberg: The Craft's Meow

Created by Jami Sibley: More is More

Created by Cassie Trask: A Day in the Life of a Homeschooling Mom

And last, but certainly not least, when I was searching for new members of the sketch crew there were so many fabulous entries so I decided to invite all of the participants to join us as Guest Designers on the sketch crew over the next several months. This week I'm so excited to welcome Kelly (stinkincute) on SCS! Here is her fabulous card:

Created by Kelly Collins: Stamps 'n Shamrocks

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Back in Stock - Angel Kisses Card Kit!

Good morning! Yesterday was blazing hot so me and my huge belly decided to stay inside and enjoy the air conditioning and some stamping time! I've been working ahead on Christmas cards lately using the Angel Kisses Card Kit and the Joy to the World set. The card kit has been sold out for a couple weeks so I didn't want to be a tease and share them. But I have good news! The Angel Kisses Card Kit is back in stock!

And that means that now I can share one of the cards I made this week! The kit has enough supplies to make 24 cards (including envelopes) and even includes extra embellishments like twill and pearls to coordinate. Not only that, but you'll receive free download-able inspiration sheets with the card kit! Our fabulous design team has created 10 unique samples easy for mass-production along with step-by-step instructions for creating them yourself!

If you've already purchased the Angel Kisses Card Kit (or maybe you're about to!), here are the instructions for downloading your free inspiration sheets. Don't miss 'em!

Instructions for Download:
--You will receive an order confirmation from taylor@tayloredexpressions.com. Please make sure this email address is unblocked from your spam filters.

--Open the order confirmation email. Next to the Angel Kisses Card Kit that you purchased will be an icon for download. Click this icon and a popup will come up to View or Save the file.

--Choose Save file and save to your desktop for quick access.

--Double click the saved file from your desktop. The file will open as a pdf document and can be printed on your home printer as many times as you desire.

--You will be allowed to download the file only 3 times so make sure you save it to your computer!

Supplies: Joy to the World Stamp Set, Angel Kisses Card Kit, Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, Colorbox Maroon Ink, Copic Markers, Stardust Stickles, Spellbinders Beaded Oval die

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

Saturday, August 20, 2011

August Key Ingredients Blog Hop

Good morning & Happy Saturday! It's donut day today! Donuts have been my pregnancy craving and they make me happy... especially the gourmet donut shop in town. They're almost better than cupcakes! *gasp* Who am I kidding? I think donuts are always a craving... nevermind being pregnant!

Today the Key Ingredients design team and I are blog hoppin' together to share some more of the projects we've created with the August Key Ingredients kit! I pulled out some of the pretty pink papers from the Echo Park Country Drive collection featured in this month's kit and paired them with Moka Taylor for my card. I started out with a sketch from Splitcoast SC346. I stamped the image in Memento Tuxedo Black, paper pieced her dress with the floral pattern, and colored the rest of the image with Copics. I cut out the image with Spellbinders rectangles and airbrushed inside the die with blue Copic (it's always hard to see in my photos!). I layered the image panel onto a scalloped rectangle, added a sentiment, ribbon, and rhinestones and it was done! Now I have another birthday card for the stash!

Now if you lovin' this month's Key Ingredients kit, now is a great time to subscribe as we have BOGO 1/2 off special through the rest of August! Here are the deets:

BOGO Half-Off Special Offer for New KI Subscribers!

Become a KI subscriber before August 31 and in addition to receiving the August kit you will also receive our July KI kit for 50% off (while supplies last)! To take advantage of this Buy One Get One Half-Off special offer you must purchase a 6 month KI subscription using your credit card.

Click HERE to take advantage of the BOGO special (U.S. & Canada)
Click HERE to take advantage of the BOGO special (outside North America)

Make sure you keep hoppin' to see the rest of the projects from our creative design team! And as always, you can find inspiration for our past and present kits in the Key Ingredients Gallery! Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday!

Friday, August 19, 2011

Taylored Expressions Giving Tree Stamp Set SALE!

Happy Friday! This week as flown by as we returned from Cincinnati and hit the ground running with Key Ingredients kit shipments, preparations for our big TE Birthday Bash in September, and all the little stuff that comes along with getting ready to welcome a new little one into our world (the car seat is now installed!).

If you subscribe to the TE Newsletter, then you've probably seen the stamp set sale. But if you're not a newsletter subscriber (or maybe you haven't gotten around to actually reading it yet!), then I want to make sure you don't miss out!

We are offering several of our popular TE Giving Tree stamp sets at 25% off! The TE Giving Tree is a program designed to raise funds for charities through the sale of stamp sets. Each stamp set in the program supports a designated charity with the donation of partial proceeds for the first three months after it is released. To date there have been 12 stamp sets in the TE Giving Tree Program!

In the past, our Giving Tree sets have been sold un-trimmed as a solid sheet or rubber on EZ Mount cling cushion, which was done to save on manufacturing costs thus allowing us to donate more to charity. However, we've decided to make the switch so that even the rubber for our Giving Tree stamps will be trimmed like all other TE sets. So here's where the sale comes in! We have limited quantities remaining of the following un-trimmed Giving Tree sets available at 25% off while supplies last. When the last of the un-trimmed sets are sold, they will be re-stocked with pre-trimmed rubber and the sale price will disappear.

Here are some of my favorite cards using the Giving Tree sets. And now's the time to snatch 'em up before the price goes up! Just click on the stamp set name and you'll be taken directly to the item at the TE Store (or head to our What's the Deal department to see them all in one place):

Welcome Little One

sample created by Taylor VanBruggen

Cozy Cottages

sample created by Tori Wild

Make a Wish

sample created by Sankari Wegman

You're my Hero

sample created by Taylor VanBruggen

Discover Your Wings

sample created by Taylor VanBruggen

The Places You'll Go

sample created by Karen Motz

Beary Special

Beary Special Accessories

Sample created by Jodi Collins

Branching Out

Sample created by Karen Motz

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

August Blast from the Past Blog Hop

Good morning! I hope you're all having a great week so far! Hump Day is here and I'm already looking forward to Friday! But for today I'm excited to hop around and check out all of the cards for the August Blast from the Past Blog Hop! If this is your first time at our Blast from the Past blog hop then maybe you're wondering what it's all about. Each month we issue a theme and a sketch to our customers and we all get creative 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! We'd love to have you join us and you can find all of the hop details (including how to sign up!) on this page. I hope you'll come play with us next month!

This month's theme is "Collector's Anonymous" and I just know there must be some of you out there who fit that description, right? Perhaps you prefer to remain anonymous! *wink* We all have those precious ribbons and embellishments that we just can't seem to part with. Maybe they're hard to find, expensive, or just too pretty to use. Whatever the reason for hoarding, it's not good enough this month! In addition to using the fabulous sketch that Sankari designed, we also challenged you to use something you've been hoarding on your card. So what do I like to hoard? Well, there are lots of things, but for today's card I picked up my Doodlebug Nifty Notions buttons. They're super cute colors and some of them are flower shaped. This is how bad my hoarding of pretty buttons is... I threw in one from my 'regular' stash because I couldn't part with three of my pretty buttons. That was just too many! Besides the Nifty Notions buttons, all of the supplies I used on my card are from the August Key Ingredients kit. I'm lovin' this kit and I can't seem to get my desk cleared off these days so I just keep using the kit supplies that are strewn all over! I think it may be time to clean! The butterflies on the image panel are from the Garden Party Critters stamp set. I colored them with Copics, paper pieced portions of the wings, and added rhinestones down the center.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you'll all hop around to see the fabulous inspiration from our customers!