Happy New Years Eve

Happy New Years Eve!!!  I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas, we sure did and now tomorrow it's already the new year can you believe it?  Today I actually took some time in my stamp room and created a few cards, it feels like forever since I've posted on my blog.  For the card above I used the colors from the Color Queen Challenge and the stamp set Well Read from My Favorite Things.  Reading is one of my favorite things and I plan on reading even more in the coming year, that's why this stamp set found it's way into my Christmas stocking :)

I used some retired SU designer paper to paper piece most of this image and used my Copic markers for the rest.  I think this card has a clean modern look to it, I hope you like it!

I'll be back Sunday with a card along with the rest of the Sweet Sunday Sketch team!

Thanks for stopping by, be safe and enjoy ringing in the New Year!

SSSC97 - The Wonder of Christmas

 Good morning!  Can you believe that in five more days it will be Christmas Eve?  I can't, it seems like the Christmas holiday snuck up on me this year and caught me unprepared so I'm stressing and I don't like it.  I'm still not even done with my shopping!  I hope all of you are doing better than I am.

Today is the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge and for my card I used the Taylored Expression stamp set Winter Wonderland and more of the fun Key Ingredients Kit for this month. I stamped my sentiment in Chocolate Chip ink then stamped three different sized snowflakes surrounding it in Bordering Blue and Night of Navy.  The large main snowflake was stamped in Night of Navy with a smaller snowflake layer on top in Cherry Cobbler.  I added some of the Tiny Twinkles from the Kit on the main snowflake and on some of the smaller snowflakes around the sentiment to finish it off.  To see more samples using this months TE Key Ingredients Kit you can click here to view the KI gallery.

To play along create a card using Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch, then go to Karen’s blog The Sweetest Thing and link your card so we can all see your creation! 

Be sure to visit each of the Sweet Sunday Stampers below for more samples using this week’s sketch!

Karen Motz: Paper Playhouse

Laura Fredrickson: Scrapnextras

Sarah-Jane Kale': Janeybell

Vicki Burdick: It's a Stamp Thing

Jen Tapler: Jen Tapler Designs

This will be my last post until after Christmas so that I can spend some time with my family and try and enjoy the holiday.  Thank you all so much for your kind words and visits to my blog and I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas!

Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients December Kit

It's the most wonderful time of the month!  It's the release of the Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients Kit!  The challenge that Taylor has given us for this month to jump start our creative mojo is to create a collection of post-holiday winter themed thank you cards using the supplies from this months KI Kit.  So today I'm sharing the cards that I've created using the Taylored Expressions stamp set Winter Wonderland, the coordinating Taylored Snowflake Dies and the beautiful products from the Key Ingredients Kit.  If you're interested in receiving the TE Key Ingredients Kit for yourself or as a gift for someone you can click here.

The Echo Park Winterime designer papers and supplies from the Kit all coordinate so great and I love this winter color combo of the browns, blues and deep red.  For the card above and one below I also used two sentiments from the Taylored Expressions stamp set Branch Out.

I wanted to show a close up shot of this card so you could see some of the detail of the snowflake.  It was so fun creating and layering these snowflakes and once I added the snowflake brad and Tiny Twinkles that come in the KI Kit they really sparkle and are so pretty.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Key Ingredients Design Team members below to see what they've designed for this month's challenge.

Melody Rupple

Jen Tapler

Jessica Diedrich

Lisa Hjulberg

and Taylor of course!

We would love to see what you can create for this month's challenge when you receive your Key Ingredients Kit!

Thank you for stopping by and have a great day!

SSSC96 Cupcakes

It's time for the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge!  Karen has another fabulous sketch for all of us this week and I hope you'll play along.  I've created two cards using the sketch and for both of them I used my Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients Kit and the TE stamp set For the Love of Cupcakes. For the first card I turned the sketch and used the tiered cupcake image from the set along with the October Afternoon designer papers that come in the KI Kit.

For the second card I used another yummy cupcake image from the stamp set For the Love of Cupcakes and paper pieced the bottom of each cupcake using more of the fun October Afternoon-Modern Homemaker designer paper.  I added a candle to each cupcake and some Spica glitter pen to the flames after coloring the cupcake tops with Copic markers. 

For information on receiving a Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients Kit of your own you can click here.

To play along create a card using Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch, then go to Karen’s blog The Sweetest Thing and link your card so we can all see your creation! 

Be sure to visit each of the Sweet Sunday Stampers below for more samples using this week’s sketch!

Joanne Basile: ...just a little something

Karen Motz: Paper Playhouse

Laura Fredrickson: Scrapnextras

Sarah-Jane Kale': Janeybell

Vicki Burdick: It's a Stamp Thing

Jen Tapler: Jen Tapler Designs

CTD122 - Sleigh Bells Ring

 Hello friends!  It's Wednesday and time for another Color Throwdown!  Can you believe I've been a guest designer for The Color Throwdown for the last six weeks, it sure flew by fast and I had so much fun!  I want to thank Tammy and all of the talented designers on The Color Throwdown team for letting me play along with them.

Laura is our hostess today and she chose these lovely Christmas colors for all of us to use this week.  The card I have for the color challenge uses the stamp sets Sleigh Bells Ring, Bella Toile, Tiny Tags and Holidays and Wishes.  The photo of my card above is unedited since my computer crashed which means no photo-shop or picture editing on my husbands laptop, so it is what it is.  I added some Dazzling Diamonds on the main image to give it some sparkle after using an aqua brush to paint on some color.

For all the details on how to play along, visit The Color Throwdown site.

And be sure to check out what the other design team members have created using the colors for this week:

Barbara Anders - Paper Pursuits

Broni Holcombe - Splashes of Watercolor

Danielle Kennedy - Wild Dragonfly Designs

Tammy Hershberger - Stamp Happy

Kristin Beuter - Mindless Creativity

Laura Pryor - Lil' Inker Designs
Cathy Indelicato - Crafty Thoughts

SSSC95 - Deck the Halls...

 Good morning!  It's time for the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge!  For my card today I used the Stampendous stamp Fluffles Garland to create a fun Christmas card.  It's difficult to see from the photo but I used Crystal Effects on all of the ornaments and added some Red Spica glitter pen to the one Fluffles is eyeing. 

Supplies: Fluffles Garland - Stampendous, Retired SU DSP, Copics, Bakers Twine, Button, Gems, Crystal Effects, Perfect Polka Dots Impressions Folder, Scallop border punch, Dimensionals.  Colors: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Real Red.

To play along create a card using Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch, then go to Karen’s blog The Sweetest Thing and link your card so we can all see your creation! 

Be sure to visit each of the Sweet Sunday Stampers below for more samples using this week’s sketch!

Joanne Basile: ...just a little something

Karen Motz: Paper Playhouse

Laura Fredrickson: Scrapnextras

Sarah-Jane Kale': Janeybell

Vicki Burdick: It's a Stamp Thing

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree. ~Roy L. Smith

CQC#61/MTSC102 - Happy Holidays

Happy Thursday!  I have a quick card share today using the Papertrey Ink stamp set Wreath for All Seasons, Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge and the Colour Queen Challenge.  I made a few of these cards up this morning while my son was at preschool and in between loads of laundry.  I tried to make them clean and simple so that I could easily reproduce several of them.

Supplies: Wreath for all Seasons PTI, Walk in the Park DSP-SU, Ribbon, Gems, Petals a Plenty Impressions Folder, Dimensionals.

Thank you for your visit!

CTD121 - Dasher

 Good morning!  It's time for The Color Throwdown Challenge and Kristin is our hostess today.  The colors that Kristin chose for this week are one of my favorite winter color combinations.  For my card I used the stamp Dasher, the sentiment from the hostess set Occasional Quotes and the snowflake from the stamp set Pattern Pines.  And used one of Jen Delmuro's Sketches from back in August for my card layout (don't you love a good sketch?).

Supplies: Dasher, Occasional Quotes, Pattern Pines, Nestie dies, Ribbon, Brads, Snowflake Embossing folder, Piercer, Small Pearls.

For all the details on how to play along, visit The Color Throwdown site.

And be sure to check out what the other design team members have created using the colors for this week:

Barbara Anders - Paper Pursuits

Broni Holcombe - Splashes of Watercolor

Danielle Kennedy - Wild Dragonfly Designs

Tammy Hershberger - Stamp Happy

Kristin Beuter - Mindless Creativity

Laura Pryor - Lil' Inker Designs
Cathy Indelicato - Crafty Thoughts

Have a great day!

Taylored Expressions Cupcakes and Tea

 Hello friends!  I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving with family and gobbled till you wobbled!  It feels like forever since I last posted to my blog. We had Thanksgiving here at our house so I was busy with all the preparations of cooking and cleaning, and over the last few days I actually put a dent in some Christmas shopping.

I'm here today to share two fun projects I've created using my November Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients Kit.  The first is a birthday card that I created using last weeks TE Sketch Challenge #134, the TE stamp set For the Love of Cupcakes and some of the sweet papers and rick-rack from the KI Kit.

 For my next project I created a tea tray which I purchased from my local craft store.  I wanted to make something three dimensional and keeping with this months Key Ingredients Challenge something to spice up my kitchen.  I painted the wooden tea tray a yellow ochre and the inside base cherry red using craft paint and then punched out squares of the fun designer papers from this months KI Kit.  I stamped the center image of the cupcake, pedestal and glass dome as well as four other cupcakes from the For Love of Cupcakes stamp set and colored all of them using my Copic makers.  I applied a thin layer of Mod Podge to the base of the tray using it as a glue and placed my designer paper squares, cupcake squares and main image, then applied two more layers on top to really seal everything in know that I wanted a good coating because it would be in contact with water.  This was a fun and easy project to create and something anyone could do.

For more handmade gift ideas you can visit Taylored Expressions on YouTube for the 12 Days of a Handcrafted Christmas projects.

Thanks for stopping by!

CTD120 - Butterfly Birthday

Hello friends hope you're well today!  It's Wednesday and time for another Color Throwdown!  Danielle has chosen a very pretty color palette for us this week with the colors Rich Razzleberry, So Saffron and Old Olive.  For my card I used the stamp sets Flight of the Butterfly and Well Scripted to create a birthday card.

Supplies: Fight of the Butterfly, Well Scripted, Cottage Wall DSP, So Saffron DSP, Butterfly punch, Scallop Trim border punch, Perfect Polka Dot Impressions Folder, Ribbon, Floral Fusion Sizzlits die, Pearl, hole punch.

For all the details on how to play along, visit The Color Throwdown site.

And be sure to check out what the other design team members have created using the colors for this week:

Barbara Anders - Paper Pursuits

Broni Holcombe - Splashes of Watercolor

Danielle Kennedy - Wild Dragonfly Designs

Tammy Hershberger - Stamp Happy

Kristin Beuter - Mindless Creativity

Laura Pryor - Lil' Inker Designs
Cathy Indelicato - Crafty Thoughts

To all of my American friends, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.



SSSC94 - Finding Each Other

 Good morning!  It's time for the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge!  Karen has an excellent layout for all of us this week and I hope you'll find time to play along!  For my card using the sketch I decided to have some fun using the Two Step Owl punch and the stamp set A Word for You.  I think this layout using the owls would make a cute Valentines Day card as well.

Supplies: Two Step Owl Punch, A Word for You, Sunny Garden DSP, Two Step Bird Punch (for branch), Scallop border punch, Ribbon, Dimensionals.  Colors: Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive.

To play along create a card using Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch, then go to Karen’s blog The Sweetest Thing and link your card so we can all see your creation! 

Be sure to visit each of the Sweet Sunday Stampers below for more samples using this week’s sketch!

Joanne Basile: ...just a little something

Karen Motz: Paper Playhouse

Laura Fredrickson: Scrapnextras

Sarah-Jane Kale': Janeybell

Vicki Burdick: It's a Stamp Thing

Jen Tapler: Jen Tapler Designs

You cannot always have happiness, but you can always give happiness. ~Author Unknown

Color Throwdown #119 - Greatest Gift

Hello everyone!  It's Wednesday and time for this weeks Color Throwdown!  Barbara has picked out a sharp looking color combo for this week of Early Espresso, Pear Pizzazz and Cajun Craze and we hope you'll play along!  For my first card I used Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge for the layout and the retired SU stamp set Branch Out and since I don't have Pear Pizzazz I went with Kiwi Kiss.

Supplies: Branch Out, Retired DSP, Square Lattice Impressions Folder, Ribbon, Brads, Oval Nestie, Piercer, Dimensionals.

For my second card I used the stamp sets Aviary and Curly Cute (I love these sets together).

Supplies: Aviary, Curly Cute, Ribbon, Perfect Polka Dot Impressions Folder, Scallop border punch, Brads, Piercer, Dimensionals.

For all the details on how to play along, visit The Color Throwdown site.

And be sure to check out what the other design team members have created using the colors for this week:

Barbara Anders - Paper Pursuits

Broni Holcombe - Splashes of Watercolor

Danielle Kennedy - Wild Dragonfly Designs

Tammy Hershberger - Stamp Happy

Kristin Beuter - Mindless Creativity

Laura Pryor - Lil' Inker Designs
Cathy Indelicato - Crafty Thoughts

Taylored Expressions November Key Ingredients Kit

Hello everyone!!!  Today is the release of the Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients Kit and I'm super excited to share a few of the projects I've created using some of the fun materials from the Kit! 

Each month Taylor comes up with a challenge for all of us to get our mojo going and this months challenge is:  November Key Ingredients Challenge: There's a modern homemaker in all of us, right? For our challenge this month, you should create something to spice up your kitchen, or anything featuring kitchen icons or food (food stamp images or real food!).  

 For the challenge I created a few projects that I know I'll definitely use (I'm always striving to stay organized), I used yummy food images (can't go wrong with these cute TE cupcakes) and I know these items will help to spice up my kitchen.  I used the Taylored Expressions stamp set For the Love of Cupcakes to create a coordinated set with a notebook, magnetic calendar and cupcake magnets.  The Key Ingredients Kit for November has so many fun products included in it this month, one being the Modern Homemaker designer paper by October Afternoon.  I love the colors, patterns and designs on these great double sided designer papers and they offer so many possibilities when it comes to creating.  To see all of the details for this months KI Kit and to sign up to receive your TE Key Ingredients Kit click HERE.

Above is the notebook I created, which measures 4 1/4" x 6 1/4", I bought a pack of five Post-it note pads and used one of them for the inside.  The outside cover which was made using a piece of the Maraschino cardstock measures 6 1/4" x 9" with score lines at 4 3/16" and 4 3/4" to create a book cover.  This notebook is the perfect size to carry in your purse or have at hand.

 For the base of my magnetic cupcake calendar I used some of the Lakeshore blue cardstock and cut it to 4 1/2" x 8", I attached a computer printed calendar with brads and cut and colored this cute cupcake image using my Copic markers.

Here you can see the calendar and magnets on my fridge already in use.  This set would make a great gift for a friend, co-worker or teacher.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Key Ingredients Design Team members below to see what they've designed for this month's challenge.

Melody Rupple

Jen Tapler

Jessica Diedrich

Lisa Hjulberg

Rosie Hughes

and Taylor of course!

We would also love to see what you can create for this month's challenge when you receive your Key Ingredients Kit!

Thanks for stopping by!