A Blog Called Wanda

Taylored Expressions Calendar Challenge – May!

Today it's time again for our cool new calendar projects from Taylored Expressions and I am having such a good time making my pages each month! The Baker's Dozen Design Team will be sharing calendar goodies and ideas with you throughout the entire year, so be sure to check out everyone else's projects too.

Refer over to Taylor's blog to get all the info to play along with us each month. There will be a linky at the bottom of Taylor's post and it will remain open all year, so you have the option to go back and catch up if you start playing late. For everyone who plays in 10 or more of these monthly calendar challenges in 2012, there will be a random draw for a TE prize pack valued at over $150!!! Click here to go to the TE Calendar Department and see all the goodies.

I chose to make the "Frame Your Imagination" calendar and use Cuppie as my theme! The stand for the calendar comes in raw wood and then you can paint it whatever color you choose. I painted mine kind of an antique white and then speckled some brown onto it to give it some character.

CLICK here for the calendar stand…CLICK here for the page protectors and CLICK here for the page inserts. I like this a lot because the finished pages are 6×6 and that gives a lot of room to stamp!

Here is my May Calendar page….Cuppie is already primed for Summer! :-)

I used the Wave Border Die for the bottom and two of my favorite TE stamp sets!

Here are my Copic colors for this project – so bright and cheery!

A Year of Sweets 2 and A Day in Paradise – they go together nicely for a beach scene!

I colored Cuppie one shade darker than I normally do…he has a bit of a sunburn! hee hee. You know, the first time out of the season and all.

Thank you for popping in today to see my calendar page. Links to everyone's projects are below…have fun!

Lavender Birthday Cameo….

Hi Friends! Whew…I was a bizzzzzzy bee this weekend in the craft studio! How about you? Did you do something creative? Fun? I spent the entire day on Saturday in my creative place and made some fun stuff to share with you. I got out ALL of my Papertrey Ink supplies and just let them talk to me. You know what they said? "Make a cameo card!" LOL. I love PTI's stuff so much, and I have gobs of it. Why do I forget to play? Anyhoo…here is my card for today!

Today's card definitely takes a "more is more" approach! Ha. I used lots of different techniques on this one! I kept thinking of things to add and I couldn't help myself. First up, I scored my cream layer on my MS Score Board. I tried it first with an A2 size sheet of paper. Um, yeah, that didn't really go so well… Thus, my card ended up being a square! Much easier to score evenly, every 1/2 inch!

I had just gotten this pretty "Winter Wisteria" colored ribbon in my last PTI order. It's the perfect shade of bluish-purple. Yum. I found some matching Bazzill in my stash. That button is from Doodlebug. I added a pearl to the center. Okay, so most of you know that I am severely bow-impaired. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner! Duh! For this card I tied a bow separately and got it all nice and pretty and then put it over a strip of ribbon!!! That way I didn't have to fight with tying the bow on the card! I'm sure everyone already knew that….haha.

I used the Happy Birthday sentiment from a different set and stamped it on a sheet of vellum. I gave our little lady a nice necklace.

This is the craft room disaster area – in which I had all my PTI goodies out of their bins and on the floor! You might say this is the "during" photo!

One last picture for today. A wee tiny rosebud I came across last week in my travels. Just the softest shade of pink…ahhhhh.

One of the other things I did this weekend was to go through my entire room searching for things to sell at our fourth annual Crafty Girl Garage Sale, which is Saturday, May 19th. If you live in Sac-town, let me know and I'll email you the address. There are eight of us selling this year! It's always a good time, and lots of good crafty stuff to buy!

Thanks for coming by to see me here! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Polaroid Card Set!

FRIDDDAAAAYYYYYYYY! Can I get an Amen?! YAY! I had an awesome week, but I gotta tell ya, I'm pooped and ready to sleeeeeep in tomorrow! So that means I will surely be wide awake at 6am. Isn't that the way it goes? You can finally sleep in, but you wake up anyway? Did you have a good week? Lots of good stuff going on at work, release week for TE, a retirement shindig…you name it, this week had it. I hope you have fun things planned for your Spring weekend. Thanks for popping in here.

Today's cards were completely inspired by all the cool junk currently sitting on my desk. Everything I used for these cards all came from different companies, bought at different times, but it all was sitting there and it all matched perfectly! The initial inspiration came from the neat patterned paper from American Crafts in a pretty Spring color palette. I made one card, and couldn't stop myself from making two more. I will not hoard craft supplies. I will not hoard craft supplies. I will not hoard craft supplies….

I think this one is my favorite of the bunch! I had a lot of fun mixing and matching the little Polaroid prints and the colors and flowers. This is such a happy color range…

The paper is called Neapolitan and it is from American Crafts. I bought the 6×6 pad and also some of the big sheets of the Polaroid patterned paper. LOVE! It's really just too much fun.

The felt and the flower die are both from PTI. The fabric buttons are from We R Memory Keepers and the neat wood flags are from Jillibean Soup. I matched everything up with some Bazzill papers and kraft card bases.

Or maybe this one is my favorite….

Have a great weekend! XOXOXO

Taylored Expressions May Release Day!

TE RELEASE DAY!

All of the new products are now available for purchase! Check out the Fresh Out of the Oven Department to see everything in one place!
More projects from the Baker's Dozen to inspire you. Just follow the link list below.
Be sure to check the TE Current Specials page for May Release Bundle options. The new Father's Day Digi Image and inspiration sheet is available FREE with purchase of any Bundle!
Did you win one of the Mystery Baker's Dozen Blog Giveaways? Find the list of winners on Taylor's Blog.

Today I'm featuring a new set from the Whimsical Wishes line of stamps by Nancy McKinney. It's called Oops A Daisy and it's beautiful. It is a full size set of 20 images and sentiments and is another gorgeous floral set from Nancy. This set also has four coordinating dies. Once again, Taylor has given us a choice of solid or open line images for coloring and stamping. Truly something for everyone! This is the perfect set for Mother's Day.

For my card, I chose to use the solid images and emboss them on watercolor paper for a soft effect. Hope you like it!

Here's a close up of the watercolor wash I put over the images. I stamped in white pigment ink onto watercolor paper and then heat embossed with white powder. Then, I wet the entire sheet of paper and chose some colors of watercolor pencils and just played around with it until I got the look I wanted. This is a very forgiving technique. At the end, I chose to distress the edges just a bit to "ground" my image.

This is how it looked before watercoloring….

I kept the layout clean and natural and simple. I think this looks nice with yellow and kraft. Just a touch of twine…

For my second card for today I have a (not really) funny story! I was supposed to make TWO cards yesterday! I spaced out and made this card on the wrong day. It kind of worked out that today ended up being a very daisy day…with two card using beautiful new daisy stamps! Is it Friday yet? This next stamp set was illustrated by the lovely Nancy McKinney and is another gorgeous Petite set in the Bouquet series – this is Daisy Bouquet, a set of 6 stamps for the Whimsical Wishes line. This set included sentiments that coordinate perfectly with the new Mini Tags Dies, which is a set of 9 tags in super cute shapes. I chose a more traditional tag and attached it to my card using some twine. These little tags are awesome!

My Copic color choices for this card….

One trick to making things look white (the daisy petals) is to color them grey! I know this sounds counterintuitive…but it works! It tricks your eye into seeing white. Try it some time!

Here is the image of the Mini Tags….

Thank you for coming by this week. It is always fun to share sneak peeks with you. I just know that you have found some things you want to buy today! I hope the rest of your week is awesome. Now, get to shopping! 🙂

Here are the last linkys of the week:

Taylored Expressions May Sneak Peeks – Day 3!

May 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, May 3rd 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 for the drawings close Wednesday 5/2 at 7pm PST.

For today's card I'm featuring our Father's Day Digi Image! The Father's Day Digi is FREE with the purchase of any May Release Bundle and there are several to choose from. The Digi is not being offered for sale. You will download both an open line image and a 2nd pre-colored image for super fun, quick cards and projects. You will also be able to download an inspiration sheet showing all of the projects created by the Baker's Dozen this week. Be sure to check out the Bundle Options on the Specials page on Release Day, Thursday.

Have you ever used a Digi image before? It's so easy! Taylor will email you the file and you print it out on your computer printer and then color it. So simple! You can print it onto whatever paper you choose, and it comes out nice and crisp.

Here are my Copic colors…they perfectly match that awesome patterned paper. All of the papers and ribbon are from the Project Pantry Kit for this month – lots more information listed below. Such a great kit for this image and for Father's Day. I love this paisley!!

Here's the 4-1-1 on the Loyal Project Pantry –

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 a Taylored Expressions 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. Taylored Expressions is offering the Loyal 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 Loyal Project Pantry Basic Recipe Kit is $13.95 and includes:

Authentique Loyal 6×6 pad of 36 of sheets

12 sheets of coordinating solid cardstock

5 yards of ribbon (1 yard each of 5 different styles)

Here are the linkys for today!

Taylored Expressions May Sneak Peeks – Day 2!

May 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, May 3rd 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 for the drawings close Wednesday 5/2 at 7pm PST.

Today I made a fun and fancy Stair Step card featuring another new set – called Lakeside Lodge! This set is from the Apple Doodle Ink by Doug Applegate collection and has an adorable lake house and dock! Lakeside Lodge – Doug's Adorable Abodes #5 – was concepted by Jami Sibley – Ahhhh – kick back at the Lake! Designed with Father's Day, retirement, and relaxation in mind.

Here are the step by step (pun intended) for this card fold. It looks hard, but it's really not. I hope you will give it a try!

Here's the side view, so you can see why it's called a stair step card! I had so much fun adding layers and layers of pretty waves using the TE Wave border die! This is a really fun stamp set.

Buddy was extremely interested in what was going on at this point…

Here's a pic of the process of adding my waves…

When the card is all folded up, it's actually quite small, and fits into an A2 envelope! Who would have thought? The blue and green papers are from this month's Project Pantry Kit that you'll be seeing more of during the week.

This was a really fun set of images to color. I tried to make my house look like a wood shingle house. The roof is just colored in different shades of brown and grey.

A good sentiment for us all to remember….

Here's a side view to show my coloring…

How fun is this set??? VERY!!! Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to go and hop around and check out everyone else's projects for today. Happy Release Week! I so love being a part of this team! 🙂

Taylored Expressions May Sneak Peeks – Day 1!

May 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, May 3rd 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 for the drawings close Wednesday 5/2 at 7pm PST.

This set I'm using today is over the top adorable cuteness!!! It's called FAR OUT! It is part of the Embracing Grace collection by Emily Burger (she drew Fruity Friends too!). Far Out is a full size set of 21 images and sentiments and is a cute and quirky take on robots and space! The sentiments are really fun in this set. The image and sentiment I chose remind me of "Lost in Space!"

I thought this set called for super bright and happy colors so I chose turquoise and lime green! I colored in the space ship and then added some glitter for a bit of pop. There are two different sizes of stars that come in the set so you can embellish away…

I used my circle and scallop circle Nestabilities to make a frame for my space ship…

Here are my Copic colors…

I would say this is Far Out! hee hee.

Please remember the following about all of our stamps:

TE stamps are RUBBER – not clear – for a wonderful impression
All sets come on a full color panel and store perfectly in our Mini Binder Boxes (4 sets to a box). Full size set panels are 5.75" x 8.5" and jam packed with images. Mini set panels are 4.75" square (CD size). Petite panels are 3" x 5" for $7.95. (6 Petite sets fit into a Petite Storage case)
Awesome value for you - we offer more rubber images in a set than most companies at a comparable price!

I cannot even tell you how fun everyone's projects are for today! Please take time to look at everyone's blogs today and have a Happy Release Week! Thank you for visiting!

Yellow!

Hi friends! Happy weekend to you! What's up? Whatcha doing this weekend? I am going to stamp the weekend away. Monday starts Taylored Expressions sneak peeks and I need to get all my projects done, photo'd and blogged before then. I'm almost done with all my cards, but there's lots left to do! Hopefully I'll get in some quality time with the hubs too. I hope you have a fantastic weekend planned.

Lately I am obsessed with YELLOW! I am drawn to it for my projects and it lightens my mood and cheers me up. It seems like yellow is everywhere! Whenever I hear the word yellow, I think of that Coldplay song of that title. The DH sings that to me and I like it when he does! One of my favorite Pinterest boards lately is my friend Lynn's board called Sunshiny Yellow. You really MUST check it out. I promise it will make you happy! Then, while blog surfing this week, I came across this post on the Moxie Fab World Blog. All about coral and yellow. YUM. I was inspired to say the least!

So to make a long story short…I was inspired by all of these things and came home tonight to get my craft on, and this is what I made!

I had a lot of fun combining all these elements based on coral, yellow and a little pop of turquoise. The butterflies are Martha Stewart punches. The background impression plate is from PTI and I'm sorry that I don't recall where the rosettes came from. The papers are from the Tropical paper collection from American Crafts.

I added the buttons to the rosettes, from my stash, and then added some pearls to the big butterfly.

It's easy to make your own stick pins! I bought a big batch of pearl pins from the sewing section of the craft store, and for this project I glued two butterfly punches onto one. Easy peasy.

***SMILE***

So now Mr. Buddy decided that no one was paying attention to him, so he had to get into this blog post somehow! He wishes you a nice weekend too!

Take good care everyone! Have a super weekend and don't forget to smile….

Tuscan Sun…

Hi peeps! Today's card was made to brighten the day…because it's raining here again! Last week we had one day where it was 94 degrees out…now it's raining. Must be Spring! So, I came home tonight and made a sunny Tuscan scene card. I love these scenery stamps from Stampendous. I have three or four of them. They are really fun to color. The one I used tonight is called 'Sunflower Scene.' I have American Idol on in the craft room, and kitty by my side. I hope you're having a great week so far!

After I colored the image, I cut out around it to pop it up off the page and add some interest. It was hard to match papers to this one, so I kept it kind of simple.

Here are my Copic colors for this project! The blue is B12.

Here's a quick trick for your sentiment – try scoring it and folding it! The sentiment stamp is from Amuse and it's a fav.

Have a beautiful day! 🙂

Thank you for coming by today!

Sweet Strawberries for a Monday!

Hi Peeps! It's 10:00 and I'm finally getting a blog post ready! I got home from work with every intention of heading straight to the craft room, but then I decided I had to watch last night's episode of Mad Men first. Okay, that was weird! Not sure where that episode was going. Not one of my favorites. Do you watch? I've never missed an episode and have all the seasons on DVD too. Love me some Mad Men! So, then I had to open my box of new PTI goodies that arrived today! I decided to use the new PTI Strawberry Patch stamp set and dies for tonight's card. Yay!

Before I go on, if you leave a comment, you might notice that now you have to do an authentication code. I apologize for this! I never wanted to put that on my blog…but…over the weekend and today I received 127 SPAM blog comments! Yikes! I had to manually mark them and delete all of them. So, that's the story behind that. Who does that? RUDE!

Here's my card for today – sweet strawberries with a little shabby chic flavor!

Love the fonts in this set!

I got the matching dies and it all works so perfectly together…

I distressed the edges of all the papers to give it some character. Added a little butterfly. Thought about adding some pearls too, but stopped myself!

As you might recall, Dave Brethauer from Memory Box was here this past weekend and I took a watercolor class on Saturday morning. TOO MUCH FUN! Here's a picture of Dave and Teadub and Teadub's newest addition, baby Elvis! (his name's not really Elvis but you can see that beautiful head of hair he has!) He is TOOOOO cute, and such a sweet baby. He took stamp class and went out to lunch, and was good the entire time.

Here are some of the cards we made in Dave's class. It was such a nice morning. Lots of friends in stamp class, a good vibe, calm and relaxing. And, cute cards too. Perfect.

This one was my favorite. I never would have thought to add that pop of red….but I like it.

At CHA in January I saw these amazing new colored pencils imported from Japan by Tombow. Well…I made the 'mistake' of telling Stephanie about them and she got them in the store last week. I jokingly say 'mistake' only because of the cost! They are super beautiful and super expensive! There are three sets of three boxes of pencils. I only bought one set, and I totally love it. They come in these pretty boxes too.

The lavender box has the floursescent colors! Check out the names of the colors….too cool. Doesn't that make it more fun? I think so.

Okay, so I hope you didn't leave to go get a snack. I know this is a long post! One more tidbit. Dave usually comes out from Seattle to teach Christmas in July classes with his new holiday collection every year. He can't come this July, so I will be teaching the Memory Box Holiday classes at Paper Garden this year!! Woot!! I will post more details and Stephanie will put all the 411 in the upcoming newsletter too. I hope you Sac-town gals will come! XOXOXO Have a great week!