Hi crafty friends! Welcome to Day Two of the Taylored Expressions Product Release Week for November! Did you like what you saw yesterday? Well…there's lots more where that came from! We have been busy making lots of projects to share with you. Remember, everything will be for sale on Thursday morning bright and early! Thanks for coming by! Today I have two projects to share. First up is a cool rock and roll card made with the "You're my Hero" stamp set and matching dies. LOVE. 

I absolutely dig this stamp set! It can be cool or fun and it can be masculine or feminine. So versatile and groovy. I chose a bright color scheme with black and turquoise. This set has lots and lots of stamps. 

I made my own background paper by using the star stamp with some clear embossing…. I used versamark ink with clear embossing powder for a shiny tone on tone look. 

The guitar die is in two pieces so you can make them different colors. Genius! 

This month Taylor is releasing a whole line of fun wine-themed stamps and dies. The sayings are fun and clever. The set I'm featuring is called "Witty Wine Quotes" and there is also a set called "Wine a Little!" I decided to make a hostess gift – some little wine quote notes to bring over to someone's house.  Sometimes I bring a bottle of wine over and this would be a nice thing to bring with the wine. 

I used purple and green and cream for my colors. My notes are made with the 3×3 Scallop Note card which I use all the time. I tied my notes with some pretty purple gingham ribbon around the tin. I put foam tape on the back of the top panel and threaded my ribbon through to keep it in place…

Here are my little notes! 

Here is the Bakers Dozen Design Team Link List for today! Hop around won't you? Have a fabulous day my friends.  

HELLO! Friends! It's November and it's the first week of November…so you know what that means! It's time for another AMAZING release from Taylored Expressions! I loooove being on this team! Taylor totally outdid herself this month – there are 30 new products! I know you will find something (many things) that you like this month. The Bakers Dozen Design Team will have fun projects to share with you all week and the entire release is available for purchase on Thursday morning! Yippeeeee. 

Taylor is starting a new line of products called Pockets & Pages and it's all about scrapbooking. You really must go and look at the fabulous scrapbook pages the other gals made. I used some of the scrapbook supplies to make a cheery yellow card to share today. 

I love yellow and black! So crisp and clean. The HELLO is made with new letter dies – called Sweet & Simple Alpha. There will be upper case (shown here), lower case, and matching numbers. Perfect for making your own words and titles. 

Thanks for popping in to share the start of RELEASE WEEK with me! It's going to be a lot of fun around here and on the TE Blog and TE Facebook! 

Here is your link list for today:

• Carole Burrage
• Charmaine Ikach
• Courtney Kelley
• Jen Shults
• Joan Ervin
• Kerri Michaud
• Nancy McKinney
• Pattie Goldman - Guest Designer
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

Hi there everyone! Sorry to have been away all week! It's been crazy around here! Last week was very busy at work and also with things at home, Halloween, and lots of other fun stuff! Did you have a good Halloween? Did you dress up? Are you on sugar overload like me? 

So…today is my birthday! I've been enjoying it all week! LOL. My friends have been spoiling me rotten and Friday night I got a bright red manicure! The hubs took me to San Francisco for the day yesterday and I shopped…a lot! Yay! It was the perfect day. This morning we went out for breakfast and now I'm in the craft room enjoying the day. Later I would love to just lay down and read a book. I have been reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. If you would like to see a few pictures from San Francisco yesterday, you can check out my INSTAGRAM FEED! 

In honor of my birthday, I thought I would make a birthday card to share with you!  I saw THIS IDEA on the Paper-Source website and have been wanting to copy it. Today, it was the perfect card to make – CAS and quick! I used my super cool Hero Arts Neon Inks and a favorite confetti stamp from Savvy Stamps. The die and the word sentiment are both from Papertrey Ink. Have a look! 

I stamped the confetti image in three shades of neon ink on my background piece and let it dry. Then I stamped 'happy' in black ink and mounted my die cut. Easy peasy! The hardest part of this car was choosing which colors to use! 

Here are my supplies….

Thanks for coming by today! Be sure to check in tomorrow for the beginning of an awesome release week for Taylored Expressions! First sneak peeks go live at 7am Pacific Time. Toodles! XOXO

Thank you to everyone who sent me a card or a facebook message – I really appreciate it and feel like one lucky girl! 🙂

Hi there! How can it be Monday already? Man, that weekend went by fast! Saturday we were out running around doing errands all day. Yesterday I was invited to one of my crafty gal pals' house to stamp and visit – and it was lovely! I don't know about you, but I always have the HARDEST time deciding what to bring over to someone's house, or to a crop night. The hubs came up with a great idea….just pack up my markers and color. That's just what I did. Packed up the Copics and some cute stamp sets and a couple of ink pads. It was super easy and no fuss. When I got home, I put this card together with one of the images I colored. SUPER adorable stamp set from Darcie's!!

I got this fun card layout from Pinterest! I do that a lot, go through cards I like and use the sketch/layout. This one is a keeper! I used some pretty bright yellow paper to set off the color in the leaves. At first I was going to use orange….but I've been overdoing the orange lately. LOL.

I added some little touches of Hero Arts Prisma Glitter to the leaves. It's really sweet – that glitter is so perfect for just a smidge of sparkle. Oh, and now it's covering my entire craft room!

Here is a side shot of my layers…

Autumn Greetings to you my friends in cyber-space! I hope that you have a wonderful week!!! I'm starting to celebrate my birthday today (it's on Sunday, but I'm starting now!!) and we are doing Boo Buddies at work. Should be a fun week. XOXO

Hi there! I know it's the week before Halloween, but I'm sharing Christmas Tags today for the Papertrey Ink October Blog Hop! The theme for this month is to make a set of five tags. Good thing about that is that now I have a head start on some packaging for presents! Here are my five tags….

Here is the inspiration image from the PTI website: 

I stayed with a simple color palette of cream, silver, red and brown – for a vintage look. Yes, I'm still using that sparkly silver paper on EVERYTHING! LOL. The snowflakes are the new ones from last month and they are called Fancy Flakes! The ribbon and twine are also from PTI. 

The tag die is called Tag Sale #3! It has a separate piece to use for the bale of the tag. The birch paper is brand new from Stampin' Up. It's very thin, so I adhered it to some cream cardstock first. Makes a nice homey and retro feeling I think. 

Here is my 'in process' shot – trying to see how I wanted to arrange all my elements. The two stamp sets I used are Winter Penguin and Holiday Home. Beautiful fonts! 

Thanks for stopping in! Are you going to make some tags and join the blog hop? CLICK HERE FOR THE DEETS!  Hope so! I can't wait to see all the other tags. People are so creative! Have a great day everyone! 

Hey peeps! How is your week going? My week is going great! I took a couple of days off from work and I've been stamping and relaxing and generally getting my loose parts all back together. You know how sometimes you just need a break from it all? Well, I was feelin' it. Luckily I have lots of vacation time saved up! I love Autumn and I love to be home just puttering and enjoying the season. Today's card was inspired by Autumn, and by a beautiful photo from Pinterest! My Aunt Sue loves Fall too, and we both have November birthdays! She emailed me THIS PHOTO FROM PINTEREST and it totally made me have an idea for a card!

Fall + Coffee = Awesomeness! 

I combined a bunch of sets for my stamping…two sets from Stampin Up (Perfect Blend and Fall Foliage) and then I got the heart steam image from another stamp…. I had fun putting it all together. My stamping was done in Cocoa Memento Ink. 

I took a light brown Copic Marker (E31) and gently edged my leaf punches and also added a touch of color to my coffee cup. My card base is cream cardstock. 

The leaf punches are from Creative Memories! I've had that punch forever!!! 

Thank you for coming by to check out my card today…Anyone want to join me for Pumpkin Spice Latte? Doesn't that sound divine right now? XOXO Have a great week! 

Hi there! It's the weekend! Yippeeee! Another beautiful Fall day here in Northern California. Have I mentioned how much I love this time of year? Pretty sure I have, about a million times! Today is one of my days to post for Taylored Expressions! This month, the design team is featuring the super versatile line of stamps called 'Totally Tags.' CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE LINE. There are tags for every holiday and every occasion you can think of.

One of my favorite sets is the Totally Tags Handmade set and I used that to make a shabby chic card for one of my girlfriends who loves to sew. There are matching dies for the tag shapes, so everything comes out so nice and clean.  

The pretty Bonjour Couture set matched my tag perfectly so I combined images and sentiments for this one. I used a pretty color combo of pink and brown, with a little kraft thrown in. I distressed my edges with Antique Linen distress ink….

I found this perfect ribbon in my stash! It's pink with brown stitching! Loved that it adds another pretty shade of pink to the card. I added some buttons, too, to keep with my sewing theme.

My Tags were mounted on my card with foam tape for some dimension… Here is a side shot of my layers…

A full supply list with links is below. I hope you have a marvelous weekend everyone! Nice to see you here!

Greetings on this fine and gorgeous Autumn Sunday! I've been in the craft cave alllllll day making a project to share with you! I have so much to talk about today! Thank you for coming by to visit me – it makes my day, really and truly. 

So, on Friday THIS HAPPENED!!!!!! I was mentioned on the Tim Holtz blog along with some other wonderful crafty gals on his "blogworthy" post! I think I almost fainted! My friend Richele sent me a facebook message to tell me and when I saw it, I had to just go on and pick myself up off the floor! I was so excited and honored to get a shout out from one of my stampy idols! Made my whole year! LOL. As a result, since Friday I have 30 new blog subscribers! (welcome and thank you!) and I have had almost 6000 blog hits. Thud. I'm so happy to be sharing my blog with new friends. That's the best part of blogging! 

So, in honor of the above, I decided to make a Tim-Holtz-Autumn-Inspired-Fall-Leaf-Tag! The hubs and I went up to Apple Hill  yesterday morning, and the leaves and the light and the colors really have inspired me. I posted a few of my photos at the end of my post. But, before I get too long winded, here's my tag! 

I inked, distressed, painted, crinkled, soaked, distressed some more! I used a warm and rich Fall color palette of red, orange, yellow and brown. YUM! 

Today in the craft room, is was all about the creative journey! This tag took me all day, but I put on some music, relaxed, and just let it flow. Isn't that the best, when you have time to ponder and get inky? Here's a side view so you can see the dimension and layers. 

I hand dyed the ribbon to match my tag. I put some "in process" photos a little later in my post. At one point I added some Perfect Pearls Mist! I just kept adding stuff! 

This compass piece is a Tim Holtz embellishment. I put a red brad in the center of it for some color. The sentiment is from a giant word set also designed by Tim Holtz. I cut out my sentiment piece from a manila tag and didn't distress it too much – for some contrast. 

I cut my leaves out of manila tags so they would have a nice weight to them and be able to stand up to lots of ink and water. 

Here I am getting my craft mat ready! My new favorite color is wild honey distress ink!! 

The aftermath….

To dye your own ribbon, take the Tim Holtz crinkle ribbon…and well…crinkle it! Soak it with water first too. Then just smush it all around in the ink/die/paint of your choice until you get the color you want. 

I stopped here….could have kept adding color! 

And, here's what it looks like after I dried it with my heat gun. SOOOOOO fabulous. I really love doing this part! Custom ribbon. Yeah. 

So here are my pieces ready for the next steps….

First up, DISTRESSSSSS! Lots of Vintage Photo and Brushed Corduroy ink! I crumpled my leaves, too, to make them more realistic and pretty. 

I hope you enjoyed my project and my creative journey for today! 

Here are just a few of my Apple Hill photos – that inspired me today! 

Have a great week everyone!

See you soon! 

Hello my crafty bloggy friends! How was your week? It's almost FRIDAY! Yippeeeeee! I am loving the Fall weather and I'm excited that Halloween is only three weeks away now. I'm getting in the spirit and trying to get ahead on some treats for my friends. I love anything that is vintage Halloween. Love it. So cool and retro and fun. I go crazy for this stuff! It just really recalls a mood for me. I have had the idea in my head for a long time about making some glassine treat bags for Halloween, and this past weekend I finally got my act together and made them. I'm excited to share with you! I made 12 and they are all different, so this post is pretty photo heavy. Grab some candy and take a look! 

These were my four favorites! I used only black, orange and silver for my color palette. It's hard to see, but many of my accent pieces are sparkly silver glitter paper! 

I'll show you below how I made these super cool bat pins! I am so happy with how they came out! Easy to make, too. Here you can see some of the pieces I used, and the washi tape accents. 

I used Stayzon ink for my stamping to make the images super dark and rich black. This stamp is from a Martha Stewart Halloween stamp set in my stash. The pumpkin is from Martha too… 

I love how the little tags look clipped with a pin and wrapped with some twine…

Here is my desk in full on production line mode! You can see how I just layed everything out in front of me so I could pick and choose my elements. I only had a package of 12 glassine bags, otherwise I could have made lots more! The owl and moon dies are from Tim Holtz. 

Here is how I made my bat pins: I punched out the bats from black cardstock and glued two of them together on either side of a floral pin. Done! They look creepy and vintage at the same time. 

Here is a close up of some of my pieces….

I found it easiest to put the candy in, then fold the bag over first. Then I stapled on a doily to cover up the top and make a nice base for everything else. The staple holds the bag shut, and it gets covered up by the 'toppings.' 

Then I just started gluing stuff on! 

Here are a couple more photos of the finished projects! 

I hope I've inspired you, and maybe you'll give this project a try?! It was such a fun afternoon, just sitting at my desk thinking up combinations and putting them all together. I think this would be a great project to do with a group of friends, too. Maybe each person could bring some pieces and put everything out on a big table…. Hmmmm, that gives me an idea for Valentine's Day. But that's still far away! LOL. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and thank you for coming by to see what I'm up to!