Hi there friends! It's been a great day in the craft studio today! I am almost done getting my posts ready for next week's Taylored Expressions Release, and I had time to make something for the August Hero Arts Contest too! It's been a while since I entered the Hero Arts Contests – and I really miss doing so! This month has fantastic themes…and I'm going to try to make more entries before the month runs out too. Click here to go to the page with the contest deets! Maybe you will join in the fun with me? For today's card, I went with the part of the contest for 'make your own embellishments!'

I am ALWAYS inspired by the super talented Kathy Martin. Have you ever seen her blog? It's so happy and beautiful and fresh…I honestly don't know how she does it. Every project more gorgeous than the last. Well, a while back I saw this card of Kathy's and pinned it to my Pinterest board. I kept thinking about it and the idea of using the negatives of my letter dies. Today I decided to go for it and do my take on Kathy's card.

 

 

 

 

I used the pretty Poppies stamp as a lovely soft image on my tag. I was going to color it in, but it didn't look right. I love the aqua popping through!

 

 

 

One trick for making your own embellishments, and something I do alot, is to cut out accent pieces from your patterned paper. Here I made a flower embellishment by cutting out the red flower, adding a button and then finishing it with some twine. On the other part of the card, I cut out another couple of pieces of the paper too. This way everything is sure to match!

 

 

 

Here are my supplies… At the last minute, I decided not to go with the cute wood typewriter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello! This card is not my usual color palette or layout…I really went outside my box with it. The new paper from Basic Grey spoke to me and I love aqua and red. I'm happy with it!

 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Lots of love coming your way from craft room to yours…. Thanks for coming by today!  

 

Hi friends! Did we have a weekend? Did I blink and miss it? Oh my. Time flies when you're having fun! I put the DH to work in the craft room this weekend helping me die cut things for classes. What an enormous help he was! WOW – we got so much done. I stayed up until well after midnight Friday night watching the Olympic opening ceremonies. Did you watch? My favorite things were when they raised the five gold Olympic rings and then fireworks came down out of them…and also at the end when the flame came together and the following aerial shots of all the fireworks! SOOOO cool!

I am still frantically making birthday cards! I have lots of Leo friends – August babies. Everyone loves a Leo, right? So, I have another birthday creation to share today. I LOVE the new Chevron impression folder from Stampin' Up. I used it on my card, and tried a different color scheme too.

 

 

 

 

This card didn't have any stamping! Just lots of fun paper, punches and embossing…

 

 

 

The patterned papers and the pennant are all from October Afternoon products.

 

 

 

These super fun wood words are from Studio Calico – can't wait to use more of them. I adore these fresh pretty stripes!

 

 

 

Here's a quick way to make leaves for your punch art flowers…Punch out a circle and then cut the circle into leaf shapes. Easy-peasy! I sometimes will score mine too, to give some dimension to them. Here's photo of the steps.

 

 

 

A little bit of foam tape and some cheery buttons finish off my flowers. Can you see the gorgeous impression of those chevrons? Perfect!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finished all my samples for my upcoming classes at Paper Garden Boutique! I hope that some of you reading this can come and have some fun playing with me! The dates are August 11 and 12 and there is a Fall/Halloween class and a Winter/Christmas class. You can call the store to sign up – the number is 916-48-PAPER.

 

 

 
Thanks so much for coming by today.

I hope that you have a great week ahead! 

 

Hi bloggy friends! Happy Friday and Happy start-of-Olympics Day! Are you into the Olympics? Do you look forward to a particular event?I like watching everything – love the human stories and the athletes in their prime reaching their goals. I'm a sucker for all of it! I am looking forward to sitting down tonight with DH and Mr. Buddy to watch the opening ceremonies from London! I have always wanted to go to London, but haven't made it yet. One day maybe?! Until then, it will be fun to watch all the action on television over the next few weeks.

Have you seen the SUPER adorable stamps that Penny Black put out for the Olympics?? I bought a couple of them a while back and decided, yep, this is the perfect day to post a card made with them! LOL. I sure had fun with this project and I hope it brings a smile to your face. 

 

 

 

 

 

I went on Google maps and found a map of London, printed it out on my printer and cut it to size for my background. The colors don't exactly go, but that's okay, right?  The "Olympics" word was made using an old alphabet set I have in my stash.

 

 

 

This cute little car filled with animals is the "Miniful" stamp from Penny Black for 2012. Love the license plate. It will be a keepsake for years now. I still have a stamp that says "Happy New Year 2000" that I'm saving too!

 

 

 

Yes, I really did use ALLLLLLL those markers! Can you see the tiny image in the middle of my work pad? Crazy, huh? Us girls and our markers….

 

 

 

These little banners are from Poppystamps! I cut out several and then added some Stickles for a bit of shimmer and shine. Popped some up on foam tape, too.

 

 

 

Looks like they are on their way to Opening Ceremonies! Beep Beep!

 

Okay, everyone, have a super great weekend! Thanks for coming by the blog today… and …

GO TEAM USA!

 

 

Taylored Expressions is introducing a new monthly challenge for the Bakers Dozen Design Team! The Baker's Dozen Studio Challenge!  This will be an opportunity for us to share what makes our stamping studios hum.  Each month we will have a fun, crafty question so we can share our favorite stamps, some tips and tricks, a little stamping advice and more. I'm really looking forward to this new adventure. I feel so lucky to be a part of this amazing team. I hope you have fun hopping around to see what we're up to.

Taylor and Jami came up with an intersting question for July: 

You are stranded on a desert island. The good news is that you find a fabulous stamping hut well-stocked with papers, inks and other stamping supplies. However you only have the 5 stamp sets you brought with you in the luggage you managed to salvage. So tell us, what TE stamps sets did you bring and why?

So, I'm going to answer the fun question….and of course, share a project made with one of my five choices! Here's my card – using Fruity Friends and a crisp, summery card…

 

 

 

 

 

Man, did I have a hard time choosing just five sets! If I could only use five TE sets…hmmmm…I went through my very nice stash of stamps and picked out my top five favs of all time from TE. Now, how nice would it be to be able to stamp on a deserted island??? Let's go! LOL.

Here's a picture of the five sets I chose:

 

 

Pictured above are: Fruity Friends, Love Grows Here, A Day in Paradise, Vintage Dreamer, and Crafty Cuppie. I love each one for a different reason. Crafty Cuppie was how I discovered Taylored Expressions, and it was the first TE set I bought. I chose to use Fruity Friends today because I designed this set!!! The other three are personal favorites that I go back to all the time.

Here are my Copic choices for this project – just a few BRIGHT colors!

 

 

 

 

 

I thought I would show you my favorite project made with each of my five choices!

First up is FRUITY FRIENDS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next on my list is CRAFTY CUPPIE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh…and then A DAY IN PARADISE!

 

 

 

 

 

Another versatile favorite is LOVE GROWS HERE!

 

 

 

 

Last, but certainly not least, is the beautiful VINTAGE DREAMER!  

 

 

 

 

I sure had lots of fun doing this challenge and post. I hope you've enjoyed it too – looking at some of my old projects and favorite stamps. I CANNOT wait to look around and see what everyone else posted today. How about you? Here are the links to the rest of the Bakers Dozen…and have a blessed day everyone!

• Charmaine Ikach
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon      White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie      Kraft
• Taylor      VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

 

Hi there bloggy friends!! IT'S FRIIDDAAAYYYYYYY! Finally! You know, I wasn't really a big fan of this week. Not really too sorry to see it go. Nothing terrible happened, just a general weirdness to it. Some bad chi. Was it just me? I'm looking forward to a weekend in the crafty cave getting things ready for my classes at Paper Garden coming up. It's gonna be here before I know it! What are you doing this weekend? I hope you have a great one!

It seems I have found myself in a butterfly phase again! Remember last year when I did 'butterfly week' here on the blog? (kind of like shark week, only prettier and less dramatic). Well…I am finding myself drawn to butterflies again. So, I'm not gonna fight it, I'm just gonna go with it. Are you with me? Can't go wrong with butterflies in a crafty sense. Happy and cheery. Today's card is of the Clean and Simple variety.

 

 

Oh yeah, and here I go with the gingham again. LOVE it. The bottom butterfly was die cut out of white paper and the top one was die cut from vellum. SO crisp. The butterfly die and the border die are both from Memory Box. The flag die is from MFT. Hello!

 

 

I put three spark-a-lay blings in the center of the butterfly. I adore this fresh bright green color! This just says "summer" to me.

 

 

 

 

 

The green paper was mounted directly onto my card base. The white layer with the Piestra Tile Die was popped up on some foam tape.

Have a lovely weekend my crafty friends! Always so nice of you to spend a little of your day with me. You inspire me and cheer me on and make me want to be a better crafter. Thank you! XOXO

 

 

Happy Monday friends! How was the weekend? Short? I thought so! We had a pretty good weekend. The heat wave finally broke and Saturday was the most beautiful day – especially in the cool morning. DH and I drove out to take pictures and found some sunflowers… Unfortuntely the heat must have baked them last week! They had their heads down and were kinda dry… We took a few snaps and then went out for a nice breakfast. I'll share the sunflower pictures soon. Sunday I worked for a little while and then spent the afternoon at Paper Garden planning out my August classes! I'm very happy with how everything is coming together for that!  What did you do? Did you have a great time? Did you get your craft on?

I am in dire need of birthday cards lately, so I have been keeping that in mind with my crafty endeavors…. My card today is made with all products from Taylored Expressions….yum….I'll put a supply list with links at the bottom of my post for ya.

 

 

 

 

The circles and scallops impression plate is so classy and classic at the same time. I used it here on some white cardstock. I used lots of fun dies on this project! I cut the elegant butterfly die out twice and layered them. I cut the antennae off the top one first.

 

 

 

Here are all my supplies:

 

 

The It's a Banner Day 1 stamp set is a fav….and I love this font!! The stamps coordinate perfectly with the matching die.  I used some distress inks on the whole card to age it a bit and tone down the stark white. I mounted the whole thing onto a kraft card base (been doing that a lot lately….)

 

 

 

Seriously how fun and pretty is this patterned paper? I had to add just a few blings to the whole thing – you know me! I tiny bit of ribbon and twine finished it right off!

 

CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR SUPPLIES:

TE Scallops and Circles Impression Plate

TE Elegant Butterflies Dies

TE Layering Doily Die

TE Small Scallop Border Die

TE It's a Banner Day 1 Die

MME Bright Side 6×6 paper pack

TE It's a Banner Day 1 Stamp Set

 

Thank you so much for coming on by! Have a great week!

Hello friends! Happy Friday again! Hope you had a wonderful week. Here…my main concern was just trying not to melt! Over 100 all week and yesterday on the way home from work? 109! It was another busy week and I'm happy to have a weekend to do some fun stuff. What are you doing this weekend? Are you gettin' crafty? I have a mix of things to do this weekend and will probably also go in to work for a little bit. I need to really buckle down and get ready for my upcoming classes at Paper Garden! I already have about 30 people signed up, so I'm getting excited about it.

Today I'm sharing another card I made on Sunday in my stamping frenzy. I made a whole bunch o' stuff last weekend! As you know, I'm loving the hexagon trend…so I made another kind of clean and simple happy hexagon card for you today!

 

 

 

 

I started with a fresh kraft card base and cut out a bunch of little hexagons… Then I just played with the patterns until I got it the way I wanted it. I used some happy paper from Simple Stories and some pretty pearls too.

 

 

 

The hexagons and the happy letters are dies from Papertrey Ink…

 

 

 

The PTI hexagons come on this big grid. You can use it all different ways. I taped the grid outline down on my table so that my little ones would be spaced out just right.

 

 

 

These letters are super fun and retro!! I used crisp white. I am loving white against kraft lately – it just looks good I think.

 

 

 

 

 

Best wishes for a wonderful, happy weekend!!