April Release At a Glance

Hello again friends! Welcome back to day two of TE Sneak Peeks! So glad you popped in to see what's going on! Today I'm sharing a card made with a cute new stamp set from the penguin series. I know lots of you love this little guy! Congrats Grad penguin is from the Apple Doodle Ink Collection by Doug Applegate. Congrats Grad Penguin is a Petite set of 7 images and sentiments - our popular Penguin is back as a graduate! This little guy will be great for graduations from kindergarten all the way through college! He coordinates with the new Reach for the Stars Border Die (which I must say is AWESOME!)  

I always love bright royal blue with bright orange! This is a great color scheme for kids or for summer projects. That border die is crazy fun!!! This paper collection is from the TE Store – It's called Boys Only and it's from Doodlebug. Love.

Thanks for stopping in! Here are the links to see what the rest of the Baker's Dozen cooked up today! Have a fantastic day and I hope we see you tomorrow too!

• Jami Sibley (DT Coordinator)
• Charmaine Ikach
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman 
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild
• Wanda Guess

 

  April 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, April 5th 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 4/4 at 7pm PST.

Today's release is showcasing TWO new stamp sets! I am especially excited because I came up with the concept for one of them! Yay! One of the (many) awesome things about working for Taylor is that she encourages us to give her stamp set ideas! Many of us have concepted stamp sets and it is super super fun to see my idea come to life this month with Fruity Friends! I came up with the idea after making THIS project last year! Emily Burger brought it to life to share with you for April's release!

Fruity Friends is a full size set of 20 images and sentiments! It's part of the Embracing Grace collection. I know you're going to have tons of fun with this one! I have been dying to see what the rest of the Baker's Dozen did with this set! Here's my first card:

This little citrus slices make me smile! It was a lot of fun to color them in and then make them sparkly and fresh. Made me want some lemonaid…or a margarita! I used the uber cute Picket Fence Die from TE, the Medium Scallop Border Punch from TE and the Leaf Sprig Die, also from TE! Taylor really does have one of the best die collections in the business!  

 Here is my Copic Color Palette for this cheery card:  

 I added dimension by popping some of the fruity slices up on some foam tape.

Now, in a completely different direction from the first stamp set for today…we are introducing Make it Amazing…a brand new beautiful and elegant set from the Whimsical Wishes collection by Nancy McKinney. Make it Amazing is a full size set of 19 images and sentiments – Beautiful botanicals and butterflies! This set has so many possibilities, and we have 3 sets of coordinating dies to match with it!  Here's my second card for today:  

For this card, I paired the stamp set, the new dies, and this month's Project Pantry kit! Everything coordinates so perfectly. This month's Project Pantry Kit is to die for!!!

What a nice sentiment…for so many different occasions….

That butterfly stamp and die is wonderful! I know I will be using this a lot!

Thank you so much for coming by today to join in on the release week fun! LOTS more projects to come this week! Please take some time to hop around and see what the rest of the team made!

• Charmaine Ikach
• Jami Sibley (DT Coordinator)
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Melody Rupple
• Nancy McKinney
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman 
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild
• Wanda Guess

Hi everybody! Happy Friday! Another weekend is upon us. I have loads of fun things to do this weekend and I'll be sharing pictures next week. The hubs and I are going on a short romantic getaway and I can't wait. Also…Spring Fling Stamp Camp is tomorrow - hosted by my awesome Stampin' Up friends! YAY!

But first, I have to get through this day. Today is a transition day for me…for it is the last day at my job, where I've worked for the past four years. I have to say good-bye to people I really like, and a job that was interesting and challenging and fun. I hate good-byes and packing and leaving. All of that. Don't like it. However, I am going to a new job that I know will be great for me. It's a good news/bad news sort of thing. I am returning to a company where I worked before and I have lots of friends waiting for me, and I am really excited about that part! As you can tell, I'm just a big jumble right now. Don't mind me. You can skip right to the card if you want! LOL.

I do have a card to share… One of my absolute favorite things from CHA was a paper collection called Prairie Hill by Pink Paislee. I LOVE the colors in the papers and love the cool designs. I wanted it right away! I finally got my mitts on some of it this past weekend at Scrapbook Territory. I used just a little bit of it in my card, but a little goes a long way. I used a layout from one of the cards in my Card Inspirations Pinterest Board and went to town… Made a homemade flower and had me some fun.

I made this flower using my PTI flower dies and some yellow polka dot paper. I sprayed the petals with water and crumpled them up so the flower would be shabby chic. I had this cute corduroy button in my stash.

Isn't this patterned paper the prettiest thing?  All those diamonds in different patterns… I'm really into graphic designs and shapes lately.

This wood banner is from Prima – they're called Wood Tickets.  Neato – bizeato!  

Thanks for spending part of your day here with me. I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Take a little time to enjoy the view…

Hi! I was trying to think of what to title today's blog post…and I looked at my photos and the words that came to mind were crisp and fresh. Interesting, but I decided to go with it. My card is crisp blue and white and I'm sharing some fresh lemon cupcakes I made too. Crisp. Fresh. There ya have it! Thanks for coming by to see me today.

I was super tired last night and felt that the most I could muster was a CAS card… Not too much coloring or layering. I just didn't have the energy. What I did have was this adorable stamp set from Paper Smooches, so I inked it up!

I love this camera and that cute sentiment! I used a bright blue paper and the hearts are kind of a watermelon color just to add a punch of a different color.

How freaking adorable is that stamp set?? Very!

We had a birthday in my office this week, so you know I had to make cupcakes! I never miss a chance to make treats! These are lemon cake with lemon frosting. So fresh! For the frosting I used a plain white frosting recipe then added a teaspoon of lemon extract and some fresh lemon zest. Then I added some more lemon zest on top for garnish.

That's it for today! Have a wonderful day everyone!  

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm not Irish, but that isn't gonna stop me from celebrating a holiday! Especially since I love green so much! It's a good excuse to wear green, make cool green projects and generally be happy…so why not!? Are you doing anything special for St. Patty's Day? 

I promise after today I will retire my new favorite stamping/card making technique! I've been using this one to death lately. Time to move on! Hahahah. I LOVE using dies to make cut outs on cards. Can't.get.enough. But, I realized when I did it again for my St. Patrick's Day cards…that maybe it's time to put it away for just a minute. LOL. Do you get like that? Obsessed with one technique? Okay, and don't say it, but I used gingham too! ACK!

This pretty four leaf clover die is from Memory Box!

Here are all my cards finished and read to mail. I put yellow blings on some of them…can't decide if I like green or yellow better!

Have a happy celebration!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Greetings! Today is one of my days to post for Taylored Expressions! Welcome! Today's card was made with one of my favorite TE Stamp Sets – Love Grows Here. I adore this set! I used it to make a masculine card today for my boss' retirement. I have a couple of tips for making this set look masculine. This idea for a layout has been in my head since this set was released. Hope you like it!

This was one of those cards I didn't want to make. My boss is awesome…caring and fair and kind. He is the rock of our department and he will be missed. He was in my original panel interview and then hired me. I wish him nothing but the best as he enters this new chapter of his life… I wanted to make him a special card.

I thought a "four seasons" them would be nice for a retirement. I stamped four of the tree images onto the same size cream cardstock base and then colored them with my Copics.  

Masculine colors of olive green and brown… You might notice that the tree trunks are all colored the exact same way with the same colors. This unifies the images. I also used the same greens on both of the green trees, for the same reason. I didn't get too crazy with the colors.

The "Happy Retirement" sentiment is from THIS SET…another one of my TE Favorites! I stamped it onto an oval and created my own embellishment. I curved the tips of the brown part up for some dimension. Copper brads also add a masculine touch.

This is how I color!

This card has LOADS of layers on it. Went through a lot of foam tape! LOL.  

We had a nice retirement luncheon for him and by next week, he'll be relaxing with his grandkids and doing good works in the world! I mailed the card to him because I knew if I gave it to him in person I would start crying. Best of luck to you CD! 

Thank you for coming by today! Be sure to scope out this stamp set in the TE Store!  

Hellllloooooooo! How are ya? I'm happy to share this card with you today! While I was away last week, my new Lawn Fawn goodies arrived in the mail! WOOT WOOT! I had all day Saturday to stamp and blog (and laundry) and I really wanted to ink up these little stamp sets.  My favorite one is called Critters in the Forest, and I like it the best because it has a hedgehog stamp….and those little mushroom stamps! EEEK! So cute. So I made this card:

How cute is that hedgie? TOO cute! I inked up the mushrooms, colored them, and cut them out. Two of them are popped up on foam tape for dimension. I added the grass with my Copics. Lawn Fawn also makes that awesome twine. It's not furry…love that.

I met Kelly and the gang from Lawn Fawn at CHA. They are all just as sweet and adorable as these stamp sets! I couldn't wait for the new ones to come out.  

Here is my Copic palette for this project: Turns out that E81 is the color of mushrooms! LOL.

I used warm greys for the hedgie and three shades of brown for the tree trunk. I thought about adding some clear glaze to the mushrooms, but left them as is.

This also came in the mail last week…this fun date stamp from Dear Lizzy!

While I was stamping and blogging, Mr. Buddy was chillaxing on the sofa… Don't you feel sorry for him, like his life is SO hard?

Carry on! Have a wonderful week. See ya soon!