Snowman Soup by Charmaine Ikach

Each year at this time, I try to come up with some type of holiday treat I can mass produce for my girls to take to school for their classmates. Each year I try to keep it cute but very simple! I never seem to have the time I expected to have to create the treats! As I went shopping to look for candy that looked festive, I couldn't find anything that I liked or if I liked it, it wasn't safe for Savannah's allergies. We were on our way to the cashier when I saw it and decided on the treat. . .a box of Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate packets! I picked up some mini marshmallows and mini candy canes, and I was all set to make some SNOWMAN SOUP!

The most time consuming part of assembling the treats was the coloring, and that didn't take all that long! I put both the image and sentiment on one block, so I only had to stamp each piece once. I used the Snowman Cuppie from the Home Sweet Home set, and the sentiment is from the old Tag Treats set.

First I filled resealable treat bags with a packet of hot chocolate, a handful of mini marshallows and two mini candy canes.

Next I stamped, punched and colored all of the images, cut the belly bands and added foam dimensional adhesive to the backs of the scallop circles and Scor-Tape to the end of the belly bands.

Finally, I wrapped the belly bands around the packets and attached the snowman to the front! Easy peasy! The kids just loved them. . .and that's the important thing, right? SUPPLIES USED: Stamps- Home Sweet Home, Tag Treats (Taylored Expressions); Ink- Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko); Paper- Pure Poppy, True Black (PTI), Choice Snow White (Taylored Expressions); Accessories- treat bags, Jumbo and Mega circle and scallop circle punches (Marvy Uchida), Copic markers

Altered Christmas Notebooks by Jodi!

Hi everyone!! Happy Thursday!!

Today I have a super fun and super simple project to share with you!! Altered composition notebooks!!

Now, I don't consider myself an altering type of gal, but I find that I am really LOVING altering things lately!!

These were SUPER simple to make! I took six plain mini composition notebooks that I have had FOREVER, and using the delicious cardstock and patterned papers from the Christmas Key Ingredients, I simply covered each of the books using a different pattern from the Holly by Golly patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket!

I then stamped six different cuppies, four from Season's Sweetings from Taylored Expressions, and two from Home Sweet Home by Taylored Expressions, all in Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Buttercream cardstock.


ALL of the cuppies were colored with Copic Markers, and then cut and layered with Circle Nestabilities and Scallop Circle Nestabilities. All the sentiments were either punched out or cut out and then layered with cardstock from the Christmas Key Ingredients.

All the Cuppie panels were popped up with Foam Tape!

This close up is my favorite book that I made! I LOVE the sweet (giggle!) expression of this Cuppie and I LOVE how the holly bow on her head matches this yummy Jolly by Golly paper!!

Again, these were SUPER simple to make, and I think I am going to hand these out to all the kids for Christmas in my daughter's nursery school class!!

Thanks SO much for stopping by!!!

Recipe:
Stamps: Seasons Sweetings & Home Sweet Home by Taylored Expressions
Paper: Choice Buttercream, Blush Red Dark, Island Mist Light & Jolly by Golly from Cosmo Cricket, all from the Christmas Key Ingredients
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Copic Markers, White Gel Pen, Circle and Scallop Circle Nestabilities, Small & Large Oval Punches, Word Window Punch and Foam Tape

Jodi

TEBB Challenge #8 Hosted by Jodi

Hi everyone!! Happy Saturday and Happy Birthday to Taylored Expressions and Cuppie!!!








My challenge today is one of my favorite kinds of challenges...a COLOR challenge! I LOVE this combo and I hope you all do as well! The colors are listed in both Prism Cardstock and the comparable SU! Cardstock colors!!

Prism Colors:
Intense Teal, Rose Medium & Sunflowers Medium (You can get these colors right HERE in one FABULOSO bundle!!)

SU! Colors:
Bermuda Bay, Melon Mambo & Crushed Curry

So what do YOU need to do to participate?

CHALLENGE: Create a card using this color combination! You’re not required to use Taylored Expressions images for our challenges.

KEYWORD: Upload your creation to your blog or online gallery (or both). If you’re uploading to online galleries, use the keyword TEBBJC. Then come back to this challenge and leave a comment with a direct link to your creation! In order to be eligible for the prizes, you must leave a comment with a link to your card by midnight PST Wednesday, September 9th.

PRIZE: I will choose my favorite creation from among all the participants and mail you the cards I created for this challenge along with a $10.00 gift certificate to the TE Store!

GRAND PRIZE: One random person who participates in ALL 13 of our Birthday Bash challenges will receive a $50 gift certificate to the TE Store in addition to an 8x10 custom watercolor Cuppie painting by our very own Jessie Oleson! Click here to check out all of Jessie's adorable artwork at her Etsy Shop. Once you complete and link all 13 challenges, send an email to tayloredexpressions@gmail.com to be eligible for our grand prize! Just include your name and “I completed all 13 challenges!”


I have two samples to share with you using this color combo! I made both of my cards holiday cards...I just love to use non-traditional colors on holiday cards!!

For my first card, I stamped this SUPER sweet tree decorating cuppie from Seasons Sweetings in Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Buttercream Cardstock and colored him with Copic Markers.

The patterned paper is a mix of Sweater Weather and Smitten Mitten, both from the new Jolly By Golly collection from Cosmo Cricket.

I framed Cuppie in Rectangle Nestabilities and added piercing ALL over the card!! The ribbon is white satin ribbon that I colored with a Copic Marker and also some yummy Raspberry Twill Ribbon!!

I finished this one off with some Vanilla Brads!! Easy Peasy!

For my second card, I used this uber adorable cuppie from Home Sweet Home, and once again I stamped him in Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Buttercream Cardstock and colored him with Copic Markers.

For this card, I used another Jolly By Golly pattern, Play Day. I framed Cuppies in Circle and Scallop Circle Nestabilities and added TONS of piercing again!!

I finished this card off with three sugar coated brads by Doodlebug.

I cannot WAIT to see what you all do with this color combo!!! Again, make sure you use the Keyword, TEBBJC when you upload!!

Have fun and good luck!!!

Jodi

TEBB Challenge #4 - Hosted by Charmaine

Are you having fun with the challenges yet? I hope so! I'm bringing you challenge #4 in the Taylored Expressions Birthday Bash (TEBB). . .a color challenge! It's no surprise that I LOVE bright, happy, fun colors that make me smile!


The colors for my color challenge are (in Prism colors) Intense Kiwi, Nautical Blue Light, Sunflowers Medium. You can find this color pick HERE in the store! Of course, if you don't have Prism papers, use like colors in the brand that you do have!

So how do you participate?

CHALLENGE: Use Intense Kiwi, Nautical Blue Light and Sunflowers Medium (or like colors) on your creation. You can find the Prism Color Pick HERE.

KEYWORD: Upload your creation to your blog or online gallery (or both). If you’re uploading to online galleries, use the keyword TEBBCI. Come back to this challenge and leave a comment with a direct link to your creation! In order to be eligible for the prizes, you must leave a comment with a link to your card by midnight PST Wednesday, September 9th.

PRIZE: I will choose my favorite creation from among all the participants and mail you the card I created for this challenge along with a $10.00 gift certificate to the TE Store!

GRAND PRIZE: One random person who participates in ALL 13 of our Birthday Bash challenges will receive a $50 gift certificate to the TE Store in addition to an 8x10 custom watercolor Cuppie painting by our very own Jessie Oleson! Click here to check out all of Jessie's adorable artwork at her Etsy Shop. Once you complete and link all 13 challenges, send an email to tayloredexpressions@gmail.com to be eligible for our grand prize! Just include your name and “I completed all 13 challenges!”


I can't wait to see what you create! For my card, I used the Season's Sweetings and Home Sweet Home sets from Taylored Expressions. I'm not a big fan of winter and the cold weather that comes along with it, but I just LOVE sunny days in the winter and how the sun sparkles off of the snow! These colors remind me of that and would bring warmth and cheer to anyone during those cold months, or it would just be a perfect Christmas card for someone on your list who lives in a warm, sunny place!

Enjoy the Birthday Bash and I look forward to seeing your creations!

Cupcake Calendar - a perfect little gift!

Today I have a super easy and fun project to share that makes a great little Christmas gift. This project features the adorable little line of cupcakes from Home Sweet Home along with Holly the sweet little girl cuppie from Season's Sweetings (click here to jump over to TE to see and purchase the sets.)

I started off with a pocket/purse calendar with a nice heavy plastic cover. You can usually find these this time of year at Michael's or Big Lots for $1-$2 each. As you can see mine is a 2-year planner left over from last year - it's still got one good year left! LOL! I also made a matching clip to mark my place in the current month of the calendar. This package of Basic Grey Book Clips was one of those too-good-to-pass-up finds at Big Lots awhile back!

Now let's get down to the creative process. I chose just a few of my favorite colors to work with keeping in mind that I wanted to keep the brown border on the existing calendar cover and simply make a wrap slightly smaller.

I stamped the line of cupcakes repeatedly. Since these rubber stamps come unmounted for use with an acrylic block I was able to stamp this pattern without even using a stamp-a-majig. I have several photos here just to show you the progression of the coloring pattern since sometimes it can seem daunting to create a seemingly random pattern. I started by coloring the tops of every fourth cupcake milk chocolate (E25).

Next I filled in every middle cupcake with dark chocolate (E27) and the remaining cupcakes with lemon flavor (Y21) - yumm!

While the pattern for the top of the cupcakes started by coloring every fourth one, I started coloring the wrappers using green on every third one and filling in with light and dark pink. Coloring the tops every 4th and the bottoms every 3rd gives more of random feel to the pattern.

And here's the finished panel with all the cherries colored in red and a little swatch of gray to ground each cupcake. My coloring is far from perfect on this and I did no shading whatsoever - just super basic sit-in-front-of-the-tv coloring!

This panel was then adhered to the existing calendar cover and decorated with rose satin ribbon from TE (also part of the Christmas Key Ingredients) along with sweet Holly. Since I didn't want her to look like a Christmas cuppie this time I colored her lemon with a pink wrapper and added a pink Kaiser Craft flower rhinestone to her holly leaves to make her look more like Spring! This could also be done with a small flower punch. The '09 is from one of my JustRite Stamper sets. I currently have a bunch of them all mixed up in a little plastic bin on my stamp table so I'm not certain which set they came from. Holly was punched out with a Marvy circle punch and layered onto brown cardstock (Christmas Key Ingredients) that was punched with a Marvy scallop circle. And here's my finished calendar.

Calendars like this were one of my first stamping projects years ago and I still love to make them and give them for gifts....although I think I'm keeping this one for myself. Shhhhhhh. I love the addition of the little book clip. If you can't find these particular clips a jumbo paper clip would also work well.

I'd love to see what non-Christmas looking projects you come up with using the newest holiday sets from SASI. Be sure to use Keyword SASI when uploading your creations to SCS so we don't miss a thing. And don't forget, we'll be on the lookout every week for a new SASI stamper to feature right here as Our Friday Friend.

Remember it's so easy to play!

To be considered all you have to do is:

• Create something (card, 3D item, scrapbook page, anything) using one or more images from any SASI stamp set. Your creation should showcase SASI, but does not have to be exclusive to SASI.



• 
  Upload your creation to SCS being sure to use the keyword SASI so it will appear in the Taylored Expressions Company Gallery (which is driven by a keyword search) and complete the recipe section of the upload.



• 
  In the description field of your upload please mention Stamp a Sweet Impression stamps are from http://www.tayloredexpressions.com/
  
  Be sure to join us this Friday for Halloween and our very first Our Friday Friend feature
  
  Have a sweet day!
  
  

-Jami

Taylor Tuesday

Good morning! This one's going to have to be short (and of course, sweet!) because I'm running late today. I hate rushing around in the morning, but sometimes it just can't be avoided, you know? I found these cute Christmas gift sacks on one of my latest excursions to Target! Have I mentioned lately how much I love Target!? *grin* They're perfect to hold a little something for a friend or even a cutely decorated stocking stuffer. I don't know about you and your family, but Jon and I plan to make a lot of the gifts we give this year. Not only is it fun for us to do together, but it's economical too which is totally important in this not-so-friendly economy! I added a bag topper stamped with the snowflakes from Home Sweet Home and a white tag using the "do not open until December 25th" sentiment from the Tag Treats set and the mistletoe cuppie from Season's Sweetings. I colored cuppie with Copic markers, added a red Candy Dot for the cherry, and Crystal Stickles to the cupcake. The red grosgrain ribbon is from the TE store. After finishing the bag, the set just didn't seem complete. I always keep a stash of Hershey Nuggets around (as long as I don't eat them all first!) so decided to create a little six nugget box. I used the same snowflakes to stamp address labels and the only inked the 'merry' portion of the 'merry & bright' sentiment from Season's Sweetings. I used the same cupcake for the lid, popped it up with foam tape and added some red brads. You can see a close up of the nugget box above. The whole ensemble took about 30 minutes to make... quick and easy gift giving! Thanks for stopping by today! Stay tuned tomorrow for a sweet treat from Jami!