Pursue Happiness...through Coffee

If you are not a coffee lover, I'm betting that you know someone who is! If you aren't though, you can just pretend this is hot chocolate and EVERYBODY loves hot chocolate, right?! :) I hadn't used the coffee/hot chocolate image from Sprinkled with Love, so I made it a goal to stamp a sweet impression...that hasn't seen ink yet! You get soooo many wonderful images in a Taylored Expressions stamp set, so make sure you use them all!! This was a pretty cool challenge I set for myself, actually. There was also a sentiment from Discover Your Wings, that I found hadn't been inked up either. I paired the two, sad, uninked stamps together and found they made magic! Lookee!



What do you think?! Magic folks? I know happiness can be found in a cup of coffee on a daily basis, so these paired perfectly! I'm still patting myself on the back over here for coming up with this, LOL! Well, you know I just can't make a card by itself. How about a little gift card holder to go with??


Everyone has a huge stash of glassine bags, right? So all I did was cut up a piece of element cards from the Early Bird (Cosmo Cricket) crafting kit and stamped another image of my coffee/chocolate milk and popped it up right on top! This is perfect for sliding in a gift card to...Starbuck's yes?? That store must make a killing on gift cards!


If you look closely, you can see little coffee remnants inside my glassine bag. I poured a bit of coffee in there and then dumped it back in my container. My glassine bag now has a coffee scent to it. Ta Da!!! So easy and I just loooove the smell of coffee!

One thing I did want to point out was that I used a Clear Spica glitter pen on my coffee, and it looks soooo cool in person! Click on the pic for a better image. Also, I just noticed that the glitter pens are on sale in the TE Store HERE for only $2.49! Big bang for your buck, I'm tellin' ya folks!



I hope you got a little inspiration today...or a little dose of e-coffee to bring happiness to your day? :) Thanks so much for stopping by and I challenge you to Stamp a Sweet *uninked* Impression today!

Recipe
Stamps: Sprinkled with Love, Discover Your Wings
Ink: Rich Cocoa Memento, Antique Linen Distress Ink Tim Holtz, Real Red Stampin' Up!
Paper: Choice Buttercream, Real Red Stampin' Up!, Early Bird Craft Kit Cosmo Cricket
Accessories: Ribbon Tags Trio Spellbinders, Corner Rounder and Large Scallop edge punch EK Success, buttons, Baker's Twine, Copics, White Satin and Red Grosgrain ribbon Stampin' Up!, Glassine bag

Summer Sunrise by Karen Giron

Good morning and happy Wednesday!  The week is half over and I'm ready for the weekend!  Today I'm so excited to show you a card I made using the brayered sky technique - I have never tried this technique until today, I know - crazy!  In fact, I don't think I've ever even inked up my brayer!  To make a brayered sky really pop, you need to use a silhouette stamp and Discover Your Wings is the perfect set for that.  For my sky, I chose Barely Banana, Apricot Appeal, and Pumpkin Pie inks, which are similar enough in color, yet have enough difference to see layers on the cardstock.  After I brayered my Choice Snow White cardstock, I stamped the flower image over it in Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  I reached for my favorite summertime color combo - orange, light blue, and red - LOVE IT!  I added a little blue butterfly accented it with Tiny Twinkles - the edges of the wings are inked with Bashful Blue ink and the layout is Mercy's MTSC62.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Don't forget to sign up for the Taylored Expressions newsletter and keep up with all the latest news and specials in the TE store.  You can find the link right over there ----> in the right sidebar.

Karen

recipe -

Stamps: Discover Your Wings

Paper: Bashful Blue, Real Red, Pumpkin Pie (Stampin' Up!), Choice Snow White cardstock, Pumpkin Pie Patterns (Stampin' Up!)

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Bashful Blue

Accessories: Taylor's Tiny Twinkles, Nestabilities, Real Red wide grosgrain ribbon, butterfly punch (Martha Stewart), dimensionals

A Frame for the Fridge

Happy New Year!

Hope that everyone had a lovely holiday and that you are rested and geared up to start the New Year (and New Decade!! WOW!) Today, I am excited to share with you something that I made to use all year long ... a little something for our fridge :)

I don't know about your fridge - but ours always looks full and cluttered and is such a mess - everything always ends up on the fridge, artwork, appointments, notes of numbers without names :) and so this year- one of my New Year's Resolutions is to de-clutter our house - so I thought I would start with our fridge. I saw this frame (it holds 3 photos that are 4x6) and thought that it would be something nice to have up on our fridge - where I could change up the monthly calendars and photos for each month:

All of this is from the August 20th Key Ingredients kit and to adhere it to the fridge - I just added some magnets to the back of the frame and then attached it to the fridge:

The top photo area has a place for holding the awesome Mini-Calendars that you can download right away from Taylored Expressions. I thought that each month to create a little mini calendar/affirmation site that could be the focus of that month - here is the one for January:

And then the second photo area I thought could be a place to display a picture of that month of my two wee children :) and in this way at the end of the year, I can put together some scrapbook pages of all 12 months worth of pictures of them. Here they are from a couple of weeks ago :) with one of my most favorite sentiments from the stamp set: Discover Your Wings.

And the the last photo area could be a place for some stamped creations: The sentiment (dream), the embossed butterfly and the silhouette scene is from the beautiful and inspiring newly released stamp set: Discover Your Wings:

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Stay tuned for next week where we start to show you some awesome peeks of the stamps that Taylor will be releasing in January!

Wishing You a New Year full of fulfilled dreams and all joys and happiness!!!

Big hugs!

Sankari :)

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Card Ingredients:

Paper: August 20th Key Ingredients

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Expresso

Stamps: Celebrate Life and Discover Your Wings from Taylored Expressions

Accessories: Bling it On, corner rounder, EP bridal, EK sucess punch, Sakura gel pens & magnets

Springy Card Box Set by Jackie Pedro

Hi there! It's Jackie here with a fun project to show you today! I know it's a few days before Christmas, but it's been so dreary around here the last few days that I was really yearning to make something springy!! I LOVE the new December Key Ingredients Kit from Taylored Expressions and thought they would make a great springboard for my project! Get it? SPRINGboard..................... I'll be here all week......LOL!

Anywho...let's get on to my project...

I used this tutorial by our own Laurie Schmidlin to make this adorable 3x3 card box with the coordinating 3x3 cards! It was so easy! All of the cardstock, designer papers, ribbon and candy dots are from the December Key Ingredients Kit. I used the newest Taylored Expressions Giving Tree Charitable Sets, Discover Your Wings. I ADORE this set and for every set sold, Taylored Expressions is donating 7.00 to Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, a beautiful charity to help grieving parents.

Here's the box top in all it's glory! The "thank you" sentiment is from another TE set, Branching Out. The circles were cut with Classic Circle Nestabilities. I used a paper piercer to make the butterfly trail.

One last look at the box. I made four cards to go in the box, but it could have EASILY fit at least six. I hope I inspired you to get crafty!

Don't forget to sign up for the Taylored Expressions newsletter! Just head on over to the Taylored Expressions Website and enter your name under the "join our mailing list" icon! You will be informed of any new releases and all the new "Fresh from the Oven" items in the store!

TE Sneak Peek: Discover Your Wings by Donna Baker

I'm so happy to share a wiper card I made using the new TE Charitable giving set, Discover Your Wings, illustrated by the very talented Nancy McKinney.  Every quarter, Taylored Expressions takes part in a charitable giving program where she chooses a charity to donate $7 from the sale of a special set designed around the charity.  Each month since its inception,

the charity has had a special meaning and this month is no exception. 

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS) is the charity organization this time. The organization offers professional photography services to families dealing with infant death. The Foundation is made up of a network of almost 7,000 volunteer photographers in the United States and twenty-five countries. At a family's request, an affiliated photographer will come to the family's hospital or hospice location and conduct a sensitive and private portrait session to preserve beautiful memories of their precious child.

When Taylor first shared this charity with the team, my thoughts naturally brought to mind my husband's step-sister who delivered her first child who was a preemie (who weighed 1 1/2 lbs and a very healthy 16 yr old today) and then a second baby who was also a preemie who only lived about 4 days.  It was so difficult to see Paige so helpless in her incubator and equally hard not to touch her as we prayed over her (she would have been 10 yrs old this year had she lived).  Her funeral was a very sad one, and had we known about this organization, I'm sure Missy would have loved to have had them donate their services to provide beautiful lasting memories of their baby in photographs.  I'm sure there are countless others who have either experienced a baby's death or know someone who has so this charity is going to benefit.  How great would it be to purchase this set for someone you know who lost a baby and make them handmade cards and sign the backs handmade in honor of the baby? 

Now some info about my card. It was my first time to make a wiper card and it was pretty easy, thanks to Beate's great tutorial. I used some Basic Grey Urban Prairie with some prism cardstock to match Frosted Teal and Sunflowers Medium. I used one of my favorite ribbons in the TE store, Caribbean satin 3/8" and something new to me I had to try out, the pearl flowers in cream cheese but I colored them yellow to match my project with a copic marker. Isn't it pretty?

In this set there are several winged insects as well as lots of encouraging sentiments. Several I put on the skinny panel under the butterfly that peeks out when the wiper is open. Isn't the sparkly butterfly beautiful? After I cut it out and lightly colored it, I added crystal lacquer on the wings and sprinkled star dust glitter on it and let it dry overnight - I wanted the glitter to be thick & really stick!

Come blog hoppin' with me to see what the Baker's Dozen girls have cooked up
with Discover Your Wings today.

Charmaine
Dawn
Jackie
Jami
Jodi
Karen G.
Karen M.
 Laurie
Nancy McKinney
Sankari
Sharon
Taylor


Be sure to leave some love along the way because one lucky commenter will win a
Discover Your Wings stamp set! How cool is that?

All you have to do is leave a comment on each Baker's Dozen blog today for the best chance to win! One lucky winner will be chosen at random from all of the comments on one of the blogs, but the trick is that nobody knows which blog it will be! You have until 6am PST on Thursday to enter. The winner will be announced Friday morning on Taylor's blog.