Let's Hang Out -May Stamp of the Month from Taylored Expressions

Hi Everyone,
Taylored Expressions has created an exciting new item - the Stamp of the Month Club - where every month you can receive a special stamp set and can also get the Key Ingredients kit that will coordinate with it (or you can just get the KI kit or just the Stamp of the Month - sooo many options!!) Check out the Taylored Expressions Deluxe Subscription kit (where you can get the KI kit and the Stamp of the Month) for May here:
 

For the last card I made, i loved using the clothesline image from the stamp set and this time I wanted to use the awesome flowers and awesome leaves in this gorgeous stamp set. I created a little frame for the flowers using the Wonky Spellbinders stamp set and arranged the flowers in the frame and added the leaves on either side of the frame.  I had so much fun creating this:

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Cutie Pie SOTM (May 2013) from Taylored Expressions
Paper: May 2013 Key Ingredients Kit
Ink: Chalk Inks 
Accessories: Spellbinders Wonky Nesties, Damask Flurish dies, pearls from kaiser, dimensionals,

I added the sentiment "Let's Hang Out"  and then added a little pearl to the center of the flower and used the Damask Flourish die to create a little flourish on the corner. Its fun to cut out the Damask Flourish to create your own flourish by trimming the ends here and there. I just love this fun stamp set - so many many cards to create from it!! LOL! And the papers are so much fun - just love those polka dots!!

It was so much fun to create this card with this adorable stamp set and this fun KI kit with all the matching fun ribbon!

Thanks so much for looking!
Ciao for now!
Sankari :)

Forever & Always

Hi Everyone,

A while ago I played around with the papers from the Simple Stories: Vintage Bliss collection and created a litttle framed scrappy project for my DH for our anniversary. I loved this picture of us that my friend had taken and cut the picture out with some circular Spellbinders and created a mat with some lighter blue cardstock for it to nestle on. 

 I covered the white mate that came with the frame with the DP papers - I really liked the flowery DP because they reminded me of the beach chairs from when we were there :) The grayish wooden DP reminds me of the driftwood on the beach and I added the pennants from the Fly Your Flag 2 stamp set and the lovely sentiment "Forever and Always" from the  Forever In Bloom stamp set.

Project Ingredients:
Stamps: Forever In Bloom (sentiment) and Fly Your Flag 2 (Pennants) from Taylored Expessions
Paper: Simple Stories: Vintage Bliss
Inks: Teal Zeal from Memento
Accessories: Baker's Twine, heart punch, Spellbinders circles and Best Glue Ever

I loved this little project and it makes me anytime that I create a little gift for my family or friends :) Somehow seeing their faces whenever they open the present just makes my day! I loved making this project :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Hope you are having an amazing day!
Big hugs,
Sankari :)

Some Love Poems and an Anniversary Card :)

Good Evening Everyone!

I am feeling a little nostalgic at the moment. 

I opened my photo albums and am blown away by how time is just flowing by.... some of the albums have pictures of family and friends who are no longer here on this earth --- and I treasure those pictures even more! Among my albums, I found one of my journals from college and loved reading what I was thinking so long ago. There were a couple of entries where I was writing about love - my husband and I just got engaged and I was submerged in poetry about love and the coming together of two hearts.....

Today is our anniversary - and reading these poems that I loved so long ago - just when I was newly engaged really makes my heart so happy... I feel recharged after reading these sweet love poems and so I thought I would share a couple here with you!

The first one is from Kahlil Gibran - if you are not familliar with his works - you must get some of his books - his poetry is sublime! The following is an excerpt from his poem called: "On Love:

"Love gives naught but itself and takes nuaght but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love."

Isn't it just beautiful.. I love the sufficiency part of the poem at the end...Here is a quote from Maharishi - I wrote this quote in my journal almost 13 years ago - so beautiful to read this again this morning!

"Love opens all doors,no matter how closed they may be 

No matter how rusty from lack of use."

Sometimes we can close our hearts, build walls after our hearts have been hurt... but the key to a broken heart is love... the key to it all hurts, misunderstandings and mis-communications is more love... which is hard sometimes when your heart is hurting... 

One last quote that I loved reading this morning from my journal is from Rumi:

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally to take a step without feet."

 As we celebrate our anniversary today - I am grateful to take steps without feet - but rather with our hearts....Inspired by these poems, I wanted to make a very simple card for my DH - he loves when I use kraft on cards - so I decided to make a card that was kraft monochromaticish using the Mr. & Mrs. Cutting Plate from Taylored Expressions:

 Card Ingredients:
Paper: Kraft paper
Inks: Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories: Mr. & Mrs. Cutting Plate, liquid pearls (gold), bling from stash, Best Glue Ever and sponger 

I cut out the plate two or three times and layered it ontop of each other so that there was more of a raised surface. I added some liquid pearls to the letters Mr. and Mrs. and also lined the outside of the card with some dots and finished it off with some bling on the flowers.


















I loved making this card for my DH and the best part was giving it to my DH this morning :) Grateful for the everyday moments that makes each day precious! If you have read all the way up to here - thanks so much - sorry to ramble on a bit :)

Hope your weekend is wonderful!
Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Big hugs,
Sankari :)




 

Taylored Expressions May Studio Challenge - Happy New Year (just kidding - not yet!)

Hi Everyone!

It's time for the Baker's Dozen Studio Challenge.  This is a monthly opportunity for the Taylored Expressions team to share what makes our stamping studios hum.  Each month we  have a fun, crafty question so we can share our favorites, some tips and tricks, stamping advice and more.

The question for May is:

What is your favorite time of the year?  Some of us love the sunshine and heat and summer, while some of us long for the crisp cool air of fall.  Do spring flowers make your heart sing or is it snow and the smell of pine needles that makes you jolly?

Tell us about your favorite month or season and also tell us about your favorite time of year to stamp.

One of my favorite times of the year is ringing in the new year - there is something fun about writing down your new year resolutions (I don't know about you - but I have broken all of my new year resolutions by now!!! ha!!) There is something magical about turning over a new leaf and starting a new year - a fresh, clean slate of new beginnings. 

Even though fall is my favorite season (there is something about the changing colors of the leaves, the cool crispness of the fall air, the smell of newly sharpened pencils as the kids get ready to go back to school and holding some hot apple cider while wearing sweaters at soccer games just makes me so happy :) - and -  its also the season that my birthday is in so that could be why I really like fall as well ;)  --- So even though, I love fall - there is just something wonderful about spring that makes my heart rejoice that the frostiness of winter is over!! One of my favorite times is Spring Break where we as a family can go somewhere together and just be together. This year we were able to take a trip down to Florida for spring break and just to be in the same van, in the same place where no body was running to meetings, or work, or coordinating schedules as to who will pick up the kids after their games was SO lovely. There is something just wonderful about Spring Break - it gives me hope that warm weather is on the way!

For my projects today reflect my favorite times of the year. For both of my projects today, I used the Frame Your Imagination Vertical stand - which is stand that holds 6x6 creations - and can perfectly coordinate with the 6x6 Calendar Downloads. I used the Taylored Expressions January 2014 downloads to get ready for the new year! Creating a whole year like this would be the perfect gift to give at Christmas or to keep for yourself by your desk. I love the new year so I used one of my favorite stamp sets from the New Beginnings stamp set for it:

 

Project Ingredients:

Stamps:New Beginnings stamp set 

Paper: May 2014 Key Ingredients Kit

Inks: Love Letter, Cantaloupe, Rose Red, Sky Blue inks from Memento

Accessories: Frame Your Imagination stand (vertical), 2014 6x6 Dated Calendar Download, small scalloped punch EK success,  1/4" sticky tape, bling and dimensionals.

The 6x6 page that you create can easily be inserted into the page protector like shown below and then displayed wherever you would like in your home:

 I stamped the rose with solid inks in two different colors and then added it to the Frame It die shaped stamp in the set with the sentiment: "A New Year is unfolding like a rose, with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within" - SUCH a lovely sentiment!!!... And it feels like only by the next year do you see all the beauty of what happened in this year - every year, every day is such a beautiful precious present.

The little butterflies are from this stamp set and were just stamped onto different card stocks in matching color and then cut out and a little bling was added to the middle. All the papers are from this month's May Key Ingredients kit. All in all - a very quick and simple project.

QUICK TIP: If you are planning to create calendar pages for the whole year - you can follow the same layout on all the pages which allows you to quickly prep all 12 pages by pre-cutting everything and then arranging everything for each month. 

I made a second project using the  Frame Your Imagination Vertical stand to create a 6x6 scrapbook page of our time in Florida for Spring Break this year. I used papers from the Simple Stories Vintage Bliss to create this:

 You can paint the stand to whatever color matches your home decor - I liked mine just plain and maybe I will stain it a darker color of wood later - but I love the natural look of the wood! I used the sentiment: Home Is Wherever You Are - from the stamp set: From My Window from Taylored Expressions. I love this sentiment on this page - my home is wherever my family might be :)

 Here is another look at the page - I had fun inserting the picture of my DH and inside one of the polaroids that come in this DP pack that said: Laugh Lots.... I love that!! I cut out the picture of my children using the Label Stacklets 2 dies from TE:

Project Ingredients:

Stamps:From My Window from Taylored Expressions

Paper: Simple Stories Vintage Bliss and kraft and baby blue medium card stock

Inks: Teal Zeal and Rich Cocoa from Memento

Accessories: Frame Your Imagination stand (vertical), Label Stacklets 2, bling and dimensionals

 There are so many fun possibilities with the Frame Your Imagination stand - from stamped art creations, to layouts to calendar projects. I am excited to see how the lovely Baker's Dozen DT responded to today's question and to see their amazing creations! Please hop with me and check them out:

• Carole Burrage
• Charmaine Ikach
• Jen Shults
• Kerri Michaud
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Tammie Edgerton
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Hugs,
Sankari :)

Taylored Expressions and Bazzill Basics Partnership!

Hi Everyone!!

Over at Taylored Expressions this week, Bazzil Basics Paper has teamed up with TE to celebrate Father's Day! Every day this week there will be a different card featuring the awesome collection from Bazzill called Mac using all the different stamp sets from Taylored Expressions !

I love this amazing set of papers from Bazzil - have always loved all their cardstocks - and this collection called Mac is seriously awesome for making projects and crafts for all those men in your life! I don't know about you - but making "masculine" cards are always so much harder for me than making beautiful swirly and girly cards :) but having the right papers and coordinating cardstock totally makes it way more fun and easy :) Here is the card I made using this collection with the stamp set Far Out which has an amazing collection of robots with the sentiment Love Bots with the Happy Father's Day sentiment from the Boys Will Be Boys stamp set from Taylored Expressions.

This paper collection has such a fun sets of robots in the paper - so I used three of them on the bottom and put two the robots from the Far Out collection on the top part of the card which I colored in with copics and added some hearts on the side and one in the middle  - and finished it off with the Sprokets Border Die on the bottom. I added a little glaze to the robots and to the sprokets and then added a little bling in the middle of the border:

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Far Out and Boys Will Be Boys stamp sets from Taylored ExpressionsPaper: Bazzill cardstock and Mac DP from BazzillInks: Memento Tuxedo Black and Love Letter
Accessories: Sprokets Border Die from TE, Banner Stacklets dies from TE, Oval Spellbinders Nestabilities, mini heart punch, bling, liquid glaze, sponger, dimensionals and copics

 I loved coloring in these two robots - they are symbols of my two little bots - to whom I showed this card that I made for Daddy and they were so excited to give it to him! Can't wait to make some more Father's Day Projects for the dad's in my life :) 

Please hop on ever to the Bazzill Blog and Taylored Expressions to find out how you can win this amazing prize just by entering comments!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Big hugs,
Sankari :)

May Stamp of the Month from Taylored Expressions

Hi Everyone,

Taylored Expressions has created an exciting new item - the Stamp of the Month Club - where every month you can receive a special stamp set and can also get the Key Ingredients kit that will coordinate with it (or you can just get the KI kit or just the Stamp of the Month - sooo many options!!) Seems like it is a way to create cards that are "taylor" made to perfection!  Check out the Taylored Expressions Deluxe Subscription kit (where you can get the KI kit and the Stamp of the Month) for May here:

http://www.tayloredexpressions.com/category.php?category_id=252

 Isn't it so cute! As soon as I saw the cute little clothesline - I kinda went gaga!! There is something about clotheslines that always have me weak in the knees! I decided to use the clothesline stamp as well as the clothesline from the designer paper in the Key Ingredients Kit and created a little scene using the Clouds Border die and the sun is from the Sunny Days with coordinating die and then I added a button to the center with some twine - I had so much fun creating this:
 

This stamp set has awesome flowers that I stamped with some chalk inks on the inside of the card - Its fun to create a little magic on the inside of the card too:

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Cutie Pie SOTM (May 2013) from Taylored Expressions
Paper: May 2013 Key Ingredients Kit
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Chalk Ink Rouge
Accessories: Spellbinders circles, Sun made from the Sunny Days with coordinating dies, pearls from kaiser, dimensionals, Cloud Border die from TE and copics

Here is a closer peek at the front of the card. I loved decorating it with some pearls and I paper pieced some of the clothes with the DP and the other parts I colored in with copics:
 

It was so much fun to create this card with this adorable stamp set and this fun KI kit with all the matching fun ribbon! I can't wait to see what all the amazing designers have created with this beautiful deluxe kit - please hop along with me and check them out!!

• Amy Crockett
• Carole Burrage
• Cassie Trask
• Charmaine Ikach
• Debbie Carriere
• Jami Sibley
• Kerri Michaud
• Monika Davis
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Tammie Edgerton
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tracy Clemente

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Big hugs,
Sankari :)

Taylored Expressions May Spotlights: Mr. & Mrs. Cutting Plate

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the Taylored Expressions May Release Spotlight Hops where today we have a blog hop that features all the designers showcasing this awesome release!

For my project today I created a cardset with the absolutely gorgeous Mr. & Mrs. Cutting plate and some metallic cardstock. This cutting plate is amazing - seirously makes it so easy to create a set of cards. I decided to go monochromatic and pick cardstock that is gold, copper, vintage gold and use cream on white for my card set - here is look at the set that created:

Card Ingredients:  
Paper: Stardream Metallic Cardstock (Vintage Gold and Copper), Gold cardstock, Choice Buttercream cardstock, Choice Snow White cardstock  
Accessories: Bling, pearls, glaze 

I ran the cutting plate through my Big Shot and recommend using the Metal Shim that Taylor has in the store for making it easy to pop out all the delicate areas of the plate. I actually  cut out two in the same color and layered them ontop of each other before layering it on to the card back so that the card would have more texture and weight and dimension (hard to see in the picture) and then afterwards I added some bling or pearls in coordinating colors and a light glaze over the Mr. and Mrs. part of the card: 

 Here is the same card in creams and white with pearls of different sizes:

I used gold with some white bling for this card:

 And here is the vintage gold card with some pearls and rhinestones that I colored in with my copics:

This is a wonderful die for all the anniversaries, weddings or celebration of love moments that you want to celebrate :) and it makes it super easy to create a card that looks like it took a lot of time to make ;) Can't wait to see what the rest of the ladies have created today - please hop over and check them out with me!!

Carole Burrage
Charmaine Ikach
Jen Shults
Kerri Michaud
Sankari Wegman
Shannon White
Shelly Mercado
Stephanie Kraft
Tammie Edgerton
Taylor VanBruggen
Wanda Guess

Thanks so much for stopping by today!
Big hugs,
Sankari :)

Taylored Expressions May Release Day: Birch Tree Border

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the Release Day celebration at Taylored Expressions - where all the brand new dies and stamps are ready for your crafting pleasure!! You can check into the Fresh Out of the Oven section at the store to see all the deals and steals :) 

For today's project, I made a card using the Birch Tree Border die (which coordinates with the Birch Tree Cutting Plate) - this two dies just blow me away - they make creating a scene SOOO easy!!). I LOVE the Birch Tree Border die - there are so many different possibilities that are there with this die and I went with a very simple scene - keeping the colors more neutral - just grays and creams and whites and just a pop of red :) I used some cardstock from Bazzil that is already texture-ized to cut out the Birch Tree Border die that I then sponged with some brown ink and layered it in some snow that I tore out of some cardstock. I also used the Birch Tree Accessories for which I used to cut out a little birdie and the treehouse that I tied to a branch using some Baker's Twine:

 For the inside of the card - I used awesome die of the buck stepping in some snow - the buck was die cut from from some texturized Bazzill cards using the Birch Tree Accessories - love the feeling of snowy covered fields with this die!
 

Here is a closer peek at the card - I added some "snow" with some liquid pearls and created a snowy skyscape using the Cloud Border Die and then added some glaze to the birds wing and the treehouse:

Card Ingredients:Paper: Choice Buttercream cardstock and Bazzill cardstockStamps: Rejoice stamp set from Taylored ExpressionsInks: Memento Inks: Love Letter
Accessories: Birch Tree border die, Birch Tree Accessories dies, Baker's Twine, dimensionals, sponge, stickles, liquid pearls


I loved making this card and can't wait to see all the release day creations from this awesome design team - please hop with me and check them out!!

Carole Burrage
Charmaine Ikach
Jen Shults
Joan Ervin
Kerri Michaud
Lynnette Kauffman
Sankari Wegman
Shannon White
Shelly Mercado
Stephanie Kraft
Tammie Edgerton
Taylor VanBruggen
Wanda Guess

Please stop over tomorrow for some Spotlight hops from TE - and thanks so much for hopping over here today!!
Big hugs,
Sankari :)