Taylored Expressions Sneak Peeks - Day 1

Good Morning Everyone!!!

I am so excited because of the stamp sets that Taylored Expressions will releasing this Friday, December 5th at 8amPST and all of the yummy sneak peeks of those sets that are starting from today on! Every 3 months, Taylored Expressions introduces a new stamp set in the TE Giving Tree Program, where a $7 from each stamp set will go to a particular charity. This is one of the reasons that I love being part of Taylored Expressions because it is so wonderful to know that I am helping to make a difference by supporting these charities and also by getting more awareness to the wonderful works that these charities do.

Today - all of us will be showing samples from the beautiful stamp set Discover Your Wings (designed by the awesome Nancy McKinney) and a percentage of the proceeds of this beautiful stamp set will go to benefit the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep organization also known as NILMDTS. This amazing foundation is a charity that administers a network of almost 7000 photographers in the US and 35 other countries who volunteer their time to gently provide a helping hand and healing heart to famillies who have suffered the loss of an infant by offering gentle and beautiful photography services in a compassionate and sensitve manner. NIMLDTS is there for parents and famillies to help them in thei healing, bring hope to their future and to honor their child. They belive that it is through rememberance that a family and truly begin to heal. Taylored Expressions is honored to help support the work of this wonderful charity, I encourage you to go to their website and learn more of their wonderful work.

This is an organization whose work went right to my heart for many reasons - most of which are hard for me to talk about - and maybe I can in the future - but for right now - all I can say - is that I am so happy to support and organization that supports families to heal after an infant has passed away - what an amazing treasure they are giving that family and what a beacon of hope they are to help in this way. In the Sioux Falls Hospital where Taylor's SIL works, their neo-natal hospital gives cards with a dragonfly on it to famillies who have lost their children at the hospital as a sign of hope. Taylor will also be sponsoring a card drive for anyone who wants to send anything dragonfly related to donate to this hospital. Knowing this - that the dragonfly symbolized hope - I made this card for today's sneak peek - I love the dragonfly stamp and covered the wings in chunky glitter.

I wanted to create a matching ornament/ hanging diorama to go with this card - so I created this from this cutie patootie metal tin - which can be pierced with a crop-a-dile and then you can insert an eyelet and this allows you to thread a ribbon through and hang it up....

I covered the bottom of the tin with some Flower Soft and loved the feel of a meadow of flowers that this sweet butterfly is flitting about in :)

Here is a picture of the card and tin together as a gift set to give to someone special - for me the most important thing is to always dream - to have goals - to work towards them and to always know that dreams do come true....

Card Ingredients and Project details:

Paper: Kaiser Kraft and coordinations cardstock for the base

Ink: color box chalks, Memento Grape Jelly, Pear Tart and Desert Sand

Stamps: Discover Your WIngs

Accessories: dimensionals, stickles, chunky glitter from Martha, flower soft, metal container from my amazing friend, ribbon from stash, spellbinders, brad from Kaiser Kraft, bling from K&Company.

I loved making this hanging diorama and so I had to make another ornament with the beautiful sentiment: See Beyond - and loved embossing this gorgeous butterfly - I am hanging this right near my desk where I can always see it - and always remember that there is a Greater Beyond in this journey of life and to always remember the preciousness of this life:

Project Details:

Paper: American Craft

Stamps: Discover Your Wings

Ink: Memento Lilac Posies

Accessories: frame, ribbon from stash, EP bridal and bling from Kaiser

My last project - is something a little different - it has some Kraft in it (I am a total Kraft newbie :) I love these papers called Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts Girl Collection - that Taylor has in the store - and couldn't wait to emboss this gorgeous stamp image that is in this set of the flower silhouettes - I CASED this gorgeous card that Taylor made for the last TE sketch challenge #92 using these papers. The butterfly is paper pieced and I have to say that I love how this card turned out:

Here is a view from the side - the embossed images are actually quite sparkly - but it is a little hard to tell - love the feeling of embossing:

Card Details:

Paper: Fancy Pants Kraft Kuts Girl Collection and Prism Cardstock

Stamps: Discover Your Wings

Ink: Memento Aquamarine ink

Accessories: Sakura white gel pen, Spare Parts curly q's, circle punches, corner chomper, dimensionals, embossing powder, bling from Kaiser Kraft

The sentiments in this set are so inspiring - they can be for encouragement, for sympathy, for a thinking of you kinda card and I love how all of the different card making techniques that are also possible with this set like embossing, emboss resist, paper piecing, coloring, water coloring - and I can't wait to make more...

Speaking of making more - please check out the awesome creations from the Baker's Dozen this week - I know that they will amaze you!!! And Guess WHAT!!! You can WIN this stamp set!!! All you have to do is to leave a comment on each designer's blog for a chance to win!!! One lucky winner will be chosen at random and will be announced on Friday morning on Taylor's Blog!!! You have until 6am PST on Thursday to enter you comments!!!

Charmaine Ikach

Dawn Easton

Donna Baker (at the Stamp a Sweet Impression Blog)

Jackie Pedro

Jodi Collins

Jami Sibley

Karen Giron

Karen Motz

Laurie Schmidlin

Sharon Harnist

Nancy McKinney

and of course!: Taylor VanBruggen

Thank you so much for stopping by my little ole corner today!

Please stop by tomorrow for Day 2 of sneak peeks!!!

Hugs!

Sankari :)

Musings from my Closet (oh - and some stamping too :)

Good Morning Everyone,

So, I saw that Julee is having her Verve Sketch challenge (5 sketches) to celebrate her June release of stamps and I had to join - as of yesterday evening, I had planned not to -because of all the things that I have to do - but then I decided last evening that I just had to... I couldn't pass up this challenge :) So here are my 5 cards for the Verve challenge all done in my closet (we are having guests and my craft corner had to come down).

Since my closet is on the teeny side - I grabbed my June 20th Key Ingredients pack (which has all the ribbons and paper, etc), a craft tote, my fave stamps, and 1 spellbinders dies, my Big Shot and sat and crafted on the floor. I was determined to make 5 cards in 2 hours... and it took a little longer (like 45 minutes longer - but that's because of point number 3 in my list below:)

So here are the musings and lessons learned from crafting in my closet:

1. don't sit next to the dirty hamper

2. make sure to stretch every 20 minutes - otherwise 3 hours later - you will hear creaks from the knees

3. don't try on clothes from college days when you are taking a break and then get depressed that things just don't fit the way they used to.... because it will lead to point #4

4. don't stash a secret stash of yum-yum's in your closet that you will reach for after getting depressed after trying on clothes that don't fit from your college days...

5. wonder if clothes really matter - maybe the whole closet can be transformed into a stamp space :)

Anyhooo - after all the musings - here are the 5 cards all using the June 20th Key Ingredients for Julee's Verve Sketch challenge:

Here is the first card from the first Verve sketch that is also doubling as the Mojo MOnday 92 sketch:  The stamps set is the Hundred Hearts set from Verve.

Here is the second card from this same stamp set and papers set using the second sketch challenge:

Here is the third card based on the third sketch using the Faith and Hope stamp set from Taylored Expressions and the June 20th Key Ingredients set. 

Here is the fourth card based on the fourth sketch and it uses the Wishful Elegance flower from Verve, the June 20th Key Ingredients and a button from the Summer Bag o Buttons from Taylored Expressions.

And here is the last card using the little Critter that I have named Harold holding a cupcake for the last Verve Sketch. This little guy just cracks me up everytime I stamp him (or in this case - paper piece him :)

Well, I am psyched to have finished all five - and now am going to clean up the scraps from my closet floor :) and also go and make a chiropractic appointment for my back after all this closet scrapping!

Thank you so much for visiting me today :) 

Big Hugs,

Sankari :)

PS - thank you for all of you for your sympathy for the crashing of my computer... well - its official - its all gone and can't be salvaged - so make sure you guys are saving things on back ups of back ups! I am just going to try to be positive about this whole experience...

PPS - Happy Friday!

KW Color Inspriation #54 - Miracles

Good Evening Everyone,

As soon as I saw Kristina's challenge for her Color Inspiration Challenge #55 this week - I had to play - I literally dropped the piles of laundry and went right to my craft corner - (and really it wasn't that hard to drop a pile of laundry :)

These colors are so uber fabulous and I adore those shoes!! I love it! The inspiration for these colors come from Kristina's bosses skirt and her bosses shoes - (lovin' those shoes!)

These colors reminded me of the Ambrosia papers from Basic Grey - so I pulled it out and made a quick card because I have still a ton of cleaning to do before we have a houseful of visitors tomorrow (literally 19 minutes - ) and snapped a quick pic - sorry about the quality of this picture - still trying to figure out nighttime photography (will take a better pic in the morning). I love the way that Jenn did the ribbons in this lovely card of hers - and totally wanted to try it! Thanks so much for the inspiration Jen :)

Card Details:

Paper: Basic Grey Ambrosia papers

Ink: Really Rust from SU!, Martha Stewart Grey

Stamps: Faith and Hope from Taylored Expressions

Accessories: Spellbinders, Kaiser pearls, Casa Collection ribbon, Butterfly punch from Martha Stewart, tacky tape

I am sorry that everything is so quick - I would love to play with these colors more if I have a chance. We are going to be having a lot of visitors coming in this weekend for the next two weeks - so I off I go back to those piles of laundry that I keep trying to ignore :) lol!

Thanks so much for visiting my little corner!!

Many hugs to all!!

Sankari :)

2 Sketches 4 you - Top 30 - Round 2

Good Afternoon Everyone,

As most of you know I have loved playing along with Laura and Kazan at 2 Sketches 4 You and their awesome DT's past and present with their beautiful sketches and their awesome inspiring creations of art and I can't even tell you HOW blown away and completely honored I was to be picked to be in the Top 30 with such amazing paper crafters for the first annual Ultimate Card Showdown in Celebration of their first Blogaversary. Wow - I am still reeling! Thank you so much Kazan, Laura and all the fabulous judges for this honor!

So for round 2 - we have this beautiful sketch to work with - and I had so much fun working on this sketch :)

 I used the sentiment: from Rabindranath Tagore who wrote the national anthem for India and whose visionary works earned him the Nobel Prize in 1913. This sentiment reads: "Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark." My father used to repeat this quote to me growing up - and I have remembered it during some dark moments in my life - its always taught me to trust, hope and believe.

Here is a close up peek at the stamped sentiment and the cut out bird (the bird is cut out from the designer paper) and I put the little birdie in a nest on paper clip from Spare Parts. 

Here is a closer look at the dimensions of the card. The tree house was stamped and paper pieced, sponged and then "hung" onto the tree with some embroidery thread. The birds are actually on the designer paper (Urban Prairie from Basic Grey) and I cut them out and popped them on dimensionals. The little flowers in the grass are also cut out from one of the papers in the pack, sponged and then popped up on dimensionals.

Here is another close up - facing the front of the card with some of the bling in the tree. I loved popping these flower bling (from my bling stash box) and after putting everything together - I put some liquid pearl (red) on the flowers on the bottom and some Diamond stickles on the little birdies. 

Card Details:

Paper: Basic Grey (Urban Prairie) and the blue/black and white cardstock are from stash

Ink: Stazon Black and Martha Stewart Brown

Stamps: Branching Out stamp set, Branching Out Accessories set and Faith and Hope set from Taylored Expressions

Accessories: Circle cutter from Creative memories, dimensionals, corner rounder, sponger, paper clips from Spare Parts, silver marker, embroidery string, prisma color pencils, ribbon from stash

Technique: Paper piecing (everything from the birds (the birds were images on the paper - that I also cut out and adhered ontop of the same image with dimensionals), the leaves, tree leaves all paper pieced, scalloped grass with corner rounder

This sentiment always brings me hope and deep contentment - and making this card with this sentiment in the back of mind was a really beautiful process :)  I simply loved making this card and feel just completely in awe to be part of this wonderful group of stampers. You can check out the rest of the Top 30 gallery here  - these ladies are simply amazing! I am totally inspired by their creations!

Sending everyone lots of good luck and cheer! Total honor to be with you all!!

Thank you so much for coming over to my little blog :)

Sunny smiles and hugs :)

Sankari 

Taylored Expressions JUNE Release DAY!!!

Good Morning Everyone,

Well - today is the day Taylor is releasing 5 new stamp sets over at Taylored Expressions.
I am so excited to show you a peek of two of those sets, one called: Beach Bum and the next called Faith and Hope. I love these sets - its hard to not to ink up all the images because they are all so awesome :)

Beach Bum Stamp Set

This set that Taylor is releasing is the perfect summer set - seriously awesome! And she has a whole set of Beach Bum Key Ingredients to go with it! (The Key Ingredients include, cardstock, coordinating design paper, awesome brads, matching ribbons - there are a ton of product in each Key Ingredient set - so that you can make a ton of cards from one coordinating set!)

Okay - I had a BALL making this card - I was totally giggling the whole time making it -- LOL because it is all about a cupcake dreaming that he is a surfer... hahaha! It was so much fun to use these adorable stamps!! And a cuppie surfing!!! Are You kidding me!! LOVE IT!! I couldn't decide which one to use (a cuppie sunbathing or a cuppie surfing) so I decided to combine it and use the sentiment "California Dreamin" and suddenly, i have that song stuck in my head! :)


All of cuppie's "bathing trunks" (lol!) are paper pieced, as is his surfboard with papers from the Beach Bum Key Ingredients. I cut up the waves that surfer cuppie is going through and popped it on dimensionals for a more "wave tunnel" look - and then painted on some liquid pearls for a more wave foamy look. The waves on the beach are from tearing the cardstock like waves and then layering them and then covering it with liquid pearl foam :). I am SO ready for summer after working with this set! After the winter we have had here, I am ready for some summer heat!!

Faith and Hope

This stamp set called Faith and Hope is the first stamp set in a brand new collection of stamps sets from Taylored Expressions called: Lasting Impressions. I love these beautiful sentiments in this set - and they are perfect for bringing some sunshine to the lives of those around us - whether people are going through a hard time - or - whether they just need an upliftment of the spirit. I had a wonderful experience using these stamps to create some projects for my family and friends.

1. A Scrapbook page for my Father

As soon as I saw one of the sentiments in this awesome stamp set was a quote for Tagore - I got kind of emotional. Rabindranath Tagore is one of India's most famous poets. The Indian National Anthem was composed by him and in 1913 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his visionary works of poetry. My father used to quote to me the very sentiment that is on this awesome new stamp set by Tagore ever since I was a little girl ( Faith is the bird that sings when when the dawn is still dark). And so I wanted to make something for him... so I decided to make a little scrapbook page that I am excited to give him when he visits us in a couple of weeks! This is a 6x6 page that fits perfectly in the calendar stand that is available at Taylored Expressions - I love making a page and then immediately displaying it in the house :)


This photo is a photo of the hands of my two children and myself in the middle. It was actually an accident of a photo because I was trying to take a picture to see whose fingers they have, my husband's or mine (lol!) and it ended up being more shadowy - but I kinda of liked it. I knew right away that I wanted to use this photo for my dad's scrapbook page. It reminded me of reaching for the light and through any dark period in your life - knowing that the dawn is approaching.

I used the paper from the Prudence collection from Taylored Expressions. I also used the Branching Out Stamp set from TE and the Branching Out Coordiantes set. I LOVE this stamp set - and it was just so perfect to use it with this quote. This sentiment still guides me - it has guided me through some uncertain times in my life and it brings me hope when things are rough and unsettled. I feel this quote in my heart. And it was so healing to create this page with this sentiment for my father - he is my rock, my teacher and my best friend.

2. Faith can Move Mountains

I loved this sentiment: Faith can move Mountains - it just shows the power of what is possible with faith - and I immediately had a vision of a quiet moutain scape.

I tore some different brown papers to create a mountain and scalloped some green papers from my scrap stash for some flowing waves of grass. I ran the cardstock through my Spellbinders tags and stamped and sponged and liquid pearled the sentiment tag and finished it with some coppery shimmery ribbon. I love how this card ended up coming out - it's always so nice when cards come together easily :)

3. Miracles:

I love this sentiment: "Out of difficulties grow miracles" - it is such a wonderful and versatile sentiment that can be used with so many images and for so many different occaisions. I wanted to keep it clean and simple - so I kept most of it white. I used the flowers from Taylor's Fresh Flower's Stamp set. I colored it in with my prismas and added a touch of bling.

I used my Spellbinders tag and then sponged and added some fruit punch organdy ribbon to both ends. I love how simple it was and it is a great card to have in your card supply to send someone who needs a little cheering up!

4. Graduation Present: Bag with Uplifting Sentiments

All of these sentiments in this set are just simply beautiful and uplifting. I wanted to make a little something for our cousin's neice who is graduating from highschool next weekend - a little bag of sentiments of faith and hope that she can pull out anytime. As she begins her new journey to college - this is just a simple little bag of sentiments to cheer her up on days when she is feeling uncertain of the future.

This bag is a template from a K & Company set and I added some of the flowers from the Fresh Flowers stamp set along with the different ribbons from Taylored Expressions.

I stamped the sentiments from this beautiful set Faith and Hope and then attached it with some ribbon that she can pull out and have a quick read anytime she wants :) I hope she enjoys it - it was so wonderful to create a personalized gift for someone. :)

These past few days have been so much fun to show samples from these wonderful stamp sets! I really had so much fun - and couldn't really stop inking them all up :) Taylor is offering an awesome deal for a way to have all these stamp sets in her Stamp Lover's Package (and it comes with a free Binder Box - which is a great way to store all these great stamps!).

Don't forget to check out the fantastic creations of my fellow Design Team members!

Donna Baker
Jodi Collins
Jen del Muro
Dawn Easton
Laura Fredrickson
Karen Giron
Charmaine Ikach
Denise Marzec
Karen Motz
Laurie Schmidlin
Ana Wohlfahrt

and of course: Taylor VanBruggen


And hop on over to the Taylored Expressions Store - where everything that you have been seeing for the last three days are available for purchase!!!

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