TESC #94 - A housewarming card and scrapbook page :)

Good Morning Everyone,

I don't know if you are feeling the holiday crunch - but things have definitely been busy in our household and I feel like a chicken running around, forgetting her lists of things to do and then adding more things on the list. I was in some major need of some stamp therapy last night and so I was so grateful that I had a chance to sit down at my craft corner and make some special things for my loved ones.

I used Taylor's awesome sketch #94 for these projects. I loved the simplicity of this sketch and found that it was perfect for both a card and a scrapbook page.

I made this scrapbook page for my children. Some of you might know that this last week has been a rough one for our family - we have been dealing with some issues that my son has been having to deal with and I wanted to make something for them, so I made a little 6x6 scrapbook page that I loved to display in our calendar stand. I absolutely LOVE this stand - and they love to see themselves displayed at the house too :)

I got a little weepy making this page - I absolutely love love love this picture of my kids (and it always melts my heart when they are giving each other hugs and kisses and doing special things for each other - such a nice change from sibling rivalry!).

I love this moment that I captured of them laughing together at a joke. And I love the quote from Helen Keller which is in the Discover Your Wings stamp set that simply describes this moment perfectly: " The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."

I wanted to write to them something special - It is hard to see them growing up and knowing that I can't always protect them. As they grow up - its almost like each day - I am slowly letting go and watching them learn to sail by themselves... and its both heartbreaking and heart fulfilling... sigh...

Here is what I wrote for them on the page - I hope you don't mind me sharing :)

To the dearest loves of my heart: "As I felt you grow inside, my heart was filled with gratitude and wonder, you both are the sweetest blessings, the apples of my eye. You are what makes me try to be the best mom I can be. Whether near or far, I am always with you - always loving you - always praying for you - always cheering you on. I feel our hearts are one. Always know that I am here - loving you!"

Page Ingredients:
Paper: MME (Oooh La La) and Cosmo Cricket, Girl Friday
Ink: Memento Black
Stamps: Discover Your Wings Stamp set from Taylored Expressions
Accessories: corner rounder, flowers from Making Memories, bling and ribbon from stash, Sakura yellow gel pen, calendar stand and EK success punch

It always amazes me how therapeutic it is to stamp and create something - especially when it is for those whom you love! I loved showing them this page this morning and I love displaying it in our house. I think that's one of my most favorite features of this calendar stand - that it can display your pages and they don't have to hide away in a book somewhere on the shelves :) Also, my kids LOVE pages about them! I think I want to paint the stand and decorate it up - but I am still filling it up right now - so I think I am going to wait till its all done and I can figure out what I want for a color scheme!

This next project is a card that I made using the Sweet Occasions stamp set that was Jami's orginal idea! My dear friends are having a housewarming party this weekend and I wanted to give them something special. I love that this stamp set has so many multiple uses stamp set - it makes it so versatile! LOVE that!!! I used the congratulations stamp set with the cute house on it and then underneath I used the sentiment: on your sweet new home - and I LOVED that it fit perfectly underneath the house image!

And my favorite part of the card was creating a little patterned paper out of the stamps in this set - like this mini cupcake or mini sundae set! So cute! I loved coloring them in!

And it was so much fun to decorate and color this house - I added a little sun for a bit of whimsy :)

Card Ingredients:
Paper: MME buttercream and snow white choice cardstock from Taylored Expressions
Stamps: Sweet Occasions stamp set from Taylored Expressions
Ink: Memento Brown
Accessories: Corner rounder, sponger, threading punch from Fiskars, dimensionals, ribbon from stash and tombow, Martha punch, sakura gel pens.

I loved making these projects and feel so grateful for my family and my friends - both IRL and in blogland - you guys have no idea how much you mean to me - your support, love and sweetness always makes me feel not alone!

Thank you for all of your sweet words! And thank you so much for letting me share this with you today!

Sending each of lots of sunshine!!!

Hugs!

Sankari :)

Taylored Expressions Sneak Peeks - Day 2

Good Morning Everyone!!!

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's blog hop to see everyone's lovely "Discover Your Wings" stamp set - well there is more awesomeness today as we show samples from 2 stamp sets will be rleased tomorrow at 8am PST at the Taylored Expressions store. Today the Design Team has split up in two teams - one team will feature creations from the stamp set called Sweet Occasions: and the other team show casing the stamp set called Crafty Cuppie (and accessory set). I have always loved cuppie - how can you not love cupcake - especially one as talented as Cuppie!!! This new stamp set and accessory set featuring Cuppie is something that is made especially for us crafters - You don't want to miss this one!!! I LOVe all the sentiments and this set because I have been looking for something that has sentiments that you can make for other fellow crafters & the fun thing is that with the accessory set - you can even custom make your particular sentiment (more on that later :)

Card #1 - Stamping is Cheaper than Therapy

My first card is one of my favorite - because it is SOOOO TRUE!!! The sentiment reads: "Stamping is Cheaper Than Therapy" :

Here is a close up of all the things on Cuppie's desk - how cute is this! There is Cuppie's own paper trimmer, a heart punch, ink pads, glue dots and designer paper!!! :)))) !! I was giggling while making this card!!! I even paper pieced the papers in the stamp with the designer paper in the card! lol!

And here is a close up of the bottom half of the card - I stamped the word "Stamping" on a tag and then popped it up with dimensionals onto the label die. I know just the person who this is for - someone who gets my addiction of all things cardmaking :))

Card Ingredients:

Paper: Basic Grey: Marrakech collection and Choice Snow White cardstock

Ink: Memento Lady Bug Red and Aquamarine

Stamps: Crafty Cuppie

Accessories: Spellbinders, dimensionals, Fiskars ribbon threading punch and scalloped punch, Sakura glaze pen (both clear and red), copics, ribbon from stash and button from Whirligig.

Card #2 - I'd Rather Be Quilting

The second card that I made today is for my MIL to give to one of her quilter friends - I love this sentiment and was loving the papers from the card above so I kept going with the same papers as above in making this card because as soon as I saw that the Marrakech collection had paper that looked like mini quilt squares, I knew that I had to use it!

Here is a close up of the details - I love this stamp with the little cross stitching pattern - sooo cute and I had to paper piece what Cuppie was stitching - which just totally made me giggle more :)

Card Ingredients:

Paper: Basic Grey Marrakech collection and Choice Snow White cardstock

Ink: Memento Expresso and Aquamarine

Stamps: Crafty Cuppie

Accessories: Spellbinders, dimensionals, Fiskars scalloped punch, Sakura glaze pen (both clear and white), copics, ribbon from stash and buttons from Whirligig (I {heart} these buttons :)

Card # 3 - You Color My World

For my third card - this one is made for my sweetest little man - just in the last couple of months - my little DS has become quite the artiste - he LOVEs to draw and to paint and last week he was upset with me because I made a card for his sister and I didn't make anything for him - lol - so this card is made with him - I LOVE this sentiment: "You color my world" - what a gorgeous sentiment! I chose the little cuppie who is painting and thought that I should create an easel card - since the cuppie is after all.... painting - so I followed the directions from SCS on the easel card whose illustrations and text was created by Penny Wessenaur and the original card concept is by Deborah March. Mary Beerman has a great video tutorial that you can follow along with - and I made my base cardstock 4x4 - but you can alter it to any size to fit your stamp or the envelope.

I used the same papers as the above card and love that with the easel card - he can display it in his room (and the thing that TOTALLY touches my heart is that both of my kids display the cards that I make for them in their room - it is just the sweetest thing ever - and not only that - they keep track of how many cards the other has - so I have to make sure that the next one I make is one for my daughter - otherwise I will be "hearing" about it :)))

Usually there is one button right in the middle that is there to keep the card flush as it stands up - and in this card - its more like a line of the buttons. I love that it can easily fold down and lay flat as well (sliding it into an envelope will depend on the card and embellishments and dimensionals):

Card Ingredients:

Paper: Basic Grey Marrakech collection and Choice Snow White cardstock

Ink: Memento Expresso and Aquamarine

Stamps: Crafty Cuppie

Accessories: Spellbinders, dimensionals, Fiskars scalloped punch, Sakura glaze pen (both clear and white), copics, ribbon from stash and buttons from Whirligig

I love alllllll of the little crafty things that Cuppie is doing in this set and know that if you are a crafter of any kind - you are going to love this set and all the versatility of the sentiments that you can interchange and create to tailor/taylor ;) it to your crafting needs :) To see more Crafty Cuppie fun-ness - check out what the following amazing designers created:

Taylor VanBruggen

Charmaine Ikach

Karen Giron

Karen Motz

Donna Baker

And please check out the awesome new stamp set Sweet Occasions (concept from our very own Jami Sibley!!!) from these amazing designers:

Jami Sibley

Jackie Pedro

Jodi Collins

Laurie Schmidlin

Sharon Harnist

Dawn Easton

Stop by Everyone's blog and leave some LOVE because one lucky commenter might win a Sweet Occasions stamp set!!!! How awesome is that!!!!! All the winners will be announced tomorrow!

Thank you so much for stopping by today!!!!

Please stop by for more and more fun treats here tomorrow as we celebrate the release of all of these wonderful stamps!!! You don't want to miss it!!! :)

Hugs!

Sankari :)