Taylored Expressions Sneak Peek: The Places You’ll Go

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This is a long post, please bear with me as I share with you today! I can hardly believe a whole year has passed since I was blessed to be a part of Taylor Van Bruggen pursuing her dream of selling stamp sets in her on-line store Taylored Expressions. It was the same month, working with those fun stamp sets & key ingredients I thought to myself that I would LOVE to stay on her design team longer than originally asked. Well, a year later I find myself a part of her team indefinitely and that is a BIGGER blessing than I imagined a year ago. I absolutely adore her; she is a smart business woman, provides great customer service, is extremely organized, debuts fabulous stamps month after month and provides wonderful products in her store! I also love the fact that she has a quarterly charity set in the form of the Giving Tree Charitable Program. This month, we introduce you to The Places You’ll Go and coordinating Key Ingredients, which will be available for purchase on Sat, Sept. 5th at 10:00 a.m. CST!

For my project, I created a little book of truths and promises for my 3-yr old niece Gabriella who loves to read – here she is reading a book in preparation of becoming a big sister last year at Easter, a month before her baby brother was born. I truly believe reading can take you on many adventures, enrich a child’s imagination and also take you away from the many cares of this world, which is one reason I still enjoy reading. I think when you buy a child a book, you are investing in their future which is why I believe this giving tree project is going to be so worthwhile! I know this set will be used on a lot of occasions for children’s cards and also to make a coordinating card when you give a book as a gift to someone who loves to read. It is packed with a lot of encouraging sentiments so I know I will use it for those occasions as well.

Here is the card I made to accompany her little book (inspired by my friend Melanie) I made the card to look like a book with the spine hand drawn & opening at the crease (sticky tape was used on the inside at the crease). I used Baby Blue Flower Soft to make the fluffy clouds – I’m sure Gabby will love that! The title of the book was created using the Uppercase & Lowercase Times New Roman JustRite font. I added several other TE stamp sets to complement the theme of Gabby’s book. Feel free to email me if you have any questions on what I used. If you click on the link View Full Album, you will be taken to an album where you can view every page and would love it if you did. There are 17 pages in the little book I made Gabby that took me a total of 6 hours to make – all the while I was thinking of her and not once did I think my efforts would be in vain. Knowing my sister, she will keep and cherish this book for her for many years to come. I was inspired to make this book into something she will cherish, knowing her Auntie Donna poured her heart into it. I know Gabby will ask her Mommy to read it to her many times while thinking of me. I look forward to the day she picks it up and tells me in her words what the book says and I will listen to her sweet words and tears of joy will fill my eyes and run down my cheek just like they are now as I imagine her in my mind & heart. That’s what I hold onto each day since we live so far away. It’s things like this that tie our hearts together.

For each stamp set sold from September through November, Taylored Expressions will donate $7.00 to the Books for Kids Foundation. The mission of the Books for Kids Foundation is to promote literacy among all children with a special emphasis on low-income and at-risk preschool-aged children. Books for Kids creates libraries, donates books, and partners with literacy programs to develop the critical early foundation and skills which young children need to be successful in life. The stamp set does not come die cut like all the others in order to donate more money to the charity, but if you use Tonic Scissors to cut your set, you will cut them out like a dream-they are the best non-stick scissors around!

Be sure to check out the wonderful inspiration by Taylor & the Baker’s Dozen Design Team: Jackie Pedro (new to the team), Charmaine Ikach, Dawn Easton, Denise Marzec, Jodi Collins
Karen Giron, Karen Motz, Laura Frederickson, Lori Schmidlin
Sankari Wegman and Sharon Harnist (guest designer this month)

See ya tomorrow with Day 2 Projects and then only 1 more day until the Birthday Bash!! Hope you will join us!!