Be a part of the TE Dragonfly Card Drive

When we introduced the Discover Your Wings stamp set in the TE Giving Tree program, we mentioned that not only would Taylored Expressions donate $7 from the sale of each set to the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Foundation, but that we would also be hosting a card drive to benefit the Neo-natal Unit at Sanford Medical Center in Sioux Falls SD.  Taylor has both a very good friend and a sister-in-law who work as labor and delivery nurses at SMC where they use the dragonfly as a symbol of hope for families who have lost a child during delivery or in the early stages of life and they have requested hand-made cards featuring dragonfly images.  This was one of the driving forces behind the design of Discover Your Wings. 
And now we need your help.  Would you consider making and donating some cards that feature a dragonfly?  You may use stamps from any company - they do not need to be from TE.  As a thank you for participating Taylor will enter your name into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate to the TE Store.  Here are the details:

• Create cards (1 or as many as you'd like) that feature a dragonfly image (from ANY stamp company.) Sentiments can be things such as "thinking of you" and  inspirational quotes or they can be blank.
• If your cards are standard A2 size (4.25" x 5.5") Taylored Expressions will provide the envelopes.  If your cards are any other size then we ask that you please send a blank envelope along with each card donation.
• The more entries we receive, the more prizes there will be.  Taylored Expressions will give away 1 $50 Gift Certificate for every 50 cards we receive.  So - there will be one GC given if we receive 99 cards or less. For 100 - 149 we will give 2 gift certificates, for 150 - 199 there will be 3 gift certificates and so on.
• You will be entered into the drawing once for EACH card you send in with no limit.  The more entries, the better your chance to win.
• Mail your donations to:

Taylored Expressions Card Drive 924 NW 33rd Street
Ankeny, IA 50023                  

• Cards must be received no later than March 25th.

Now for a little info about the card I made for the card drive: I used Taylor’s sketch challenge (TESC101) at left.  The paper I used is Basic Grey lemonade and prism cardstock in Island Mist Light and Baby Pink Medium.  I added stardust stickles to my dragonfly and the card came together real quickly!  Hope you can join us in brightening the lives of these parents who are burdened with the unexpected loss of one of the greatest joys in life. 

Faith can move mountains

Happy Friday, y'all!  Ever since I have not been playing along with the Taylored Expressions sketch crew, I have been making my samples & uploading way late (such is the life of a student since I went back to college).  But at least playing late is better than never, right? 

This is the card I made for last week's sketch TESC87 using The Places You'll Go and August key ingredients.  Did you see the great October key ingredients available this month?  They are so awesome!  You can see all inspiration from the design team here (follow links on Taylor's post.)

In honor of Halloween fast approaching, we have a Fright Night Special
just for YOU. 

All of our Halloween stamp sets AND the Halloween Key Ingredients are ON SALE for 20% OFF
Friday October 23rd through Sunday October 25th ONLY! 

So don't miss out on this last minute holiday deal!

Trick or Sweet 

Trick or Sweet II

Punchy Potions

Spooky Expressions

Frightful Night

Halloween Key Ingredients (final quantities)

Plus you'll want to check out the TE What's the Deal Department for some incredible deals like JustRite Stampers products at 40-50% OFF!  These JustRite products will not be re-stocked, so grab them while you can!

Hope you have a great day & weekend!

TESC85: Wings of Joy Sneak Peek

It's a triple bonus day!! It's Friday, Taylored Expressions Sneak Peek Day 2 and the sketch challenge!!

Today the Baker's Dozen are sharing creations made with the Whimsical Wishes set Wings Of Joy, illustrated by Nancy McKinney! It's a wonderful collection of various sized birds in holiday settings and sweet sentiments. On my card today, I used the little birdhouse decorated with lights and 2 cardinals perched on it. There is also a little 'snow' which I covered with liquid pearls.

I love the layout Taylor came up for this, but you will see I made my focal image much bigger to accomodate the birdhouse, which slides freely in the circle because I attached it to the scallop die with 3 jump rings. Wish you could see it in action.

Also used on my card is patterned paper by Cosmo Crickett, Jolly by Golly which happens to come in the Christmas Key Ingredients which will be available tomorrow!

On my second card, I combined the cardinal birds decorating the (suspended) tree branch from Branching Out - isn't it funny how you notice little things about your creations LONG after it's made & photographed? I believe I should have executed that a little differently now. What do you think? Does it work still? I hope so because I took a LOT of time paper-piecing all those little socks, mittens and gloves, not to mention sponging of the sky and liquid applique for the snow!

Included in the Christmas key ingredients are:
Prism cardstock colors in Island Mist Light, Blush Red Dark, Classic Yellow Green, Sunflowers Medium and Intense Pink. The neutral is Choice Buttercream. The patterned paper is Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly and you will also get 5 yards of coordinating ribbon, 1 pot of Rockstar Red sparkly fluff and several various size chipboard snowflakes. It was fun & easy to use. I smooshed my chipboard snowflake in my glue pad and sprinkled on the sparkly fluff and it stuck real nicely! Then I put a button in the middle to tie in the pink ribbon I chose.

Here is Taylor's sketch for you to try!! Be sure to leave a comment on Taylor’s blog with the direct link to your blog post or gallery upload using the Mr. Linky service so we can check it out! You're always welcome to play with any of these sketches at any time.

Some Personal news to share--this is my last week participating on Taylor's Sketch Challenge Crew; I have enjoyed every week of her fun sketches & working alongside these talented ladies. It was time to make the tough decision that it's best to scale down some commitments because of the growing demands of college and some areas in my life that need my attention. I will STILL be playing along in this as well as other challenges, though so please keep visiting my blog!!

Check out the sneak peek projects from the following ladies:

Taylor VanBruggen Charmaine Ikach Dawn Easton Denise Marzec Jackie Pedro Jodi Collins Karen Giron Karen Motz Laura Frederickson Lori Schmidlin Sankari Wegman Sharon Harnist and Jami Sibley

Be sure to check out the fabulous eye candy the sketch crew has to share with us today:
Taylor Van Bruggen Jackie Pedro Jami Sibley Lynn Mercurio Monika Davis Sherrie Siemens

and come back tomorrow so you can see samples using the last set to be released; the 3 sets, Christmas key ingredients and Christmas Bundle will be available for purchase at 10:00 a.m. CST in the TE Store!

TESC84: Hey Sailor

Happy Friday! It’s time for another Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge (84). Today I have a cuppie sailor card to share with you, combining 2 sets by TE, Beach Bum (sailboat) and the cuppe sailor in the new Trick or Sweet II set. I love that this set can be used for more than just Halloween! I used the August 20th key ingredients kit for my car, which I adore! I thought they went well with my theme. You may notice I omitted the mini cuppie in the sailboat and popped it up for dimension and added some stardust stickles to it. This card was fun to make, because it started with a great sketch and a fun idea to combine these sets. On the inside, I used a sentiment from Faith & Hope that says, “I’m not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship”

Here is Taylor’s sketch for you to try; be sure to leave a comment on Taylor’s blog with the direct link to your blog post or gallery upload using the Mr. Linky service so we can check it out! You're always welcome to play with any of these sketches at any time.
COMING SOON: There is still no no featured sampler for this week as Taylor is gearing up for introducing some new and exciting changes to the sketch challenge.

Be sure to check out the fabulous creations the sketch crew has to share with us today:

Taylor Van Bruggen
Jami Sibley
Lynn Mercurio
Monika Davis
Sherrie Siemens

Before you go, please stop by the SASI blog to see our Friday Friend Jen Tapler! Have a wonderful day & fabulous weekend!!

TESC82: Dear Santa, I’ve Been {GOOD}

ALL YEAR! HA! We all know you have to be good ALL year in order to ensure Santa brings you a gift, right? I’m sure all of you with children make sure your kids know that because it gives you leverage when they are acting up! One of my favorite things to do is mix & match sets, so I went I set out to make a card for this week’s sketch, I wanted to bring out my favorite Whimsical Wishes set, Beary Special!! However, I wanted to do something ‘different’ with it but also make a holiday card.

So I grabbed my A Year of Sweets 3 set with the cuppie in front of the fireplace with letter & cookies for Santa – then the lightbulb went off. I can pair the angel bear with a list for Santa & personalize it with JustRite stamps! Below is a picture of the letter I stamped (with marker on stamp) and omitted the cuppie & plate. Then, I used a marker and filled in the right side of the letter & cut it out. I used papers from Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly which is so fun!! The prism colors I used are Rose Medium & Sunflowers Medium, I got from the TE Store. The JustRite product I used is the 15 pt font and 2” stamper, punched out with 1 1/4” circle.

Here is a close up of the sparkle from Stardust Stickles on the wings & hand drawn halo for the bear. You can see how perfectly the scroll fits in the bears paws – it was meant to be! I just used my craft knife for precision cutting and slipped the letter underneath.

And because I was so happy with this card, and was still on my quest of making a more Laurie Schmidlinesque card, I grabbed a few softer colors from my Jolly by Golly and added some distressing with sponging some caramel ink on the layers. As always, you can see a picture closer up by clicking it.

Here is the close up of this card. On both cards, the center focal die is the new Labels 7 by Spellbinders which, when horizontal, it looks like a book, but I thought it looked great vertical for my sketch & with the cute bear!

Here is Taylor’s sketch for you to try; be sure to leave a comment on Taylor’s blog with the direct link to your blog post or gallery upload using the Mr. Linky service so we can check it out! You're always welcome to play with any of these sketches at any time. COMING SOON! There will be no featured sampler for the next couple weeks as Taylor introduces some new and exciting changes to the sketch challenge.

Be sure to check out the fabulous eye candy the sketch crew has to share with us today:

Taylor Van Bruggen
Jackie Pedro
Jami Sibley
Lynn Mercurio
Monika Davis
Sherrie Siemens
Stephanie Hargis

Before you go - check out the SASI blog to see ALL the winners of the Taylored Expressions Birthday Bash! I hope you had fun & congratulations to ALL the winners!

Hope y’all make time to play with the sketch this week and have a great weekend! ‘See’ ya soon!