A Little Scrappy...

Well, it's the last day of September, and a rainy, wet one at that here in New England. I don't have a stampy project for you but I thought I'd share a few more of the layouts I made for the Scrappy Sunday Challenge over on Papercraft Planet. I'm already looking forward to the October templates, designed by Jen Tapler. She does a wonderful job with the layouts each month! Thanks Jen!!!

I used Sept Scrappy Sunday template d for this layout of the TE girls at CHA this past July. Fun times!!  All the papers and supplies are from the Colour me Crazy kit by Melissa Bennett for Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Next I made a layout to celebrate my very first solo flight in my journey to get my private pilot's licence. I used Sept Scrappy Sunday template c for the layout. Alphabet from Stud Muffin kit by Shawna Clingerman for Sweet Shoppe Designs. Other papers and elements from Flight of Fancy kit by Elise Hansen for The Digi Chick.

Then I started scrapping our vacation from this past May...I used a Scrappy Sunday template from August for the layout and all papers and elements are from the Delightful kit by Krisin Cronin-Barrow and Traci Reed for Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Here's the left side of my double layout for Riding the Cable Car. The layout is Sept Scrappy Sunday template b and all papers and elements are from the My Everything kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow for Sweet Shoppe Designs.

For the right side I used a Scrappy Sunday template from June. All papers and elements from the My Everything kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow for Sweet Shoppe Designs. Stitched line from Border Basics-Lines by Libby Weifenbach for Sweet Shoppe Designs.

That's all for today! My parents are here visiting for a few weeks and Mom and I are off to the mall for a little retail therapy. :)


Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Happy Birthday To You

I wanted to make another card with the adorable Belated Birthday Birds from the A La Carte images at Taylored Expressions. But I put a little twist on them and used the sentiment from Make a Wish so it's a regular birthday card instead of a belated birthday card.  :)

The layout is Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge from last Friday, TESC129. I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Buttercream and coloured it with copic markers. I used my circle Nestabilities to cut it out and didn't worry too much that I cut off the stamped balloon because I knew I'd be using the smallest Balloon Die on some teal felt from the Winterfresh Trio in place of the stamped image. The patterned paper is Cosmo Cricket Pixie-licious...the colours are amazing! I paired it with intense teal, frosted kiwi, blush red light and classic purple. I used my Scalloped Eyelet Border die on the teal piece the finished the card with some clear Kaisercraft Rhinestones that I coloured with my BG49 copic marker. I really love how cheery this card is!

It's already time to sign up for the October 22nd Blast from the Past customer blog hop, so I hope you'll join in the fun. You'll find all the details on this page.

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Sweet Sunday Favourite

It's time for this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge but we're doing things a little differently this week. Karen has challenged us to go back through the sketches and choose our favourite, then create a new project with that sketch. Here's a link to all the sketches on Karen's blog...you have to scroll a little to find them, but they're all there.

I love to work with circles so I went looking for a sketch with a circle as the main panel, and I found SSSC69. I love the simplicity of this layout with those three strips of paper. As soon as I saw it I asked myself why I don't do layouts like this more often. So I knew it was "the one" for me.  :)

I pulled out my Hangin' Out set from Taylored Expressions. I need a baby girl card and I pictured the clothes line going across the circle. I stamped the images with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Snow White and onto some MME Quite Contrary papers. I wanted a white border around each of the images so I  cut out the patterned pieces right along the black outline, but I left some white space when I cut out the white pieces. The teddy is coloured with copics and if you look closely you can see that I added some faint gingham strips to his tummy with my colourless blender. A little sewing and some Crystal Twinkles finished off the details perfectly! I really really love how this turned out, and the kraft paper matching teddy so well was complete coincidence. I hadn't thought about using kraft until after teddy was coloured and I was looking for another layer colour. Love it when things come together like that!

I hope you'll play along with this week's challenge and link your creation on Karen's blog. Now let's go see what sketches the rest of the Sweet Sunday Stampers chose to work with!
Jen Tapler
Joanne Basile
Laura Fredrickson
Lynn Put
Sarah-Jane Kale'
Vicki Burdick
and Karen Giron

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Wicked Halloween

Happy Wednesday everyone! Only two more days til the weekend...woo hoo!!! Today I have a slightly spooky halloween card to share using Hangin' Out-Wicked Wardrobe from Taylored Expressions. This is such a fun set!!!

I started with Mercy's Tuesday sketch, MTSC92, and pulled out my Fright Night Project Pantry for all the papers and embellishments. I stamped the witch's dress twice with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Snow White and again onto the star patterned paper. I coloured the hem, cuffs and bodice with my orange Spica glitter pen then cut out the patterned dress to reveal those parts. I backed the green oval with a black layer cut out using my big scallop oval Nestabilities. I added lots of texture with two different embossing folders and stitched around the outside edge of the card base. The ribbon, moon brads and bat button from the Fright Night Project Pantry add the perfect finishing touches!

Be sure to check out all the stunning samples using Hangin' Out-Wicked Wardrobe in the TE Gallery.

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Sweet Sunday Elves

It's time for this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge, SSSC86. You'll find the sketch on Karen Giron's blog The Sweetest Thing.

This is the last sketch in the "bar napkin" series that Nancy McKinney created for us back in July at CHA, and she'll be playing along again with us this week. Thanks for all the fun sketches Nancy!

I went the Christmas route for my card today and pulled out the sweet Give a Little set from The Cat's Pajamas. Isnt' this penguin just darling!?! I stuck with reds for the colouring but jazzed them up by using my red Spica glitter pen on the ornament and my clear glaze pen on the light bulbs. I also used some white liquid appliquee on his hat. The patterned papers are from Cosmo Cricket's Mitten Weather mini deck, paired with blush red dark and island mist light solids. The sentiment panel separated from the circular accent looked too bizarre to me so I connected them...I know...I cheated a little, but that's ok, right?

I hope you'll play along with this week's sketch and link your creation on Karen's blog. Now let's go see what the rest of the Sweet Sunday Stampers came up with.
Jen Tapler
Joanne Basile
Laura Fredrickson
Lynn Put
Nancy McKinney
Sarah-Jane Kale'
Vicki Burdick
and Karen Giron

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

More birthday...

Yes, I have another birthday card to share with you today, using the fabulous new Make a Wish set from Taylored Expressions. This is the current charitable set for the TE Giving Tree so $7 from the sale of each set will be donated to a national charity that grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

I used Mercy's Tuesday sketch from a few weeks ago, MTSC87, for the layout. All the supplies on this card are from the Make a Wish Project Pantry, including that delicious Espresso Dimensional Pearls I used as icing! LOVE it!!! The image is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and coloured with copic markers. I cut out the image with circle Nestabilities and backed it with a big scallop circle Nestability. In addition to the images from Make a Wish, I also used the Bubbles Big Background stamp on the orange panel. I stamped it with Memento Rich Cocoa then pierced around the inside of the larger circles to add a little more definition.

Have you signed up for the September Blast from the Past Blog Hop with Taylored Expressions? Well you'd better hurry because today is the last day to sign up for the Sep 21st hop. Click the link at the top of my sidebar for all the details.

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Cheers

I've been delving into digital scrapbooking quite a bit lately. My friend Jen Tapler hosts a fabulous Scrappy Sunday forum on Papercraft Planet, complete with free templates each month and prizes too. I only found out about it last month when I saw Charmaine post about it on her blog and I thought if I don't know about it, then there's definitely lots more people out there who don't know about it either.

So if you're a digi scrapper (of course paper scrappers are welcome too!) then help me spread the word. Jen's layered templates are amazing, and did I mention completely free?!? Simply join Papercraft Planet (it's free) and become part of the Scrappy Sunday group...all the details are posted online.

Here's one of the layouts I did for September Scrappy Sunday.

The layered template was designed by Jen Tapler and all the papers and elements are from the Brotherly Love Kit by Kristin Cronin-Barrow and Meghan Mullens for Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Sweet Sunday Party Hats

It's time for this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge, SSSC85. You'll find the sketch on Karen Giron's blog The Sweetest Thing, and this sketch happens to be another of the bar napkin sketches Nancy McKinney created at CHA, so she's playing along too! This week, in addition to the sketch, Karen asked us to create a birthday card in support of Operation Write Home.

I'll be sending this little birthday card along with other cards from my stash to Operation Write Home. Please click the link for more details or visit Karen's blog. There are just a couple of requirements and one of them is no glitter.

The party hat and present images are from Beary Special Accessories which is available at Taylored Expressions. I stamped the images with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Snow White and coloured them with copics. I wanted to jazz up the hats a little, but no glitter...so I used my clear glaze pen to add shine to the polka dots. All the papers are from the Make a Wish Project Pantry and I used my much loved scalloped eyelet border Taylored Die on the strip of green along the bottom. I really really wanted to add some bling on that border strip but I wasn't sure...does no glitter mean no bling? I decided to play it safe and leave it plain, and I like the way it all turned out!

Hopefully you'll play along with this week's sketch and consider sending a few of your hand-made cards to Operation Write Home. Now let's go see what the rest of the Sweet Sunday Stampers created with today's sketch.
Jen Tapler
Laura Fredrickson
Lynn Put
Nancy McKinney
Sarah-Jane Kale'
Vicki Burdick
and Karen Giron

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Celebrate the Journey

This week my flight instructor asked if I would make a card for a friend of his who just got his private pilot  licence...definitely! I love it when my card-making has a purpose!

I knew I had to use a plane on the card so I hunted through my stash of stamps and pulled out Going Places from MFT. I love the plane paired with the skyline and the sentiment which is absolutely perfect for this person because as I understand it, he's been working on his pilot's licence for a few years now in his spare time. I used the Mojo155 sketch for the layout.

The blue polka dot paper is from the Bitty Dots collection by Papertrey Inc and I embossed it for a little texture. I used Papertrey's small cloud die on white felt then added the row of stars with MFT's star border Die-namics. The sheet music may seem like it's out of place, but it has the purpose of personalizing the card because the recipient is a pianist.

I had an amazing cross-country flight yesterday...island hopping from Martha's Vineyard to Nantucket, to Cape Cod then back to my home base of Norwood. That was my longest solo flight to date and it was a blast!

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Sweet Sunday Clothes Line

Ok, so maybe the title should be Sweet Wednesday Clothes Line, but that just doesn't sound as good. We had friends visiting over the Labour Day weekend so I wasn't able to play along with the Sweet Sunday stampers for this week's sketch, but I wasn't about to let a sketch go by without me!

I thought Santa's Clothes Drying was a perfect fit with SSSC84 and also it was a good excuse to get my weekly (or not so weekly lately!) Christmas card done.

It was really tough to get a good photo of the shading on this card...so if you can imagine, the red hat and pants look much better IRL! I added white fun flock to the hat and pants and some glassy bits (I forget their official name) to look like snow. The patterned paper is Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather...so fun...and I paired it with the open scallop die-namic and some baja blue ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Taylored Expressions Release Day!

Today's the day when everything the Baker's Dozen has been sharing is available at Taylored Expressions. As you hop around today you'll see more fabulous creations using all the new stamp sets and products.

I worked with Hangin' Out - Wicked Wardrobe again today, along with the Fright Night Project Pantry. I have to say that I love love LOVE this set and the project pantry...I love colouring with purples and there just isn't enough purple out there in paper land. LOL! I decorated a sweet Mini Pail and put together a coordinating card.

Let's start with the card. I used MTSC88 for the layout. The image is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Snow White and coloured with copics. I added some sparkle with my purple and pitch black Spica glitter pens then popped the image on foam tape onto the orange background.

I used my scalloped eyelet border Taylored Die along the edge of the lighter purple cardstock and wrapped the gorgeous purple ribbon around the card before adding a fun button from the Fright Night Project Pantry. The green bats in the corner are also from the project pantry.

Next up is the Mini Pail. This little project was a snap to put together and would be such a wonderful little gift for your favourite trick or treaters. I simply wrapped the patterned paper around the pail and attached it with Sticky Tape. I added the purple scalloped eyelet border die cut strip then topped the seam with some green ric rac from the Fright Night Project Pantry. You can see a sampling of the other ribbons in the kit tied to the handle. The hat was coloured exactly the same as I did for the card.

Taylored Expressions has some birthday bash specials which are being offered from now until Monday, September 6th.
1. Purchase ANY 4 full-size stamp sets and receive a free Binder Box.
2. Purchase ANY 8 A la Carte stamps and receive a free set of Stamp Storage Panels.
3. Four orders will be selected at random (one from each day Friday-Monday) to win a $25 TE gift certificate.
4. The first twenty customers to order the Fright Night Project Pantry will receive a free set of orange glittered chipboard letters.

So if the amazing stamp sets weren't enough to get you shopping, these birthday bash specials are definitely a huge incentive!!!

Now let's hop along and see what the rest of the Baker's Dozen is sharing today.

• Barbara Anders-Guest designer for Sep-Oct
• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jackie Pedro
• Jami Sibley
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Nancy McKinney
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Taylored Expressions Sneak Peeks Day 3

Today the Baker's Dozen is getting a little spooky with sneak peeks of two new Halloween sets, Hangin' Out-Wicked Wardrobe and Fright Night Favors (which has a coordinating Taylored Die). Everything will be available at Taylored Expressions on Friday, September 3rd from 8am PST.

For my card today I worked with Hangin' Out-Wicked Wardrobe, which is part of the Whimsical Wishes line and illustrated by Nancy McKinney. There are so many fun images I had a difficult time narrowing down my ideas! Gotta love it when that happens!!! But I couldn't get the little ghost out of my mind...I kept thinking how cute he would be trying to dress up like a witch. I know ghosts aren't supposed to be cute, but seriously, this little guy is darling!!!

All the papers and embellishments are from the Fright Night Project Pantry with the exception of the googlie eyes...they're from my stash. I used the Bubbles Big Background stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black for the background and I'd originally thought of adding googlie eyes to the smaller circles on the background. But then I used the Border Taylored Die on a strip of black and had an ah-ha moment...the googlie eyes fit perfectly in the circles of the scallops...hooray!!! I love that little border of eyeballs all going in different directions...cracks me up!

I know you'll see plenty more fabulously spooky creations using Hangin' Out-Wicked Wardrobe, Fright Night Favors and the Fright Night Project Pantry as you hop through the Baker's Dozen blogs today.

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jackie Pedro
• Jami Sibley
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Nancy McKinney
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild

I'll be back tomorrow with another fun creation for release day!
Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

Taylored Expressions Sneak Peeks-Day 2

The Baker's Dozen has plenty more new images to share today and we're continuing with the birthday theme, but it's Belated Birthday A la Carte images today at Taylored Expressions. Everything will be available for purchase starting Friday, September 3rd.

I don't know about you, but I always seem to be late getting birthday cards sent out. And that's despite the fact that I have everyone's birthdays in my calendar with reminders...ugh! I've said it before, I'm a card-maker not a card-mailer! LOL!!!

So these new Belated Birthday A la Carte images are definitely going to get plenty of use at my house!!! These super cute images and sentiments were concepted by our very own Jami Sibley...yay Jami!! Apparently she saw a need for belated birthday cards too! Wink! The images are illustrated by the same artist as the Apple Doodle Ink stamps that we've come to love. There are seven different animal images with coordinating sentiments that include something for the inside of cards too!

I'll start with Belated Birthday Stand Out. These little birds are so stinkin' cute!! I always seem to colour my birds blue...I think it's because I had a blue budgie for eleven years.

I stamped the birds with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Buttercream and coloured them with copics. They're cut out with square Nestabilities and I popped the tallest bird for dimension, then I popped the balloon twice for even more dimension. The patterned paper is from the Cosmo Cricket Togetherness mini deck.

I used the new Border Taylored Die on a strip of green along the bottom and added some Tiny Twinkles between the scallops. The sentiment on the outside reads "I didn't forget your birthday." and on the inside it reads "I just wanted my card to stand out from the crowd!". How perfect is that with that little bird towering over the others! So tweet!!!

Next up is this adorable little squirrel in Belated Birthday Oh Nuts!.

He's also stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Choice Buttercream and coloured with copics. I popped the acorn for dimension. The patterned paper is from the Cosmo Cricket Wanted mini deck and I paired it with kraft and suede brown dark. I added a row of pleated paper just below the cream and brown polka dot ribbon. A few Tiny Twinkles add just the right amount of sparkle to the card.

The "Oh Nuts!" sentiment on the outside works perfectly with "Sorry I forgot your birthday" on the inside.

I know the rest of the Baker's Dozen has plenty more sweet ideas to share using the Belated Birthday A la Carte images, so let's get hopping!

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jackie Pedro
• Jami Sibley
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild

I'll see you back here tomorrow for another day of spooky sneak peeks!!!
Thanks for stopping by!
Karen