What: CHA Clearance Sale

When: Now through Wednesday, February 1st

Where: Taylored Expressions What’s the Deal Department

Details: Use coupon code CHASALE2012 for an extra 10% discount on all of the already discounted merchandise in the What’s the Deal department. Get over 50% off some of your favorite products!

Once these products are gone they will not be re-stocked so shop early for the best selection.

This Week’s Sketch:

My Sample:

For my sample I used one of Christy’s gorgeous Wryn images called Wryn New Nest. I have actually had her colored up for a while and I colored her without using designer paper as a reference so I spent a little bit of today digging for matching paper and ended up using one of my favorite paper pads… My Mind’s Eye Lost and Found 2 Rosy.

I got pretty lucky with this paper as it matched pretty perfectly. I added a sentiment from Verve, it’s one of the Thank You gifts you sometimes get with an order. I added a bit of jute twine, two Prima flowers and a bit of distressing using a distress tool and Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge stamps.

Design Team News:

I’m so sad to say that it’s time to say good bye to our two FANTASTIC guest designers this week. Andrea and Tracey have both reached the end of their term and I can’t even begin to say how happy I have been that they spent the last three months here playing with the sketches. It’s just been amazing and so inspiring to see what they come up with each week. Please, if you have a moment, stop by their blogs and say hi today! Here are their last AMAZING Deconstructed Sketch projects.

Andrea Ewen:

Tracey Pickersgill:

Aren’t they FANTASTIC! Now for MORE inspiration you can hop around and visit the rest of the design team using the links below!

• Amber Hight
• Andrea Ewen – Guest Designer
• Arielle Gordon
• Donna Wardle
• Jen Shults
• Jessica Diedrich
• Kadie Ensley
• Lori Boyd
• Pam Varnell
• Sheri Gilson
• Tracey Pickersgill – Guest Designer

Today was the wrap up day for the CAS card class I’ve been taking but I still have quite a few days worth of lessons to practice. Tonight I made a set of birthday cards using a single layer card technique.

I used two Taylored Expressions stamp sets: Rosy Posey and Labels of Love. I started my cards with a Snow White Choice Cardstock base and rounded two of the corners. Next I stamped out the large roses using the darker of the two colors I had chosen for each card. I stamped these diagonally across the card. Next I used the smaller filled rose from Rosy Posey to fill in around the big roses in a lighter ink. I used the Birthday Wishes sentiment from Labels of Love to stamp the sentiment and on the inside of each card I used the open large rose to stamp a rose in the corner of each card. It took me about an hour to knock out six birthday cards to have on hand at work. You can definitely never have too many.

Supplies
Stamps: Rosy Posey and Labels of Love, Taylored Expressions
Paper: Choice Snow White
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Grape Jelly, Lulu Lavender, Cantaloupe, Tangelo, Bahama Blue, Summer Sky
Accessories: EK Corner Rounder

(Please excuse the wonky colors on this… the bulb for the lamp I usually use to take indoor photos blew out tonight and I didn’t have the proper replacement.)

Alright, I’m off to bed. I hope you have a great night!!

My Sample:

For my sample I used one of Arielle’s Wax Fruit Company digis, Dogwood and colored it with Prismacolor Colored pencils. I used a combination of pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits and a burnishing technique (heavily applied pencil). I took a little artistic liberty with the colors on the dogwood blooms.

The designer paper I used is from Country Drive by Echo Park and the embossing folder is Seeing Spots from Cuttlebug. The sentiment is Paper Smooches Sentiment Sampler.

Please be sure to hop around and visit the Deconstructed Sketch Girls samples. They have made some AMAZING creations and I know they will get your creativity going!

• Amber Hight
• Andrea Ewen – Guest Designer
• Arielle Gordon
• Donna Wardle
• Jen Shults
• Jessica Diedrich
• Kadie Ensley
• Lori Boyd
• Pam Varnell
• Sheri Gilson
• Tracey Pickersgill – Guest Designer

My card is based on one of the sketches from the class. I used a Spellbinders Label 3 Die to cut out the window in the white panel. After embossing it I outlined it with a black Sharpie Pen to make the stitching. The designer paper is Echo Park Yours Truly. The sentiment is from Bugabee by Taylored Expressions and the hearts are die cut from the Jumbo Heart Border die also from Taylored Expressions. After all of the elements were created I used 1/8 foam tape to pop up the white paper and hearts.

This card took about 15 minutes and most of that time was me picking out supplies. LOVE how clean it is and how fast it went! I can’t wait to make more creations from this class.

Taylored Dies used on this card:

It’s time for a new challenge at Tiddly Inks and this week we have a color challenge for you. I loosely followed it. We’re going to use our imaginations and pretend that kraft paper is ‘yellowish’ because I have all the other colors, lol.

For my card I used Wryn Close to my Heart and colored her with Copics. I am just loving these new Wryn images. They are just adorable! For my layout I used Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #149, the challenge is closed but the sketch is still awesome! I embossed the back panel with a Cuttlebug Houndstooth embossing folder and then layered that with paper from My Mind’s Eye Lost and Found 2 Breeze paper (another favorite!). I did a little doodling around the image and then added a bit of twine and a button and it was all done. I really like how it turned out.

Be sure to head over to the Tiddly Inks Challenge blog to get all the details on this challenge and to see the rest of the design team samples.

“Welcome to Tiddly Inks’ first blog hop of the year. We are celebrating the many friends that make our world a more lovely place and are so glad you are here as one of them. We are trying to keep this simple, so the blog hop is based on the Challenge Blog home page. Instead of directing you to the next page, we suggest you keep the challenge blog open and create a new window for hopping around (click Control (Command on a Mac) when you click on each link and it will open a new window). After you visit with me today, just click HERE to return you to the main list (and that is where the prizes are listed…hint!) Have fun playing along with everyone! 

My project today uses one of the gorgeous new Wryn images Christy introduced last week called Wryn – Grow a Little Love. I colored her with Copics and created a fun little clean and simple Valentine. I cut Wryn out using a Spellbinders Heart die and then matted it with a Spellbinders Scalloped Heart die cut. The background is embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder I picked up last year and don’t remember the name of. To finish it off I added a bit of pink Baker’s Twine and the sentiment is Smooch by Technique Tuesday.

I am also super happy to say that I have a PRIZE on my blog! One lucky commenter on this blog post on my blog will win the stamp I used today – Wryn – Grow a Little Love.

That’s all from me! Head on back to the Challenge blog to continue on the hop!

Last week our challenge was sponsored by the FANTASTIC Scrappin’ Great Deals and they offered up one $25.00 gift certificate to a lucky winner so lets find out who that winner is! Drum roll…

Allisa from Rocky Mountain Paper Crafts

You are the winner of the Scrappin’ Great Deals gift certificate. Please email me at jenevey at gmail.com and I will get you in touch with Scrappin’ Great Deals to claim your gift certificate!

This Week’s Sketch:

We are unsponsored this week so just have some fun! This sketch has loads of layers but as always you are more than welcome to modify it to suit your taste, it’s for inspiration so make it yours!

And here is my take on it:

I’m still working on using more white paper and texture though this one definitely isn’t clean and simple. I just ADORE this Lost and Found Two Breeze paper from My Mind’s Eye. It’s definitely me, so I let the paper do most of the work on this one.

Here’s all the ingredients for my card:

Stamps: Love Everywhere and Tweet Hearts by Taylored Expressions
Paper: Kraft, Choice Snow White cs (Taylored Expressions, MME Lost and Found 2 Breeze
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories: Tag Treat die cut from TE, Jumbo Eyelet in Cool Metal, twine, foam tape, distresser, Cuttlebug 5×7 Swiss Dots, TE Scalloped Eyelet Border die, Fly Your Flag 2 die

Please be sure to hop around and visit the Deconstructed Sketch Girls samples. They have made some AMAZING creations and I know they will get your creativity going!

• Amber Hight
• Andrea Ewen – Guest Designer
• Arielle Gordon
• Donna Wardle
• Jen Shults
• Jessica Diedrich
• Kadie Ensley
• Lori Boyd
• Pam Varnell
• Sheri Gilson
• Tracey Pickersgill – Guest Designer

It’s the first Tiddly Inks blog hop of the year! We’d love for you to join us!

Details:
Time: 6 PM CST on Friday January 13 to 6 PM CST on Saturday January 14
Theme: Friends are the Flowers of Life

How to Participate: Create a new Tiddly Inks project and post on your personal blog between 12 PM CST and 5:55 PM CST on January 13. The title of your post should be “Friends are the Flowers of Life – Tiddly Inks Blog Hop”.

There will also be random prizes throughout the DT blogs, so be sure to comment and visit each one. ”

It’s RELEASE Day!!! Are you excited? Did you check out all the sets on Facebook last night? Did you win anything?

For our release celebration I have a card using the gorgeous new 1 Corinthians 13:13 A la Carte.

To make this card I started with the Valentine Project Pantry kit and a simple layout. I stamped a rose from Rosy Posey in the middle of the 1 Corinthians 13:13 A la Carte sentiment. I used Spun Sugar Distress Ink for the Rose and Memento Tuxedo Black for the sentiment. (Be sure to heat set your Distress Ink before you layer over it otherwise your black in will blur just a bit.) I cut the sentiment out using Frame It Up 1 and used the new Layered Doily Die large behind that. (LOVE this die!!) To finish off I sponged the edges of everything with Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink and distressed the edges with a Tonic Distresser. At the very end I added a few hearts here and there from the Hearts a Plenty die set and a few left over hearts from a Jumbo Heart Border die I’d used earlier.

Taylored Dies and Impressions Plates used on this card:

TE Release Day!

• All of the new products are now available for purchase! Check out the Fresh Out of the Oven Department to see everything in one place!
• More projects from the Baker’s Dozen to inspire you.  Just follow the link list below.
• Did you win one of the Mystery Baker’s Dozen Blog Giveaways? Find the list of winners on Taylor’s Blog.
• Buy one Animals in Love A la Carte and get one free/Select calendar products 50% off/Layered Doily Dies Special – get all the details on our January Release Specials by clicking here.

Be sure to check out the other release day projects from the rest of the fabulous Baker’s Dozen!!

The Baker’s Dozen

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Jami Sibley
• Jen Shults
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Giron
• Melissa Sauls
• Melody Rupple
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild
• Wanda Guess