More is More

Yep – it’s the 5th – New Release Day at Taylored Expressions and it’s HOT!  I hope you’ve been blog hopping for the past couple of days to see all the incredible creations posted by the Baker’s Dozen girls.  If you haven’t, then get yourself a nice hot cuppa coffee and kick back and enjoy!  If you go to Taylor’s blog and read her last 3 posts you can get ALL the info plus links to all the peek projects!

When you’re ready to shop just click here to go straight to the TE Store.

I’m finally getting in on the fun with a card to share.  I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the new Boys Will Be Boys set – especially to use my favorite image – the grill.  I’m really excited because this is my very first attempt at making a shaped card using Spellbinders Nestabilities – I used the Curved Rectangles here. which are also available at the TE Store.  I also used the Ribbon Tags Trio die for the sentiment.  All of the paper, cardstock and ribbon used for this card came from the new Father’s Day Key Ingredients kit.  I love this kit and can’t wait to use it a lot more!

The grill was stamped onto TE CHoice Buttercream cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copics.  The legs of the grill were colored with a silver gel pen.  The flame was stamped once above the grill and then twice again on a scrap a cut out.  They were all colored with Copics and I added some orange Stickles.  The two extra flames were popped up on 1/16″ foam tape.

But of course my very favorite part of this card has to be the spatula charm applied to the grill with a red SU brad.  Is that charm awesome or what?  It can be so hard to embellish masculine cards and not send them over the top to *girly*, but these charms are the perfect touch!  Taylor has a variety pack of 5 different charms available as part of the Boys Will Boys Bundle deal.  They coordinate with the images in the stamp set.

Did you know that there is a difference between grilling and BBQing?  My understanding is that grilling is cooking quickly over a hot flame – that makes my Uncle Bernie the Grill Master as he nurtured my love a good steak grilled in the backyard all throughout my growing up!  BBQ is slow cooking with indirect heat and that’s my husband’s specialty.  He loves to do brisket and make it an all day affair.  He even has his own secret recipe for BBQ sauce.  It’s funny because here in California we always say we are going to BBQ (meaning we are going to cook outside on a grill) or we are going to a BBQ (a party where meat will be grilled.)  I sometimes hear friends from the Mid-West mention *grilling out* and it always makes me say “huh?”

We plan to do a lot of grilling and BBQing this Summer.  Our focus for May is to get the yard all prettied up and company ready!  I don’t care for gardening, but I sure do love to host parties!  🙂

For now I need to get to work.  Thanks for stopping by and happy blog hopping and happy shopping!

Happy Sunday morning to you.  Just a quick post before church to share another card I made for Taylor’s sketch – TECC66.  BTW – she has now extended the deadline so you have a full week to play along!  How funny is it that I was almost done with this card – a tree with pink flowers and a bird in the corner – when I received Nancy’s e-mail with the first version of my new blog banner?  (Scroll down to the next post to read all about my new blog design.)

This card doesn’t need much explanation, except the one thing that really does not show up in the photo (but looks really cool IRL) is that both the main panel with the tree and the little circle with the bird were completely covered with Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  So they are shiny and have a bit of texture.

It’s going to be a busy day today as I realized when I woke up, that not only do we have all that gardening to get done after church, but I need to be back at church at 4:15 for a Ladies Ministry meeting and then there’s the annual church business meeting following that this evening.  Hey sneak peeks start today for the May Taylored Expressions release.  Obvioulsy I don’t have one, but I’ll have a TE card for you on Release Day – Tueday.  In the meantime, hop on over to Taylor’s blog to see her sample and get all the links to the Baker’s Dozen.

Thanks for stopping by.

card recipe:
stamps: Season of friendship, Paisley BG
paper: Regal Rose, So Saffron, Old Olive, Whisper White, Georgia Peach dp
ink: Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, black, So Saffron, versamark
other: clear ep, circle punches, scallop circle punch, scallop border punch, Regal Rose ribbon, SU buttons, piercer and mat pack, foam tape, Kaier Craft pink rhinestones, Liquid pearls

Oh my heavens – I am so excited I can hardly contain myself!  I’ve wanted a new blog banner and overall look for quite awhile and now it’s here!  I was so lucky to get Nancy McKinney to work out this fabulous new design for me.  She’s the graphic designer who works with Taylor to create the Whimiscal Wishes line of rubber stamps at Taylored Expressions.  She also designed Taylor’s blog and lots of others over the past few months.  She has an awesome offer to do a blog banner and sidebar labels for a $50 donation to a charity for sick kids.  I know she’s swamped right now, so I’m not sure if she’s currently taking new requests, but boy oh boy am I ever glad I got on her list when I did!  She was so patient with me and just really *got me*.  Most of her blog headers have a bit of a *cleaner* look than mine…but you know me…well…afterall More is More!  Nancy you are uber talented and an absolute doll to work with!  Thank you!!! (To contact Nancy click on her name in green above and that will take you to her blog.  Scroll down to see links to lots of blogs she has done.)

The digital paper that Nancy used in my header is a free download from Mindy Terasawa.  She has some really cool stuff, but I see that her blog hasn’t been updated in quite awhile.

My avatar is one of the portraits taken by Curt’s cousin Megan when were in Texas last Winter.  Please check out her website at www.meganparks.com  – she does amazing work and if you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area I highly recommend her!

My incredible Rocket Scientist husband sat down with me tonight and programmed all the html (I am completely clueless when it comes to that) to get my sidebar changed around like I wanted.  I still need to do quite a bit of work updating my blog roll and categories, but I’m so excited and thankful for everything he did to get everything else updated!  I finally have a link in the Stampin’ Up! logo to go to my business website and shop, as well as a link in the TE logo to shop there.  Oh and I now have a search feature – don’t know what took me so long to get that done!

It’s been such a busy day around here.  Curt went to OSH – twice- to get bark nuggets at the 2 for 1 price.  He had to go twice because they had a 20 bag limit and 20 bags just wasn’t going to cut it for us.  Then we decided to go shop for plants to start getting the backyard Summer/BBQ ready.  We ended up going to 3 different nurseries, plus a stop at the bird store for food and nuts.  That means tomorrow will be the manual labor day.  *sigh*  I am soooo not a gardner.  I’M A STAMPER!!!!  LOL!

Speaking of stamping – I do have a card to share, but it will have to wait till tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by.  Please let me know what you think about the new look here at More is More!

Happy Friday!  It’s time for another one of Taylor’s sweet sketch challenges!  Yep I’m on a stampin’ roll!  WooHoo! 

This sketch momentarily threw me for a loop, until I stopped and thought about it for a minute.  Hmmm….what are some possibilities for those 3 circle elements up in the corner?  Then I had that little *aha* and I was off and running.

I guess it might be a little weird to choose the embellishments first, but it totally worked for me here with these felt flowers from SU Flower Fusion.  Once I had them all laid out and layered with rhinestone brads, I also had my color scheme of Old Olive, Rose Red and Punmpkin Pie.  Next I went looking for a stamp image and decided on these birthday cakes from Fast & Fun Notes.  I realize they are represented as wedding cakes in the set with the connected sentiment, but I chose to omit the sentiment and make them pretty birthday cakes.  I stamped them on shimmer white cardstock and cut them out with a scalloped rectangle nestie.  Then I colored them with copic markers and added a little Fruit Punch Stickles for some sparkle.  The sentiment oval (from Oval All) is not in the sketch, but I figured the little addition wouldn’t hurt.

The Pumpkin Pie strip was embossed with my Cuttlebug and the Rose Red panel was stamped with the SU BG stamp Stitched (almost impossible to see in the photo) and punched with an EK Sucess border punch.  The dp is SU Walk in the Park.

I just love how bold and happy this card turned out!  And now it’s time to see what the rest of the Cupcake Crew has cooked up:

Be sure to hop over to Taylor’s blog to see her sample and to get all the deets to play along with us.

If I ever finish all my blog hopping this morning (to see the Cupcake Crew, to see the new OCL release samples, to see the WSC samples, etc.) I’ve got a busy day ahead.  Looking forward to a church picnic tonight if Curt is not to tired when he gets home from work – Friday nights are tough sometimes.  I hope you have a fantastic weekend ahead!  Don’t forget that the TE release is coming up next Tuesday and sneak peeks start on Sunday!  I’ll have a newsletter for you soon so be sure you’re signed up!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Jami