Taylored Expressions Sneak Peek | Day 1

Hello and good morning!  I hope you are keeping warm because right now, it's -8F degrees outside my door and the kids' schools were canceled because of the cold.  Yikes!  So we're chillin' in our jammies today, keeping warm and cozy.  Speaking of cozy, it's Taylored Expressions release week and our first preview set is Cozy Cottages - ooooh, these are SO cute!  Each cottage is unique and brings it's own personality to the set - a cupcake, a shoe, a mushroom, a little country cottage - and the sentiments can be used for congratulating a new home, or thanking a hostess as well.  Nancy McKinney illustrated this set as part of the Whimsical Wishes line and it is our next in the TE Giving Tree series.  For the months of February, March and April when you purchase this set you'll be helping to support Habitat for Humanity.

Through the work of Habitat, thousands of low-income families have found new hope in the form of affordable housing. Churches, community groups and others have joined together to successfully tackle a significant social problem – decent housing for all.  Habitat for Humanity is a true world leader in addressing the issues of poverty housing, having  built more than 350,000 houses, sheltering more than 1.75 million people in more than 3,000 communities worldwide.  Please visit http://www.habitat.org/ for more information on this incredible charity. Taylored Expressions will donate $7.00 to Habitat for Humanity for each Cozy Cottages stamp set sold in the next 3 months.

All of the TE Giving Tree series stamp sets come in one sheet of rubber, so the images need to be cut out by hand before you stamp.  Manufacturing these sets this way allows TE to donate more to the given charity and cutting the rubber is a cinch when you use good non-stick scissors.

Taylor has found the CUTEST little acrylic frames that are so much fun to put together.  New to the TE store this month are Darcie's Acrylic Frames and they come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.  I'm using the Chloe Small Frame (4-1/4" x 3-7/8") with my Cozy Cottage today - it creates a small shadow box and you can sit it on your desk or hang it on a wall with fancy ribbon.  They are darling!  One thing to note is you will definitely want to follow the directions in the packaging and wipe the chipboard clean before handling your papers because the the laser-cut chipboard has a little residue on it.  I started by gluing some Hopscotch papers by Basic Grey to the chipboard frame and backing and used my hobby knife to cut out the shape.  I also used a Precision File Set to smooth out the edges of the paper against the edge of the chipboard to give it a smooth and even finish.  I stamped the cottage in Memento Rich Cocoa and colored it with Copics and then layered it over some Hopscotch hills - too cute!  I stamped the Home Sweet Home sentiment right on the acrylic with Staz-On ink.  I really like how the words float over the images.

Also, we are introducing 3 new Taylored Dies this month - Picket Fence Border, Cloud Duo, and Whimsy Tree - I used the Cloud Duo and Picket Fence Border dies in my project.   The Picket Fence Border Die is approximately 6" long, just like the other TE border dies and the Whimsy Tree Die coordinates with the tree in Cozy Cottages - no need to cut it out by hand!

Avery is part of the Taylored Expressions Tiny Chef team again this month by coloring a page out of this absolutely adorable Cozy Cottages Coloring Book - the images from the stamp set are enlarged so your little one can color right along with you!  I know when I'm coloring and stamping, my kids are always wanting to copy me.  Each coloring book is $2.99 and the large images are perfect for even the tiniest of crafters.  She was so funny coloring this shoe cottage - she was using different shades of brown and shading the shingles like she was using Copics.  It made me giggle - and she told me she made the shoe pink for Taylor, haha!

The Baker's Dozen have much more to show you this morning, so please stop by and see:

• Charmaine Ikach
• Danielle Lounds
• Donna Baker
• Jackie Pedro
• Jodi Collins
• Karen Motz
• Melissa Sauls
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tori Wild
• illustrator, Nancy McKinney

See you back tomorrow for another sneak -
Karen

recipe -

stamps: cozy cottages (taylored expressions)

paper: choice snow white cardstock (taylored expressions), hopscotch (basic grey)

ink: memento rich cocoa, colorbox aquamarine fluid chalk

accessories: chloe small acrylic frame (darcie's), copic markers