Good morning and welcome to the first day of sneak peeks for the May release at Taylored Expressions! Can you believe it’s May already? It still feels like March weather around here so I’m hoping May brings warmer temperatures than April! I’m super excited to start sharing our May sneak peeks with you today! All of our new products will be available for purchase at 8am PST on Thursday, May 5th. Today the Baker’s Dozen and I are introducing the latest addition to the TE Giving Tree charitable series, Welcome Little One along with several coordinating A la Carte stamps and dies! If you’re not familiar with the Giving Tree, each quarter we introduce a new stamp set to support a very worthy charity. When you purchase the Welcome Little One stamp set during the months of May, June, and July, TE will donate $7.00 to Bethany Christian Services! BCS is the nation’s largest adoption agency and also offers temporary foster care services, counseling for women facing unplanned pregnancies, embryo adoption, and an infertility ministry. Their services are wide-reaching and helpful for many women and families facing different life situations.

It is important to note that sets in the Giving Tree Program are the same high quality deeply etched pink rubber on EZ Mount (just like your other TE stamps), however, unlike our other sets you will need to trim these images from a sheet of rubber. This allows us to cut manufacturing costs and donate even more to our charities. If you’ve never trimmed a stamp set before (or maybe you just need a refresher), you can check out my video HERE. Trimming your stamps is easy with the help of a sharp scissors and we hope you’ll agree that supporting a great cause is worth a little extra effort!

Now for the goodies! If you saw my announcement on Friday, then you know that my husband and I are expecting our first child in September! I’ve dreamed of having the perfect stamp set to create my own baby announcements, thank you cards, shower invitations, etc. So with that in mind I designed Welcome Little One. The stamp set includes 26 images and sentiments that are simple enough for mass-production, but can be made into a fabulously detailed congratulations card too! In addition to the Welcome Little One stamp set, I designed several coordinating a la carte stamps including the Announcement A la Carte (perfect for stamping your own baby announcements), Invitation A la Carte (specifically for creating baby shower invitations), and the Heart Frame A la Carte. In the sample above I used a photo of my sweet nephew along with the Toy Box collection by Crate Paper to create the baby announcement (finished size is 5″ x 7″. I stamped the Heart Frame A la Carte in Colorbox Warm Red ink and cut it out with the coordinating Frame it Up 2 die. The super cool part about this coordinating die is that while it cuts around the outside of the stamped image, it also cuts four slits into the middle of the frame that are perfectly placed to hold a 2″ x 3″ wallet sized photo or image panel! Another time-saver to cut down on the steps to creating this personalized treasure! For the baby shower invitation I started with a standard A2 size folded card. On the front I used images and sentiments from Welcome Little One along with a few red brads and some red silk ribbon. The red bracket image was trimmed with the new coordinating Bracket Frame die. Then on the inside I used the Invitation A la Carte for the details of the shower. These A la Carte stamps are definitely a must-have for anyone planning a shower or announcing a birth… they make it so easy!

Here are the dies I used in the above projects: Frame it Up 2 & Bracket Frame!

Also On the Menu for today’s sneak peeks is this cute Welcome Baby A la Carte image illustrated by Nancy McKinney! It’s the perfect stamp for creating a sweet congratulations card. I started by stamping the image onto Choice Snow White cardstock. Then I paper pieced the letters with a patterned paper from the Tickled Pink collection and colored the pacifier with Copic markers. I cut the image with Spellbinders Labels 5 and sponged inside with Yellow Ochre ink. After adhering the image panel to the front of the card I embellished it with the new Nestabling in Labels 5 – White Pearls. I love that the different sizes of Nestabling allow you to embellish outside or inside the label! Then I decided to try out another new product…. glubers! We just received these from Cosmo Cricket and I’ve been having lots of fun creating my own rolled flower embellishments. This time I decided to try one using the Ecru Mini Pom Trim. It was super easy to adhere the trim onto the large adhesive circle and I love how it turned out! I embellished it further with a few flowers from my stash and then tucked it underneath the image panel. The yellow background piece was embossed with the Scallops and Circles Impression Plate.

So there you have our first day of sneak peeks! And there’s so much more to come so I hope you’ll come back and check out what’s on the menu tomorrow! In the meantime, you’ll want to check out the creations of our talented design team:

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