A Blog Called Wanda

Funky Christmas Card!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh! It's BLACK FRIDAY! Are you out shopping?  I am!  The hubs and I have our tradition of going shopping all day on this day of homage to capitalism! We like to be out in the crowd in the hustle and bustle...drinking coffee and people watching and trying to check some things off our lists...  We never get too stressed out or crabby, just try to take it all in stride.  Personally, I think the mall should be open late all year....just sayin'.   Whatever you're doing today - I hope you are having a good time! I can't wait for leftovers later! 

My card for today is kinda funky! I kept playing with it and looking at it...and then just decided to post it and see what you guys think! LOL. It's definitely not my normal style, but I guess that's good sometimes.  I wanted to use some cool new products and GOLD!!!  So - whaddaya think? 

 

 

 

So, this dear head punch is seriously the COOLEST thing ever! I snatched up the last one at my local Joann's store. It's from EK Success! LOVE!! I combined some shimmery soft gold paper with these awesome chunky glitter letters from Crate Paper (thanks to May, my enabling friend). I also picked up a new Cuttlebug folder and thought - hey why not use that too!?  Throw on some sequins?  Why not!? 

 

 

 

 

These letters are THE BOMB!!! Yeah, I bought two packs! Can I put them on EVERYTHING??? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving from my house to yours!

 

Happy Thanksgiving 2013!

From my family to yours!

  

 

 A Psalm of Thanksgiving - Psalm 100 

Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!
Serve the Lord with gladness;
Come before His presence with singing.
Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. 

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.

 

I wish your family many blessings on Thanksgiving, and the rest of the year, as we get ready to take on the holiday season!  I am thankful to be able to share with you, and I am thankful for your kindness and support!  Love, Wanda XO

 

A Blog Named Hero - Dear Santa!

 

 

Hi everybody! Hang on, cuz Christmas craftiness is coming now! I am sooo happy to be blogging with my friends from A Blog Named Hero again this week! All month, ABNH has been doing their Dear Santa event, and today, I'm joining in the fun as a guest designer! Wooo woooo! Each week this month there has been a theme - and all Christmas related. Gorgeous projects so far! CLICK HERE to go and check 'em all out. This week's theme is "Christmas Quickies!" Cards you can mass produce and - fast! My card combines pretty stamp sets from Hero Arts and Avery Elle. 

 

 

 

 

I started by stamping the beautiful Hero Arts Music Background stamp with Linen Distress Ink onto cream paper. Then I distressed the edges with more linen ink. Next I stamped the beautiful wreath image directly over the music. (See product list at the end of my post!)

 

 

 

I stamped my sentiment and bow on separate paper and cut/layered them for just a bit of dimension. Then, ya know, I had to add some sequins!! 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for coming by!

Happy Thanksgiving week! Take care! 

 

InLinkz.com

Butterfly Tag...

Hey crafty peeps! Happy Friday! We had rain this week and I was loving it! I love fog and rain and cozy weather. It's good for hot chocolate, and crafting and watching movies... Too bad I had to be at work! LOL. Hope you had a nice week. Tomorrow we're off to the "Big Game" in Palo Alto. My poor Bears are 1-10 this season and tomorrow is sure to be another defeat. But, we have to support our team no matter what and we'll be there in our Blue and Gold. GO BEARS!! 

Today I'm sharing a tag, instead of a card, using some pretty and vintage products from Taylored Expressions. I used a bunch of sets all together to make a nice tag to put on a package or to put on a card front - haven't decided yet. (Product list at the bottom of my post). 

 

 

 

 

 

For my main damask image, I used several different colors of Distress Inks and blended them all together on the stamp. You can barely see my text in the background too... 

 

 

 

The Curly Swirlies Die set is so elegant and pretty - always reminds me of butterflies flying through the breeze... All my papers are edged with distress ink - and my tag too! So much fun to just see how much I can put on one little tag! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so so much for popping in today. I'm ready to start Christmas crafting...the ideas are there...just no time! I'll go out on a limb and promise my next card will be for Christmas! Have a great weekend everybody! 

 

 

InLinkz.com

Pretty Lanterns...all in a row!

Hi Friends!!!! Dang, what a weekend! I'm tired! Hahaha. Today will be a day to catch up, and blog, do laundry and emails.... How are you this weekend? I hope you are enjoying the day today. This weekend has been a whirlwind for me. Friday night right after work I went to a going away party for a sweet co-worker and stayed out late. Saw some peeps I haven't seen in a while and had some really yummy food. Yesterday, we spent all day buying me a NEW CAR!!! Yippeeeeee! (see photo at the end of my post). Doesn't that whole process just wear you out? Mentally exhausting, but fun and exciting at the same time....and I love my new ride!! 

Today I'm sharing one last card made with the super cute November Stamp of the Month Kit from Taylored Expressions. Did you see the big blog hop we did with this set already? (CLICK HERE). It's just the prettiest stamp/die set. For today I used the lanterns and made a cheery birthday card. The set is called "In the Garden!" 

My card layout/sketch was inspired by THIS PHOTO on Pinterest. I get lots and lots of card layout ideas from others' beautiful work on Pinterest. 

 

 

 

 

I cut my white panel of paper and then stamped the lanterns first to design the card. Then I went back and colored all the lanterns and mounted some of them on foam tape for dimension. Colored everything with my trusty Copic Markers. 

 

 

 

I chose three shades and then used the same tone of color in each shade. See how I have 13 as my common darkest color? This ensures that the colors will work together. I used 10 or 11 as my lighter shade and also blended with my "O" marker. In order to make them look transparent, I left lots of white space and made my light source the same on all of them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is my new toy!!!!

Can you tell I'm just a little bit excited?? 

 

 

 

 

InLinkz.com

TE-Cardmaker Magazine SOTM Hop!

Hi everyone! I'm so lucky to be able to participate in something really fun today! We're doing a combined blog hop with Taylored Expressions and CardMaker Magazine! Woot Woot! Lots of fun projects for you, featuring the Stamp of the Month kits from TE. Gotta love that right?  I hope you came over from the Taylored Expressions Blog! If not CLICK HERE to start the hop from the beginning - ya know, so you don't miss anything! 

 

My card for today features the June 2013 Stamp of the Month Kit! ACK - how much do you love those galoshes? So cute, happy and fun! I stamped them in bright colors and then dunked them in versamark ink and clear embossing powder to make them shiny! That sentiment is one of my all time favs from Taylored Expressions....

 

 

 

I mounted my galoshes on foar tape and kept the whole thing very graphic and clean... Just a pop of bright yellow at the bottom! 

 

Here's the 4-1-1 about TE's Stamp of the Month Club! TE offers three different subscription kits to take the guesswork out of stamping. The kits are great for busy peeps who don't have a lot of time to shop for coordinating products and who want something new each month. Each set is designed to work perfectly with the Key Ingredients Kits which have cardstock and papers! It's fabulous! CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE DETAILS and PRICING! 

This is the stamp set I've used today - and the matching dies too!  CLICK HERE to see all the SOTM sets from the archives! 

 

 

See why this is one of my favorite sentiments? I love the fonts and the saying both! 

 

 

 

 

 

Now for some MORE FUN! Taylored Expressions is giving away one stamp set and matching dies from the Stamp of the Month Archives to one lucky winner! To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment on each participating designer's blog post. The winner will be chosen at random from all the comments. Please leave your comment by midnight PST on Friday November 22, 2013. GOOD LUCK! 

Next up on the fun schedule for today is the amazing Alice Golden! 

Here are ALL the Links for our CardMaker Blog Hop: 

Taylored Expressions Blog

Wanda Guess   (you are here!)

Alice Golden

Jennifer Shults

Latisha Yoast

Tracy Clemente

Michelle Woerner

Cassie Trask

Rosemary Dennis

Amy Crocket

Stacy Morgan

Monika Davis

CardMaker Blog 

InLinkz.com

Taylored Expressions November Stamp of the Month Blog Hop!

 

 

Hi friends! What a fun day the Taylored Expressions crew has in store for you today!  The Bakers Dozen Design Team has combined with the Key Ingredients Design Team to bring you a fun blog hop featuring the BEAUTIFUL November Stamp of the Month Kit and Key Ingredients Kit!  AWESOME!  This is far and away my favorite SOTM kit ever! I hope you love it as much as I do!  Here's my card....

 

 

 

 

The stamp set has beautiful matching dies for all the images. I just love putting together flowers like this! Some pretty pearls in the center to make it soft and feminine...

 

 

 

These colors are right up my alley - love how it all works together, even though there is a lot going on... This soft blue is just gorgeous. 

 

 

 

 

Well, that's it for me...but certainly not for you! Here are the links to everyone else's projects...and I know you won't be disappointed! Have fun hopping! Product links are at the bottom of my post. XO

• Amy Crockett
• Carole Burrage
• Cassie Trask
• Charmaine Ikach
• Courtney Kelley
• Jen Shults
• Joan Ervin
• Kerri Michaud
• Monika Davis
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tracy Clemente
• Wanda Guess

 

InLinkz.com

Autumn Chalkboard Card

Hello my bloggy pals! How was your week last week? Did you stop by to enjoy some of the fun new things I posted for Taylored Expressions? I hope you did! AND....I just got my design team preview for next month's release, and you won't be disappointed! My week was wonky. Crazy busy at work.... And, my husband had sinus surgery on Thursday, so it's been kinda stressful too. His surgery went fine and after a verrrryyyy long night that night, I have to say he is doing much better today. Yay! I hate it when he feels bad. 

Before we totally move on to Christmas projects, I thought I would share another Fall inspired card! I am still so crazy about the chalkboard trend, and I just got this awesome new stamp set from Hero Arts....and this idea came to me! Loved the Fall banner stamp the best from this set! It's called "Leaves Autumn." Hope you love it too! 

After I finish this post, I'm off to a card workshop to make Christmas cards with Richele and my friend JN. Looking forward to some girl time and some creative mojo. Have a great weekend!! 

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of my decorative grouping! A pretty burgundy button, some hand dyed ribbon and some Tim Holtz leaves...all tied up with some twine! I love doing stuff like this...and you know how much I love to dye ribbon! 

 

 

 

That stamp is the bomb! Stamped on black linen paper with crisp white ink! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taylored Expressions November 2013 Release Day - Falling For You!

 

 

IT'S RELEASE DAY!!! Taylored Expressions' November 2013 stamp and die release is officially for sale! 30 new products to inspire you and help you creat fun cards and scrapbooks! I hope you have had fun with me all week as I've shared my projects. I love release week! It makes me happy. I have one more card to show you for the week and it's made with the stamp set and dies called "Falling for You." LOVE. This set has all kinds of pretty Fall images. Today I chose the happy apple! 

Now, instead of cutting the apple out of red paper I tried to think of something different! I ended up stamping my apples on text paper and cutting them out. Then I edged them with red distress ink. I rather like the way this came out! 

 

 

 

The background is a new set of Stacklets (Number 7) and it looks like an old fashioned label to me - so it worked just perfectly. I colored the stems and leaves with my Copic markers...

 

 

 

I got the card done and it just felt like it needed another pop of bright green! So I cut out some leaves and then it was done! 

 

 

 

Love YOU to the core! 

THANK YOU my friends for another great release week! Thanks for sharing with me and the other designers. We do it all for you! XO

Links for today: 

• Carole Burrage
• Charmaine Ikach
• Courtney Kelley
• Jen Shults
• Joan Ervin
• Kerri Michaud
• Pattie Goldman - Guest Designer
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

 

 

InLinkz.com

Taylored Expressions November 2013 Sneak Peeks - Chalkboard Elements and Discover Your Wings!

 

 

Happy to have you back here to join in on our last day of sneak peeks before the official Taylored Expressions product release tomorrow! MORE projects and MORE fun! Every new product will be available tomorrow morning to shop to your heart's desire. Today I have two projects to share with you using some more new items. 

First up is a happy chalkboard card! Taylor has come up with a follow up stamp set to the very popular "Chalkboard Elements" set. And, it's called "Chalkboard Elements 2!" They work perfectly together! I really like this technique - never gets old. 

 

 

 

My background piece was made using the cool Chevron Cutting Plate in white, with red cardstock underneath to make it pop. I made my tag out of pretty black paper using the Tag Stacklets dies. The patterned paper is a fav collection from Simple Stories. 

 

 

 

I wanted my 'thinking of you' words to hang over the edge of my tag, so I cut that little banner out separately and mounted it on later. 

 

 

 

I couldn't really help myself with this one....I just kept adding things! I like how this card came out. Lots of things that are trendy right now; arrows, chalkboard, chevrons...you name it! 

 

 

And, you guys know me...I have to add a butterfly to everything! LOL. 

 

 

 

And, speaking of butterflies....Here's another one! This stamp set is called "Discover your Wings" and it has matching dies that are gorgeous! I used the Basic Grey Hipster paper pack as my color inspiration and I love the way this all went together. Pretty coral and blue and straw colors....

 

 

 

Isn't that large floral image soooooo pretty!? I stamped it first on cream paper, and then cut out my label stacklets after. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I almost always stamp something on the inside of my cards - but I don't remember to photograph that! I try to match the inside to the front.... Heck, all the supplies are out on my desk right then! I like to use scraps of paper and maybe a different image from the stamp set, as I did here. Just makes it look polished I think.

 

 

 

 

Here are your Bakers Dozen Designer links for this day's fun! 

• Carole Burrage
• Charmaine Ikach
• Courtney Kelley
• Jen Shults
• Joan Ervin
• Kerri Michaud
• Pattie Goldman - Guest Designer
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

 

InLinkz.com

Taylored Expressions November 2013 Sneak Peeks - Witty Wine Quotes and You're My Hero!

 

 

Hi crafty friends! Welcome to Day Two of the Taylored Expressions Product Release Week for November! Did you like what you saw yesterday? Well...there's lots more where that came from! We have been busy making lots of projects to share with you. Remember, everything will be for sale on Thursday morning bright and early! Thanks for coming by! Today I have two projects to share. First up is a cool rock and roll card made with the "You're my Hero" stamp set and matching dies. LOVE. 

I absolutely dig this stamp set! It can be cool or fun and it can be masculine or feminine. So versatile and groovy. I chose a bright color scheme with black and turquoise. This set has lots and lots of stamps. 

 

 

 

I made my own background paper by using the star stamp with some clear embossing.... I used versamark ink with clear embossing powder for a shiny tone on tone look. 

 

 

 

The guitar die is in two pieces so you can make them different colors. Genius! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This month Taylor is releasing a whole line of fun wine-themed stamps and dies. The sayings are fun and clever. The set I'm featuring is called "Witty Wine Quotes" and there is also a set called "Wine a Little!" I decided to make a hostess gift - some little wine quote notes to bring over to someone's house.  Sometimes I bring a bottle of wine over and this would be a nice thing to bring with the wine. 

 

 

 

I used purple and green and cream for my colors. My notes are made with the 3x3 Scallop Note card which I use all the time. I tied my notes with some pretty purple gingham ribbon around the tin. I put foam tape on the back of the top panel and threaded my ribbon through to keep it in place...

 

 

 

Here are my little notes! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Bakers Dozen Design Team Link List for today! Hop around won't you? Have a fabulous day my friends.  

• Carole Burrage
• Charmaine Ikach
• Courtney Kelley
• Jen Shults
• Joan Ervin
• Kerri Michaud
• Nancy McKinney
• Pattie Goldman - Guest Designer
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

InLinkz.com

Taylored Expressions November 2013 Sneak Peeks: Pockets and Pages!

 

 

HELLO! Friends! It's November and it's the first week of November...so you know what that means! It's time for another AMAZING release from Taylored Expressions! I loooove being on this team! Taylor totally outdid herself this month - there are 30 new products! I know you will find something (many things) that you like this month. The Bakers Dozen Design Team will have fun projects to share with you all week and the entire release is available for purchase on Thursday morning! Yippeeeee. 

Taylor is starting a new line of products called Pockets & Pages and it's all about scrapbooking. You really must go and look at the fabulous scrapbook pages the other gals made. I used some of the scrapbook supplies to make a cheery yellow card to share today. 

 

 

 

I love yellow and black! So crisp and clean. The HELLO is made with new letter dies - called Sweet & Simple Alpha. There will be upper case (shown here), lower case, and matching numbers. Perfect for making your own words and titles. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for popping in to share the start of RELEASE WEEK with me! It's going to be a lot of fun around here and on the TE Blog and TE Facebook! 

Here is your link list for today:

• Carole Burrage
• Charmaine Ikach
• Courtney Kelley
• Jen Shults
• Joan Ervin
• Kerri Michaud
• Nancy McKinney
• Pattie Goldman - Guest Designer
• Regina Mangum
• Sankari Wegman
• Shannon White
• Shelly Mercado
• Stephanie Kraft
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Wanda Guess

 

InLinkz.com

Happy Birthday to ME!!

Hi there everyone! Sorry to have been away all week! It's been crazy around here! Last week was very busy at work and also with things at home, Halloween, and lots of other fun stuff! Did you have a good Halloween? Did you dress up? Are you on sugar overload like me? 

So...today is my birthday! I've been enjoying it all week! LOL. My friends have been spoiling me rotten and Friday night I got a bright red manicure! The hubs took me to San Francisco for the day yesterday and I shopped...a lot! Yay! It was the perfect day. This morning we went out for breakfast and now I'm in the craft room enjoying the day. Later I would love to just lay down and read a book. I have been reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. If you would like to see a few pictures from San Francisco yesterday, you can check out my INSTAGRAM FEED! 

In honor of my birthday, I thought I would make a birthday card to share with you!  I saw THIS IDEA on the Paper-Source website and have been wanting to copy it. Today, it was the perfect card to make - CAS and quick! I used my super cool Hero Arts Neon Inks and a favorite confetti stamp from Savvy Stamps. The die and the word sentiment are both from Papertrey Ink. Have a look! 

 

 

 

 

I stamped the confetti image in three shades of neon ink on my background piece and let it dry. Then I stamped 'happy' in black ink and mounted my die cut. Easy peasy! The hardest part of this car was choosing which colors to use! 

 

 

 

Here are my supplies....

 

Thanks for coming by today! Be sure to check in tomorrow for the beginning of an awesome release week for Taylored Expressions! First sneak peeks go live at 7am Pacific Time. Toodles! XOXO

Thank you to everyone who sent me a card or a facebook message - I really appreciate it and feel like one lucky girl! :-)