Home Grown

My parents arrived this evening for a six-day visit. We are going to be super busy these coming days! But I had to squeeze in one more card:

I know there won't be much any time for posting tomorrow, so it has to be now, but I also don't have much time for details as it's awfully late and I really need to get my rest {soon}! Sorry!

Challenges:

• Flourishes: The Spring Has Sprung Challenge
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday: Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere
• Flourishes April Speed Challenge
• The Paper Variety: Flowers
• Tuesday Throwdown: Add sparkle and bling
• Crafty Creations: Paper piecing
• Color Throwdown: teal, summer sun, celery
• Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge: #42

Thanks for checking out my card!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Flourishes Seeds of Friendship and Calendar Set 1
Paper: SU celery, MFP cream, The Paper Company yellow, and October Afternoon DP
Ink: Palette burnt umber, SU certainly celery, SU baja breeze
Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, scissors, rhinestones, button from my stash, Caribbean baker's twine from The Twinery
Techniques: reverse spotlighting, paper piecing

DeNami Monochromatic

Hi, everybody! Today was a busy day--I've been getting the house ready for an almost week-long visit from my parents in Ohio. They arrive tomorrow! The kids are SO excited. We haven't seen them since Thanksgiving. Next week the kids have their April Vacation, so we'll have several additional weekdays to go on some day-trip adventures with Mimi and Bunka.

I had some company here at home today, too. My son woke up with a fever this morning, so he stayed home from school sick. He rested on the sofa, did some computer programming, and then spent the afternoon working on the school assignments he was missing in the classroom. Thankfully, by lunchtime his fever was gone, and he was feeling much better. I'm hoping he's all set to go back to school tomorrow--they will be taking class pictures at school tomorrow, and we'd really like to see him in it when we receive our already-paid-for copy!! Anyway, it was fun having a date for lunch; we played Crazy Eights while we ate. :)

I have a project that I worked on today to share with you:
Don't you just love that adorable little DeNami Chickie???

Challenges:

• DeNami Design Monochromatic Challenge
• Wee Memories Challenge: Tangled Up, to use any kind of twine in your project
• Card Patterns: Sketch #110
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Card for a Child

Thanks for checking out my little slice of bliss for today!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: DeNami Design Chickie
Paper: DCWV DP, Card stock from The Paper Company
Ink: Palette noir black
Accessories: SU scallop border punch, SU 2 3/8" scallop circle punch, EK 1.5" circle punch, SU 1" circle punch, colored pencils, white gel pen, foam tape, Lemondrop baker's twine from The Twinery, alphabet stickers
Techniques: faux stitching

Flashback Friday 10.0

I have been having so much fun playing along with Amy Tsuruta's Flashback Friday Challenges! I was thrilled to learn last weekend that I was selected as the winner of Flashback Friday 9.0, and part of my prize (in addition to some fantastic sewing-themed Stampin' Up goodies) was to be the Flashback Friday 10.0 Guest Designer AND pick the 10.0 challenge!!

Just in case you aren't familiar with Flashback Friday, here's the scoop: in this challenge Amy encourages players to re-post a papercrafting "first" and take ownership of the project in the present day. No newly made project required! It's fun to see where we started in our papercrafting journeys and how far we've come, even if it provides some cringeworthy viewing moments. Amy picks each Flashback Friday winner randomly, and she always has some awesome prizes to award to those brave enough to play along!

So, on to my pick for the Flashback Friday 10.0 Challenge:

re-post your
**first project with STITCHING
on it (real or faux)**

I love to sew and play with fabric almost as much as I like to play with paper, so this was an easy choice for me.

Oh, and you'd probably like to see my first stitching project. I made this in June 2009, well before I started my blog, so this came from my Splitcoaststampers gallery. Not only is it the first time I used stitching on a card, I used both machine stitching and faux ("pen") stitching here. Fancy me, right? You can see my original SCS upload for this card HERE.
I was rather proud of this creation back when I first made it and still feel pretty good about it today. And look at me--getting all impressive by making a full-front tri-shutter card. Of course, I can think of hundreds of ways I could improve this thing if I were to make it today, but it was definitely a start. :)

If you'd like to play along with Flashback Friday 10.0, head on over to the Flashback Friday blog to play along. For version 10.0, Amy has lined up a fantastic sponsor:

Jane's Doodles

Jane is being so kind as to give out Mr. Smiles and Party the Penguin . . . along with some of her signature buttons.

Please come join us for some Flashback fun! Flashback Friday 10.0 runs from today until Friday, April 29th @ 11:59 pm PST. Just re-post your first project that incorporated stitching on your blog and add it the inlinkz linky at Flashback Friday. I can't wait to see all of your stitching firsts!!

See you around!
Emily

StampinB Navy and Green Challenge

Howdy! Stampin' B's DT Challenge #105 is brought to us this week by Brenda, aka Benzi, who is challenging us to use the colors NAVY and GREEN plus either stripes, plaids, or dots. I think that navy and green make such a refreshing color combo. It's one of my favorite combinations, although I really need to use it in my card making more often. Anyway, this challenge was a lot of fun to play with--thanks, Benzi!
Somehow I had it stuck in my head that I had some navy and green plaid patterned paper tucked away in my paper collection somewhere. After spending more time than I care to admit searching for it to no avail, I decided to make my own plaid. Sure, I could have gone with navy dots (which I definitely have in my collection) or green stripes (which I also have plenty of), but once the plaid idea got stuck in my head, I just couldn't shake it! Anyway, I used an ancient plaid stripes rubber stamp from The Angel Company to build a green and navy background.

The green and navy colors were perfect for DeNami Theme Challenge #6: Boys. I was super excited to use my brand-new DeNami Friendly Robot rubber stamp and the Solid Scallop Dot Rectangle stamp I received free with my DeNami Designs order. I colored those absolutely adorable little robots with the Gamsol Magic technique, using Prismacolor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, and a paper blending stump.

I like that I was able to leave this card rather open-ended. It could be a baby boy card. I could make it an "Oh, Boy! It's your birthday!" with the right sentiment inside. My son could use it to write a fun thank you note. I think it could even make a cute congratulations card--for a super report card, a sports win, or for any job well done. :)

Challenges:

• DeNami Theme Challenge #6: Boy
• Wee Memories #50: Color! Use the colors that inspire you or your favorite color palette. I just love navy and green together. :)
• CPS-Card Sketches: Sketch #212

I hope you've been inspired to play along with the Stampin' B's!! If you do make a card, post it on your blog or SCS gallery, and link it up to the Inlinkz tool on the Stampin' B's blog. We'd love to see what you create!! :)

Thanks for joining me today for my little slice of bliss. I'll see you again soon!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Plaid Stripes from The Angel Company; Friendly Robot and Solid Scallop Dot Rectangle from DeNami Designs
Paper: white storm CS, SU night of navy CS, SU wild wasabi CS
Ink: Palette noir black, SU night of navy, SU wild wasabi
Accessories: precision scissors, Prismacolor pencils, OMS, paper blending stump, white gel pen, foam tape, baker's twine
Techniques: Gamsol Magic, handstamped background

Easter Blessings

I can't tell you how hard and time-comsuming this card was to make. The idea for it came to me quite easily, but when it came time to put the details together, I spent waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time just spinning my wheels. So frustrating. Ultimately I was quite pleased with it, but I nearly scrapped it I don't know how many times. I'm glad I stuck with it.

Detail of the embossing:

I love the look of hand-dyed crinkly seam binding, but I'm not lucky enough to have any. I approximated the look by ripping a narrow strip of fabric from some celery-colored duck cloth in my fabric collection. I frayed the edges and was good to go--the perfect nest for that perfect Prima rose.

Challenges:

• The Shabby Tea Room: Spring Color Challenge, to be inspired by the colors in this photo
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Easter creation
• Papertake Weekly: Anything Goes
• Tuesday Throwdown: Spring Theme
• Stamps R Us: Easter
• ABC DT Challenge: Easter card
• CARDS Challenge Gallery: Easter cards
• A Spoon Full of Sugar: Tons of Texture (Three types of texture: embossing on the Easter eggs, stitching, and ripped fabric ribbon)
  

This should be the last Easter card that I need for sending out to my family. Whew. I was worried I wouldn't have enough!

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Easter egg image from Michael's dollar bin
Paper: SU certainly celery CS, SU pink pirouette CS, Pink Paislee 365 Degrees DP, various scraps
Ink: Palette lavender sachet and toile pink, Ranger linen and tea dye distress inks, Versamark
Accessories: MS deco fan border and corner punches, SU tag corner punch, SU designer label punch, scissors, sponge dauber, foam tape, sewing machine, clear EP, heat tool, pearls, Prima rose, ripped strip of fabric
Techniques: ink distressing, heat embossing, machine stitching