Holly Jolly Christmas

If you came by my blog on Friday, you will recognize the gingham gift bag in today's project. Yes, it's true--I got a super deal on those kraft/gingham gift bags after Christmas last year at JoAnn Fabrics!! I'm having a blast finding different ways to dress them up. :)

So today's gift bag is brought to you by Purple Onion Design Rubber Stamps! I made this bag for my stint on the the P.O.D. 2013 Holiday Design Team. Sadly, it is my last official project for the holiday DT, but you can count on seeing many of the P.O.D. stamps I acquired again and again! Anyway, let's take a look at the gift bag:

I am so in love with Purple Onion's noteblock stamps! These subway art-style sentiment panels are very cool, and have been around long before they became "in" recently. The one I used on this bag is the Happy Holidays Noteblock. I also used the sweet snowman from the Hanging with Pete set, a sentiment from Handwritten Holiday, and the smaller frame from the Deluxe Labels set as my gift tag.

I stamped the noteblock and label with Crimson Red Versafine ink and colored Snowman Pete with Copic markers. A few red rhinestones and Martha Stewart holly leaf punches were the perfect embellishments!

I can't believe that we have just one week of school left before Christmas! I've got a lot to accomplish this week. Here's to being a merry and productive little elf!!

Thanks for stopping for a little slice of bliss!
Emily

More Holiday Treats

Today I'm continuing to share some of the projects that I've made as a member of the Purple Onion Designs 2013 Holiday Design Team. This December I'm making lots of holiday treats to give as gifts to teachers, friends, and neighbors. You've already seen my packaging for my homemade caramel corn and chocolate peanut clusters. Today I'm showing off more holiday treats. Let's start with some peppermint bark!

This is another super easy candy to make at home! And the results look (and taste!) so impressive. Once I've made my peppermint bark, I package it in small cellophane treat bags and slip it into one of these sweet little gift bags. I made it using a downloadable template for sale from DeNami Design. Simply print onto the back of a piece of patterned paper, cut, fold, and adhere. Done! I dressed up the tote with a fun tag I made with Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps: label from Vintage Journaling Set, Holiday Treats Logo, and Treat Word Set. Have I told you how much I love my Treat Words??? I've used them to label lots of candies and treats, but this set is perfect for cookies, too, with words like "linzer," "sugar," "gingerbread," "snickerdoodle," "thumbprint," and "shortbread." YUM!! So perfect for holiday baking!!!

I'm also making chocolate-dipped pretzel logs as edible gifts this year. Here's a peek at how I'm packaging them.

I'm using my beloved Treat Word Set again, of course! I also used the Homemade Treats Logo and the largest label from the Plain Jane Labels set.

How is your holiday goodie making coming along? We did the bulk of our baking last weekend, making our traditional stash of Christmas cookies that we'll keep for our own munching. We made (and decorated!) cut-out sugar cookies, holiday chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and satin-glazed date cookies. Everything is so delicious! I just love having a variety of cookies to indulge in :). You know, it's funny, we always do a ton of baking in December but do tend to keep it to ourselves. It just seems more practical to give candies and treats as gifts instead of cookies--I always feel like they are less likely to go stale than cookies (and who wants to receive a stale cookie as a gift???). And I'm not going to lie:  candy & treat making (or at least the ones I tend to make) require fewer ingredients and a bit less effort than cookie baking. And when you are mass producing for gift-giving, that really seems to pay off!!

I hope your day is going just swimmingly today! Thanks so much for dropping by for a little slice of bliss,
Emily

P.S. Just in case you are interested, here is my recipe for peppermint bark.

Peppermint Bark

1 14-ounce bag of Make 'n Mold White Vanilla Flavored Candy Wafers
7 candy canes, crushed

Simply melt the vanilla candy wafers in the microwave according to the package directions and then stir in the crushed candy canes. Pour onto a waxed paper-lined baking sheet and spread out out into a "puddle" of uniform thickness. Allow chocolate to harden at room temperature and then break into bite-sized pieces. No need to refrigerate!

For a different size bag of candy melts, simply use 1 candy cane for every 2 ounces of candy melts. So for a 12-ounce bag of candy melts, use 6 candy canes; or for a 16-ounce bag, use 8 candy canes.

Snowflake Thank You Note Gift Set

Good Monday morning to you! We woke up to a winter wonderland this morning--our first tracking snow! Only about an inch or so, really, but everything is white and pretty. The snow is to turn to sleet and rain later in the day, so I know this won't last, but still--it makes me happy to see it!

I'm going to celebrate by sharing a little snow-themed gift this morning! I made this snowflake thank you note gift set for the Purple Onion Designs Holiday Design Team. It's a set of six one-layer thank you notes with three each of two different designs. I used both gorgeous snowflakes heat-embossed in white, from the Vintage Snowflakes Set, both embellishments from the Vintage Journaling Set, and a beautifully scripted Thank You sentiment, all from Purple Onion Designs.

I slipped the set of notes along with six envelopes into a clear note card box and set about prettying up my packaging. I used the smallest label from the Plain Jane Labels set to make a gift tag just the perfect size for the "let it snow" sentiment from the Handwritten Holiday set. I decorated my tag with a little blue rub-on snowflake embellished with a tiny pearl. Finally I stamped the Merry Christmas tape from the Holiday Border Tape Set on a cardstock band to wrap around the base of the box.

And there you have it:  a snowy little card set all ready for holiday giving!!

I hope you have a fabulous day in your neck of the woods today! Thanks for stopping by,
Emily

Holiday Treats

Today I'm continuing to bring you ideas for holiday gift-giving using Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps as part of the 2013 Holiday Design Team! Today the team is focusing on holiday food gifts, and I have a couple to share.

My high school freshman daughter loves to give her teachers a little something at the holidays to say thanks for all of their hard work! She has 8 different teachers this year, so we had to come up with something that has a low cost but a big impact. We decided to go with small bags of homemade caramel corn this year, and here's our design for the packaging:

I decorated a small white paper bag by stamping POD's Candy Cane Background in red, topping the bag with a punched red border, and then centering an embossed label stamped with the awesome Celebrate the Season Noteblock over top of the whole design. So festive!

The tag I tied onto the bag of caramel corn was so easy to make! All I needed were the ever-useful Holiday Treats Logo stamp and accompanying Treat Word Set. I stamped the logo in red on white cardstock and then had fun stamping the "caramel" and "crunch" words to complete the package :).

Now, the last time I shared photos of my family's "famous" caramel corn, I had comments from readers asking how to make it. So I figured it's high time that I shared the recipe! Here it is:

Oven-Baked Caramel Corn

4 quarts popped popcorn (we usually use our air popper to pop about 1/2 cup unpopped corn)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Heat oven to 200 degrees F. Place popped corn in large ungreased roasting pan (I use our black enamel turkey roaster! Or divide popped corn between 2 rectangular 9" x 13" cake pans.) Heat brown sugar, butter, corn syrup, and salt in saucepan, stirring occasionally, until bubbly around the edges. Continue cooking over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat; stir in baking soda until foamy. Pour over popped corn, stirring until corn is well coated. Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

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We also like to give gifts of homemade candies to family and neighbors. My aunt particularly loves our chocolate peanut clusters, so she'll be getting a batch in the mail in a few weeks. Here is the packaging I designed with Purple Onion Designs stamps to dress up them up.

The plastic clamshell container is repurposed packaging from a dozen mini cupcakes I picked up at our grocery store's bakery recently. It's perfect for holding mounded peanut clusters! After whipping up a batch of peanut clusters to nestle inside, all I needed to do was decorate the package lid. I used these Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps: Homemade Treats Logo, Treat Words Set, the larger label from the Deluxe Labels Set, and the Happy Holidays border from the Holiday Border Tape Set.

Making these yummy chocolate peanut clusters is even simpler than the caramel corn! Here's my super-easy recipe:

Chocolate Peanut Clusters

1 14-ounce bag of Make 'n Mold Milk Chocolate Flavored Candy Wafers
2 1/4 cups salted peanuts (not dry-roasted)

Simply melt the chocolate candy wafers in the microwave according to the package directions and then stir in the peanuts. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper-lined baking sheets. Allow chocolate to harden at room temperature and then store in a covered container. No need to refrigerate!

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That's all I have to share for today! I hope I haven't made you *too* hungry ;). Don't forget about the Purple Onion Designs Christmas sale that's going on now:

Oh, and be sure to swing by the Purple Onion Designs blog today for lots more ideas for food from the POD Holiday Design Team! 

Thanks for dropping by!
Emily

Christmas Stamped Gifts

Happy December 1st, my friends! It's time to start those Advent calendars--what a happy time!

Today I'm bringing you a few more holiday gift projects as part of the Purple Onion Designs Holiday Design Team. Today the team is focusing on stamped gifts. I think I've mentioned before that I'm trying to make as many of the gifts my family will give this year as possible. First I have another item that will make a perfect teacher gift--what elementary school teacher ever has enough thank you notes?

I started by making a set of six one-layer thank-you notes, two each of three different designs using the super sweet Laurel, Filbert, and Elm characters from Stacey Yacula's holiday rubber stamp collection and a whimsical Thanks sentiment (#PF01), all from Purple Onion Designs, of course. Stamped on linen-textured cardstock and colored with Copic markers, these simple notes will be easy for a teacher to use and mail (with lumps, bumps, or extra postage!).

Next up--some packaging to make this gift extra special! I slid the notes and six envelopes into a cellophane treat bag and stapled on a hand-stamped bag topper created with a variety of Purple Onion Designs rubber stamps: an oval frame from the Vintage Journaling Set, the smaller flake from the Snowflake Set, a fantastic sentiment from the Handwritten Holiday Set, a pair of To/From sentiments for the back of the topper, and, of course, another sweet Filbert the Penguin!

 

Here's a little peek at the back of the package. You can see the tone-on-tone snowflake stamping a little better here, and there's the To/From sentiments that make this packaging gift-ready!

My fifth-grader is already excited to give this gift to one of his teachers!

For my second project, I'm sharing a snowflake Christmas ornament. I started by stamping the six-pointed snowflake from Purple Onion Designs' Vintage Snowflake Set and heat-embossing it in silver. After trimming it out, I mounted it on a snowflake diecut and blinged it up with silver Stickles and rhinestones.

I wanted to make my snowflake commemorative, so I stamped the date (using a retired mini alphabet/number set from POD) and a "Merry Christmas" sentiment from the Handwritten Holiday set on the back of the ornament.

Be sure to swing by the Purple Onion Designs blog today for lots more ideas for stamped holiday gifts from the POD Holiday Design Team!

Enabler alert!! Purple Onion Designs is running a Holiday Sale right now, with 25% off ALL STAMPS in the store! The sale runs through Tuesday, December 10, 2013. So be sure to check it out!

Thanks for stopping by today!
Emily

Winter Wonderland Notepad

Good Thursday morning to you, my friends! I'm so very pleased to be sharing my first holiday project as part of the Purple Onion Designs Holiday Design Team! This year I've vowed to make as many as the gifts that my family will be giving as possible. Today's project will be perfect for one of my son's fifth-grade teachers. It's a decorated note pad, created entirely with Purple Onion Designs stamps. Here's a look at the front cover I designed for it:

And now here are a few peeks at the pad I made to fit inside:

Yes, I made that little notepad inside myself! And it's actually super easy to do. First, I cut sheets of printer paper down to size (3" by 4") and then stamped each page with Carolyn Draws' Doodle Grid from Purple Onion in light pink ink. Next I went back and stamped each sheet with both snowflakes from POD's Snowflake Set in turquoise chalk ink.

When everything was dry, I simply stacked up the notepad pages, stacked them on a piece of tag board cut to size as a backing, and then applied four coats of PVA bookbinding glue along the top edge of the pad to adhere all the pages together. (Allow each coat of PVA glue to dry between applications.) All that was left to do at that point was create a cover and mount the pad inside. Done!! Additional Purple Onion stamps that I used for this project: Holiday Border Tape Set (on the front cover), Handwritten Holiday Set (inside), and the medium label from the Plain Jane Labels Set (inside).

Purple Onion Designs just released another collection of holiday stamps and stamp sets. And may I say that they are all fantastic! Here's a peek at one of my favorites, called This is December:



Awesome, right? And how about this cute set? This is Holiday Sweets:




You can see the entire release right HERE. You should go check them out!!

Oh, and Michele has also added a new mounting product called Tack 'n Peel to the Purple Onion Designs website. It's a cling sheet that is perfect for adhering to acrylic block handles for unmounted stamps. I've put this on my wishlist!! The link includes a video on how to use it, along with tips on other methods for stamping with unmounted rubber stamps. Lots of great information here!!

Thanks so much for stopping by to take a look at my holiday project today!
Emily

Purple Onion Designs to the Rescue!

Happy Friday to you! I hope you had a fun Halloween yesterday. We managed to sneak in trick-or-treat between the rain showers, so I'd say it was a successful evening!

Our freshman daughter threw me for a loop when she came home from school yesterday evening. She joined the high school's a cappella group this year and is having a blast. Tonight is their first performance, and she has been staying after school for extra practices all week long. So, yesterday she announces that, on Halloween when our family (and most likely many others just like ours) has plans for a busy evening, the director told them during practice, "By the way, you all need to bring baked goods with you tomorrow to sell during intermission at the performance." What?!?!? Who forgets to share this vital bit of participatory information until the night before the performance and then expects families to drop everything else--on Halloween!--to get ready for a bake sale? Well, apparently the high school music director!! Faced with the prospect of having no time to run out to the store for ingredients, I surveyed our meager stocks looking for inspiration for bake-sale ready goodies. Our prospects were not good. My daughter finally suggested caramel corn. Genius! A batch of caramel corn requires not much more than popping corn, butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup, which always seem to be in ready supply at our house. So while my husband and son headed out for trick-or-treat and my daughter costumed herself for treat distribution at our own front door, I slaved away in the kitchen doing my last-minute music-boostery duty of stirring oven-baked caramel corn.

My next dilemma was how to package all this crunchy goodness for the bake sale. All I had were some standard fold-over sandwich baggies. Not terribly attractive. But then my Purple Onion Designs stamps came to the rescue! I was able to use one of their Treat Logo stamps and accompanying Treat Words to create some fun tags to dress up these bags in no time at all. Nothing fancy here (these bake-sale treats will be purchased and gobbled down in a matter of minutes, after all), but it's often a little extra like this that will attract a customer, right? I just love the huge variety of mix-and-match treat descriptions in the Treat Words set--like "peanutbutter" and "pretzels" and "fudge" and "snickerdoodles" and "clusters" and "chocolate" and "kisses" and, well, it goes on and on with a ton of options for creating custom titles for whatever goodies you are making. Love, LOVE that!!

And speaking of Purple Onion Designs, the release of Stacey Yacula's adorable new holiday stamp collection Winter Wishes is live in the Purple Onion Designs store today! You can view the entire collection HERE. Purple Onion owner Michele is running a 25% off sale when you buy the entire collection. Sale ends November 7.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you have a terrific weekend!
Emily

Good News!

Greetings, friends! I'm popping in here quickly to share a bit of good news: I just got word that I've been selected to be a member of this year's holiday design team for Purple Onion Designs! Over the next two months I'll be sharing holiday projects featuring Purple Onion Designs' fabulous rubber stamps. I have some fun decorations, gifts, and packaging all planned out and I can't wait to share them with all of you. I'm so excited to be part of it all!

Not familiar with Purple Onion Designs? I first discovered POD's unmounted rubber stamps a few years ago and have loved working with them. In fact, I've been published several times with POD stamps. Here are two projects featuring POD stamps that I had published in Northridge Publishing's Simply Handmade: Holidays 2012 issue last year:

Stamps:  USA map, star circle, and airplane from Road Trippin’ set by Purple Onion Designs

Stamps:  Vintage Journal Label by Purple Onion Designs

Purple Onion has tons of fabulous alphabet stamp sets, trendy subway-style noteblock stamps, cool vintage elements, and ultra-handy scrapbooking-themed stamps. Lots of variety! Sound intriguing? Be sure to head over to the POD website to take a look.

Right now Purple Onion Designs is promoting the release of a new line of holiday stamps from the very talented illustrator Stacey Yacula. Between them, Purple Onion Designs and Stacey Yacula are giving away two sets of her Winter Wishes collection and you can be a part of it! Check out the details on the Purple Onion Designs blog and Stacey's blog. The giveaway ends tomorrow (that's October 31, 2013) at midnight EDT. Be sure to swing by for your chances to win, and if you do, let them know that I sent you {wink}.

It's time for me to get back to work, so that's it for now. I hope you have a fabulous Wednesday!!

Thanks for stopping by and take care!
Emily

Still crankin' out the Easter cards . . .

Easter cards are so much fun for me to create! I just love the colors, the themes, the flowers, and . . . well, the candy {sheepish grin}. Making these cards was a blast!

I can't decide which design I like better--so tell me which one is your favorite!

That pink subway-art style panel is the Easter Noteblock from Purple Onion Designs. I just LOVE their noteblocks and recently acquired a stack. I think I'll have every holiday/season covered now! I just noticed that Purple Onion has a spring sale going on right now--20% off stamps ordered through March 31. That's a great deal!

That adorable cottontail rabbit is from Repeat Impressions and has been in my stash for quite a while now. I embossed him in bronze on chocolate chip cardstock. I was hoping that he would turn out looking like a chocolate Easter rabbit. I don't know--did I succeed?

The yummy jelly beans are from a long-retired Mason jar stamp set from the now-defunct Angel Company.

The daisy patterned paper is from the SEI Vanilla Sunshine collection and the plaid paper is from an old DCWV butterflies stack I found in my stash. I just realized that both background papers are glittered, so there is all kinds of texture going on in these two cards!

I'm playing along with these challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Easter/Spring
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #213: Grab Some Thread (if you look closely, you'll see that I added machine stitching around the edges of both cards.)

The rest of my week is going to be super busy! We have dentist appointments today, orthodontist appointments tomorrow (plus lots of errands for me), after-school activities on Thursday (plus a lunch date with friends for me), an early release day for the kids on Friday (we've re-scheduled the outing-with-friends for a free IMAX movie at the Museum of Science in Boston; the one we had to cancel because of snow at the beginning of the month), plus Holy Week services. I'm not sure when I'll be able to catch my breath next!!! But it's all good :)

Thanks for stopping by to share a little slice of bliss with me!
Emily

Don't Forget to Vote!

OK, my American friends, it's the first Tuesday in November, and you know what that means: it's Election Day! So I made this card as a little reminder:

That old-fashioned pointing hand is a stamp from Purple Onion Designs, and the sentiment is computer-generated. I layered lots of punched borders in red and blue, stamped with white stars, for a little patriotic flair.

I'm playing along with a few challenges with this card:

• A Blog Named Hero: use a punched or die cut element
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge:  no square cards

Because it's a presidential year, I know that polls are going to be busy, folks, but please, PLEASE: don't forget to get out there and vote!!

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

PS  You all know about the little GIVEAWAY I have going on until Thursday night (11/8/12), right? If not, you can check it out HERE.

Cardstock:  (white) Papertrey Ink; (red, blue, white) The Paper Company
Rubber stamp: (Pointing Finger) Purple Onion Designs
Clear stamp: (star from Boughs) Schlosser Designs
Pigment ink: (Frost White) Clearsnap
Specialty ink: (Noir hybrid) Stewart Superior Corp.
Fibers: (red/white string) The Twinery
Tools:  (border punch, decorative label punch) Stampin’ Up!
Font:  (Latin Wide) www.fonts.com
 

Just a few reminders

Hey, everybody! It's Wednesday!

I have a few reminders for you:

1. My GIVEAWAY for a 56-sheet multi-pack of Bazzill Card Shoppe cardstock ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. EDT. Check out this post for all the details.
2. The DeNami Design Fall/Winter Rubber Stamp Release Sneak Peeks continue today over on the DeNami Blog. Be sure to check it out for a chance to win this great prize package:      
   
   And you should also check out (and comment on!) the blogs of DT  members Deanna, Deb, and Wendy for chances to win a second copy of this prize!

OK, we've talked blog candy, so how about a little eye candy now? I've had projects published in several publications in the past few months, but I haven't had a chance to share those with you yet. I thought it was high time to git R done, so I'll be sharing a different pub project each day for the rest of the week.

Today's project is a treat container 

     

that appeared on page 42 in the March/April 2012 issue of Paper Crafts Magazine. I LOVE this Thank You noteblock stamp from Purple Onion Designs! And a HUGE thanks to my friend Jessi for that awesome May Arts ribbon. :D

We're cleaning the house today to prep for company this weekend. There's so much to be done! I keep telling myself, though, that if we wrap up early, then I can play with my stamps for a while. That should keep me going when I start to flag!

I'll be back tomorrow with a WINNER! Until then, may your day be filled with bliss!

Emily

It's my BLOGOVERSARY!!

So, how about a little BLOG CANDY?? Keep reading for details . . .

Yes, it is official. Today is my first BLOGOVERSARY! Happy Blogoversary to me!! It was one year ago today that I made my very first blog post. I wasn't sure where I was heading with this blog, but I figured it would be a good place to write about the things that make me happy, thus my blog title "My Little Slice of Bliss" (which is also a play on where we live, as our address is Bliss Road!!). In my first post I mentioned that I love spending time with my family and that making things--all kinds of things, from sewing with fabric to preparing delicious food to creating art with paper to making memories with my family--truly makes me happy. And I thought those might be the kinds of things I'd write about on this blog, but I wasn't really positive at the time. Looking back over the past year, I notice that blogging about my adventures in papercrafting has been my most frequent topic, but there's been a nice smattering of reporting on my other sources of bliss, so I'd say that I was pretty much on target!

During this past year of blogging I've also re-discovered how happy writing can make me. Sure, it can be frustrating and time-consuming at times, but there's nothing quite like the feeling of accomplishment that comes from finally putting together just the right words in just the right order to say what I want to say. Writing is another creative medium, and being creative is what makes me tick.

I also can't tell you how happy it makes me to have met so many of you through my blog! I had no idea I'd find such a friendly and supportive community of like-minded crafty and blogging folks out there! Your comments, encouragement, and support truly make me happy, and I so enjoy having the opportunity to do the same for you. Thank you so very much for caring!
Now, let's celebrate! I have some BLOG CANDY I'd like to share to say thank you to all of you wonderful folks. I wish I had a little something to give to each of you, but that's just not feasible. So let's play a little party game to find a lucky winner!

First, here's what you'll be playing for:

a 6 x 6 petite paper pad (30 sheets total)
from the Sweetness collection by Pink Paislee

How to play? Just leave me a comment on this post using the word "BLISS" in some way, and you'll be entered in a random drawing for some Pink Paislee Sweetness. Only comments containing "bliss" will be considered for the drawing. So if you aren't interested in the blog candy but want to leave me a comment (you know, maybe wishing me a Happy Blogoversary???), go ahead and just avoid typing "bliss" like the plague!!

What's the catch? None, except let's keep this to one comment per person. You don't have to be a follower to play (although if you aren't and think you'd enjoy reading about my adventures, I'd love for you to become one. But there's no pressure!!). Comments/entries will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 10, 2011. I'll draw the winners on the 11th, and post them here on my blog. I'll try to contact the winners as well (I hate having to remember to check back for the winners after a contest, don't you?). If you don't have a blog (or don't post your email contact info on it), be sure to include your email address so I can reach you, 'K?

Oh, did you catch that I said "winnerS" in the paragraph just above? Well, I only have one Sweetness Petite Pad to give away, but I'll have a new Blogoversary party game--with a new blog candy prize--to debut on Wednesday, July 6, and on Friday, July 8. So if today's Pink Paislee prize just isn't your thing, check back for something completely different on those days. You can enter any and all of the drawings--that's fine with me!!

OK, any questions?? Just drop me a line!!

Thanks for stopping by on my Blogoversary!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Paper: Cherry Slush CS by Mark’s Finest Papers, white CS by The Paper Company, star DP from Target Dollar Spot
Stamps: Thank You Noteblock by Purple Onion Designs
Ink: Ranger Antique Linen distress ink, Versamark
Accessories: red embossing powder, metallic star brad, SU circle punch, SU large star punch, Fiskars medium star punch, small star punch (unknown)
Techniques: ink distressing, embossing