You're #1, Dad!

Just posting a card that I made weeks ago for the current (and about-to-end) Power Poppy Challenge: Pencil Me In (to use colored pencils as your coloring medium). I kept forgetting to post this so I could link it up! But, finally, here it is:

Before investing in my Copic markers, I used colored pencils with blending stumps and gamsol all the time. I was happy to pull them out to play with again, but was completely sad when I found that all of my gamsol had dried up in the meantime!!! So, no blending on this card, just very elementary-school-style coloring with pencils. But I had fun and loved the way it turned out. I used Power Poppy stamps from the Play Ball stamp set.

Gotta run--I need to go get this linked up before time runs out!

Thanks for stopping by,
Emily

Embossed Elements: Father's Day + a Giveaway

Greetings, friends! I'm here today with the May edition of my monthly Embossed Elements feature on the DeNami Design blog. Today I'm preparing for Father's Day with a pair of cards featuring the very cool Diamond Plate Embossing Folder from the DeNami store. It's perfect for those sometimes hard-to-create masculine cards!

My first card is a clean and simple one for Dad's Day. It uses just two DeNami stamps (Dad and Solid Block Border), two colors of ink (Habanero and Deep Lagoon), and two colors of cardstock. I used the Diamond Plate EF to emboss punched squares of cardstock. I love the bold, graphic look of this design. So easy to put together, too!

My second card is a little more involved, but really not too much more. And oddly enough, it has basically the same sketch as the first one! That was totally unplanned, but there you have it ;). For this one I used the Diamond Plate EF to emboss a panel of vellum as a background for my card. I diecut a few gear shapes (perfect for a guy card, right?) that go with that diamond plate background perfectly. Once again I used just two DeNami stamps in my design (Happy Father's Day and Stitched Rectangle) and two ink colors (Satin Red and Onyx Black). This design is perfect for any mechanically inclined dads!!

Thanks for taking a peek at my embossed Father's Day cards today. Be sure to take a peek below at my giveaway!

How would you like the chance to win this Diamond Plate Embossing Folder? I have one up for grabs in an Embossed Elements giveaway! Want to be in the running? Just leave me a comment on this post using the word "GUYS." There's no need to be a follower of my blog to enter, but if you are a follower (or become a new follower!), you can have a second entry in the drawing--just leave me a second comment telling me that you are a follower and how you follow. :)

I'll leave commenting open until 11:59 p.m. EST on Wednesday, May 28, 2014, and will draw one commenter at random. The winner will be announced right here on my blog on Thursday, May 29, and if I'm able to find an email address, I'll be sure to contact the winner as well.

Thanks for joining me today!
Emily

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello and Happy Valentine's Day! I'd really hoped to write up this post yesterday (at the latest) and schedule it to go live much earlier today, but between having a husband home sick for two days this week and another Nor'easter winter storm that cancelled school yesterday, I didn't have much alone time to finish my top-secret Valentine's Day projects or get them photographed for a blog post. So, finally, everything is pretty much back to normal at my house, and I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on some Valentines and gifts for my family. It will be fun to surprise everyone at suppertime tonight!

I know that some folks pan Valentine's Day as an overly romantic, Hallmark-fueled holiday, but I really and truly love it! It gives me an event-kind-of-something to look forward to in the otherwise dreary, cold, and frozen month of February. The pretty colors (reds! pinks! lavenders!) are such bright spots in the colorless winter landscape, and the fun shapes/motifs (hearts! cupids! doilies! arrows!) and loving sentiments are true pick-me-ups. And how can you go wrong with a holiday that is rooted largely in chocolate? I say bring it on!!

I love giving Valentines! I give them to my husband and kids, but also send them to my parents, sister's family, in-laws, aunts and uncles, and friends all over the country. For me, Valentines are just such a fun way of sending a little love and letting the folks I care about know that I've been thinking of them. I spent a large chunk of my day on Monday getting my Valentines ready to mail: signing, stuffing and sealing envelopes, addressing, weighing and attaching proper postage, and then heading off to the post office to get them in the mail system before the end of the day. My fingers are crossed that everything will be delivered in time! Yes, it is a labor of love, but it makes me feel good, and I hope that a little something that I took the time to make and send will brighten the day of those I care about.

Over the years I've collected a number of small empty heart-shaped candy boxes, and I decided that instead of buying treats to give for Valentine's Day, I'd upcycle a few of my heart-shaped boxes and fill them with some homemade chocolate candies. Here are the boxes I decorated:

For my dad:

From DeNami Design: Dad stamp, Elegant Oval Frame stamp, heart from Whimsical Valentine stamp set, Chevron embossing folder, and Black Chevron washi tape

What's inside? Some hand-dipped Dark Chocolate Vanilla Creams!

I based these on this recipe from Land O Lakes.

For my mom:

From DeNami Design: Small Valentines Script stamp, Solid Rose Accents stamp set, and Red Heart Lace washi tape.

Wanna peek at what she'll be biting into? Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls!

I based these on this recipe from Parents Magazine (February 2011).

I have a punch art penguin-themed box for my hubby:
 

From DeNami Design: Square Word Bubble stamp, Love Sentiments stamp set, and heart from Whimsical Valentine stamp set.

a punch art owl-themed box for my 15YO daughter (to go with this card for her):

From DeNami Design: Square Word Bubble stamp

and a Despicable Me minion-themed box for my 11YO son:

The patterned paper is from Target's One Spot, and I printed the sentiment with my computer.

to go with the minion Valentine I made for him (I was inspired by this minion Valentine):

From DeNami Design: Small Valentines Script stamp, Love Sentiments stamp set, Small Heart Outline stamp, Small Scallop Heart stamp, chevron border from Modern Borders Set, and two white Boutique Buttons.

I can't wait to see everyone's reactions!!

Thanks for bearing with me through this long and photo-heavy post :D! I hope that you have a lovely day today.

Happy Valentine's Day!
Emily

Secret to a Long Life

My brother-in-law's birthday is coming up fast, and I realized today that I didn't really have anything in my birthday card stash that would be suitable for him. I figure that humorous cards are always in style for guys, so I decided to take that route with the BIL's card. Here's how that went:

The inside of the card holds the punch line:

I'm playing along with the Paper Smooches SPARKS Picture Perfect Challenge, which is to be inspired by this photo:

There was so much to be inspired by! The colors, the blocking, the textures, the vertical elements, even the "text block" on top of the cake!

Of course, I used stamps from Paper Smooches for my card! The owl comes from the My Peeps set, and the party hat elements come from the Party Posse set. I printed the speech bubble and sentiments using MS Word on my computer. The font is called CK Buddies. I had fun adding texture to my design with two different "masculine-ish" embossing folders from DeNami Design: Thin Lines and Checkered.


I'm also playing along with the new challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. This week the challenge is to "Emboss It." Done and done!

Thanks for the great challenges, SPARKS and Simon Says!!


And thanks for dropping by, my friends!
Emily

DeNami Design Happy Monsters Sneak Peeks

Welcome to Day 3 of the DeNami Design Spring/Summer 2014 Release Sneak Peeks!! Today DeNami DT Member Tammy Hobbs and I are giving you sneak peeks of brand-new DeNami stamps about to be released on January 10!! Today's sneak peeks are in a brand-new category of DeNami stamps: it's the HAPPY MONSTERS! Be sure to read all the way to the end of this post for details on a great giveaway :D.

These little monsters definitely aren't the spooky kind {wink}. Let's see what kinds of projects you can make with them:

1) My first project is a Father's Day card! I used two cute little happy monsters from two new stamps, E173 Happy Monster w/Balloons and N146 Happy Monster Party. I stamped and fussy cut a large monster from the Happy Monster Party (leaving off his party hat). I also fussy cut the smaller monster, leaving off his party hat and balloon so the daddy monster and kid monster could hold hands! I also used the DeNami Happy Father's Day sentiment, Tuxedo Black Memento ink, Teal Chevron Washi Tape, and one of the new Chevron Embossing folders carried in the DeNami store.

2) My second project is a perfect card for saying hello to a far-off friend! It features the new I69 Happy Monsters in Car stamp, as well as the new E175 Balloon Trio. My card design was perfect for pairing up with the Sending You Smiles sentiment. And doesn't the Cloudy Sky embossing folder make a great background for my road-trip scene?

3) And finally, for my third project, I turned the new N146 Happy Monster Party stamp into a Valentine's Day card! I also used the brand-new F240 You Make Me Feel sentiment and some hearts from the Whimsical Valentine stamp set. Isn't it perfect? And so is the Layered Hearts embossing folder that I used as my on-theme background.

Are you still with me? I mentioned a giveaway way back at the beginning of this post. DeNami is giving away multiple gift certificates today, so be sure to leave a comment here on my post and then check out the DeNami blog for all of the different ways you can win today. :)

I'm so glad that you dropped in to check out some of the new Happy Monster stamps in the DeNami Design Spring/Summer Release! Be sure to tune into the DeNami blog tomorrow for giveaway winners and release full reveal.

Until then, have a day filled with bliss,
Emily 

How to survive those college football bowl games . . .

My brother-in-law is one difficult guy to shop for. So this year instead of shopping for him, I decided to craft instead and came up with the idea of putting together a College Bowl Game Survival Kit.

I gathered up some of this favorite snacks (a big bag of Skittles and some smaller bags of barbecue and salt & vinegar potato chips) and packaged them in an upcycled acrylic box that formerly housed a pound of fancy salad greens.

Decorating the kit's lid was super easy with some fun sports-themed stamps from DeNami Design. I used stamps from both the Sports Balls stamp set and the All-Star Greetings stamp set. The stitched letters are digital elements from Design by Dani's I Like Love You digital kit, and that fun font that I used on the label is a Creating Keepsakes font called CK Sports Football. Perfect for this project! And I just happened to have that gridiron patterned paper in my stash.

I completed the collection of bowl-game goodies with a score card pad I designed myself in MS Word and printed out, four to a sheet. Then I simply cut the score cards into quarter sheets and bound them together into a rip-off pad with some PVA bookbinding glue. Now he'll have a way to keep up with all the scoring action with each college bowl game he watches!

Well, whether you are planning to spend your day firmly planted in front of a TV to catch your New Year's Day college bowl games or penning your new year's resolutions, I hope you have a fabulous day today!

Thanks for dropping by! Happy New Year!
Emily

Keen on Neon

Hello! It's been super busy here since Thanksgiving, and I've been away from my blog much more than I've wanted to be. One of the reasons for my busy-ness is that my son celebrated his 10th birthday over the weekend. We had a bunch of celebrating to do!! (And oh my goodness, where has the last 10 years gone? It seems like he was born just last week!) I'm also still struggling with some carpal tunnel issues, which become aggravated by all that pointing and clicking with the mouse. So many of you have been so sweet to come visit me here on my blog and it kills me not to be able to return the favor for right now. But I've got to get healed up first!! So please, bear with me. I'll try to get around to visit soon!!

Well, now that my son's birthday is over, he needs thank you cards to write notes for his birthday gifts. He has early-release days for parent-teacher conferences the rest of the week, so it's the perfect time for him to tackle his note-writing list! I wanted to make up a stack of fun note cards for him to use, so that was at the top of my list yesterday.

I haven't been able to play along with any of the challenges over at the Moxie Fab World in a very looooooooooooong time, but I was so very intrigued by Cath's latest challenge, Keen on Neon. I've seen a whole lotta neon out there in the world recently, and I thought it might be fun to see how to incorporate some in a card design. When I think of neon, the very first thing that comes to mind is highlighters!! Neon is always "in" where highlighters are concerned, and that's one of the very few neon items, crafting or otherwise, that we have in the house. I tried to think of how to keep the neons from overpowering a card design and decided that the best way to do that is to balance them out with a bunch of white space. Here's what I came up with.

Yes, I used a neon yellow highlighter to color in the chickie on this card! I also thought it would be fun to use the same neon yellow to highlight the punny part of the card ;). I used two rubber stamps from DeNami Design, Race Car Chickie and You're "Wheel" Nice, along with some markers and scored lines to make a simple flat design that will be super simple to mail.

My son loves how it turned out, and so do I! I ended up making a set of four duplicates. I'm also linking up to the Playing In Paradise challenge which has the theme of Mr. Masculine this week. I think these "wheel nice" cards I made for my son to use should qualify ;)!!

Well, I've gotta keep moving here or I'm not going to finish my to-do list for today. Thanks so much for stopping by to check out my little slice of bliss!!
Emily

Nautical Birthday

Popping in for a super-quick post here. It was a whirlwind day and I'd hoped to get this up earlier, but some days you hafta take what you can get!

I'm playing along with this week's Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge, FTTC195, which is to be inspired by this inspiration board:

I thought it was the perfect opportunity to add to my stash of masculine birthday cards with an ultra CAS card sporting lots of neutrals. I used stamps from A Guiding Light and Taglines from Flourishes and, really, not a whole lot else.

I hope you are gearing up for a great weekend. Thanks for checking out my little slice of bliss today!
Emily

Bazzill Beach House Giveaway

Happy Friday! Can you believe it's already November? I must admit that I've really let the time get away from me. Over the summer, Bazzill Basics Paper asked if I would like to try their new Beach House patterned paper collection and offered to send me two Beach House collection 6x6 pads, one for me to keep and use for myself and one to give away to one of my blog readers. Of course, I said I'd love to!! But the new papers arrived while I was away on our month-long vacation in August, and once we returned I was too overwhelmed to even crack open the new papers. But I'm finally caught up and was able to take time this week to play with them, and I loved what I saw!!

The 6x6 sheets in this mini pack are double-sided. There are a total of 12 different prints, with four sheets of each double-sided combo, for a total of 24 sheets in the pack. And guess what? These sheets are textured!! I LOVE that!! They have a lovely pebbly feel to them and add wonderfully subtle dimension to a card. I also love that the colors used in these patterned papers coordinate with the cardstock colors in Bazzill's Card Shoppe collection.

The prints in the Beach House collection are rather eclectic, I think. And that's a good thing!! They have a fun nautical feel to them, especially color-wise, but aren't overly beachy. There are some nice classics small-scale prints that would be perfect for paper-piecing, as well as some collage-type prints incorporating both ocean-life motifs (think whale, crab, coral, shells) and less obvious ones (such as bicycles, playing cards, cafe receipts, alphabet typography, manilla tags, vintage card game score sheets). I happened to use some sea shell stamps in the card I made with my Beach House papers, but you could easily use them with so many other themes!!

The card I made today is an anniversary card for my in-laws:

I used four different prints from the Beach House collection (House Tags, Weathered Wood, Receipt Dots, and Nautical Stripes), plus two coordinating cardstocks from the Card Shoppe collection: Whirlypop and Peanut Clusters. The shell images are stamps in the Beach Cottage Collection from Unity Stamp Co., and the sentiment is from another Unity set, It's All About Love.

 
My card design was inspired by one of the two sketches featured over at Chick Challenges with Ippity this week.

I'm also linking this up with my friend Jessi's challenge over at Playing in Paradise to make an anniversary project. 

OK, now for the fun part--the part you've all been waiting for: the GIVEAWAY!! Bazzill Basics sent not only a Beach House Collection 6x6 paper pack

but also a 56-sheet multipack of their Card Shoppe cardstock

to give away to one of my readers. Want a chance to win? All you need to do to be in the running is leave me a comment on this post using the word "OCEAN" before 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 8, 2012. I'll draw one "ocean"-using commenter at random to win  both the patterned paper and cardstock, then post the winner here on my blog on November 9. If I can find the winner's email address, I'll email her as well!

Questions? Feel free to ask! You don't need to be a follower of my blog to enter the giveaway, but I'd love it if you do become one!

A huge thanks goes to Bazzill Basics for letting me try out their amazing patterned papers and cardstocks! And thanks so much for dropping by.

May you find a little slice of bliss in your day today!
Emily

DeNami Sneak Peeks: CHICKIES

Welcome to Day 1 of the DeNami Design Fall/Winter Release Sneak Peeks!! Today DT Member Lisa Petrella and I are giving you sneak peeks of brand-new DeNami stamps about to be released in the always-fun CHICKIES category! Be sure to read all the way to the end of this post for details on a great giveaway :D.

If you are a DeNami chickie lover, you will positively swoon over the chick-tastic new release! There are new chickies for Halloween, new chickies for Christmas, and some fun new chickies for everyday. I had SO much fun with my new chickie stamps getting ready for this fall/winter release! It was hard to decide where to start, but in the end I went with some of the new everyday chickies. Are ready to see them? OK, fasten your seat belts--here we go!!

What could be more fun than a racing chickie?!? For my first card I used the brand-new Race Car Chickie (CL-G154) and Make Way! It's Your Day! (CL-F224) stamps. My hubby is a huge car fanatic, so this will be for his birthday in September. I know he'll love it! I stamped the race car on watercolor paper in black Versafine ink and heat embossed the image with clear embossing powder. Then I watercolor-painted this fun little guy and his wheels with dye inks.

Up next I played with the new Swinging Chickie (CL-D146) on a pair of clean and simple cards. I wanted to make the swing ropes ultra long for this card design, so I extended them with a ruler and an ultra-fine tipped Sharpie. I paper-pieced the chickies on white cardstock so I could color them with Prismacolor pencils.  So, why two nearly identical cards? Well, I couldn't decide which I liked better: underlining my design with some scored lines, or tying on some baker's twine. This card was so quick and easy to make, that I did it both ways!

So are you starting to think that these new chickie stamps are just like potato chips? (You know, because you can't stop after just one--one card, that is!). Well, what I did with the new Business Chickie (CL-C92) would certainly make you think so! This little guy is SO cute! He made me think of some kind of bureaucrat or government agent--of the cutest, fluffiest kind, of course--that might come 'round to "chick" up on you. :D

And there you have it--my chickie sneak peeks for the new release!



Congratulations for making it to the end of this looooooooooooooong post :). I mentioned a giveaway way back at the beginning, and here's what's up for grabs: 

Paulina is giving away TWO of these Chickie-themed prize packages today, one on the DeNami blog and one from today's featured blogs (that would be my blog here and Lisa Petrella's blog). The winners will be randomly selected from the comments left on the three blogs, so be sure to comment in all three places to maximize your chance of winning!


I'm so glad that you dropped in to check out some of the new chickie stamps in the DeNami Design Fall/Winter Release! Be sure to tune into the DeNami blog tomorrow for more sneak peeks and another giveaway.


Have a day filled with bliss!
Emily


Race Car Chickie card:
Stamps: Race Car Chickie, Make Way It's Your Day, Steam Curl, Stitched Rectangle, Holiday stamp set--all from DeNami Design
Paper: Canson watercolor paper, patterned paper from BasicGrey's Wander collection
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Versafine Vintage Sepia, Versafine Crimson Red, various dye inks for watercolor painting
Accessories: sewing machine, foam tape
Techniques: watercolor painting, machine stitching


Swinging Chickie cards:
Stamps: Swinging Chickie, Hang In There--from DeNami Design
Paper: DeNami Iridescent Aquamarine cardstock, white cardstock from PTI
Ink: Noir Black Palette
Accessories: ruler, ultra-fine tip Sharpie, scoring board, Prismacolor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, paper blending stumps, baker's twine from DeNami's Summer Twine 3-pk
Techniques: scoring, Gamsol Magic


Business Chickie card #1:
Stamps: Business Chickie, Just Chickin' Up On You--from DeNami Design
Paper: DeNami Lime cardstock, patterned paper from BasicGrey's Green at Heart collection, white cardstock from PTI
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Noir Black Palette
Accessories: sewing machine, scalloped border punch, Prismacolor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, paper blending stumps
Techniques: Gamsol Magic, machine stitching

Business Chickie cards #2 and #3:
Stamps: Business Chickie, Just Chickin' Up On You, Retro Borders 1 Set (cling)--from DeNami Design
Paper: white cardstock from PTI
Ink: Versafine Deep Lagoon, Versafine Crimson Red, Noir Black Palette
Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, paper blending stumps
Techniques: Gamsol Magic

Neckties for Dad on FWF day

Are you here for Friends With Flair? I'm so glad you stopped by!

The kids and I are gearing up to celebrate Dad on Sunday. They have plans to make him a pitcher of hand-squeezed lemonade, and we'll end one of his favorite home-cooked meals with a layer cake for him. I thought it would be fun to make a trio of cake toppers so the kids can decorate it up a little bit:

Go ahead and click on the photo for a better, up-close view!

These would also be fun decorations on cupcakes!

I used a bunch of {ippity} stamps: sentiments from The Best, ties from Authentic Man, background from A Bit of Burlap. I upcycled some natural tissue paper from somewhere to make pleated medallion backing for each topper. Otherwise these are pretty straightforward!

Don't forget to see the list of all of today's FWF participants over on the Unity blog. I'm also linking this up to a couple of Father's Day challenges: Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge #173 and Papercraft Star's Challenge #101.

Thanks for checking out today's little slice of bliss!

Emily

Stamps: The Best, Authentic Man, A Bit of Burlap from {ippity} by Unity

Paper: Wild Wasabi, So Saffron, Tangerine Tango, Marina Mist cardstock from Stampin' Up!

Ink: Vintage Sepia Versafine

Accessories: circle punches, tissue paper, craft sticks

Hip Card for Dad

Just a quick post to share the card I made for my hubby to send to his dad for Father's Day:

No stamps were harmed in the making of this card! All of the patterned paper and elements came from the digital Social Club collection by Cosmo Cricket. Even though I didn't use any stamps, I did use some ink to distress the edges :).

I made this card for Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge #173, to make a Father's Day card. I would have used Flourishes stamps for it if I could--but I don't own any masculine Flourishes stamps! I'm also entering this in Papercraft Star's Challenge #101, Father's Day.

Thanks for dropping in!

Emily

Paper: Whisper White CS Stampin’ Up!, natural CS; Digital elements: Swingin’ digital paper; letters, hat, sunglasses digital elements from Social Club collection by Cosmo Cricket

Ink: Tea Dye Distress by Ranger Industries

Accessories: circle punch, sewing machine

DeNami Cards for Guys Blog Hop

Welcome to the DeNami Design Cards for Guys Blog Hop! Today the DeNami Design Team and customers alike are showcasing some of those often-hard-to-create masculine cards made with DeNami stamps.

 
Hopefully, you've arrived here by way of Stacy M.'s blog, Sweethearts & Sweet Tarts. If so, you are on the right track! If not, you'll want to head over to the DeNami blog to start the blog hop at the beginning. (And remember, if you get lost along the way, you can always head over to the DeNami blog to get pointed in the right direction.)

Don't forget, there are delightful DeNami prizes to be won! Two luckies will be drawn at random from among the comments left along the blog hop to win a $20 DeNami Design gift certificate! You have until Monday, June 11, 2012, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible for a prize. 

Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes when I'm not sure how to approach a card for a guy, I just go with humor! Guys are always up for a laugh, right? And I'm sure most would take something funny over something mushy any day. So for my card for a guy today, I paired this punny You're a Hoot! stamp with the bespectacled owl from the Owls Petit Four stamp set. 

 
I chose some My Mind's Eye patterned paper in guy-ish colors to stitch down for the background of my card. I stamped the owl in Versafine Vintage Sepia ink on watercolor paper and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. Then I watercolor painted that fun little owl with various dye inks to match the colors of the patterned paper. 

DeNami Design has a fabulous assortment of boy and masculine-themed stamps. Not familiar with them? Be sure to click HERE to see the entire collection!

Well, I'm sure you can't wait to see more guy-card inspiration! Before you leave, be sure to leave a comment to be eligible for the randomly drawn prizes and then you can be on your way to the next stop on the hop, the very sweet DeNami addict, Tina Milbourn, at her blog, A Timeless Treasure.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Enjoy the blog hop,

Emily

Stamps: You're a Hoot, Owls stamp set by DeNami Design
Paper: white byPapertrey Ink; Mudpie by Bazzill Basics; Baja Breeze by Stampin’ Up!; bubbles patterned paper from Fine and Dandy Boy collection by My Mind’s Eye; watercolor paper by Canson
Ink: Antique Linen distress ink by Ranger Industries; Baja Breeze, So Saffron, and Pumpkin Pie by Stampin’ Up!; Versafine Vintage Sepia by Tsukineko
Accessories: clear embossing powder by DeNami Design; brown buttons from my stash; brown burlap string by May Arts; wonky rectangles dies by Spellbinders
Techniques: machine stitching, heat embossing, watercolor painting

Super-Star Dad

It's time for another DeNami Product Spotlight! This week we are focusing on the new cling-style Happy Father's Day sentiment to celebrate super-star dads:

 

And because all of the dads I know couldn't get along without their computers, I just had to feature the new cling-style Computer Chickie, too. Isn't he the sweetest? I colored him with my Prismacolor pencils using the blending technique I showed in my last tutorial for DeNami. Because my design is so star-studded, I also absolutely had to use the DeNami Teeny Star Background for both my Desert Orange panel and Leaf Green card base. A few star punches and star rhinestones were all I needed to round out my design!

 Because that awesome Happy Father's Day sentiment (isn't the font fantastic?) is our Product Spotlight this week, it's on sale for 10% off. Be sure to drop by the DeNami Design store in the next week so you don't lose out on the savings--just add it to your cart to get the discounted price. No coupon code required!

Don't forget to drop by the DeNami Design blog today to see how the rest of the DeNami design team used this fabulous Father's Day stamp! I know you'll get some awesome masculine-card inspiration. :)

Thanks for stopping by to check out my little slice of bliss for today!

Emily

Growing In Unity ~ Day 1: It's All About YOU

Happy Monday! I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I posted here on my blog last. I feel like I've been incredibly busy recently, but sitting here thinking things through, I can't quite figure out what exactly has been taking up so much of my time. All I know is that I've been away from my computer quite a lot! But, no matter. Now I'm making up for lost time, posting every day this week as the Growing In Unity gal. Each day I'll be sharing a brand-new creation featuring Unity and/or {ippity} stamps, and you, my dear readers, may comment for a chance to win some brand-new Unity rubber! At the end of the week, I'll be drawing a winner at random from the comments left on my GIU posts from Monday through Friday--feel free to comment each day. The winner gets to pick two Unity Itty Bitty stamps. Check out the vast selection here.

OK, now that we've covered the GIU week details, let's move on to today's card!

Ta-da! It's a window card :). Perfect for a guy, right? But fine for a gal, too. I'm envisioning this as a birthday card, with an inside message that reads "Happy Birthday to you," where the "you" is the same one that shows through the window. Squeal! My day was complete when I thought up that one :D. (And the window makes this card perfect for the March Unity Challenge, to make a card with an opening/flap/window of some sort.)

Here are the Unity stamps that inked their way into the spotlight on this card: {ippity} A Bit of Burlap background, All About Today (thanks, Glenda!!), and some random stamps ("you" on the inside and the ornamental flower bit there, too) from a Unity grab bag.

And now I have a little confession to make. As I brainstormed card ideas to showcase for my GIU week, I realized that I've been neglecting my beloved patterned papers over the past few months. For shame! And even more so because I've collected several lovely mini pads from My Mind's Eye recently, and most have sat untouched on my shelf. To rectify that situation, I've challenged myself to not only use patterned papers for each of my GIU creations this week, but to also use a different collection each day. Today's card features the My Mind's Eye Fine and Dandy--True Blue 6x6 paper pad (which may be hard to find online but can still be found in brick & mortar A.C. Moore stores). Stay tuned for more fun patterned papers as my GIU week progresses!!

Playing with my stamps, inks, and papers again sure has made me happy! Thanks for dropping by to check out my latest creation.
See you tomorrow!
Emily