Happy Halloween

It has been months since I've been inspired to write a blog post here on My Little Slice of Bliss. Rest assured, all is well here in my little corner of the world--I've just been so busy with work and family that papercrafting and blogging have taken a definite back seat. Autumn has been a whirlwind, and here we are on the last day of October already. Happy Halloween!

My kids are in 6th grade and 10th grade this year. My sixth grader is excited to go trick-or-treating tonight. After masquerading as an Apple iPhone for the past two years, we decided it was time for a new costume for him. I picked up an awesome hand-crocheted beard from Etsy, and we put together a great lumberjack costume for him from items we already had around the house: hiking boots, jeans, one of Dad's old plaid flannel shirts, an ear flap cap, and a non-lethal axe we constructed from cardboard, a paper tube, and aluminum foil. At least he'll be cozy and warm tonight! Sorry, no photos yet!!


Last year my daughter decided that as a high school freshman, she was too old for trick-or-treating. She's opting to stay in again this year to hand out treats to the visiting neighborhood goblins. Because that means she'll miss out on all that yummy loot (and little brother might not be in the mood to share), I put together a little Halloween treat for her, which I'll share once her lil' bro heads out to haunt tonight. The gift bag is a pattern from DeNami Design, and it's the perfect size for two Reese's Pumpkins. Love those!

And speaking of my daughter, she got crafty yesterday and used my DeNami stamps (and my patterned paper and dies . . .) to decorate packets of hot cocoa mix to hand out to our trick-or-treaters tonight. Aren't these adorable? I think she did an awesome job :D.

Well, I hope that you and yours have a fun Halloween. Thanks for dropping by!

Happy Haunting!
Emily

Hope you had a Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter here at our house! It was a quiet one (just the four of us), but the weather was beautiful, Easter worship at our church was lovely, and we enjoyed some time together just hanging out. I wanted to share a few photos of our day.

We started with a light Easter breakfast before church. I thought we'd be crunched for time, so we decided to delay Easter baskets and egg hunt until after church. To help ease the "sting" of having to wait, I set a "fancy" breakfast table with pretty paper Easter napkins and my pretty apple blossom glass plates, with a fun strawberry-patterned cake stand elevating our triple berry muffins. That's a bowl of cut fresh pineapple in the foreground and a bowl of colored hard-boiled eggs at the far end of the table.

My daughter's extensive collection of handmade pompom chickies served as our festive centerpiece.

Here's a peek at my daughter's Easter basket, complete with handmade {by me} Easter cookie pops. I was tired of going the store-bought route for Easter treats!

The white bunny head pops are double-stuffed chocolate sandwich cookies {I'd say "Oreos" except they aren't; I went with the more economical store brand ;) } dipped in melted vanilla-flavored white candy melts. I cut pink jelly beans in half for the noses and used some leftover chocolate frosting to pipe tiny eyes. I made the ears from large marshmallows, snipped on an angle and dipped in pink decorating sugar. I made the ears in advance so I could press them into the bunny pops before the white coating set up. I'd seen several different versions of bunny Oreo pops on various blogs and combined the aspects of each that I liked best to create these. They were so much fun to make!

Can you tell that the darker cookie pops are supposed to be the hind ends of bunnies? (Or "Oh, look--bunny butts!" as my daughter put it!!) For these, I dipped Girl Scout Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies in milk chocolate candy melts. The bunny tails and feet are miniature marshmallows (for the feet I snipped a marshmallow in half and pinched the top to form a more longish jack-rabbit's foot shape). For the fluffy tails, I actually snipped off the tops of the marshmallows and dipped the sticky end in white sugar, but it is way too fine to actually see. I tinted a tiny bit of frosting pink and piped on pink paw pads. I came across the idea for decorating these on Pinterest, but the chocolate-dipped peanut butter sandwich cookie idea was all mine. And it's delicious!!!

That's it for my Easter photos. Thanks for indulging me! I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Thanks for dropping by for a little slice of bliss with me today! I'll be back on Wednesday with a DeNami Product Spotlight. Can't wait to show you!
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

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

My Sweet Friend + a WINNER!

Hello and Happy Friday to you! I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas with your families. We certainly did, and now we're having a lovely time just being home together. That's the best!

I have a little DeNami project to share with you today. This was part of one of the last gifts I put together this year. It was for a dear friend of mine whom I was thrilled to see for a while on Christmas Eve.

Now, here's the story:  my husband and I both grew up in Ohio, the Buckeye State. We both remember our families making these partially chocolate-dipped peanut butter candies at Christmas time when we were growing up. They are called Buckeyes for their resemblance to the nut of the Ohio Buckeye tree (the state tree of Ohio, of course!). Here's a photo for comparison:

Can you kind of see the resemblance?

Anyway, a few years ago my friend discovered a boxed candy mix from Betty Crocker for Peanut Butter BonBons. She bought the mix to make up for a party we were both attending, and the entire platter disappeared within 10 minutes!! When I gave one to my husband to try, he remarked about how similar the Betty Crocker BonBons were to the Buckeyes we ate as kids.

I made up a big batch of Buckeyes this year as a surprise treat for my family on Christmas Day, and as I was packing them up to keep them out of sight, I remembered how much my friend had liked the BC BonBons. So I whipped up a special little box to package a quartet of Buckeyes to include in her present. I really hope she was surprised and pleased (and "got" the connection!!)

I decorated a DeNami 3x3 Boutique Box using Staz-On inks (Jet Black and Cotton White) to stamp on a Leafy Vine Wreath and an Arched Sweet Friend sentiment. I glued on a few red sequins to decorate my wreath and sealed up the box with some White/Red Dots washi tape. So quick and cute!

And now it's time to announce the winner of my washi tape giveaway! I used Random.org to select a winner. It was lucky number 18, which was

 Sue D! 

Congratulations, Sue! I've emailed you.

Well, thanks so much for dropping by today. Enjoy your last weekend of 2013!!

Hope your day is filled with 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.

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.

**********

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!

**********

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

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

Ways With Washi: BANNERS + a Giveaway

Hello and happy first Monday of summer to you, DeNami Friends! It's Emily here today with my June edition of Ways With Washi! Today we are going to take a look at making banners, flags, and pennants from washi tape as a fun accent for cards and other projects. And since America's Independence Day, July 4th, is just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to take a patriotic approach to today's samples.

For my first project, I've made a pennant banner, or pennant bunting as some folks like to call it, from washi tape (Red Stripes and Blue/White Dots washi tapes from DeNami). This is so easy to make! Simply wrap strips of washi tape around a length of baker's twine, allowing it to adhere to itself. Then use scissors to clip the end of each piece into a traditional triangular pennant shape or a swallowtail shape. So festive!

DeNami Supplies: Patriotic Chickie, Celebrate Circle, Red Cardstock, White Cardstock, baker's twine, Tuxedo Black Memento ink, Majestic Blue Versafine ink

On my second card,  I've created long swallowtail banners from a variety of DeNami washi tapes (Blue Stripes, Red Graph,  Blue/White Dots, and Red Stripes). When making long banners like these, I like to adhere strips of washi tape to wax paper before clipping out the V-shaped swallowtails. It makes handling the sticky strips while cutting so much easier. Then simply peel off the wax paper backing and affix the newly cut banners to your project!

DeNami Supplies: God Bless America, Red Cardstock, White Cardstock, baker's twine, Tuxedo Black Memento ink

And finally for my last project for today, I used my trusty DeNami Red Stripes and Blue/White Dots washi tapes to make toothpick flags and pennants that would be perfect as cupcake toppers at an Independence Day barbecue. Or how about for holding together sandwiches or spearing fruit? And how cute would one of these little flags look decorating the garnish of a fruity 4th of July drink?

There are SO many ways to use washi tape to create fun banners, pennants, and flags! I hope that today's samples will give you a jumping-off point for your own projects.

GIVEAWAY

How would you like to win a roll of washi tape to try making some pennants and banners for yourself? I have a brand-new roll of Red Stripes Washi Tape from DeNami Design--the same tape that I used on each of today's projects--that I'd love to give away to a reader of this post. Want to be in the running? Just leave me a comment on this post using the word "CELEBRATE." 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, June 26, 2013, and will draw one commenter at random. The winner will be announced right here on my blog on Thursday, June 27, and if I'm able to find an email address (SEE BELOW!!!), I'll be sure to contact the winner as well.

I'm so glad you dropped by for a little slice of bliss today!
Emily

PS  Dear, dear readers: have you included a way to contact you by email on your Google Blogger profile page? If you don't have a blog of your own (where I could leave you a comment to alert you to your winnings) and haven't included an email contact on your profile page, I may not be able to contact you if you've won. Especially if you are a "No-Reply Blogger." Check HERE to find out if you are. Even though you enter your email address in order to leave a comment on my blog, Blogger will keep that private (in which case you become a "No-Reply Blogger") unless you've specifically chosen to share. You can read all about correcting this HERE. Of course, you can always just be sure to drop in here on my blog on winner day to find out if you've won ;) .

DeNami Fancy Favors Blog Hop

Hello and welcome, friends! I am so excited to be a part of today's DeNami Design blog hop! Today the DeNami Design team and DeNami Design customers are featuring awesome ideas for some fancy favors. Get ready for lots of amazing inspiration!

Hopefully, you've arrived here by way of Stacy M.'s blog, Sweethearts and 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 some amazing DeNami prizes to be won! Two lucky commenters 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, April 15, 2013, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible for a prize.

Now, how about taking a look at the favors I cooked up for today's hop?

I created these little treats--perfect for party favors or last-minute thank you gifts--using the fabulous downloadable DeNami Gift Bag template. So easy to use! The template fits on a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper or cardstock, so you can print it out directly on any colored or patterned paper--as many times as you'd like! Then you need only trim, score, adhere, and PRESTO! You've got an adorable little favor box. 

I prettied up my first fancy favor with stamps from the Solid Flower Accents cling stamp set, the Garden Accents Petit Four stamp set, and the Everyday Greetings stamp set. 

For this second favor box, I used these DeNami rubber stamps: Medium Thank You Circle, Medium Dot Circle Frame, and Cherry Blossom.

I hope you have collected tons of great ideas for making favors! I am the last stop on today's hop. Be sure to leave a comment before you go to be in a drawing for a Denami Design gift certificate.

Thanks for hopping along today!
Emily

Ways With Washi: Easter Eggs + a GIVEAWAY

Good morning, friends! Thanks for dropping by for my March edition of Ways With Washi for the DeNami Design blog. I'm tired of the drab, faded winter landscape and am craving some spring colors. So my theme today is Easter eggs. Let's see how you can add happy colors to your Easter eggs with washi tape!

I'm starting today with some good old-fashioned, hard-boiled Easter eggs!

Do you like to dye your Easter eggs? It's so easy to add colorful accents with washi tape to dress up solid-color eggs. For this first egg, I went with one of my favorite color combinations by dying the egg blue and adding big brown polka dots with washi tape! I simply adhered a strip of DeNami Brown/White Dots Washi Tape to wax paper and punched out dots with a 1/2-inch circle punch. Peel off the wax paper backing, affix the dots to the egg, and you have one perfectly stylish Easter egg. Done!

For my second egg, I adhered long strips of DeNami Pink Stripes Washi Tape and DeNami Purple Stripes Washi Tape to wax paper and trimmed each with scissors into narrow bands, two stripes wide. The stripes make perfect cutting guides! (Full-width washi tape tends to pucker when adhered to the highly curved egg surface, so you'll have better results with thin strips). Simply peel the narrow washi tape bands from the wax paper and affix to the egg, applying the stripes lengthwise from one end of the egg to the other. Add additional stripes until you are satisfied with the design.

Why is it that chevrons seem synonymous with Easter egg designs in my mind? It's so easy to add them with some DeNami Pink Chevron Washi Tape. I used my wax paper trick again to trim out two long chevrons from the washi tape before adhering them around the egg.

Prefer to go dye-free with your Easter eggs? I added lots of color to my white egg with flowers punched from DeNami's Yellow/White Dots, Pink Stripes, Purple Stripes, and Purple/White Dots washi tapes, then embellished with leaves punched from DeNami Green Graph Washi Tape.

Now, what if you'd rather go with candy-filled plastic eggs? Washi tape can add a fun splash of color to filled eggs AND serve the practical purpose of sealing the eggs shut--oh, so useful for protecting the delicious contents from accidental spills during boisterous egg hunts!

Using the washi tape's full width (shown on orange and pink eggs) is quick and provides full coverage for sealing but results in a slightly more puckered finish.

Trimming washi tape in half lengthwise before adhering to a plastic egg results in a relatively smooth finish but takes an extra step and provides less coverage for sealing purposes.

Just in case edible or treat-filled eggs aren't your thing, I've got one final washi tape idea for Easter eggs. How about decorating a paper egg? I decorated the egg on this card in a jiffy with four different DeNami washi tapes.

I traced an egg-shaped cookie cutter on cardstock and covered it with strips of washi tape. After cutting out the shape with scissors, it was ready to be adhered to this cheerful Easter card.

Whew! That was a long post, but I hope it gave you some usable ideas for dressing up your Easter eggs, in whatever form they may be, with a bit of colorful washi tape!!

GIVEAWAY

How would you like the chance to play around with some washi tape of your own? I have a brand-new roll of Pink Stripes Washi Tape from DeNami Design--the same tape that I used on several of today's projects--that I'd love to give away to a reader of this post. Want to be in the running? Just leave me a comment on this post using the word "HAPPY." 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, March 27, 2013, and will draw one commenter at random. The winner will be announced right here on my blog on Thursday, March 28, and if I'm able to find an email address, I'll be sure to contact the winner as well.

I'm so glad you dropped by for a little slice of bliss today!
Emily

Edited to add a few tips:

1. If you find it difficult to punch through washi tape layered over wax paper, try adding a layer of cardstock behind the wax paper while punching to add some rigidity.
2. If you find it difficult to peel the wax paper backing from your punched washi tape shapes, try flipping the shape over and lightly scoring the wax paper with the tip of sharp scissors.   
3. Then simply fold the shape along the scored line to "break" it open and peel the wax paper away from the center outward.