The little things that make me happy here on Bliss Road~~Emily Keaton

Friday, December 28, 2012

Beachy Season's Greetings

Greetings, Unity friends! For today's Friends With Flair, I'm sharing a beachy Christmas card I made for a dear friend. She, of course, has received it by now, so it's safe to trot it out.



I used Unity's Beach Cottage Collection and Ornamental Season Itty Bitty. I just had to add some texture with a torn strip of sand paper!

I'm linking up to:
My kids are home on Christmas Vacation until next Thursday, so I don't know how much I'll be around the ol' blog here. We are having fun playing and hanging out!

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas!


I thought I would do a little something different today. I'd like to share a poem that my daughter wrote for her eighth-grade English class last week. The assignment was to write a poem using a given list of 14 words (timber, marmalade, cranberry, hoax, perspire, giveaway, ocean, horse, decibel, passion, anticipate, sensible, undercover, microscopic) on either Christmas, Hanukkah, winter, gifts, or snow. A challenge to be sure. Here is her poem:

Walking with Friends to a Bonfire
*
Morning.
The frost is a dead
giveaway to the cold outside.
The hoax of winter:
the carpet of white looks
inviting, yet we pile on sensible
clothes to ward off
the chill. We walk with a
passion, anticipating our annual
tradition. A long
trek through an ocean of
white; this leads to a bonfire made
of fallen timbers.
Friends walk and talk,
collecting horse chestnuts that are
hiding, undercover,
in the snow. At last! The site
is reached! Decibel levels rise as the horse
chestnuts are roasted
over the logs. We perspire as the
flames, looking for all the world like orange
marmalade, dance around
the cranberry-red coals. When the
fire’s light begins to fade, we turn our toes toward
home. Microscopic lights twinkle
in the distance – how inviting they look! As
we return home, we are content and satisfied with our holiday tradition.
||||||||||

I hope that you, too, are content and satisfied with your holiday traditions. Merry Christmas!

Peace and goodwill to all,
Emily

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Glittery Snowflake Tag

I can't believe that Christmas is just two days away! I'm so glad that we wrapped up our preparations early this year because I've spent much of the the past two days fighting off a bug. My energy has been sapped, so I've been getting lots of rest. This afternoon I started feeling more normal. Hopefully I'll be all healthy again by Christmas!

The kids delivered the last of our gifts for our neighbors yesterday afternoon. This tag was attached to one of the gift bags.



I used two Lawn Fawn stamp sets to make this tag: Ornate Ornaments and Chevron Backdrops. That big sparkly snowflake is a package tie-on I bought on clearance after Christmas last year. Doesn't it make a super focal point?

I'm linking this up to:
We have a busy day ahead of us, so I've got to run. Wishing you the best with your holiday preparations!

Thanks for stopping by,
Emily

Friday, December 21, 2012

Christmas Treat Boxes

A few days ago I mailed off a trio of treats as a Christmas gift to my aunt and uncle.


Just click on the photo for a larger version

I dressed up three 1/2-pound treat boxes from Make'n Mold with some fun patterned paper from Graphic 45's Nutcracker Sweet collection. The treat labels are stamps from Unity's Home Baked stamp kit by Samantha Walker.

Want a peek at what I packed inside?


Homemade peanut clusters


Homemade peppermint bark


Homemade chocolate fudge

Mouth watering? Sorry 'bout that ;). I have a feeling that this will be a well-received gift :D.

Today I am linking up to:
Today is the last day of school in the calendar year for my kids. They can hardly wait to start celebrating!

Thanks so much for checking out my little slice of bliss today,
Emily 

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Joy to the World

Well, I'm in the home stretch now! The wrapping for my family is D-O-N-E. The packages that needed to be shipped have been. Our Christmas baking and candymaking? All accomplished. The last things I'm working on now are getting the teacher and neighbor gifts prepared. We've been so busy but have been having so much fun. Yesterday, however, I hit the wall. After weeks of high-energy preparations, I totally ran out of steam. I don't know if it was a bug or low blood sugar or what, but I took it as a sign to slow down a bit and rest. Hopefully today will be better.

Before I ran out of energy yesterday I worked on a tag to attach to a gift bag for one of our neighbors.



Those pretty trees and scripted sentiment come from the Greetings of Christmas stamp kit from Unity Stamp Co. Don't those trees look great heat-embossed in white? I went totally preppy with this tag, and love how that fun pink/green plaid washi tape completes the look.

Challenges:
I hope all is well in your corner of the world! Thanks so much for dropping by and keeping me company today.
Emily

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Happy Whooooo-lidays Treats

Yesterday I shared the owl gift sets that my 13YO daughter made as Christmas gifts for her friends. Today I'm sharing the Santa owl treat boxes (filled with holiday M&Ms--yum!!) that I made for her to give along with her owl gift sets. Ready?



I used the little girl owl from DeNami Designs' Owls stamp set and DeNami's Double Circle stamp. I "borrowed" the Santa hat from Santa Chickie ;) . The clear boxes also come from the DeNami Design store. The sentiment was computer-generated. I sealed the boxes with a little bit o' washi tape (taped all the way around the box) and dressed up the scalloped circle with a bit of glitter glue. Here's a close-up, you know--just in case ;).



I'm playing along in the new Lawnscaping Challenge, Make It Shine! My shine for this project comes from glittery Stickles.



I'm also entering these in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge, which has a "What's Your Favorite?" theme this week. I'd say that punches are my favorite tools--and I used a bunch (OK, well, three) to make these little treat boxes!

Thanks so much checking out my little slice of bliss today!
Emily

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Owl Gift Sets

My eighth-grader daughter is exchanging Christmas gifts with four friends at school this week. She wanted to get something cute, nice, and trendy for each friend. She'd spotted an adorable stuffed owl (trendy!) that she thought would be perfect, but at $5 each, she worried about the total tab: $20 was too rich for her blood. I suggested that perhaps she could make something cute, nice, useful, and trendy for each friend, reminding her that I had a nice selection of owl rubber stamps at home. We brainstormed about what exactly she could make with those stamps, and, after she invested $4 in supplies (a 4-pack of spiral-bound notebooks, a 4-pack of sticky note pads, and a 10-pack of wooden pencils), she ended up making four owl gift sets like this:


Each set includes a monogrammed notepad, an owl magnetic clip (perfect for her friends' lockers), two owl-topped pencils, and a decorated sticky-note pad. Yes, she stamped those sweet DeNami owls and "Owl Always Be Your Friend" sentiment on each and every sheet of all four pads:  50 sheets x 4 pads = 200 times! The large owl and owl-shaped punch are from Stampin' Up.

Here are all four gift sets, each with a different color scheme, ready for gift-giving in clear cellophane bags:


Isn't it wonderful what clever girls can do? (Thanks, Peter Pan!) I'm so proud of my daughter for using her resources wisely and putting a piece of herself into these sweet gifts for her friends. I can't wait to hear what they think of their gifts!!

We are entering these in the Simon Says Stamp Challenge, which has a "What's Your Favorite?" theme this week. We'd say that punches are our favorite tools--this owl punch made it so easy for my daughter to put these gift sets together!

Thanks for stopping by today!
Emily

Saturday, December 15, 2012

More Holiday Thank Yous

I'm still working on my stockpile of thank-you notes for my family to use after the holidays. I love how these turned out!


Aren't these stamp images elegant? I just love them! Both are from DeNami Design: Berry Vine and Thank You Script.

I used the colors from the latest Play Date Cafe Challenge #161, using red berries with a pink border on one and pink berries with a red border on the other:


I'm also playing along with CASology. The cue card this week is "Gift." I figured that my card is the perfect response to a gift!! ;)

Thanks for dropping by!
Emily

Friday, December 14, 2012

Gift Thank Yous

I'm trying to add to my stash of thank-you cards for my family to use after the holidays. We'll need relatively flat designs (i.e., easy to mail), so I took a clean and simple approach for this design.


I used some super versatile stamps from DeNami Design: Small Solid Square, Small Solid Rectangle, and Ribbon Topper. Perfect for build-your-own presents! You can also find the inks and cardstock I used in the DeNami store: Satin Red Versafine ink, Olympia Green Versafine ink, Lime Versacolor ink, and Sage cardstock.

I was inspired by a few challenges:
What a bunch of great challenges!

Have you got any good plans for the weekend? I'm taking the kids Christmas shopping for their dad after school today. Tomorrow it will be his turn to take them Christmas shopping for me ;). We're also hoping to do a lot of cookie baking and candy making! Tomorrow morning we're helping sort food donations at church. All during November folks have been contributing non-perishable ingredients for a Christmas feast. On Sunday during the Sunday School hour, families will work together to assemble 50 Christmas food baskets from the donations to deliver to the local food pantry. The food donations have been collecting around the altar for weeks now, so our job tomorrow is to help carry everything into the fellowship hall where the assembly will take place and sort and stack it to streamline the basket assembly on Sunday. It's always fun (and amazing how quickly the work goes when folks work together!) and you just can't beat the feeling you get after helping with something like that. Our kids always want to be involved!

Thanks for taking a peek at what made me happy today!
Emily

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Turn Your Face to the Sun

Yesterday was such a hectic day for me. I spent most of the day running errands (that I thought I could wrap up before lunch--HA!), and then our evening was rushed so we could attend our daughter's middle school holiday concert (thoroughly enjoyable--she really shone!). But all of yesterday's busy-ness left me in need of some quiet time for myself today. Here's what I did with my bit of "me" time:




I made this card for Flourishes' Let's Hop Progressive Challenge, which requires 8 components:
  1. NOT an A2 size (my card is 5" x 7")
  2. Use some type of floral (mine is this beautiful hollyhocks image from the Flourishes Hollyhocks stamp set)
  3. Add ribbon or lace (mine is from May Arts)
  4. Be inspired by this beautiful photo (I drew my colors from it)
  5. Add a tag (used it for my sentiment, which comes from the Flourishes Sunflowers stamp set)
  6. Add a rounded corner (check!)
  7. Add ink distressing or sponging (which I did around my sentiment tag, main focal panel, and card base edges)
  8. Use a die cut or punch somewhere (I used medium and large tag punches)
This is was such a fun challenge, and putting my card together was so relaxing. Just what I needed today! Now it's time for me to head out to do my weekly grocery shopping, so that's all for now.

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

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Pining Away for Christmas

Welcome! This morning I have a wintery Christmas card to share.


It features the latest DeNami Product Spotlight stamp, the Medium Pine.


Isn't that an elegant pine tree stamp? For more ideas on how to use it, be sure to visit the DeNami blog today where the entire design team is sharing some awesome piney inspiration. This stamp is on sale in the DeNami store this week, too!!

To create this card, I stamped the Medium Pine three times without re-inking and layered a glitter-edged "snow" panel on top. The gold star at the top of the tree and the snowflakes come from the Petit Four Holiday stamp set, and that pretty hand-scripted sentiment is the Whimsical Merry Christmas stamp. Additional goodies from the DeNami store that I used on this card:  Sage cardstock, Red cardstock, Satin Red Versafine ink, Olympia Green Versafine ink, red Boutique Button, red/white twine from the Classic Twine 3-pack, and the EK Success Dotted Scallop border punch.

Thanks for sharing a little slice of paper bliss with me today!
Emily

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Non-Traditional Holiday Colors

Just a quick post to share a card I made for the new Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge, to make a holiday card with non-traditional festive colors.


I used icy blue, pink, and brown. The stamps are from two retired Flourishes stamp sets, All that Glitters and O Christmas Tree.

I'd love to stay and chat a bit, but I developed a splitting headache a few minutes ago and all I can think of now is going to lie down. I'm so sorry!

Thanks for dropping in,
Emily

Sunday, December 9, 2012

DeNami Pretty Packaging Blog Hop

Good morning and welcome to the DeNami Design Pretty Packaging Blog Hop! Today the DeNami Design Team and customers alike are using DeNami rubber stamps to make all kinds of packaging. Hop along with us for all kinds of packaging inspiration!



Hopefully, you've arrived here by way of Tammy Hobbs's blog, Creating Somewhere Under the Sun. 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, December 10, 2012, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible for a prize.

I always have a long list of Christmas gifts to give in December. My family likes to remember the kids' school teachers and Sunday School teachers, as well as our neighbors, with a small gift to let these folks know how much we appreciate them. We often whip up some homemade goodies or make up treat bags from treats purchased from our resident scouts, and when we do, we need some pretty--homemade!--packaging to dress these up. This year our gifts will be presented in some cute cranberry and kraft gingham gift bags I scored in a JoAnn Fabrics post-holiday clearance sale last January. All I needed were some classy gift tags to tie on the bags, and we would be all set! Here are the tags I came up with:








I used a fun collection of Christmas chickie stamps (Angel Chickie, Santa Chickie, Elf Chickie (Cling), and Reindeer Chickie (Cling)) along with some fantastic DeNami design elements (Merry Christmas Circle, Medium Double Circle, Polka Dot Background, and Season's Tweetings) to make my tags. These were so much fun to create!

That's it for me! Before you leave for more pretty packaging inspiration, 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 blog of the very sweet and talented Kristy Smith, Kristy's Crafts. 

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

PS I'm playing along with the Playing in Paradise Challenge this week. The theme is Winter Birds!!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

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

Monday, December 3, 2012

Time to Celebrate!

Hello and thanks for stopping by! A new challenge is starting up over on the DeNami Design blog today, and this one is all about Celebrations!



I chose BIRTHDAYS as my event to celebrate with this challenge! Here's a peek at what I made:



I used a bunch of fun DeNami Design rubber stamps: Birthday Celebration 1 Set, Happy Birthday Script (Cling), Small Solid Circle, Small Stitched Circle, and Small Dot Circle Frame. All of my inks are available from DeNami as well! I used Spring Pansy Versamagic, Sea Breeze Versamagic, Aloe Vera Versamagic, and my very favorite black ink, Onyx Black Versafine. And how about some pretty DeNami cardstock (Celery, Lavender, and Sky Blue) and Robin's Egg Blue Rhinestones, to boot?

Love, love, LOVE these great DeNami circle stamps! I love how the different sizes nest so nicely, framing small images so you can really draw attention to them. You'll be seeing lots more DeNami circle stamps from me in the future!

I hope you'll play along with this month's Celebrations challenge! All you need to do is use at least one DeNami Design rubber stamp and make a project for ANY celebration you choose. If you do, you'll be in the running for a $20 shopping spree at the DeNami Design store! How fun is that?

Be sure to swing by the DeNami blog today to see all the other great Celebrations inspiration cooked up by the rest of the talented DeNami DT!!

Have a great Monday!
Emily