We have a WINNER!

Howdy, everybody! I have a super busy day ahead of me, so I'll keep this short. I just used random.org to draw a winner in my washi tape giveaway.

The lucky winner is #4, and that is the very sweet BENZI!!

Benzi, I've just emailed you :D.

Thanks to everyone who played along in my Ways With Washi giveaway! I always have so much fun reading your comments.

Have a super Thursday!
Emily

DeNami Design Product Spotlight March Blog Hop

Welcome to Wednesday! The DeNami Design team is featuring a very cool cling-style rubber stamp in our Product Spotlight today. It's the Flower Window Box, and the DeNami DT is showcasing creative ways to use it in a BLOG HOP today!

I decided to make an Easter card with my Flower Box Window image and spotted an Easter stamp from the most recent release that I hadn't used yet. Here's what resulted when I combined the two!

My card also features Hatching Chickies Border, Small Happy Easter, Tuxedo Black Memento ink, Onyx Black Versafine ink, Sky Blue cardstock, and EK Success Deco Scallop border punch.

You can purchase the Flower Box Window stamp for 10% off the regular price for the next week. You also have the chance to WIN this fabulous product in today's spotlight blog hop! All you need to do is hop along to each stop in the lineup, leaving comments along the way. Here is the blog hop lineup:

DeNami blog 
Lisa Petrella
Deb Wabbe
Wendy Elliot
Emily Keaton  <==== you are here!
Lisa Elton
Kanani Kawamura
Dana Seymour
Tammy Hobbs

One commenter will be selected at random to win this month's prize! Just check out the DeNami blog for all the details.

Thanks for stopping by today!!
Emily  

PS Have you played in the DeNami birthday celebration Pin It to Win It contest yet? If not, you should definitely check it out!  SIX lucky pinners will win six items from their DeNami birthday wish list--and if you play along, one of them could be YOU!! Right now there are only 30 entries (and my wish list and the DeNami example list won't count), so odds are pretty good, right? What do you have to lose? This would be a great opportunity to start or expand your DeNami collection!! Want an idea of how to put together your wish list on Pinterest or some suggestions of items to put on your list? Feel free to check out my DeNami Birthday Wish List. :D

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

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.                                    

Spring Hyacinth

I made this card thinking that it would be one more Easter card, but I also wanted to play along in this month's Unity challenge--and I don't have any appropriate Unity sentiments for Easter! I thought that the hyacinth would help communicate the theme, but I think the colors are all wrong for it. Oh, well! I still love how it turned out :). If I added an Easter sentiment to the inside, do you think it will be OK for Easter?

I used the sketch portion of the Unity challenge, turning it on its side:

I used Unity's Best Wishes & Blooms for the background stamping, and a sentiment from Unity's { . . . my thoughts are with you}. The hyacinth image is a journaling card from the digital Modern Romance kit from Webster's Pages. I think it is SO pretty! And I dug deeeeeeeeep into my stash of vintage trims to come up with that pretty green rick-rack from my grandma's sewing notions. It still had a price sticker from the 1960s on the package!

I'm also linking up to today's Friends with Flair blog hop. It feels like it's been EONS since I was able to join the hop, and I've really missed it!!

I'm also playing along with these fine challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Easter/Spring
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #212: Bring On Spring
• Shopping Our Stash Challenge #94: Easter or Spring

Time for family movie night, so I've got to run!! We're in the middle of watching the entire Pirates of the Caribbean series on Blu-Ray. Awesome!

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

Easter Lily Greetings

Howdy! It's been a busy week here. Can you believe it? My kids had another snow day this week--8 inches mixed with sleet on the last day of winter! That means we have used up all five built-in calamity days this year. Please, Spring, be kind!

I've got to say that Easter has really been sneaking up on me this year. I had to jump start my Easter card stash last week when I realized that it was coming far sooner than I'd thought. And today it hit me that I'll need to start mailing out said Easter card stash on Monday or so. Yikes! So I kicked it in high gear today (in between other tasks) to put together this card:

That beautifully scripted Easter sentiment is from Flourishes' He is Risen set, that lovely Easter lily images is a digital element from the Beautiful Moments digital collection by Carta Bella, the baker's twine is from The Twinery, and the patterned papers are from the Lost & Found: Market Street collection by My Mind's Eye, which I found buried deep in my paper stash. In real-life, the punched label panel on this card coordinates beautifully with the coral colors of the patterned papers, but for some reason it looks all peachy (and clash-y!) in my photo. I'm not sure how that happened!

Well, regardless, I was inspired by a number of terrific challenges in the making of this card, including:

• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Easter/Spring
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #212: Bring On Spring
• Shopping Our Stash Challenge #94: Easter or Spring
• Playing in Paradise #109: add some banners
• Tuesday Morning Sketches #190:                                                                    
• The Twinery Challenge: It's a Banner Day                                                               

I'm so glad you stopped by today! I hope you have great plans for the weekend. I can't wait to get mine started!

Oh, I have the March edition of my Ways With Washi feature going live on Monday. There will be another giveaway involved, so you just may want to plan to come back then ;).

Thanks for the visit!
Emily

March Pinspired at DeNami

Welcome to Wednesday! Today I'm bringing you another Pinspired post along with a few of my other DeNami Design teammates. This month we were given this lovely photo as a prompt:

I couldn't take my eyes off that luscious white-chocolate rabbit and lamb. Yum! I also took in the Easter grass and the pastel colors. My inspired result? This:

Here are the DeNami products I used to make this card:
Grass Border
Small Happy Easter
Bunny Border
Farm Animals set
Celery cardstock
Petal pink cardstock
Aloe vera ink
DeNami boutique button
Pastel baker's twine
Crystal lacquer pearl pen

Curious to see what the other designers did with this inspiration photo? Be sure to check out the DeNami blog today!

Thanks so much for visiting today! May you have a day filled with bliss!
Emily

It's Tutorial Time!

It's my turn to share another tutorial over on the DeNami Design blog today! This time around I'm showing how to create a little set of magnets all packaged up for gift giving. Be sure to check out the DeNami blog to see how to turn this

into this

Have a fabulous weekend, and thanks so much for dropping by!
Emily

Just Because

Happy Friday! I am so excited today. My dear friend who moved far away a year and a half ago is going to be back in town today–and we are planning to spend some time together here at my house this afternoon. Yay! I also got word yesterday that career day at my daughter's middle school–the one that was cancelled because of the snowstorm last week (read about that here), bumming us both out completely--has been rescheduled for the first week in May. Yay, again! So happiness is bustin' out all over around here today. :D

I have one more card–I promise that this is the last!!!!–to share for the Colorful Creations challenge over at Flourishes (a color challenge to use shades of blue and yellow together). I have been totally obsessed with this awesome color combo! It's always been a favorite of mine. And it has been a great excuse to play with my Flourishes stamps, which is always welcome :).

Now before I get to my card, I need to explain a little something. I've had several projects published in various Northridge Publishing publications in recent months. (You can see my publication list here.) They "pay" their designers in papercrafting product, and my most recent product shipment contained a bunch of Maya Road chipboard pieces. Cool, but I've never really used them before and wasn't sure what to do with it. I also rec'd a couple of Faber-Castell Gelatos, which I've heard lots about but had never tried. I was excited to learn what I could do with them! Along the way, I discovered that Gelatos are awesome for--wait for it--coloring chipboard! Score! I couldn't wait to try that out, and as it turns out the two Gelatos I rec'd are yellow and blue. See? I was destined to play in the Flourishes challenge one more time :).

OK, thanks for bearing with me. Here's my card:

As you can see, I took a rather clean and simple approach, and used the very versatile Flourishes Inside & Out Just Because set for the sentiment. Love these!

I'm also playing along with the CAS-ual Fridays challenge (CFC94) to use chipboard.

I have a new tutorial posting over on the DeNami blog later today, so this wraps things up for now.  I'll be back in a few hours. I hope you have a super weekend! Thanks for dropping by,
Emily

Anniversary Medallion

Okay, here I am playing with the Colorful Creations challenge over at Flourishes again. Yes, I know, it's my third time this week. I've got to admit – my first two attempts at this challenge were not my favorites. Since I just wasn't satisfied with my use of blues and yellow for this color challenge thus far, I had to give it one more shot. Here we are:

Deep sigh. Now, this one makes me happy! Plus, I have a much needed anniversary card for my stash. There will be lots coming up in the next few months!

I used two Flourishes stamps sets to create this card: Medallion Motif and Tag Lines.

Thanks for sharing my little slice of bliss today,
Emily

Easter Blessings

This week the DeNami Design Team is featuring the new Easter Blessings stamp on our creations for the first DeNami Product Spotlight of March. I realized somewhat belatedly that Easter is far earlier this year than I was expecting, which means I'm far behind-er on Easter cards than I thought! This stamp was the perfect thing for playing a little catch-up on my Easter card stash. Here are some quick and easy cards that I cooked up:

Along with Easter Blessings, I used the Spring Flowers set, Three Line Border, a Boutique Button, some lovely baker's twine, and some celery cardstock that I adore. :) 

This stamp is on sale for 10% off for the next week!

Be sure to check out what the rest of the team made with this sweet sentiment stamp over on the DeNami blog today!

I'm playing along the Timeless Tuesday challenge: Go Green! 

Thanks for dropping in! Have a day filled with bliss,
Emily

Easter Alleluia

Another Easter card for my stash:

I'm playing along again with the Colorful Creations challenge over at Flourishes for their March stamp release week and used their He is Risen set. It's a color challenge:

I'm not sure how I feel about the very traditional feel of this design, but I know one of my aunts will love it. I added a ruffle around the oval panel with washi tape. Talk about easy! Looks great but won't add much bulk when I stuff the envelope with this card. That diecut label I used for the sentiment came from my very dear and sweet friend Colleen. Thanks so much, Col!

I'm also playing along with the Washi Tape Challenge in the Moxie Fab World.

Wishing you a fabulous day,
Emily

Easter Greetings

A quick post to share a 10-minute, one-layer Easter creation I made with my Flourishes stamps (using the Paperwhites and He is Risen sets) and some washi tape:

I'm playing along with the Colorful Creations challenge over at Flourishes for their March stamp release week. It's a color challenge:

Thanks for taking a peek!
Emily

DeNami Birthday Bonanza Blog Hop

Good morning and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DeNami friends! I am so excited to be a part of today's DeNami Design blog hop! March is DeNami Design's birthday month, and this year they are celebrating an incredible 24 years in the business!!!!! Can I get a Woo-Hoo?? Today the DeNami Design team and DeNami Design customers are celebrating with a blog hop all about birthdays!!

Hopefully, you've arrived here by way of Deb Fischer's blog, Paws-itively Yours. 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! We are giving away THREE gift certificates to our website...however, you won't know the winning amount until we announce the winners on Tuesday, March 12th! We'll be giving away one gift certificate to a random participant (DT members not eligible) and then we'll also be giving away TWO gift certificates to TWO people who comment along the hop! Since it's our birthday month, we'll be giving BIGGER gift certificate amounts, so you'll want to be sure to comment on each stop. You have until Monday, March 11, 2013, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible for a prize.

Let's take a look at my birthday creations, shall we?

Yes, it's true:  I went wild with DeNami washi tape and a background technique from my February Ways with Washi feature to make this pair of bright and cheerful birthday cards! Both cards feature the oh-so-lovely Birthday Script stamp which is so large and pretty it can be the focal point of these cards! I kept the emellishments to a minimum to keep these flat and easy to mail. Other DeNami products I used for these: white cardstock, petal pink cardstock, desert orange cardstock, Jet Black Staz-On ink, Deco Scallop border punch, and Crystal Lacquer Pearl Pens--which are awesome for applying small pearl accents right where you want them!

With all that washi tape on these cards, it is only natural to be playing along with the Washi Tape challenge over in the Moxie Fab World, right?

Well, that does it for me! Before you leave for more birthday 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 Confessions of a DeNami Stamp Addict blog of DeNami super-fan, Tina Milbourn.

Thanks for stopping by for a little slice of {birthday} bliss!
Emily

Camera Craze

I *do* like the camera trend that is so hot in papercrafting (and elsewhere!) right now, but I hadn't yet jumped on the bandwagon. Then Cath issued the Camera Craze challenge in the Moxie Fab World and I knew I had to give it a shot. I don't have anything camera-related in my physical papercrafting stash, so I dove into my ever-expanding digital collection and came up with some fabulous elements that just clicked into place for this card:

The vintage camera and yellow flower are elements from Echo Park Hybrid's For The Record 2: Documented collection. The panel behind them is a journaling card from the Everyday Out Loud collection from Design by Dani.

It almost looked like there would be no room for stamping on this card, but my card base begged for some! I used the on-the-bias border from Great Big Greetings by Market Street Stamps to patch together a background that echoes the chevron-y arrow on the Polaroid frame journaling card.

After a busy week, yesterday's disappointments (see this post), and plenty of hard work dedicated to snow removal, I enjoyed some "me" time today making this card! I'm so very pleased with how it turned out. :)

See you here tomorrow for the DeNami Birthday Bonanza Blog Hop? There will be special prizes this month!

Thanks for dropping by!
Emily

Happy St. Patty's Day

I know that many folks don't bother with cards for St. Patrick's Day, but I really like making and sending them. It's fun to celebrate a bit o' green to get in the mood for impending spring! Sending out these cards is a great way for me to stay in contact with my folks and aunts, too.

After filling my crafty time with design team assignments this week, it was fun to create just for the sake of creating. So here's what I ended up with.

I'm test-driving some brand-new New Leaf cardstock that I purchased from Papertrey Ink with the $60 gift certificate I won in PTI's 6th anniversary celebration last month. I adore this shade of green! And it was perfect for a St. Patrick's Day card. I dug deep into my hoard collection of Basic Grey 6" x 6" patterned paper pads to find this awesome green and white chevron print. And that fun gray shamrock background paper? A digital patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket. I love my digital elements!

I think this DeNami Design Happy St. Patrick's Day sentiment is the best! So whimsical and perfectly scripted. And how genius is that shamrock as an apostrophe? I also used a chevron border from the DeNami Modern Borders set for the center of my handmade twine-y flower embellishment featuring Peapod baker's twine from The Twinery.

I'm playing along with a few challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp challenge: A Bit o' Green 
• Inkspirational: Shades of Green                                                                         
• The Chevron & Green challenge at The Twinery                        

In addition to a bit of recreational crafting yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time getting ready for Career Day at my daughter's middle school today. It's an early release day, so the guidance team invited parents and friends to come in for the morning to talk with the kids about what they do in their jobs. Each Career Day guest has been assigned to a classroom teacher and will talk to each of that teacher's classes on an abbreviated schedule (after all, it is a half day!). I've been assigned to my daughter's math teacher, and she couldn't be more excited that I will be there! I'll be presenting my 28-minute-or-less spiel to each of Mr. Coger's five eighth grade math classes. And to tell the truth, I'm pretty excited to be doing this--I have so much I want to tell these students and can't wait to share how I use real-live math every day!! I just hope I can make my daughter proud :). Fingers crossed!!

Once the kids are out early, they are each bringing a friend home to our house for lunch before we head out to the Museum of Science in Boston to take advantage of their free IMAX movies every Friday in March. Woo-hoo! LOVE free! We're going to see Africa: The Serengeti. Should be fascinating!

EDITED TO ADD: Well, we've been torpedoed by Winter Storm Saturn. School has been cancelled for today!!! So, no Career Day after all. We have two very sad faces here this morning. No word yet on whether or not it will be re-scheduled; I don't have high hopes. Darn! It looks like we could still get 3 to 5 inches of snow before noontime, so our trip to MoS for the IMAX movie hangs in the balance, too. Such is life in New England, I guess!! We drowned our sorrows in French toast, a treat that's usually not possible on weekdays. So, at least there's that. :)

I hope you have a fabulous weekend--don't forget about the time change on Saturday before you go to bed! I'll be back on Sunday with my post for the DeNami Birthday Bonanza Blog Hop. There are going to be some AWESOME prizes, so be sure to hop along with us!

Thanks for dropping by!
Emily

Happy Birthday, DeNami Design!

Did you know that DeNami Design turns 24 years young this month? It's true! That is really something to celebrate, don't you think? That's just what's going to happen, all March long, and YOU are invited to the party! Come celebrate along with the famous DeNami Chickie in a virtual birthday party.

Here's how you can join in:  simply download the free printable Birthday Chickie found HERE and print him out. Then take a picture of yourself with Birthday Chickie celebrating out on the town and share it on the DeNami Design Facebook page, or on Twitter or Instagram (using #DeNamiParty). One lucky photo will be chosen as winner and receive a special prize! We can't wait to see our Chickie celebrating all over the world with our best stamping friends!

I already treated Birthday Chickie to a celebratory trip to the Museum of Science in Boston. Here we are in the lobby:

and on our trip around the globe!!

Another great birthday contest that is going on this month over on the DeNami blog is an awesome Pin It to Win It contest on Pinterest!!

You won't want to miss this one :). There will be six winners who will win six of their must-have items drawn randomly from their "DeNami Birthday Wish List" on Pinterest. Be sure to check out all of the details on how to enter on this post on the DeNami blog. I had so much fun pinning my wish list! Need some ideas for what to pin onto your DeNami Birthday Wish List? Feel free to take a gander at my DeNami Birthday Wish List for inspiration--or just to see what's currently on my must-have list, 'cause, you know, curiosity killed the cat and all that {wink}.

Be sure to check out the "official party page" for all the latest on DeNami's birthday celebrations, all month long!!

Thanks for chickin' in today!
Emily