Purple Anniversary Wishes

Thank goodness it's Friday! I'm ready to relax this weekend--who's with me? I'm also looking forward to Unity's Friends With Flair, a linky hop that is the highlight of many a Unity Stamp Co. fan's Fridays. I've got a special anniversary card to share for FWF today. Here goes:

I made this card in tribute to my dear friend Colleen who was recently honored as Featured Stamper over on Splitcoast Stampers. I couldn't be more thrilled for her! Today I'm playing along with her SCS Featured Stamper challenge (for a second time! Here's the first time. I just couldn't easily narrow down my list of Colleen's cards that I wanted to CASE).

For today's entry, I was inspired by this beautiful hydrangea wedding card of hers. I loved her gorgeous purple color scheme, so I kept that but went with purple patterned papers instead of embossed ones and pulled out my Unity stamps (of course!) to recreate the look of her card. I also kept her awesome sketch! I know I couldn't surpass the beauty of her stunning punched hydrangea, but I thought I might be able to get a somewhat similar look with the beautiful solid flower from one of my favorite Unity sets, Now & Always. The anniversary sentiment comes from Unity's Just Wanted to Say kit.

Thanks for dropping by for today's Friends With Flair for a little Unity inspiration! I hope you'll try to come back next week when I'll be serving up some more Unity inspiration each day, Monday through Friday, as Unity's Growing in Unity gal!! I'm so excited to share some of my Unity creations next week that I can hardly stand it ;). Be sure to comment on any or all of my GIU posts next week to be entered for a chance to win two free Unity Itty Bitty stamps of your choice! Unity rocks!!

I've got a busy day ahead of me today, and then we all are heading out to an art exhibit tonight. And not just any art exhibit! Our 4th grader had a painting accepted to our school district's juried art show, and tonight is his night to shine. We have no idea what to expect of this K-12 exhibit, but we can't wait to see the creation that landed him this honor. Should be fun!

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

Airplane Congrats

I already posted earlier today (with my washi tape giveaway winner), but I'm popping back in with another quick post to share my card that's being featured over on the DeNami blog today.

Rather appropriate for this time of year with graduations every time you turn around, right? But you could also use this design idea for a promotion, new job, etc. I used DeNami's Medium Polka Dots and Small Congratulations. I found that bit of denim in my fabric scrap pile and used a trimmed-down sheet of copy paper to fold into a standard paper airplane. You'll find a bone folder useful for creasing the thicker folds!

The summery heat we are having today has inspired me to make one of our favorite warm-weather desserts:  a strawberry pie!! My homemade glaze is cooling now. I just need to mix in some sliced fresh berries into that, fill my baked pie shell, pop it in the fridge, and we'll have a refreshing dessert for tonight's supper. I can hardly wait!!!


Thanks for sharing my little slice of bliss for today!
Emily

PS  So many of you were gracious enough to leave comments about my new profile photo. Thanks for the warm fuzzies!! I couldn't be happier with it myself, and love that my sweet readers do, too. :D It was time for a change!!!

A Love-y Anniversary Card + a WINNER!

Good morning! Today is shaping up to be a fine early-summer day with temperatures predicted to hit 89F this afternoon. I think it's time for us to put in our window a/c units!

Wonder of wonders: I have a card to share with you this morning! My dear friend Colleen was recently honored as Featured Stamper over on Splitcoast Stampers. I'm SO happy for her!!!! I've had so very little time to stamp for fun recently, but I desperately wanted to play along with her Featured Stamper challenge. It's taken far too long to find time to do this, but I finally have a card I created in your honor, Colleen! After perusing Colleen's extensive and impressive Splitcoast gallery, I decided to CASE this beautiful card. Here's what I came up with:

I kept Colleen's elegant layout, including the fancy Martha Stewart punch-around-the page frame, but changed the color scheme. I also substituted a similar oval frame and love flourish sentiment from my collection of DeNami Design stamps. The patterned papers are from the New Beginnings collection by Webster's Pages. I always admire how artfully Colleen uses pearls in her creations, so I just had to follow her lead on pearl placement for this card! This card will make a perfect anniversary card for all of those June wedding anniversaries that I like to remember. :)

OK, thanks for indulging my need for card sharing. I know that you are eager to get on to the "winner" portion of this post! I owe you a winner for my washi tape giveaway from my May Ways With Washi feature. And here she is . . .

 Commenter #31, Amy McCue!

Amy, I couldn't find a way to contact you via email, so please drop me an email (you'll find my email address by clicking on the "View my Complete Profile" link just under the "About Me" section in the right-hand sidebar of my blog; look for the "Contact Me" section) with your mailing address so I can mail off your washi tape prize to you!! I can't wait to hear from you!! Congratulations!! :D

Thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who drops by for my Ways With Washi features and graciously comments! I always have the best time reading what you write.

Have an awesome day, everyone!
Emily

Ways With Washi: ENVELOPES + a Giveaway

Good Monday morning to you, friends! And Happy Memorial Day to all of my fellow Americans. I'm here today with my May installment of Ways With Washi, a feature that I've developed for the DeNami Design blog. Today I'm showing you a more practical side of washi tape by sharing some fun ways to use washi tape on envelopes.

Now like many of you, I started collecting washi tape because I was soooooo drawn to the fun colors and patterns. But I was still kind of mystified by how to actually use this magical stuff. Then one day I was stuffing an envelope with one of my handmade cards decorated with a few somewhat bulky embellishments. When I sealed the envelope's flap, it seemed to close OK over the unevenness, but I wondered if it would stay that way in the less-than-gentle mail system. As I reached for some good old Scotch tape to add an extra layer of security to the flap, I had my "aha!" moment:  why not reinforce the seal and add a spot of color and whimsy at the same time with some washi tape? I loved how it looked, and now washi tape is my go-to method of sealing envelopes!

Here are a few samples:

Featuring DeNami washi tape: Pink Stripes, Blue/White Dots, and Pink Chevron

Featuring DeNami washi tape: Blue Stripes and Lime/White Dots

Once I got into my washi envelope groove, I branched out into other ways to pretty up an envelope. How about a striped washi frame for the address?

DeNami Products: Purple Stripes washi tape and solid heart stamp from Whimsical Valentine stamp set

And why not give the flap a similar purple-striped treatment?

With super bulky cards, I like to use 5" x 10" bubble envelopes like these for mailing. It's so much fun to give these a washi makeover, like this one:

Featuring DeNami Brown/White Dots washi tape

And how fun are those Elegant Oval Frame mailing labels? They are so easy to make with the help of DeNami's To and From stamps.

Have I started your wheels turning? I hope so! And I hope that you'll fall in love with using washi tape on your envelopes as much as I have. :)

GIVEAWAY

How would you like the chance to play around with some washi tape of your own? I have a brand-new roll of Brown/White Dots Washi Tape from DeNami Design--the same tape that I used on my bubble envelope project today--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 "MAIL." 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 29, 2013, and will draw one commenter at random. The winner will be announced right here on my blog on Thursday, May 30, 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

DeNami Design Product Spotlight May Blog Hop

Good morning! Thanks for stopping by today! The DeNami Design team is featuring an awesome cling-style rubber stamp set in our Product Spotlight today, the oh-so-useful Graduation Set. And we're showing it off BLOG HOP STYLE!

I paired up some of the sweet images in this set with the very versatile Congratulations Circle stamp to  make a medallion for this graduation gift card holder:

I simply stamped some chevrons from the Modern Borders cling stamp set in Opaque Cotton White StazOn ink on a glassine bag (by the way, did you see that DeNami's glassine bags are on clearance???), making a sweet pocket for a gift card.

On the inside, I rounded the corners of a panel of black cardstock (enabler alert: all cardstock is on clearance in the DeNami shop!), attached some white grosgrain ribbon as a pull tab (another enabler alert: all ribbon is on clearance in the DeNami shop!), and adhered a gift card to the panel's face with some fun DeNami Black/White Dots washi tape. An easy gift idea!

You can purchase this fabulous Graduation cling stamp set 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 so much for checking out my little slice of bliss for today!
Emily

DeNami Fresh Florals Blog Hop

Good morning, friends! I am over the moon to be a part of today's DeNami Design blog hop! Today the DeNami Design team and DeNami Design customers are highlighting some of my very favorite DeNami stamps: florals!! I hope you'll hop along for loads of inspiration.

Hopefully, you've arrived here by way of Amy Smidebush's blog, Standing Ovation. 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, May 20, 2013, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible for a prize.

So, let me show you what I made with one very cool and utterly versatile DeNami stamp sets, the Whimsical Garden cling stamp set.

I just love how you can build your own blooms with this set! And the flowers and leaves are perfect for coloring with your favorite media. I also used the delightful You're On My Heart sentiment, along with Golden Tangerine cardstock, Cream cardstock, Tuxedo Black Memento ink, and some White/Black Dots washi tape from the DeNami store. Oh, and I nearly forgot--see the tone-on-tone stamping done on the card base? That fabulous look is courtesy DeNami's Polka Dot Background stamp and some Versamark ink.

I recently sent this card to a friend to let her know I'd been thinking of her!


That's it for me today! Before you leave for more Fresh Florals 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 Pattie Goldman! 
 
Thanks so much for stopping by today! Enjoy the blog hop,
Emily
 

May 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:

Aren't those pleated medallions striking? They totally reminded me of the new Flower Bloom stamp from DeNami, so that's what I reached for first and then let the pretty colors of these fanciful medallions guide my color choices.
 

Just about everything I used on this card (except for the markers) came from the DeNami Design store:

Brushed Thank You

Tuxedo Black Memento ink

Jet Black StazOn ink

White cardstock

Red cardstock

Lime/White Dots washi tape

Embossed Bracket border punch

Want 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

Pleated Washi Frame Tutorial

It's my turn to share another tutorial over on the DeNami Design blog today! A few weeks ago I shared some ideas for using pleated washi tape in my April Ways With Washi feature. One of my projects featured a ruffled frame constructed from pleated washi tape. So I thought that today I'd show, step by step, how you can do this yourself. Be sure to check out the DeNami Design blog to see how to turn this

into this

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a fabulous weekend,
Emily

Best Mom(s) in the World

[Edited to add: I originally posted these cards on Friday, May 10, right before Mother's Day when they were nice and timely--but there was no Friends With Flair that day!! So, I'm linking them up to this week's Unity linky party a week later instead, knowing full well that Mother's Day has already passed. I still wanted to share them because I just looooooooooove these Unity stamps, so I'm very, very sorry about that "stale" subject matter! Please forgive me!]

I made a couple of Mother's Day cards to mail to a few faraway friends this week, nothing too fancy--just quick, easy, and colorful.

Inside I wrote "Happy Mother's Day to one of my favorite moms!"

Some Road Washi Tape was the perfect accent for these cards!

I just LOVE the signs and fun motifs in Unity Stamp Co.'s Retro Road Trip stamp set! Doesn't that Best Mom sign remind you of a vintage Holiday Inn sign?

Or maybe the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign?

I know, maybe a bit tacky and not for everyone. But one of my card recipients shares my passion for all things road-trippy (and the other at least gets it!!), so I think these will do the trick. :)

It's been sooooooooooooooo very long since I've been able to play with some of my beloved Unity stamps. I'm so happy to be linking up with today's Unity Friends With Flair hop! (Hi, everybody!!)

I hope that you have a fabulous weekend celebrating all of the special moms in your life.
Cheers!
Emily

A New Fold

I nearly forgot to check for the Flourishes May Release challenge! How did that happen??? I guess I've been pretty distracted lately and not too interested in crafty pursuits. Anyway, I caught the Colorful Creations Challenge just in time to play along this morning before the challenge ends tomorrow. It's a challenge to use at least three colors from the combo shown in this graphic:

I used the brand-new, beautifully stippled Bees & Blooms stamp set from Flourishes. I won it last month from the super-sweet Silke Ledlow (thanks SO much, Silke!), and this is my first time inking it up. I'm not sure that linen-textured paper was the best choice for this image (I think I lost some of the stamp's fine detail), but I think this will pass if you look at it from the "worn, faded look" angle. The sentiment is from Flourishes' Tag Lines.

The fold style of this card is something new and different for me. My daughter received a thank you note yesterday from a friend that looked like this:

My inspiration!

We thought it looked pretty cool and sophisticated, so my daughter eagerly agreed to let me keep it for inspiration. I couldn't wait to try out a similar fold! I think this would work wonderfully as an all-occasion note card OR a gift card holder, don't you?

Thanks for sharing a little slice of bliss with me this morning!
Emily

Bouquet for Mom

Greetings, friends! The DeNami Design team has another Product Spotlight to share with you today. This time around we are sharing our ideas for the beautiful Garden Bouquet stamp. I decided to approach my Garden Bouquet assignment as a Mother's Day card.

I had the best time coloring this gorgeous image with my markers, and used a number of supplies from the DeNami Design store to complete my design: Happy Mother's Day cling stamp, Pink Stripes Washi Tape, Crystal Lacquer Pearl Pens, Tuxedo Black Memento ink, Deco Scallop border punch, and celery cardstock.

Looking for some more ideas for this sweet floral stamp? Be sure to check out the rest of the team's lovely creations today on the DeNami blog. Like what you see? Then you can score a great deal on this pretty stamp--as our Spotlight Product, it's on sale at 10% off for the next week!!

Thanks for stopping by today!
Emily

Coral, Yellow, and Turquoise Challenge

Today a new CARDS Blog Color Challenge goes live over on the CREATE blog. The whole DeNami Design team is pretty excited about it because DeNami Design is sponsoring the challenge! It is all about coral, yellow, and turquoise--such a fun color combo for spring!

Here's how I combined these pretty colors with my DeNami stamps {Happy Mother's Day (cling), Sending You Love, Open Box, Whimsical Valentine stamp set} to create a Mother's Day card.

Want to play along with these fun colors for a chance to win a FABULOUS prize from DeNami Design? Be sure to check out all the challenge details in the challenge post on the CARDS blog.

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

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

It's Cinco de Mayo! Yes, it's the fifth of May once again. I'm having a hard time believing that one-third of 2013 has already sped by. But I'm sure enjoying the warmer weather that May has brought with it!

If I'd thought of it in time, I would have planned for us to celebrate Cinco de Mayo today with some tortilla chips and salsa, along with some yummy bean and cheese enchiladas perhaps. If I'd put two and two together in advance. But I didn't. Instead I have a pork loin roast thawing in my refrigerator for tonight's supper and nary a Mexican meal ingredient in sight. We do love Mexican food here at my house, so we'll get in a festive Mexican supper sometime soon. It just won't be on Cinco de Mayo!

A few years ago I won the complete Fiesta paper collection by We R Memory Keepers as a comment-to-win prize somewhere here in blogland. The wonderful prize collection that I received included some fun, oversized chipboard stickers. I had a blast putting together some Mexican-themed goodies for this Cinco de Mayo card for a friend--I sent it out just to say "hi" and that I miss her!

Here's hoping that Cinco de Mayo is sunny in your neck of the woods! Thanks for stopping by for a little visit today. :D
Emily