Embossed Elements: GRADUATION + a Giveaway!

Greetings, friends! I'm here today with the April edition of my monthly Embossed Elements feature for the DeNami Design blog. Today I'm gearing up for graduation season with two different cards using fun embossing folders from the DeNami store.

My first project features the oh-so-festive Graduation Hat Embossing Folder.  I used it (along with Congratulations Circle and the diploma and mortarboard stamps from the cling Graduation Set) to make a congratulatory card for the new graduate.

I chose the colors of my daughter's high school (including some fabulous DeNami Leaf Green cardstock for the embossed panel and the paper-pieced mortarboard) for this creation and went with a design that really shows off that awesome embossed sea of graduation caps. Doesn't it look like a crowd of grads has just tossed their mortarboards into the air at the end of the commencement ceremony? That image always makes me smile :). Not only is this embossing folder super for graduation cards, but it would also be perfect for making graduation invitations or graduation thank you notes.

I don't find myself needing graduation cards all that often (although as my kids progress further through school, I imagine that will begin to change!), so I was reluctant at first to invest in purely graduation-themed products. Just in case you find yourself in a similar situation, I wanted to show you another option for a fun graduation card using non-graduation-specific products. This project features the Bunting Embossing Folder.

After embossing my white card base with the Bunting EF, I embossed several scraps of patterned paper (once again choosing a color scheme inspired by my daughter's high school) and then paper-pieced each of the pennants. I love how it turned out! I completed my clean and simple design with a loopy bow tied in baker's twine from the Spring Twine 3-pack and a stamped Small Congratulations sentiment.

I love the festive look that the embossed pennant banner gives this congratulations card. It's so easy to personalize the bunting with the recipient's school colors. But I can also think of all kinds of other occasions--not just graduations!--that this embossing folder would be perfect for: birthday, baby, weddings, anniversaries, Independence Day, New Year's, . . . the list could go on and on!!

Thanks for taking a peek at my embossed graduation projects today. I hope I was able to inspire you!

How would you like the chance to win this Graduation Hat Embossing Folder? I have one up for grabs in an Embossed Elements giveaway! Want to be in the running? Just leave me a comment on this post using the word "MORTARBOARD." 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, April 30, 2014, and will draw one commenter at random. The winner will be announced right here on my blog on Thursday, May 1, and if I'm able to find an email address, I'll be sure to contact the winner as well.

Thanks for joining me today!
Emily

DeNami Design Product Spotlight April Blog Hop

It's the fourth Wednesday of the month and that means it is time to show off another awesome DeNami Design stamp with a blog hop! This month we are featuring the lovely Wavy Stem Trio stamp. What a versatile stamp!

I decided to use this stamp to start making Mother's Day cards. Here's what I created:

I combined the Wavy Stem Trio with a flower head from the cling Spring Flowers Set (stamped on white cardstock, colored with Copics, fussy cut, and mounted with foam tape on the ends of the stems) and planted in a flower pot from the cling Garden Accessories Set (treated in the same way as the flowers). To finish out this design, I added a stamped Happy Mother's Day sentiment and two strips of washi tape from the DeNami store: Pink/White Hearts and Orange Stripes. I'm so happy with how this card turned out! What is it about pink and bright orange that look so pretty together??

You can purchase this versatile 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
Pattie Goldman
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--have a super day!
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

April DeNami Inspired By

Hello and welcome back to the April edition of DeNami Design's Inspired By feature! Each month we feature one talented DeNami customer's work, and then honor that wonderful artist with a host of DeNami DT projects inspired by it! This month we were inspired by Barb M.

Isn't that absolutely beautiful? You can read all about it right here on Barb's blog.

I really loved the colors that Barb used in her lovely creation, so I let those guide my design and decided to take a CAS approach. Here's what I came up with:

I used the Fancy Flutters cling set, Decorative Flourish, and Sending You Love sentiment. I embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder and used an emboss-resist technique with it while sponging on some dye ink. I was going for an ombre look--I hope that's what I achieved!

Be sure to head over to the DeNami Design blog today to see how the rest of the team was inspired by Barb's lovely creation!

Thanks so much for visiting today. May your day be filled with bliss!
Emily

DeNami Design Buttons and Bows Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the April DeNami Design Blog Hop! This month's hop is all about Buttons and Bows!!

Hopefully, you've arrived here by way of Linda Monroe's blog, Stampin in the Suburbs. 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 super-fun 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 14, 2014, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs to be eligible for a prize. 

All righty, let's get right down to business. Here's my Easter-themed Buttons and Bows creation:

I used the beautiful new Lily stamp--doesn't it do wonderfully as an Easter lily? It was quick and easy to color with Copic markers. I also used some White Boutique Buttons and lavender baker's twine in the Pastel Twine 3-pack, all from the DeNami Design store.

It's time for me to send you along on your way. But before you leave for more DeNami buttons and bows inspiration, be sure to leave a comment to be eligible for the randomly drawn prizes.  Then you can head out to see the next blog hop participant on today's list: Jennifer Loftfield.    
 
Thanks so much for stopping by today! Enjoy the blog hop,
Emily

Happy Easter Eggs

Welcome to another beautiful day here at My Little Slice of Bliss! Today the DeNami Design Team is sharing designs over on the DeNami Design blog that show off the stamp in this week's Product Spotlight: F160 Happy Easter.

Recently, my hubby gave me a set of egg-shaped dies, and I couldn't resist using them for a trio of Easter-egg themed cards for today's Product Spotlight! Here's what I created:

A pair of egg-shaped cards! I used only two stamps on both of these: Happy Easter and Elegant Word Plate, but I amped up the "festive factor" with lots and lots of washi tape from the DeNami Design store.

DeNami products: Purple/White dots, Green Stripes, Yellow/White dots, Pink Stripes washi tape and baker's twine from the Confetti Twine 3-pack

DeNami products: Lime/White dots, Pink Chevron, Teal Chevron washi tape

I also tried a standard A2-sized card using another of my new egg-shaped dies. I was trying to recreate the look of this purple Faberge-style egg. To do so, I embossed my egg diecut with my Wire Fence Embossing Folder from the DeNami store, and rubbed a metallic gold ink pad across the raised embossing to give it a gilded look. Then I embellished each point of intersection in the design with liquid pearls.

You can see the sheen of the pearls a little better in these two photos:

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 beautiful Happy Easter sentiment--as our Spotlight Product, it's on sale at 10% off for the next week!!

Thanks for stopping by today!
Emily

Some one-layer cards

Howdy, friends! I'm popping in to share a couple of one-layer thank you cards that I created last week. I love having cards like this in my stash for easy mailing!

I made both of these with some beautiful stamp sets from Flourishes (although, sadly, no longer available) and washi tape from DeNami Design. I had a lovely time coloring these with my Copics!

I have some very special houseguests this week--my parents are here to visit! We're going to have a busy week, so things may be a little quiet here on the blog.

Thanks for dropping by to see what I've been up to! Have a great week!
Emily

Photo Tutorial: Stamped Notepad

It's my turn to share another photo tutorial over on the DeNami Design blog today. This time around I'm showing how to make your own stamped notepad. I love giving these little goodies as gifts! Be sure to check out the DeNami blog for all the details.

If you need a little non-caloric homemade goodie to stuff an Easter basket for someone special, one of these little hand-stamped notepads would be a great choice! Wouldn't something like this look super cute with DeNami's Solid Egg Border for Easter? And the "Just A Note" sentiment from the All-Occasion Sentiments set would make a great alternate sentiment for a little pad like this, too.

Oh, and before I forget--I mention in my tutorial that to make a little notepad like this you'll need some PVA bookbinding glue. I bought mine HERE.

Thanks for stopping by today for this little peek at my photo tutorial. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Emily 

DeNami Design ~ Easter Basket

Greetings, friends! It's my turn to share a project over on the DeNami Design blog today. I made a fun Easter card featuring the adorable Chickie Easter Basket stamp (thanks, Brenda!!!) and the new Basket Weave embossing folder from the DeNami Design store. I hope you'll swing by to take a peek and tell me what you think! Here's a little preview:

Thanks for dropping by! Have a super day!
Emily

Hoppy Easter

Did you survive April Fool's Day? There were murmurings of pranks being planned amongst the younger crowd at our house, but we managed to survive intact. The weather was glorious yesterday--sunny, calm, and 53 degrees F! It looks like today and tomorrow will be much of the same. It's about time!!!

I finished my work for the day early yesterday and took some time to clean up and organize my stamping area before playing with paper for a while. I'm working on replenishing my thank-you note supply, but I also took a little time to add to my stash of Easter cards. They are so much fun to make! Here's what I created:

All the papers are from a {very old} Crate Paper collection. I thought the colors were perfect for this Easter card, and I love the subtle patterns in each paper. This punch art bunny was so easy to put together using circle and oval punches! I just sponged on a little ink along the edges for depth, dug out a little pompom for a tail, and this Easter bunbun came together in no time. I used a pair of $1 bin alphabet stamp sets to spell out my own sentiment. I like that it looks uneven and "hand-stampy!'

I'm entering this card in my friend Pam's Just Punch It Free for All challenge.

I've got lots on the agenda for today, and this evening our son is performing in our school system's All-Town band concert, so I've got to keep things rolling!

Have a great day, and thanks so much for stopping by!
Emily