A bit about me . . .

So today's post is a little different! My dear friend Colleen Dietrich, of Dietrich Designs, called me last week to ask if she could tag me as part of a blog hop she is participating in. It seems that the goal of the hop is to learn about other blogger/artists by sharing some details about one's self, one's work, and one's creative process in a fun "interview" style blog post. The posters were encouraged to tag one or two fellow bloggers to share the fun, and I'm so honored that Colleen chose me! Colleen asked me to share some details about myself in this post today, so here goes . . .

1) How do you know Colleen?

My friend and fellow stamper, Colleen Dietrich

I first "met" Colleen on Splitcoast Stampers sometime after I first joined that online community in 2009. She always made the most beautiful cards and left the most wonderful comments. Not much has changed in either area! Before long we were sending PMs (that is, private messages) through Splitcoast, then exchanging our email addresses for more direct access, then snail-mail addresses so we could mail cards to one another, and finally phone numbers so we could chat even more easily.

It has been a wonderful journey building this friendship of ours! To have someone to chat with about our shared papercrafting interests has been a godsend--someone who understands the drool-worthiness of a new stamp set or paper collection, the thrill of finding fun paper punches or dies on clearance at Michael's or A.C. Moore, the joy of being asked to join a design team, the frustration of losing one's creative mojo, the elation of having a papercrafted project accepted for publication, or more often: the dejection of not having a project accepted for publication. Colleen was the one who encouraged me to start this blog in 2010 shortly after she had established her own. And then we had yet another interest in common: the world of blogging! Even more to chat about ;). But we aren't just papercrafting/blogging friends. Over the years, we've discovered we have so much more in common than our shared hobbies. These days we call one another to chat about our families, our jobs, our health concerns, our vacations, our daily triumphs and aggravations, our joys (and frustrations) of motherhood, and more. I am so blessed to count Colleen among my very closest friends!!! Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Colleen, for your gift of friendship!!!

2) What are you working on right now?

Well, as much as I'd like to say that I'm knee-deep in challenging, meangingful, and creative papercrafting projects right now, that would be the furthest from the truth. In fact, I just noticed that my last post on this blog o' mine was on June 26, over a month ago! I do believe that's the longest lapse in posts I've ever had on this blog. Yikes! I never intended for that to happen, but sometimes everyday life gets in the way of the best intentions, right?

So, since the end of my kids' school year the last week of June, my 11YO son went away to a week of arts camp sponsored by the Boston Symphony Orchestra; my 15YO daughter and I went away on a trip to Burlington, VT, with her Girl Scout troop; my hubby and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary; our family worked together to replace our disintegrating wooden deck with new Trex planks and vinyl-clad aluminum railing systems; AND our family went away for a week to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary! As our gift to them, my sister and I rented a Victorian house in Cape May, NJ, for her family, my family, and my parents to stay in while vacationing for the week. What a lovely time that was for the three generations to hang out together!

Our rental house in Cape May, NJ

That's me in the sunglasses posing in front of a shipwreck just off Sunset Beach. In the background, the cousins are folicking in the waves along this pebbly beach known for its superb beachcombing.

The Dr. Henry Hunt house in Cape May's historic district. We found it on one of our early morning walks and just had to take a photo. We found out later on a trolley tour of historic Cape May that it is one of the most-photographed examples of "drunken" Victorian architecture--known as such because it combines elements from multiple different Victorian styles all in a single "drunken" mish mash!

My hubby and I near Sunset Pavilion at the end of Cape May's Promenade just before sunset. See the Cape May Lighthouse in the distance?

My parents, the happy Golden Anniversary couple!

So I guess that's what I've been "working" on right now! I'm happy to report, though, that I'll have an all-crafting post to share with you soon as part of a guest-designing gig I'm really thrilled about! More on all that later. Stay tuned!!

3) What is your signature style?

I like to dabble in all sorts of different styles! I play around with clean and simple, shabby chic, vintage, bold and graphic, fun and cute, layered and frilly, elegant and classy, punch art, . . . you name it, I've probably done it. I generally use the projects I create for my own purposes (as gifts to give, or birthday cards to mail to friends and family, etc.), so I guess overall you might describe my signature style as "mailable!" I like to make relatively flat cards to make them as USPS-friendly (and low-postage!) as possible!

Here's an example:  the mailable golden anniversary card I made to send to my parents for their 50th wedding anniversary:

Background stamp is from Hero Arts; flower is from Unity; sentiment is from Flourishes

4) What are your favorite types of projects to make?

I enjoy making all kinds of projects! Cards are easily what I make the most of, but I think my favorite projects to make are papercrafted gifts to give. This past spring my daughter and my nephew were both confirmed at their respective churches. I enjoyed making each of them some commemorative gifts to mark the occasion.

I created a framed and personalized piece of subway art for each confirmand using a variety of electronic brushes and fonts I've collected over time and my favorite (and free!) photo editing software, The GIMP

I made each confirmand a papercrafted bookmark perfect for use in their favorite Bibles. Each bookmark was personalized on the back with the occasion and date.

And here are the confirmation cards I made for these special young people:

For my daughter: because I could hand-deliver it, I added a less than "mailable" embellishment on the cross. Stamps are from The Craft's Meow

For my nephew: an elegant, mailable card. Stamps are from The Craft's Meow

If you are interested in seeing more of my papercrafted gift projects, please be sure to check out these "Gift Idea" posts!

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Well, readers, thank you so much for sticking with me through this long post! I think I'll wrap it up here. A huge THANK YOU to the fabulous Colleen for inviting me to post with her today. If you have arrived here outside of the blog hop, I'd love it if you popped over to meet Colleen and say HI! Her work is so beautiful and elegant--I know you'll love visiting with her!!

Thank you so much for visiting today!! I hope that your summers have been swell thus far and continue to be.
Be well!
Emily

Eeek! and a WINNER!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Just popping in to share a card for Halloween! I've got lots of fun goodies on this one: chipboard cat from Maya Road (inked with black pigment ink), washi-tape-covered tags and punched scalloped borders (orange stripes washi tape from DeNami Design), black May Arts corduroy ribbon, black Paper Smooches twine, alphabet stickers from Lily Bee, and a fancy background stamp (Looped Flower) from Hero Arts. I sent this one to a very dear, cat-loving friend. I hope it brought a smile to her face!!

I'm also sharing the winner of my washi tape giveaway from Monday. I used Random.org to select a winner. It was lucky #12, which was

terriavidreader (IN-USA) !!!

Congratulations, Terri! I've emailed you :D Thanks to everyone who entered!

I hope you have a fun Halloween wherever you are! My oldest is now a freshman in high school. She decided that she's too old for trick-or-treat, so she will be manning the door at our house tonight to hand out treats (most likely in her mad scientist costume). My fifth grader is very much looking forward to trick-or-treating tonight. He was very happy to recycle his Apple iPhone costume from last year, which made me very happy. I'm glad that last year's hard work lives on!

Hope your day is filled with more treats than tricks! Thanks for stopping by,
Emily

You stole my heart + a WINNER!

Happy Tuesday! I am sharing another Valentine card that I mailed out yesterday. This one is all about the stitching. The stamps are from Unity's Straight from the Heart set. To make this card, I used a twist on the regular stamp masking technique. I stamped a heart {mask} on a sticky note, trimmed it, and placed it on my design as a mask where I wanted to stitch around my "stolen" heart. After stitching, I simply removed {stole} my heart mask, resulting in an "empty" heart roughly the same size and shape as the two "filled" stitched hearts.

I am playing along with:

• "Just Us Girls" #175: use any masking technique
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge--Have a Heart
• Stampendous February Challenge--Love is in the Air
• Playing in Paradise--A Loved One 
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #207: Put Your Heart on It  

OK, so now on to some fun stuff! I had a little giveaway to celebrate my win in the Moxie Fab world last week. The comment period ended last night and I used random.org to draw a winner this morning.

Lucky #10 means our winner is ERIN!!

Congratulations, Erin!! I've emailed you. :)

Thank you to everyone who stopped by to offer her congratulations on my Moxie Fab win! I was tickled to read your comments and had so much fun seeing how creative you were in fitting the word "blizzard" into your responses. :-) You guys are always so much fun!

The kids are back in school today after an unscheduled four-day weekend. They had Friday off for the blizzard, and Monday off to allow time for snow removal at their schools. Even though they had a super time playing in all of our snow, it's nice to be back into our routine again.

Thanks for dropping by to share a little slice of bliss with me. :-)
Emily

Woodgrain Background Two Ways

Last month I won a spot in the new Stretch Your Stamps online class, and yesterday was the very first day of class. I've never participated in an online papercrafting course before so I was very curious about it and eager to try it out. And I must say, the first day was AWESOME!! I learned soooooooooooo much. The first day was all about stretching your background stamps, and I couldn't wait to try some of what I learned. So I took a little time to make these cards this morning:

Both use the Designer Woodgrain stamp from Hero Arts and sentiments from the Messages set, also from Hero Arts.

The colors I used on the first card were inspired by this Vera Bradley backpack in Lime's Up. I suppose I was also a bit influenced by the pattern, too ;).

My colors in the second card were inspired by the July Hero Arts color challenge:

I'm so excited to be able to play along with A Blog Named Hero: Challenge #7 STRETCH Your Stamps with these two cards, showing how I used the same woodgrain background stamp in two different ways in two very different projects. :D

I'm also playing along again with Kim Kesti's Crafty Month challenge--to create a card (the neon colors one) that combines at least one new item and one item from your stash (at least one year old). For this card, my new item is the Hero Arts Woodgrain stamp, and my old item from my stash is the Websters Pages Bloomers. I've got to stop hoarding that ribbon!!

I have a lot on my list today, so it's time to go tackle it. Thanks so much for checking out what I did with my little bit of "me time" today!

Emily

Stamps: Designer Woodgrain, Messages by Hero Arts

Paper: PTI cardstock, The Paper Company cardstock

Ink: Onyx Black and Vintage Sepia Versafine, TAC Bubblegum

Accessories: circle punch, sewing machine, foam tape, rhinestone, Bloomers by Websters Pages

Techniques: machine stitching

Love Shack

OK, I'll admit that I totally had "The Love Shack" lyrics { . . . is a little old place where we can get together . . . } going through my head the entire time I was making this card! Who else remembers the B-52s? Raise your hand!


I know it's a little racy, which is not my usual style. The person I had in mind for this card the minute I dreamed it up is not who you might expect: it's for my aunt!! Well, and my uncle, too. You see, my aunt (who is now 80) has always said she thinks I should write a book. Of course, I have written a book--actually many, but all of them are math text solutions manuals and study guides and the like, so those don't really "count" as far as she is concerned. She always wants to know, "Emily, when are you going to write me a steamy, juicy romance novel?" I truly don't think that is in the cards for me, but I thought I'd have some fun and send my aunt and uncle their own little love shack, complete with two tickets "for a fun time." They will hoot and holler over this for days! I'll write a little note inside, something like "Have a Happy Valentine's Day, you lovebirds!" One day brightened? Check!

Some notes about making this card:

• Stamps: I used Hero Arts Snowy House (CG212) and Hero Arts Sparkle Clear: Tickets (CL171). The "love shack" text was stamped from a Studio G alphabet set.
• Colors: these were inspired by the January 2012 Hero Arts Color Challenge, which was to use the color palette below
• The house is watercolor painted using dye inks. (I stamped the image in Versafine Vintage Sepia ink and heat embossed it with clear EP before painting.)
• The dusk sky was created with a brayer and Meg's fantastic Poor Man's Spectrum Ink Pad technique.
• That fabulous crocheted mat was part of a RAK from my sweet friend Jessi. Is that fabulous, or what? She is one multi-talented gal, for sure, with a heart of gold. Thanks, Jessi! It totally makes this card!
• The background paper is a random page that I ripped from a circa 1960 Webster's Dictionary and sponged with pink ink around the edges. Here's a tip: scan any randomly ripped-out pages for appropriateness before gluing down on your project! My page prominently featured the definition of "maidenhead." There is such a thing as too racy for a card! I simply flipped the page over where one can find much more innocuous definitions for things like "Main Street" and "make." Disaster averted!
• And, yes, the smoke coming out of the chimney is a pulled-apart cotton ball.

Because I used my favorite colors for Valentine cards--pink and brown (with some purple and red thrown in for fun!)--along with kraft, I'm entering this in the Make It Monday with Kraft Outlet challenge to use your favorite colors.

I had such fun making this card. Thanks for dropping by to read about it! I hope your weekend is swell. :)

Emily