DeNami Blog Hop - Girlie Girl

Welcome to DeNami's Blog Hop for May and Happy Mother's Day to everyone. You should have arrived from Andrea Matthew's Blog. Andrea is a member of the design team and always has wonderful creations posted on her blog. If you get lost along the way, return the DeNami's blog and you'll find the link to join back in the hop.

The details for the hop are:

When: The blog hop starts on May 8 at 6 AM, PST. However, you have until May 9, 2011, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs (to be eligible for a prize).

Why: To be inspired by beautiful girlie creations featuring DeNami Design stamps and also the chance to win mini shopping sprees on the DeNami Design website!

Prizes: We are giving away THREE $20 gift certificates to our website! 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!

This was a fun challenge - so many possibilities. Of course the first thing I thought of was clothes and shoes. I have two other cards I'll post as extra entries in the bonus round but the card I've chosen for the hop is about a love affair between girls and chocolate. I have a section of my stamps devoted to words/phrases and there is a portion just for girlie stuff and another for chocolate.

Another phrase that fits well with this Mimi stamp is "There's nothing better than a good friend except a good friend with chocolate". So true.

The card includes DeNami brown card stock, discontinued Stampin' Up! Blush Blossom, Stampin' Up! Ivory Naturals, Mimi with her box of chocolates, Memento Rich Cocoa ink, Stampin' Up! tulip border embossing folder, Copics for color and lots of A Muse Pretty Pearls. Can you have too many pearls?

For those that want to post a girlie creation but didn't get a spot in the hop, you can enter your work on DeNami's blog this week. The winner is guaranteed a spot in the next hop.

Next stop: Another wonderful artist on the DeNami Design Team, Ayana Posadas. Enjoy!

Training and Stamping

Continuing on with my training (nine miles this weekend!) and making cards to use in fundraising $1500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Half Marathon in Lake Placid next month. It won't be long now and the event will be here. I've reached the half way point in fundraising (see link at the side). Here is the second card kit available.

Kits are $15 for six cards or two kits for $25. The third kit is almost done and the fourth started plus I'll have some miscellaneous kits using cards already made. It's a challenge to make cards that are cute and simple using supplies I already have to keep costs down. I'm open to any suggestions if you have a sample or two you think would fit the bill.

Thanks for looking.

DeNami Color Challenge #7

Most of the time I really love my job. But I've been in government service for (good grief) 28 years and these days things get a little crazy. There is acommon phrase that's joined our repertoire of phrases: "If no one is going to listen to our expertise (for example), why don't they just get a monkey to do this job?". The shortened phrase now is "just get a monkey".Fortunately, this is an amazing group of people and we help support each other through the craziness. We do great work and in the end we help improve the nutrition of a half million low income children. Not bad.

In the mean time, these DeNami monkey stamps help give us a laugh and relieve some stress so we can keep doing this important work. Who wouldn't benefit from a reminder to just Hang In There. Especially when we remember that we're in this together.

Great colors in the challenge: Brown, Kraft, Cream, Navy and Magenta. The papers are textured Melon Mambo, a beautiful brown from a recent Stampassion card kit, Night of Navy, and Confetti Cream. Embellishments include Brown Sugar Divine Twine and DeNami Espresso Boutique Buttons. I also used Fiskars Upper Crust border punch, and Stampin' Up! Modern Label Extra Large and Decorative Label Extra Large punches. Inks are SU Elegant Espresso and VersaFine Majestic Blue with a few Tombo markers to fill in the guys.

Please check out my Team in Training page to see my progress raising $1500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Pass it on! Thanks.

DeNami Blog Hop - Monochromatic

Another entry for the DeNami Blog Hop of Monochromatic cards. My son (who is a very literal thinker) and I had a long discussion after the hop about what monochromatic meant to us. I intentionally left off white or black because I think they are a different color than my theme (aqua) and he responded that, technically, black and white aren't colors. 'Technically' is a big part of his vocabulary.

Well I have a second entry and I planned to use browns. I included cream (a very light brown, right?) and still omitted white or black. So who's the literal thinker now :)

Anyway, I just purchased another two packs of Basic Grey Capella paper from Stampassion because I love it so. I tried to use the DeNami brown glitter but it was just a glitter mess so I reverted to ColorBox Chestnut Roan chalk ink. Topped off with some A Muse brown trimmed ribbon and A Muse brown pearls, here's my second monochromatic card. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

DeNami Blog Hop - Monochromatic

I've missed the last two hops and I'm happy to get to post for this one. Last year at one of the craft show exhibits, a customer pulled together this aqua shimmer paper, aqua glitter, aqua ribbon, and aqua button pack and I thought it looked wonderful together. I wanted to add some aqua card stock but didn't find just the right color match and I didn't want to risk messing up this beautiful shimmer paper. Sorry there is so much glare off the paper but the card looks rich and elegant. I hope to add the brown card I made as well. Enjoy the hop.

DeNami theme challenge #6 - Boys

It's a boy. Denami's current theme challenge is all about boys. I've had this stamp that says 'Snips and sails and puppy dog tails' for a long time and have never used it on a card. We've had lots of people in our office having little boys lately so I decided to use it with the DeNami puppy stamp set and add the paw and bone stamps.

Red, white and blue, and all boy too.

Working away making more card kits

One of the things in the Stampin' Up! Sale a Bration kit was a paper set called Ice Cream Parlor paper. Another set was coordinating ribbon and buttons. So just like I did with the Basic Grey paper, I went to town making cards with the paper until I finished it. This set is my favorite because I love the decorative swirls in the paper. Who wouldn't love to get this bright and happy card!