Christmas in July - Merry Christmas Snowman

I love this little snowman!  This is the same snowman I used on one of my "Oh Deer" cards posted HERE.  He has a totally different look on this card with the brighter colors.

The card layout totally came from a card I found on Pinterest.  You can find my inspiration HERE. 

Once again for this card I used the now retired "City Sidewalks" papers and the stamp set, called "Cozy Christmas" with matching Thin Cuts.  I used a separate little sentiment stamp called "Mini Christmas".  I just love the font on that stamp.

Isn't he cute?  I love piecing him together with different accessories.  And of course, the sparkles and bakers twine add that finishing touch.

Thank you for following along with me during my Christmas in July posts.  I'm inspired to create more soon, just in time for the Holiday catalog release on September 1st.  Stay tuned and take care!

Christmas in July - Merry Christmas Mr & Mrs Claus

This was a fun little card made using "City Sidewalks" papers and "The North Pole" stamp set for the cute little Santa & Mrs. Claus.  They were fun to color with our markers.

I've always really liked blue & red together for Christmas.  I know it's not a traditional combination, but I really think it works.  

This card looks like an odd size, but folded it is a regular 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card.  The square on the bottom is 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 and the circle is placed so that the top of it sits at 5 1/2" from the bottom of the card.

For the sentiment I used a holiday digital Cricut Cartridge that Close to My Heart came out with, also called "City Sidewalks".  I love the font.  And you can never go wrong with bakers twine.  I have oodles of it in my stash.

Once again, thank you for visiting.

Christmas in July - Merry Christmas Thin Cuts card

Another fun card using the now retired "City Sidewalks" paper pack.  I totally lifted this card design from fellow consultant Gail Gross.  Gail's card was done using the "Oh Deer" papers I used on my previous cards.  You can see Gail's card HERE.  It's super cute!

This card was mostly made using Thin Cuts that were available at the time.  Aren't those gifts cute?   I love the polka dots and The "ribbon" done with glitter paper is just adorable.

Thanks for visiting.  Stop by again soon.

Christmas in July - Merry Christmas red & white snowflake card

This card was a design from one of the card kits (Happy Holidays) offered in the catalog at the time of my workshop.  It uses one piece of paper from the now retired "City Sidewalks" paper pack.

The sentiment is from the card kit as well.  It's done with white embossing powder.  I like how it stands out on the Cranberry cardstock.  And there are more of the Thin Cut Snowflakes I love so much, cut out of White Glitter Paper.

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas in July - Be Merry

This was a fun & simple card, very much inspired by a card by Lori Symank (see her card HERE).  I love that it looks like a wrapped gift.

The papers are from the now retired "City Sidewalks" paper pack.  This was as easy as patterned paper, plus glitter tape that mimicked ribbon and a fun tag made with the now retired "Perfect Presents Holiday" stamp set.  You could easily do this with any paper pack.  The layout would work for other occasions too.

Thanks again for visiting my blog.  I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

Christmas in July - JOY

 This was a favorite card of mine from the "Oh Deer" card workshop.  My inspiration came from THIS card I found on Pinterest (from gerispaperwishes blog).  

This card is really pretty in person, but I just couldn't capture the softness of the papers and beauty of the glitter papers in the photos.  

These snowflake thin cut dies were a great investment for me as I've used them a lot.  I embossed the JOY sentiment (from the retired Very Merry Holiday set) with Silver Embossing Powder and again, the photographs don't do it justice.  And I just love Close to My Heart's glitter papers.  They just sparkle in person.

Come back again soon to see the Christmas Cards I made in my next Christmas themed workshop.  They're fun and bright, using more traditional holiday colors.

Christmas in July - Merry Christmas team challenge card

This Christmas card came about from a team challenge.  My upline Julie had sent us some miscellaneous sized pieces of the now retired "Oh Deer" papers along with some pre-stamped images (the deer, tree & sentiments).  We were to create a card with the pieces and show them off at an online holiday party.

I wish I had kept the photo I had of the "before" pieces.  It was really fun to see how different every one's cards turned out using the same pieces.  

I remember one thing that was really hard for me was to NOT use embellishments.  I almost always add sparkles or a ribbon or something, so this was difficult.  Julie had sent a small piece of Sea Glass glitter paper, so I cut a partial snowflake from it.  The piece wasn't large enough to fit the entire snowflake die, hence why it is partially hidden behind the tree.  :)

I also cut a small sliver of gold glitter paper and made some garland for the tree, creating my own embellishment - ha!  

I rarely make a single card not to be used in one of my classes, so this was indeed fun for me.

Thanks for the visit, see you soon!

Christmas in July - Merry Christmas easel card

Here's a fun card inspired by Allysa at Rocky Mountain Paper Crafts.  See her card HERE.

I used Allysa's card layout for the front of mine, but flipped it vertically and added a strip of B&T paper across the bottom.  I hadn't made an easel card in a long time, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity. 

Again using papers and colors from the "Oh Deer" paper pack and stamps from "Woodland Wishes" & "Very Merry Holiday", this card came together quite nicely.

Above is a look at the inside of the card, with room to write a nice greeting.  Below is a close up of the stamped images layered and popped up on a fun snowflake embossed background.

I hope you liked this card.  Come back again soon.

Christmas in July - Wishing You Peace Love & Joy

I've always liked the look of white ink on Kraft cardstock, so that is what I did here.  

This is a pretty simple card.  I stamped the sentiment using White Daisy Pigment Ink and added glittery snowflakes cut with (now retired) thin cuts dies.  The washi tape was from my stash and matched the Sea Glass glitter paper perfectly.  And of course a few sparkles for the finishing touch.

Thank you again for stopping by.  See you soon!

Christmas in July - The Magic of the Season

Welcome back.  The next card in my "Christmas in July" theme was another card made using the now retired "Oh Deer" paper pack and the fun "Season of Magic" stamp set.

I like these non traditional, soft colors for the holidays.  The wreath image was a fun one to add cut out flowers to for extra dimension.  And of course a little bling in the center of each of the flowers is a must.  Can you see that Sea Glass glitter paper border peeking out?  That was a great color, I miss it.

Thanks again for stopping by.

Christmas in July - The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Happy Holidays!  Oh sorry, I mean Happy July!  I've always wanted to do "Christmas in July" card posts on the blog, but I'm never prepared.  Well, recently I ran across a box of cards that I did for my Christmas card workshops waaay back in 2016 and realized that I never posted photos of them.  Perfect, so here we go...

This was a cute joy fold card made using now retired "Oh Deer" papers and the "Cozy Christmas" stamps & thin cuts set. 

I just loved this snowman and all his pieces.  And these colors in this paper pack are so pretty.

Here is a photos of the inside of the card.  Cute right?

Thanks for stopping by and please come back throughout the month for more Christmas Card inspiration.

Elephants and Accidents

So I made another little Baby Blanket / Stuffed Elephant gift set for a friend of mine last week. Her boss is due with a little girl very soon. Apparently her nursery colors are pink and brown, so how fitting is this?



Love this little guy!



I like the contrasting zig-zag decorative stitch on the blanket.



I just love Minky fabric! It's one of my favorite fabrics to buy, but unfortunately it's a little spendy, so I can't hoard as much of it as I'd like to. You may remember I made a couple of these for our Crafty Ladies sale this fall, but I'd never used this particular color combo before. I love it and I think I should have one of my own, at least the blanket in adult size. Being the only girl in the house, I just don't get to have my pink fix fulfilled!

Well, I have orders for 3 more boy sets (revised: as of last night, 4 more boy sets - woo hoo!), so I guess I'd better get off of this computer and get busy sewing!! Maybe one of these days I'll even get some into my sad little Etsy shop, lol.

*** Oh P.S., I forgot about this little tidbit. While I was down in my craft room sewing this set on Thursday night, Chico came down and said there had been a little accident upstairs. What? He said the Christmas tree fell over! Yes, it's the middle of January and we still have all of our Christmas decorations up! I don't think we've ever had our stuff up this late into the new year. So while downloading some photos off the camera, I found these pictures. Chico must have known I'd want to see the aftermath, lol.









Amazingly no ornaments were hurt in the accident. Maybe this was the universe's way of saying Christmas is over. Or maybe it was foul play? I WAS downstairs at the time, perhaps this was staged by Chico to get me to finally put away all of the Christmas decor? Notice the the tree missed the TV on the wall? Very suspicious...lol.

Christmas Day 2009

I guess I'd better get the rest of the Christmas photos on here since it's now officially the new year. This year we spent a quiet day at home on Christmas day.

Chico had been out of town for about a week, got home on the evening of the 23rd and was leaving early in the morning again on the 27th, so it was nice to have some family time together for a couple of days. Granny Rose came over first thing in the morning to watch the boys open their presents. They're always so good about waiting until all of us grown-ups are ready to go.

I always make the boys stand in front of the Christmas tree before any presents are unwrapped. They're good about giving me nice smiles too. Thank you boys!

Here's the tree with all the gifts under it. (I just realized that I never turned on the tree lights that whole day. What was I thinking?).




















Here are my lovely boys Christmas morning.





Mateo's favorite gift this year - his new Nintendo DSi.



And Jaxon got Legos.



And more legos - good grief!




















Mateo got legos too, but I didn't get a photo of him with his. We also got the boys a new Nerf tag set. Do you think Jaxon was excited?



Here's Chico opening the Blue Ray that Granny got for us. That was perfect timing because our DVD player had just died.



Chico also got a new hat and hot rod shirt. He's thrilled, can't you see it in his face? lol





Here's Granny with some gifts too.





Well, I wasn't in any photos, but I was there too. Chico got me a great little "Flip" video camera, so now I can post little clips of the family on here too.

Well, the rest of the afternoon was spent playing the Wii, the DS and watching bits of the 24 hours of A Christmas Story on tv (an annual tradition).

Here's Jax down in the basement playing his new Star Wars Wii game.



In the evening we went over and spent a little time with our friends, the Dillavous. We had a nice time chatting, eating cookies and watching the kids play with their new kittens and open gifts. It was a great day!

Mall Santa 2009

Here's this year's photo of the boys with Santa at the mall. This is the 10th year we've done this. The photographer was laughing at how big the boys looked on Santa's lap. They do look big, too funny!

Christmas Eve 2009

This year Nona & Papa were going to be on their way to LaGrande on Christmas morning, so we celebrated Christmas Eve with them. We had Chinese food for dinner, since there were not many choices open by that time of the evening.



After we were all stuffed we headed over to Nona & Papa's house to exchange gifts. Here's the boys in front of their tree.




















They had a little train set up under the tree, so we had to check that out.











OK, shall we open gifts?



A "Bind-it-all" for Kandi - yay!!



A Snuggie for Nona from the boys.




















A duck hunt game for Papa from the boys.





Apparently Mateo was still full from the Chinese food.




















Now to figure out this duck game. The duck flies around the room and you're supposed to shoot it down with 3 shots.





That duck's pretty crazy! Can you see it flying in the middle of the picture, near the lamp? It was kind of scarry, lol.



Now it's headed for the hallway. Look out Jaxon!





I think we figured out that you need higher ceilings if you're going to play it inside the house. So, we moved on to We Fish for the Wii, another gift for Papa from us. Mateo had to show us how it was done, then Papa got a turn.









We had a great time playing together! Thank you Nona & Papa for the wonderful evening and gifts!