I love Christmas--the lovely decorations, the secret shopping trips, the look of surprise and delight on the kids faces...it's all good with me. BUT--it's July. Summer has just officially begun. Am I really ready to jump on the Christmas band wagon six months out? Ten years ago I would have said no. Plenty of time for Christmas prep in November. But now? It was November five minutes ago, wasn't it? The days are just speeding by, and last Christmas I realized that my enjoyment of the holidays was being hampered by my to-do list. That's not okay with me. So when my fabulous up-line suggested that our theme for our team swap this month was going to be Christmas in July, it only took me a few minutes to realize this was a great opporunity for me. I don't want anything about my holiday traditions to just be "crossing it off the list", and this would be a great chance to get my Christmas cards ready well in advance of needing them (since it seems to take me FOREVER to get them addressed and in the mail come December!).
So I sat down this weekend determined to make Christmas cards with some of the holdover Christmas sets from last year's holiday catalogue. And hit a brick wall. I am a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas--wood, burlap, I love it all. But I just couldn't get red and green, fireplaces and stockings, to feel "right" while I have a sunburn!
Then inspiration struck, and I went with a Christmas in Candyland theme.
I used the stitched circle thinlits to cut out three varying sizes of circles in Pool Party, Powder Pink, and Lemon Lime--most definitely NOT traditional Christmas colours, but I think they look lovely as a holiday vignette. I used two stamps from the new Merry Mistletoe stamp set to add some interest to the circles, stamping the tree in Powder Pink on the pink circle, and the beautiful holly stamp at the top of the lemon lime circle. I also clear embossed the Striped Background stamp on the pool party circle, and I love the shine it adds to the card. The sentiment also comes from the Merry Mistletoe set and is heat embossed in gold.
I embossed a rectangle of Very Vanilla cardstock with the new Ruffle embossing folder for some subtle texture, and then gilded the edges with versamark and gold embossing powder. The die cut stocking is one of the holdover sets from last year (Christmas Stocking Thinlits) and pairs with the Hang Your Stocking stamp set. I backed the stocking with vanilla card and popped it up with dimensionals, then added some looped gold metallic thread behind.
I am really happy with how it turned out! I think it has lots of interest, texture and shine, and yet was simple enough to make multiple copies (I needed 7 to share with my team).
Bonus:
After I got the pastels out of my system I was able to go back and finish the traditional red-and-green card I was struggling with at the start!
Until next time, I'll justBstamping!
Barb
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