Christmas In August....

Hello Friends,
Thought I would post a few, all right a LOT, of pictures from my "Christmas in July" tag making.  Summer is drawing to a close and often I forget to photograph my tags before packaging them up and putting them away.  I give each of my family members a set of Christmas tags each year on Thanksgiving to use for their Christmas gift giving.  I have a big family so this is a LOT of tags!  I like to get most of them made during the summer months when I have a little bit more free time.  Here are some of the tags I have made so far this summer:

First some candy canes:

This is probably my favorite tag die!  It is an old 4x4 die that was made by Lifestyle Crafts and cuts two candy canes - one is a solid back piece and the other is an overlay piece for the candy cane stripes.  After cutting and gluing the two pieces together I just add some embellishments and a string tie.  The tags are from two different stamp sets.  Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers from Papertrey Ink for the "candy canes 5 cents" tags.  And  a Christmas tag set from Lili of the Valley stamps in the UK for the "Christmas Hugs" sentiment.  These two stamp sets and their various sentiments and tags are used on almost every set of Christmas tags I make! 

Next come the gingers!  Gingerbread men on parade....

This is an old gingerbread man steel-ruled BIGZ die from Sissix.  It is definitely a favorite of mine and my family members for Christmas tags!  It gets a lot of use each year!  I get a lot of questions about where to purchase this die....I got mine on EBAY.  It is, very sadly, retired!  I wish Sissix would bring back this one! :)

 How about some smaller gingers:

These are some 2" gingerbread men using a die from Cottage Cutz.  They are all hanging out together in a little gingham box!  Too cute!

And here is one more:

This tag uses the sweet gingers in the "Ho Ho Ho" stamp set from Paper Sweeties!  The sentiment is also from Paper Sweeties.  It comes from the "Christmas Blessings" stamp set.  I love that their is both a boy and a girl ginger!  I colored these with some Prima colored pencils. 

Now onto some sweet little deer tags:

 This adorable set of "Oh Deer" stamps is from one of my favorite stamp companies - "Your Next Stamp"!  Karen the owner is as sweet as can be and has some really fun products!  This is one of my favorite sets for baby cards and Christmas tags and cards.  These deer are so darn cute!!!!

 This set uses the Minnie Pearl tag set from "A Jillian Vance Design"  I love the sweet scalloped edges on these tags.  And this deer is looking at the sweet butterfly that has landed on its tail!

 These tags use the Tag Sale #8 dies from Papertrey Ink.  And this deer is running and has a bow around its neck! (Sorry about the poor picture quality!)

 Minnie Pearl tags again....and this deer has one hoof up.  They are all so cute!

How about a pink version:

Perfect for a little girls gift this Holiday season!  Or....a new baby gift this winter?!

All right that is it for now!  I am still working on my stash of angel, mitten and stocking tags.  Hopefully I will squeeze in another post to show them off later but I wanted to at least get this post in as usually once school starts my crafting time is more limited!

Crafty Hugs!
Jill 

A new challenge in town....Festive Friday Challenge #1

Hello,
It is Friday night and it seemed like the perfect time to join in one of the newest challenges in town the Festive Friday Challenge.  The design team is absolutely incredible!!!! - just go take a look - and they have completely inspired me with all of their GORGEOUS creations!  This is the very first challenge and it is a color challenge:  Here is the inspiration graphic from their website:

I hope you will decide to play along too!  I love these colors and was inspired tonight when I visited my friend Geri's blog "Paper Wishes".  She had just posted this stunning card: HERE.  I loved the silver embossing on her card and immediately wanted to try it....but guess what - no silver powder in my stash...just gold!  Ho Hum...but alas an idea did pop into my mind when I glanced at some red burlap I recently purchased at Hobby Lobby...and here is my card:

 

One of my very favorite Christmas sentiments is "Have yourself a Merry little Christmas".  It just makes my heart smile!  This sweet little stamp is from Lili of the Valley stamps in the UK and is from a set called "Christmas Grungy Messages".  It is set #33.  You can find it: HERE

I die cut 6 small rectangles into my white card stock (using this die from MFT) and then threaded the burlap through to create this ribbon decoration.  NOTE: I first stamped the sentiment in silver ink, embossed it with clear embossing powder, and added some red COPIC marker to dress it up.  I then ran the white panel through my vagabond with the burlap embossing plate from Cheery Lynn Designs: HERE   After these steps were done I threaded the burlap through the die cut holes in the white card stock piece.

To finish the card I matted the white panel on some silver metallic paper and a red card base. I then embellished with three little glass and silver heart buttons with some metallic red floss threaded through them. I sure love how this turned out.  The idea in my head translated well into the finished card!


Thanks for taking a look at my card.  I hope you get to join in the challenge or at least go and check out all the beautiful cards and leave some comment love!
Happy Weekend!
:) Jill