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 

Make It Monday #103 - The Diecut Double-Up

Here with a quick post.  I made a card for Make it Monday #103 - The Diecut Double-Up

Here it is:

I do not have any Hawaiian shores ribbon or ink (lost? buried in my room somewhere?) from Papertrey and it must be rectified!  Ugh!  It is funny how not having matching inks and ribbons can really complicate your card making efforts.  I added black as the third color on this card because of it.  I also used a light turquoise ink (HA) to stamp a dot in some of the white flowers on the PTI patterned paper from the Raspberry Fizz Mix pack. 

In hindsight I wish I had used pink to color in the letters in the sentiment and I wish I had only dotted the "i" in smile instead of the other two.  I tried to fix it and ended up making a bigger problem - hence the glitter glue on top of the piece of card stock at the bottom of the banner die cut.  Anyhow - all is well that ends well and this card is bright and cheerful and fun so all is good!  I hope to try this technique again as I really enjoyed it!  Thanks for taking a look!  And also welcome to a few new subscribers here at my lil ol blog! 
                                                              Hugs,
                                : ) Jill

A little bit of sunshine...

Hello Friends,
Here with a quick card tonight.  I made this one for my sister's birthday which is coming up in a couple of weeks.  She is a sunshine person and loves being outdoors surfing at the beach.  I have done lots of surfing cards for her in the past so I decided to go with sunshine as the theme this year. I am entering this card into a challenge at Really Reasonable Ribbon:  Challenge #65: Monochromatic Color and Ribbon Theme.  You can find the info: HERE.  I hope you join all the fun too!

Here is my card:

 I might make a second card too because I had an embossing folder set out to use on the yellow cardstock but forgot to do so before assembling my card.  I really must start embossing first instead of stamping because I always forget!!!!

 

Here is a close-up of the sentiment from Lili of the Valley Stamps in the UK.

 I hope each of you have a day filled with sunshine in your hearts!  The sun actually made an appearance in Seattle today and I spent a bit of time out in the backyard enjoying it!  My son and I also walked to the grocery store this afternoon to soak up even more of it!  In Seattle if it is sunny you can pretty much find EVERYONE outside of their homes taking advantage of it! LOL!  Especially after all of the overcast and rainy days we have endured the last few months.  Happy Friday Night!

P.S.  The sun always makes me think of my summer garden and the smell of my roses in full bloom....I always cut some to bring inside and enjoy...here are some pictures from last summer...

                                             Crafty Hugs,
                                                : )   Jill