Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Holly Jolly Christmas

Now if you're my age, you can't help but hear Burl Ives singing when you see the words, "Holly Jolly Christmas." I don't know why it is but August seems to be the month where I first start thinking about Christmas. I have high hopes every year that I'll get that early start on holiday shopping this month I guess. I definitely do not want winter to come any faster than it already does but sometimes it is nice to think ahead.

I'm going to two big team meetings this weekend and the contest we're having at one of them is to take a non-Christmas pack of paper and make Christmas cards or layouts with it. You can't get more non-Christmas than this School Zone pack! It's no longer available, I received it in one of those mystery boxes back in June and loved it immediately.

I went through the pack and chose 2 patterns and 3 cardstock pieces. Do the same for your card.

Cut as follows:

Pattern paper #1 6" x 3" (striped)
Pattern paper #2 3.5" x 2.75" (grid paper)
Cardstock #1 for card base 12" x 6" (colonial white)
Cardstock #1 circle 1.5" in diameter (colonial white)
Cardstock #2 for card front 6" x 6" (sunflower)
Cardstock #3 2.25" in diameter (outdoor denim)
Cardstock #3 .5" x 5" (outdoor denim)

You'll need some magic mesh in green OR you can cut a strip of pattern paper 2.5" x 6"

Distress everything with outdoor denim (or a brown depending on the paper you are using).

Put the long skinny strip through your crimper and then sand to make the white core show.

Since the 6" x 6" front doesn't fit in a crimper, dry emboss it with lines every .5" x 1" in a grid design then sand.

Do the same to your large circle but in a diagonal (pie) design.

Choose a stamp to use for the small white circle, I used Christmas Melodies.

Stamp a sentiment on the long white strip. I used a stamp from our brand new (not available yet) stamp set Holiday Trinkets.

Lay the 3" x 6" piece down about 1" from the left side. Glue.

Attach the 3.5" x 2.75" piece a quarter inch down from top, one inch from the right side.

Place the strip of outdoor denim .5" x 5" piece a quarter inch from left side of striped piece.

Lay your self adhesive magic mesh horizonatally down one inch from the top (you can use the substitute pattern paper instead).

Attach your Merry Christmas strip one and half inches down from the top of the page, about an eighth of an inch from the left side of the striped paper.

Put your circles together and glue them on the bottom right quadrant of your card.

Add three matching brads down the left hand side of the striped paper and a cute window circle over the circular stamp to make it really pop out.

That's it for today, don't forget to sign up as a follower if you haven't already.

4 comments:

  1. very non-christmasy christmas card! I LOVE IT!!!!

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  2. Great card. Love the colors. I am going to have to try something like this!!

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  3. Pretty impressive...I don't know if I could have made that work...I would have continued to visualize school pictures.

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