Christmas in July (Hopefully Part I of II) - Jingle Belles Catch Up

SO...............if you are a regular visitor here you might have wondered what has happened to all my Jingle Belles cards for the last couple few , well for many months?  I could regale you with excuses, some of them good, some of them sketchy, but I won't.  Just let me share with you now what I've been working on this past, what I am calling "Christmas in July" weekend.  I figured if the Hallmark channel can celebrate Christmas in July, and QVC and the Home Shopping Network can also, why not do the same.  And since Saturday was a yucky weather day and we came home early, what better way to use my time than to do some catching up on my Christmas cards while watching a various selection of Christmas movies on, yes I did.... the Hallmark Channel.

I actually did this card last, but it's the current challenge at the Jingle Belles blog so I will start with it. It's an inspiration photo challenge.  (I know, you might have mistaken it for the annual use pink in your Christmas cards challenge, but no, that's not usually until October.)  

Look at this lovely hombre tree in the scene provided by the JB girls below.  Isn't it beautiful!  My original idea was to use sticky jewels as my ornaments for my card, but in the process of searching and reorganizing my craft room, I found these stickers that I purchased at the $Tree not too long ago.  I got a set each of the small and the large glittery circles.  And even after doing this card I have a lot leftover of each.

I know my tree colors don't match exactly the order of the inspiration photo, but I felt this was the way to go.  I used some Brushos for my background and loosely as a tree underneath the ornaments. I found a slice of the colorful gingham paper and used that behind the tree panel with some MS punch added to soften the transition.  With those colors, I really felt it needed a solid pink as the card base and grabbed some retired pink SU paper for that.  The sentiment was die cut from some white glitter paper using word dies from Ellen Hutson.  Wouldn't it be great to send this card to the most conservative person on our Christmas card list!

I actually started my cardmaking that day with the prompt from one of my favorites challenges - recycling.  I managed two cards for this challenge.  The one below reuses that pretty red tag with the gold foil design on it.  I found some red metallic paper and contrasted that with a sliver of red suede paper. The flower was plain red so I added some gold paint to the edges and layered the flower at the top of the tag with some gold twine.  The sentiment is a die from Ellen Hutson (it actually says enjoy and I trimmed off the "en") cut from some gold glitter paper and it's all on a kraft card base.

The owls on the card below were cut from some of those wrapping paper sample sheets that I kept from a school fundraiser booklet.  I fussy cut them and added some real ponpoms to their hats.  

Another challenge I had missed was the washi tape one.  I made the ornaments below by lining up up some Christmas-theme washi on slice of white CS and then punching out the ornaments.  The hangers are also washi as is the sentiment.  The bows on the ornaments are pink cotton twine.

I looked through my stash of washi and pulled out those with red designs.  Adding the swirly die cut as a wreath gave it a pop of another color.

And the last card I'm showing is from the "USE NO BLUE" challenge.  Don't be tempted to cry foul with the sky behind the birds. I can assure you that it is gray and I'm so sorry that I didn't think to used a pale yellow instead.  I watercolored the image with my new KOI watercolors and an aquapainter. Then I layered it with 3 coats of clear embossing powder making it very glossy and almost looking like they're on the other side of the window.  I love cardinals, but after I got done I kind of think they're kind of angry looking.  I framed them with some cork paper and added the ribbon with the pinecones which afforded me the opportuity to add the die cut pine cones and branches in the corner.  

We'll see in the weeks to come if I can get another "Christmas in July" day!