Christmas in July

I'm one of those people who loves making Christmas cards ALL the time so when I see "Christmas In July" I pull out my Christmas supplies and go for it. Now, that doesn't mean you have to make a Christmas card to be in our challenge this month at Craft-Dee BowZ since our challenge is always ANYTHING GOES, but if you need an excuse to do a winter card, this is it.

    

For those who are wondering what ornament die I used, I'm sorry but I didn't make note of it. I used my striped embossing folder for the background, tag stamps by Whimsy, branch die by Tim Holtz, Quikcutz rectangle die and pretty flat back mat finished jewels by Queen & Co. 

My bow is made with lightweight seam binding which tied beautifully using my bow tool. I made a double loop bow and it was the perfect embellishment on this pretty pink Christmas card! You can see how perfect this bow turned out and it was on the first try. No more wasting ribbon or seam binding for me trying to get a good looking bow for any project!

This is my little bow tool. It's small, simple to use, reasonably priced and I've saved money by not wasting anymore ribbon trying to get a good looking bow. It comes out great the first time with my bow tool!

Our sponsor this month is The Paper Shelter and the winner receives 3 images of their choice from the extensive collection of images which include black and white images as well as images digitally colored and even background paper! You are sure to find more than 3 that you want, so please visit the site and see the fabulous images for sale.

Our challenge at Craft-Dee BowZ is always ANYTHING GOES. Today is the last day you can enter your project in our challenge and I wish all entrants the best of luck!  

                                                                              Thanks for stopping by!

                                                  --Gail

I've entered these challenges:

• A Bit More Time to Craft Challenge #120, Anything Goes, closes 7/29, winn announced 8/1
• Christmas 24 Holiday Card Challenge #014, Ribbon and/or Buttons, closes 7/30, winn announced 7/31
• Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round July Challenge, Cool It, closes 7/31, winn announced 8/1
• Crafts Galore Encore Challenge #77, Anything Goes, closes 7/30, winn announced 8/1
• Creations in Pink Challenge #24, More Pink than any other color, closes 8/13, winn announced 8/15
• Die Cut Divas Challenge Christmas in July, Die Cuts, closes 7/31, winn announced 8/3
• Dies R Us Challenge 149, Christmas in July, Die Cuts, closes 7/28, winn announced 8/1
• Dreaming Scrap, Challenge 81, My Favorite Color, closes 7/30, winn announced 8/1
• Girlz Creative Crafts Challenge 3, Christmas in July, closes 8/14, winn announced 8/20
• Merry Little Christmas Challenge 24, Anything Christmas Goes, closes 7/31, winn announced 8/5
• World Wide Open Design Team Challenge #07, Anything Goes, closes 8/12, winn announced 8/15

Christmas cards year round!

We're doing something new at Christmas at Sweet Stampin' for 2017 and each monthly challenge will be ANYTHING GOES WITH CHRISTMAS. We're hoping it will encourage everyone to make their Christmas cards all year long to avoid the crunch at the end of the year.

I made a card using all diecuts and one stamp (the sentiment). I liked the elegance of this card and the way it is on the flat side for mailing purposes. I'm finding that mailing my 'fancy' cards is just too darn expensive, yet I want to send handmade cards to my friends!

I used metallic silver paper as my bottom layer, metallic gold for the ornament, metallic green for the spray of greenery attached as part of the ornament die and green glitter paper for the evergreen border across the top. I used a pretty white paper with a gold pearlescent finish and stamped my sentiment in black.

The Team at Christmas at Sweet Stampin' have created some beautiful cards to start off this year and I hope you'll take a look at them and join us this month for our ANYTHING GOES WITH CHRISTMAS challenge.

                                                                                    Gail

Decorating the tree

It's already December 1 and that means a new challenge at Craft-Dee BowZ. The months have flown by again this year and I have a feeling it's not going to go any slower next year. My wish for each of you is a happy and safe holiday season. The challenge for you this month at Craft-Dee BowZ is ANYTHING GOES AND INCLUDE A HANDMADE BOW.

 

I chose to do a very non-traditional card for me...no image to color!  I've had this great ornament die cut for years and die cut  it twice, once in red metallic paper and once in silver metallic paper. Then I pieced the red pieces into the silver outline. You might be able to see it better in the picture below due to glare. My green pine boughs are a die by Sizzix and I love DecoArt Snow-Tex and applied it with my finger and then sprinkled white glitter over it while it was still wet. The background of my paper is an embossing folder that reminded me of a Nordic sweater pattern.

 

 

I love this ornament and the top of it is a double swirl, so one swirl is tucked around the green pine bough.





And now what you've all been waiting for. The bow. This is white satin with white stamped snowflakes all over the front side. With my little bow tool I was able to make this triple looped bow, keeping the patterned side of the ribbon facing forward. I couldn't have done this in my hands and love my little bow tool. Have you gotten one yet and used it?

The Team at Craft-Dee BowZ has some gorgeous creations to share with you today and I know you'll enjoy looking at all 4 of our projects. Remember, we're a small team so it doesn't take a lot of time to take a peek at Craft-Dee BowZ challenge blog and leave each of us a comment! 

This will be my last post before Christmas for Craft-Dee BowZ since my next post is on December 26 and I'll be showing you a gift bag I made and using a beautiful image from Robyn's Fetish who is our sponsor this month! Each gal on the Team has a Tuesday to share a wonderful project to share with you, so please stop by every week to see the latest and greatest. And remember that the challenge for you this month is ANYTHING GOES AND INCLUDE A HANDMADE BOW.

Merry Christmas to all!