Author: Catherine

The theme today for Christmas in July is Follow that star and I decided I wanted to use the new die I bought a few weeks ago from The Greetery. I then ended up making a lovely shimmery night sky background to place the die cuts on and adding the other colours of foiled cardstock too!

The background I made using three bright colours of distress ink and then added black soot. I then added a light mist of the shimmer spritz using the lambs wool colour of the Kingston Crafts shimmer spritz! Perfect for a fun background!

The die cuts I started with the black foiled cardstock from Kingston Crafts and then added the gold, green and pink too for the star inserts.

I used a foiled and die cut sentiment from the stash – I added that to disguise the join across the two die cuts.

I also added a border of the foiled cardstock which helped to frame the panel.

A simple but very fun card!

I really love the pops of colour against the dark!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

I knew for the mistletoe challenge for today’s Christmas in July project I wanted to use the MFT cover die but that was as far as my planning went!

Once I had cut it from the Kingston Crafts foiled cardstock (such a gorgeous green) I then decided to also grab the mistletoe stamp from a magazine kit and create a nice bright cluster.

I used my promarkers to colour the stamped image four times and then fussy cut them out and added some scrap strips behind them for a bit of dimension, I chose to add the cover panel onto the black base and then added those stamped ones to the topper panel.

I stamped and embossed the sentiment onto a black strip and then cut the banner element. I added that too with a little dimension so it fit nicely over the stamped sprigs.

I then decided to stamp the same image onto the card base but with second generation ink so it was paler.

Really love this modern and fun card – love the bright mistletoe images and that shiny background die cut!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today’s theme was to use a sketch – and the sketch I came up with was heavily inspired by a card Martin made a few years ago which I did CASE at the time and I wanted to revisit!

So thank you Martin for the inspiration!

I ended up making three cards using the sketch … which you can see come together on my video

Making the circle elements was so easy – nine circle die cuts with the same size die – a bit of ink blending with the moon mask and then cutting the hills to size from the other two patterned paper circles.

And then glued the layers together – perfect for a quick and easy landscape element! (Please note Martin’s original took more effort and had lots of beautiful blending and die cutting! Mine is the lazy version!)

I then had to decide what to use for the other elements of the sketch – this one is probably closer than the others with the die cut tree. I chose to cut it from glitter paper and then added the die cut sentiment.

For this one I flipped the sketch and used a stamped and fussy cut tree which I coloured with the stampin blend markers. This time a larger die cut sentiment to cross the whole front.

This final one I used one of the leftover My Favourite Things cute images of the polar bear and the Santa. I then added a stamped sentiment.

For all three I added glitter glue – just in a few different ways – with hindsight I should have added the glitter glue before adding the focal elements – that would have been easier.

I also added the little die cut stars as embellishments – I kept these white and simple rather than adding more glitter glue.

Really love these cards – certainly they are easy to replicate over and over – and the sketch lends itself to different designs.

So once again a big thank you to Martin for the inspiration (as always!).

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Unusually I kept to one brand for todays card – pretty pink posh – mainly because I wanted to use the Christmas lights garland die I bought a while ago for the theme of sparkling lights.

And isn’t it just so cute? Well I think so!

Die cut three of the garlands and then I cut the lights twice from each of the three colours – so there were enough to stick to the parts of the garlands I would be using!

I spent a fair while sticking them together and then added the clear glitter glue to each of the lights so they really are sparkling.

I chose the blue for the mat layer and then to emboss the white with the merry Christmas embossing folder.

The sentiment was another pretty pink posh one and I used the same pink cardstock I had used for the lights. I stacked it four layers because it was going to go over the garlands. I also added some thread as a little nest underneath to add another texture.

Such a cute card!

I did have to do some fairly speedy scenes on the video as the fiddly glueing element took a while – but the process video is over on my YouTube channel – along with all the other Christmas in July videos so far in the playlist!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

So for today’s Christmas in July theme I knew I wanted to use Arrange a Wreath but to go a little OTT adding to my wreath with other bits and pieces. I also half way through making the cards decided to make one of them a stepped up version of the card which is always fun!

Both are lovely elegant cards the the one to the left with the gold script in the background – yes that’s clearly stepped up!

After stamping all the leaves in lots of colours of green I added ink smooshing it to some scrap cardstock and this is what I die cut the wreaths from, along with two from the foiled cardstock.

I added ribbon to finish off the cluster of leaves at the top of the wreath and added a stamped sentiment which was stamped in one green and edged in another.

The wreaths were both placed on the green card bases I bought for ease during the Christmas in July season – they are a lovely rich dark green.

For the script in the background I used part of an old stamp and stamped it twice before embossing with gold powder.

I finished off both with the red glitter glue berries for a tiny pop of colour amongst the green.

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Today’s card was really quick and easy for my Christmas in July series over on YouTube – at the time I was tired and also full of hayfever so I kept it simple!

A colour scheme is the theme I chose for today – red, black, gold.

I pulled papers out of the stash along with Spellbinders stickers I had bought in the sale and then the gold laser cut panels from an old Stampin Up kit.

There really isn’t much to say about the card as it really is as simple as cutting the papers, some black card elements and sticking everything down! So it’s a simple process video today!

I used a premade card blank for the base and added in a panel of white and some scraps of the patterned paper on the inside!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Todays theme for Christmas in July was very much out of my comfort zone and I challenged myself even more by using a paper I wasn’t exactly keen on!

But I love the final result. Some inking, some foiling and then those fun Tim Holtz paper dolls.

The foiling is a spellbinders glimmer plate and I thought it worked with the theme!

I am really pleased with the fact I remembered to grab some ribbon before I stuck layers down too as it added a nice bit of texture.

I also added in the glitter gems for the final embellishment. Inside the card I grabbed some of the leftover paper and some ink to finish off. The sentiments are stickers from Tim Holtz and they work perfectly with the vintage theme!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

Interrupting the Christmas in July series to bring you a Scrappin Saturday post which is also a Design team post sharing my samples for Kingston Crafts.

Back to my city break album and this time it is York that features. This time I went for a section divider and a double sided page.

I used the 8×4 Flip Its like last time, removing the adhesive and punching holes to add it into the album.

Although we go to York regularly I didn’t have many photos ready printed to add into the album at this stage – so instead I went for two collage photos and then the pics of York Minster for my pages. The good thing about the album though is that I can always add in more pages as and when I get photos printed (or we visit again! 🤣)

I used the stickers and cards from the kit to make the pages fun.

The section header was using the Spring Slimline cardstock which also coordinates perfectly!

Ok will save the next city page for another blog – probably next Saturday!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

One of the ideas I was given for Christmas in July when I asked my YouTube subscribers to put forward their suggestions was tags – so that’s what I made for day four and obviously it’s also my Festive Friday project!

My theme for today was Let It Snow and I immediately thought of the die cut Let It Snow which I had cut quite a few from when I did a die cutting the scraps session. Perfect sized sentiments for the 2” wide tags.

I had a thoroughly lovely 85 mins making these tags! I started with making the masterboard using my distress oxides and then a good amount of the shimmer spritz from Kingston Crafts.

Then I did a lot of stamping and colouring and die cutting using the My Favourite Things Polar bear stamp set. It was lovely just colouring in whilst listening to an audio book. Very relaxing.

The next stage I cut the masterboard into the tags – 2” wide and around 3.75” or 4” long.

I realised then I also needed a white backer for them as the back of the masterboard wasn’t clean so did the same with a separate sheet of white. This also helped to flatten the card which had been a little warped with the water and spritz added.

I then assembled the tags and punched the tops out – a couple didn’t quite cut right but I don’t think it matters they will look fine when added to a gift!

I then used glitter glue to add sparkle and texture to the images – mainly the beard and fluff on santas outfit and the scarf.

I did make the two tree based tags slightly differently adding teal glitter – not as keen on the dotty one but the glittered trees are so cute!

The sentiments work so well and love the different colours which added to the fun of the tags.

I still have some off cuts of the masterboard and the little MFT images left so have popped them to one side to make into something else sometime soon – although probably not until after Christmas in July is finished!

Happy crafting!

Catherine

This was actually the first of the Christmas in July projects I started because I knew I had my design team project to make for the Christmas in July theme for Creative Knockouts. I chose to use the Cocoa Christmas digital stamp image from Polkadoodles and printed it out four times.

I know people like ideas of how to mass produce cards and colouring more than one image at once by doing the same elements for each image at at time is so much easier than colouring each image from start to finish. I think it reduces the thinking as you literally choose the colour and the way of colouring it once and then at the end you have multiple images ready to use. This is my first tip for mass producing – do things in stages.

The next tip I have for mass producing is to keep the background simple – in this case I took two pieces of 6×12 patterned papers – cut them into 5.5” square panels and then used the offcuts to add as little design elements.

As we know I don’t like doing the same over and over again so by using double sided patterned papers that coordinate I got four different looks but still could easily mass produce. So that’s my tip number three – use coordinating products to keep things as simple as possible!

My fourth tip would be to make your life really easy and premake sentiments – but I actually veered off on the make of these because I decided to foil the sentiments and fussy cut them out one at a time – so do as I say and not what I did and batch make the sentiments ready to grab and go.

Finally my tip would be to assemble as a stage in the making. Again I did not quite do this (partly as my desk was a mess and I didn’t have enough room to pile things up without them getting involved in a crafterlanche!).

So in summary – mass producing is best done by batch making each stage and coordinating products like the patterned papers really helps if you want to make it easy to pull together supplies with little decision making! It also helps if you keep your design simple – although there always ways to even step up simple designs … adding layers or extra elements like glitter glue – but in this case I decided these were done as they were – and so cute!

So there we have it four cards made in around and hour and a quarter including the colouring of the images and foiling and fussy cutting the sentiments.

Love them too – and have to say that image is just so cute!

Happy crafting!

Catherine