Christmas in July Week 1 (+VIDEO and a GIVEAWAY)

Psst!  Ellen Hutson is having a one day sale on all in-stock items!  Head over and save 20% off your order by entering “redwhiteblue” in checkout!  Happy shopping!!

Good morning!  I’m excited to introduce a (hopefully) annual video series that I’ll be sharing over the month of July!  It’s crazy to realize that we’re halfway through 2016 and only 175 days away from Christmas!  Over the last few years I’ve realized that if I don’t start making holiday cards over the summer, I won’t get enough made.  I had to slink into Hallmark two years ago to buy a few extra card sets in mid-December and I swore I would never do it again.

I love these adorable penguins from Mama Elephant and I thought they’d be perfect for a set of Christmas cards!  You can watch the video below or in HD at my Youtube channel.

I started by stamping the background stamp onto a piece of white cardstock with versamark.  Then I heat-embossed it with white embossing powder.  Next I blended distress inks over the panel.  For the card above I used tumbled glass, salty ocean, and chipped sapphire distress ink.  For the next card I used spun sugar, abandoned coral, and picked raspberry distress ink:

And for my last card I used salty ocean, chipped sapphire, and seedless preserves distress ink:

Then I stamped the sentiment from Jingle Greetings onto a white cardstock panel cut to 2″ by 5.5″ and heat-embossed it with silver embossing powder.  Next I adhered a strip of silver glitter paper cut to .5″ by 5.5″ behind that panel and adhered it to the distress inked background panel.  I also adhered a piece of white cardstock cut to .75″ by 5.5″ to the top of the distress inked background panel to create a frame.  I trimmed that panel down by an 1/8″ on each side and adhered it to a white card base.

Next I stamped my penguins with copic friendly ink Ranger archival black ink and cut them out using my ScanNCut.  I also added a little spectrum clear sparkle to the ice skates of each penguin and then adhered them to the card with foam mounting tape.  I thought the silver glitter paper could be the “ice” for my skating penguins!  Each card is a little different with various sentiments, penguins, and background colors and each took about 10-15 minutes to make.  However, if I did an assembly style production (all heat-embossing then all distress ink blending then all copic coloring, etc.) I could cut down the time needed to make each card and could mass-produce them easily.  They were a lot of fun to create and I hope they inspired you to get started on your holiday cards!  December will be here before you know it! 😉

P.S. Fun fact, the music on my video today is performed by yours truly on my harp!  This month I’ll be using tracks off of my solo Christmas album on my holiday card tutorial videos and I hope you enjoy them! 🙂

To help get you in the holiday spirit I have a crafty package of a few supplies that I’ve used to create each card this month.  The total contents of the package will be a surprise for the recipient but is valued over $30!  To enter leave a comment on each of my Christmas in July posts and let me know your favorite Christmas song (or your favorite song if you don’t celebrate Christmas)! 😉 US and international entries welcome!

Thanks so much for visiting and have a fabulous day!

Interested in the products I used?  To make them easy for you to find, I have listed them below. (Affiliate disclosure can be found here). Your purchases help keep my blog running and I thank you for the support!)