Christmas in July!

Merry Christmas!

No seriously.

I love Christmas. (I know, I know, who doesn't??) But seriously. Christmas was always one of my absolute favorite times. My mom was a single mom, so we didn't have a ton of money, but good gracious did she know how to make Christmas special. We always had an incredibly beautiful tree, a ton of decor around the house, and we always did fun things at Christmas time... Going to the Santa Claus parade, visiting Santa at the mall, watching holiday movies, baking (aka sampling...don't judge) cookies (aka dough. Or maybe that was just me... Don't judge!) until we were so full of cookie (dough) that we could probably have burst. Our house always smelled like vanilla, peppermint, and cinnamon when my mom got out the Christmas decor. The combo sounds kinda gross, I know, but seriously, it worked to create this blend of scents that permanently etched themselves into my olfactory glands.

Now that I have my own little ones, I hope I can do as good a job as my own mom of instilling a love of all things holiday in them. (Hubby has been a bit of a Grinch until Christmas Eve, but he is just going to have to learn to fake it.) I'm sure Pinterest will help! (Oh, the things my mom would have done if Pinterest were around back in the eighties and nineties!)

I got a few Christmas stamps during Ellen Hutson's sale, which put me in a crafty holiday mood, though I haven't turned on any holiday music....yet!! I thought I'd do a week of holiday projects in honor of the completely-made-up Christmas in July! For our first day, I have a chalkboard style one layer card. Super flat, easily mailed, and pretty trendy. Sounds good to me!

I used Waltzingmouse Stamps " 'Tis the Season" for the sentiment, and a variety of Christmas greenery from PTI's Bells and Boughs and Tinsel and Tags Sprigs to create the little clusters at the top and bottom. The main blooms and evergreen boughs were white heat embossed, while the little additions were simply stamped in white pigment ink. I dabbed some white pigment ink on my finger and swiped that over the sentiment, then swiped the ink pad around the edges. A Teresa Collins jewel finished off the centers of the flowers.

I hope you enjoyed! I will be back tomorrow with a bokeh-inspired card! Have a fabulous day, friends!