Challenge #176 - Christmas in July {July 18 - July 31 }

Hi, it's Fi here and I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas!!!!

I know it's not really Christmas, but don't blink--it will be here before we know it. I thought it would be great to get into the spirit of Christmas without all the added stress that comes with it. I am sure you all know what I mean...lol

And now on to this week's challenge... and because its my first challege post here, I thought I would give a prize. I have kept it small so postage won't cost a fortune giving everyone the opportunity to win, it's Christmas....OK it's not but who doesn't love to receive a present?



Christmas in July refers to Christmas-themed celebrations held in July. It's a fun time and because the weather is so much cooler, we can celebrate with those traditional foods that we cannot have here in summer. Well, we can have them here in Australia but it's generally way too hot that most of us celebrate with BBQ's, prawns and salad. So let's pull out our Christmas paper and embellishment stashes and put them to use.

Requirements:

2 + photos [at least 2]
1 x Christmas tree image, any size
5 x patterned papers, i.e., Christmas patterns,
5 x metal embellishments, and any other embellishment in increments of 5

And here is mine take on the Challenge:



Have fun! Now for the inspiration from the Design Team....

Here's the layout created by our July guest designer Belinda Achatz, and some words from her about her layout:

For "Christmas in July" I decided to scrap 2 photos of my (now) husband & I back in 1995. Whilst we are having wintry weather right now, our Christmases are usually hot!! Well to quote my 8 year old daughter when she saw this layout, I "looked young then"....lol!! & Daddy had 'funny hair'.....yes, he did!!

I met the challenge criteria as follows: I used mainly Crate Paper Christmas Paper for my layout - the 5 different ones include the base cardstock, trees, stockings, christmas lights, the photo matts & green background paper. I did have more than 1 Christmas tree - the main one being the one on the background paper, but they are also featured in the photos...lol. The 5 metal embellishments include old stash of metal letter charms ('st' & 'xo' ) & the charm on which I mounted the number 1. I also used 5 felt stars & 5 brads in the middle of the stars. I had a lot of fun with this & it brought back some funny memories - which is such a great part of this fabulous hobby! I hope you have fun having a go at this challenge - before we know it, Christmas will be upon us!!!! (eeek)

I loved being guest designer for July - thank you so much to the team at HMITM for having me & thankyou to all who joined me in this month's challenges!

Anna-Karin: I had so much fun when I did my layout. I don’t think I have ever done a Christmas layout outside the holiday season since I normally do all my Christmas scrapping around Christmas. I used three photos, stamped a pine tree on one of the photos, 5 patterned papers, 5 metal embellishments (two bookplates, two embossed and painted tags, 1 swirl clip), 5 tags, 5 pieces of twine, 5 buttons, and 5 snowflakes. The layout is about some of my favourite Santa decorations. I let them pose in snow some years ago. I wanted the tags to remain neutral, so I inked and stamped them only very lightly. The metallic tags were dry embossed, painted black and then sanded to reveal the original metal on the embossed parts. Thank you for this awesome challenge Fi!


Debbi Tehrani: It was great fun scrapping Christmas pictures in July! I'd had these pictures of my mom and Gram with their loot piles from two Christmases ago and never got around to scrapping them, so I was happy for this challenge! I used a sketch from Once Upon a Sketch as inspiration for my page. The challenge was trickier thatn I originally thought. Keeping the papers to five was hard, but I used the back and fronts of one of the papers, so that allowed me to sneak an extra pattern in! And the five embellishments part was also tricky, but I managed. I used five brads, five big pearls, five small pearls, five rub-ons, five words on stickers, and five banner die cuts. My Christmas tree element is in the Santa image on the bottom right. Thanks for the fun challenge, Fi!

Elizabeth: Definitely fun idea to do Christmas in July. I still have so many pictures from Christmas that I could put into albums, so thanks for the challenge Fi! I kept it simple and used 5 papers, 5 metal (haven't used ribbon slides in years!!!), 5 stars and a few extra trees. Simple and sweet.





To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!