Concord & 9th Christmas in July

Hi, friends!  Have you seen Concord & 9th's July Release?!  It's amazing!  And though I can still hardly believe it myself, I was was invited to be one of Concord & 9th's Guest Designers this month.  Eek!  I feel no shame in admitting that right after I read Angie's email, I ran downstairs (my children were sleeping upstairs) and squealed and jumped and danced around the family room.  Then I read the email again (I was still a bit in shock and disbelief), and then I danced and squealed some more. :) I truly love every single product in this release, so it was hard choosing what to work with first, but I decided to start with the Joy Bundle of stamps and dies as well as the Stripe Builder set.

I stuck with traditional colors and seeing those big, bold stripes from Stripe Builder makes me so happy!   The MISTI is so helpful for a full background stamp like this because if something doesn't stamp evenly the first time, no big deal...just re-ink and stamp again. The fabulous letters were cut with the new Joy die and then glittered for a little pizzaz. ;) The pine boughs and snowflakes were cut from silver cardstock with the Take a Bough die.  I stacked 5 layers of the snowflake, then die cut one final white snowflake and selectively cut out the star portion.  And I finished the card off with a sentiment in the Joy set.  A little sidenote: I had a vision with this card, but I got stuck, so I listened to He is Born (this beautiful song was running through my head anyway) to calm my nerves and help me get in the Christmas mood, and then I sought the opinions of my family, which helped so much.  They are the best!

One of the things I love most about the Joy set is that Angie and Greg designed it to be versatile throughout the year, so this next card is a non-holiday one.  I created a very soft version of buffalo plaid using the Stripe Builder set.  I purposely didn't worry about getting full coverage while inking because I think the light uneven patches really help create the look of soft, worn fabric.

The size of the letters in the Joy die is just perfect for creating a shaker.  I decided to fill mine with some flat marshmallow Pretty Pink Posh sequins and little hearts that were die cut from Concord and 9th's Bags & Tags dies. 

When I was trying decide how to finish off my sentiment, the show Fixer Upper popped into my mind.  I just love the right aligned metal art they use occasionally, so here is my nod to that. :) I die cut one of the small tags from Bags & Tags, and then stamped a sentiment from the Joy set one word at a time. The MISTI really was an invaluable tool for this task.

Phew.  That's it for me today.  I normally try not to be so long winded on here, so thanks for sticking with me!  Creating with these new products from Concord & 9th was so exciting!  I truly love them and cannot wait to show you more throughout the month.  Thanks so much for visit today!  I hop you have a wonderful weekend!

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave