MERRY CHRISTMAS! YEAH....YOU READ IT RIGHT!

Welcome one and all! The Great Nat King Cole will be honoring us with MY favorite Christmas Song rendition.....OF ALL TIME! Every year this plays while I get my home decorated! Aaaaaah! Sit back, relax and ENJOY!

Here's a family photo taken last Christmas! Yes...those are footy pajamas I'm wearing! LOL! Um....kid's section....and yes, there were STILL sizes bigger than mine! Tee he he! My poor Hubby was stuck at work...as he usually is for any fun silly things we do! He did make it in time for the opening of presents, though! We have this family tradition where we stay up every Christmas Eve...and when the clock strikes twelve, we start to rip open our presents! We've done this ever since I could remember! We also take goofy photos with each present after we open them.....imagine present bows stuck in our hair and underwear on the head......THOSE kind of pictures!

Welcome to CHRISTMAS IN JULY! The ever so imaginative Maggi put together this party hoppin' bloggin' EXTRAVAGANZA! So after this post go back to MAGGI'S BLOG to see the rest of the participants in her sidebar!

On to the project! So....spacey me was about to share some regular project with you...and I realized....uh....HELLO.....Mo, what in he world is WRONG in that head of yours!....CHRISTMAS IN JULY....gotta be Christmas-y! UGH! So I change plans and decide on something else last minute! BUT YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED! This baby brain will get better.....won't it?
WON'T IT?

Fortunately, I've got a little project up my sleeve! It's actually part of an old idea I shared last Fall/Winter when the only person reading my blog was.......um....ME, and like the 5 people I forwarded my link to (I'm SURE I ended up in their SPAM folders)! Ah ha ha ha! So I thought, why waste a perfectly great idea....every one's talking about RECYCLING right? Well, HERE YOU GO! LOL! BLOG POST RECYCLING COUNTS, DOESN'T IT?

So here's my fun project:

How many of you want to make handmade Christmas cards, but don't have the time to crank them out? Can you spare about 2 minutes a card???? Well here you go!


These cards are what I like to call QUICK CARDS! Every year, I slam out about 100 of em and give them away to friends and family in packs of 3 for Christmas. The only thing different from the photo above is I make birthday, thank you, and friendship cards which the recipients can then use! I tell them to stick them in their glove compartment so they have an emergency stash of cards available! I've had many friends tell me that my cards came in handy! And I'm sure they're expecting more this Christmas!
So, you can use this idea to make cards to give out to your neighbors, friends, and family AND/OR you can make a bunch of Christmas cards to give away! I usually start all my handmade gift making IN THE SUMMER....YES....like NOW....so that I'm not scrambling during the Holidays. I shoot for finishing all my handmade gifts AND any extra shopping I need to do by OCTOBER! Then, when the Holidays come, I'm much less stressed out and I can actually ENJOY my favorite time of year!


Need handmade gift ideas? Well, last year I started making You Tube videos to share with my Stampin' Up! customers to give them ideas for Holiday projects and I had a featured project of the month. If you need ideas, check them out HERE. I'm planning on starting up again next month!
So GUESS WHAT! I'VE GOT A VIDEO TUTORIAL ON THESE QUICK CARDS! Take a peek! Don't forget to press pause in the Playlist player above before viewing the videos below.




AND here is another video tutorial for creating a Christmas Tree ornament. Warning...I'm a little camera shy normally...so I'm missing some personality in the video! LOL! I kept on thinkin' in my head....."try not to say um....don't say um too much"! He he....I hope I get better!


Hope you got some ideas from those videos!
Here's another Christmas photo to share. Below is a photo of my sister Krystal and I making handmade cards for gift giving. We had a scrappy Christmas Eve! The funnest kind!


And just for fun, I'm throwing this video in for Maggi, cuz for the last 2 days I've been singing this song thanks to the title of one of her recent blog posts which really didn't have to do anything with this song...LOL! Say Say Say..........

Ready for the giveaway? Leave a comment below and let me know if you'd prefer tutorials set to music or narrated tutorials....or a mix! I've been trying to muster up the courage for more narrated tutorials....and a subscriber actually asked me to do them. I'm limited now in my music choices and can only pick the ones available through You Tube....the choices aren't great either! So what do ya think? Video or Narrated tutorials?
Here's the prize! The winner CAN CHOOSE between these different goodies in m
MoMoStamper Etsy Store
YOU GET 2 DIFFERENT SETS! Pick 2 of the same or 2 different kinds of goodies! Click on the links below to see more photos of each set! DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE AN EMAIL IF IT'S NOT ALREADY LINKED TO YOUR BLOG/PROFILE so I can contact you if you win.
VINTAGE BUTTERFLIES

VINTAGE FLOWERS

VINTAGE FLOWERS 2


I will draw the winner by Random.Org tomorrow (Sunday) morning 7/26/09! GOOD LUCK!

Thanks for stopping by for Christmas in July!

A big thanks to Maggi for hosting such a fun blog hop!