It's Christmas in July!!!

Welcome to another great Creative Cuts & More blog hop!!

AND hoppers can have a chance to win this FABULOUS Christmas Card Kit (as well as a chance for a kit from us - The Scrap-a-Teeny Girls - by leaving a comment here!)  Keep reading to find out how to win both of these great prizes!!

Everyone seems to just love Christmas time! And, it's never too early to be working on those goodie boxes & gifts or just simply working on your favorite pix, thinking of the nice cold weather during these hot summer months!!

Hopefully you've followed the links & came to us via Steph Zerbe's beautiful site! Amazing work huh?! You will definitely want to peruse her archives for even more inspiration!!  If you didn't arrive here from Steph's blog, you don't want to miss what all our designers have in store for you! The CC&M "Christmas in July" Blog Hop starts at the Die Cut Diva blog first.

If for some reason one of the links is broken along the Hop do not worry, HOP back over to Die Cut Diva where you will find the complete list of all our bloggers!

Let's get started...For this month's project, I wanted to work with the Pyramid Box & the Pyramid Flat Top Box.  I knew that I could layer these two to make a fun Christmas Tree with a hidden treasure inside!

After monkeying around with the image of my daughter in PSE, I cut various papers from Making Memories "Fa La La" collection & some fantastic BoBunny paper called "St. Nick in Toyland" (available in one of our Christmas kits on sale in our Etsy shop!) into the triangle shape for the top of the tree. I used the fabulous Killer Red Tacky Tape in 1/4" to put the pyramid all together. Once that was done, I inked the edges of all the paper triangles with TH Walnut Stain Distress Ink before adhering the paper to the pyramid. I just love that pic of my daughter hugging Santa!!! (For those that live in the Denver Metro area, The Barn at Castle Rock has the greatest Santa, you can take your own photos & NO lines!!! All for FREE!!)

 

For the bottom, Flat Top Pyramid Box, I first used Olive Vine & Sunflower Glimmer Mist (I think I might be becoming a GM addict!) to get the same tone of green in the paper's I was using. I rubbed on a little image from Webster's Pages "Ting-a-Ling" collection on the front, a little "25" cut out from a piece of the MM "Fa La La" papers & glued it all together (including the lid to the top Pyramid) with more of the Killer Red Tacky Tape! Next, I used more of the Killer Tape to run that FABULOUS fiber across the top (also from Webster's, but unfortunately we sold out of those kits! SPEAKING of kits...we'd like to GIVEAWAY Christmas-themed kits one of our great to one lucky reader! Just leave a comment at the end of this post, telling us which kit you'd like of the 4 in our Etsy Shop & we will randomly select a winner!!)

Even though I wired the top & used a little ribbon from my stash, because of the hidden treasure inside, the tree is really too heavy to hang. (Also, if you use this pyramid box as an ornament, be sure to punch through all your holes in the flaps inside BEFORE adhering all the triangles together! I found out the hard way that I couldn't get through all my holes because of the way I sealed it up! Hindsight!!)

My little "treasure" inside, is just that...a little book of some favorite memories of Maggie during the 2009 holiday season! After printing a contact sheet (this is a great way to get tiny pix for these kinds of projects all at once!) in PSE of the photos I wanted to use, I cut all my papers from the Webster's Pages "Ting-a-Ling" & "Winter Wonderland" collections, as well as some more of that great BoBunny paper roughly into a 2x2 inch squares & whipped it out in no time!

If you'd like to see more of the inside of this tiny album, scroll on down! If you've seen enough & want to move on to the next blog in our "Christmas in July" Blog Hop, click HERE to see Jan Tantatomir's amazing projects as our July Guest Designer for Creative Cuts & More! She really has a beautiful touch! Hope to see you soon! (BTW, we do this every month!)

AND, don't forget to follow the instructions below on how to WIN the CC&M Christmas Card Kit & be sure leave a comment to WIN one of OUR Christmas kits (let us know which one you want too!) from our Etsy Shop!!

For the CC&M prize PLEASE do one or all of the following...

(A) Leave a comment on Die Cut Diva Blog. (This is limited to one per person unless you meet the criteria of B, C, and/or D below.)

(B) Leave one extra comment there if you've posted a link to the blog candy on your own blog. Make sure to include a link to your specific post in your comment.

(C) Leave one extra comment on the Die Cut Diva if you become one of our blog followers. See the right-hand navigation column to follow us.

(D) Leave one extra comment if you click over to our new page on Facebook and become a fan.

(E) Leave one extra comment by commenting on ALL of our talented Designers in our Blog Hop! (This final "rule" will also serve as the Scrap-a-Teeny Girls' contest comment as well, so just leave the ONE comment for us to win our Christmas kit!)

Oh, I almost forgot!

You don't want to miss the August Creative Cuts & More Hop! We'll be doing some amazing Wedding & Baby ENSEMBLES!

So, stay tuned!!!

Ok, if you're still reading...here are some more photos from the mini-album. I really tried to keep it simple, with the exception of a little accordion fold inside to allow for a few sequential photos. Like I mentioned above, I used mostly the Webster's papers, but threw in a few others from my stash. You'll see a couple of those great rub-ons again as well as tons of dymo labels! I LOVE my WRMK label maker with all the different font wheels (Dymo makes one now too)!!! Let me know if you want any info on anything I might have missed telling you about here! Enjoy! And thanks for reading!

 TTFN, Becky!

PS - Kim had to skip the Hop this month because she is recovering from ankle surgery. But she will hopefully be working on some projects for our regular posts on the Die Cut Diva blog over the next two weeks! And she's got some great things planned for the Creative Cuts & More August Hop!!