xmas in july :: new home christmas card

Every year, my husband and I design our own Christmas cards. On Christmas Eve of last year (crazy, I know!), we moved into our new house. Since the timing coincided (and it reduced my workload!), we wanted to combine our holiday card with our moving announcement. I didn't know what I was going to do until I saw this design from my friend, and the always creative, Kim from The TomKat Studio. 

Along with the 3-D ornaments, I added "We are decking NEW halls this holiday season". I thought it captured both purposes of the correspondence beautifully.  

(As much as I love visitors, I want you to call before you come, hence fuzzing out the address. Ha!)

garland christmas card display

I'm back today with a couple pictures of how my neighbor displays her Christmas cards. Every year I admire it's simplistic creativity. She saw the idea in a magazine several years ago. It was hidden in the background of a photo, but she spotted and replicated it.

I really like the juxtaposition of the glamorous/rustic bead garland and the simple modern diagonal ribbon.   Note the card holders are key chain rings - brilliant!  Using those makes the cards easy to hang up, while still keeping them snug in their place. Strung across a window in her kitchen, Valerie essentially decorates the room with correspondence friends and family provide.

Every year when I see it, I swear I'm going to make one of these, too. Next year I will have to... I now have a kitchen window in my new house - It will be perfect! Thanks for sharing with us Valerie!

xmas in july :: christmas card

It's the 31st of July already!?  For my final day in the Christmas in July series, I will share my favorite Christmas card we have ever done.  We used the string closures you find on large business envelopes as inspiration.  We made them using mini grommets to fasten on little red circles that we cut out. (Yes, very labor intensive!)  Then we used silver string that made the shape of a star when you closed the card.  I just love this card!!!

For the inside, we took pictures of each of us holding a large number cut-out that we made.  Our daughter was 20 months old at the time, so getting her and the animals to cooperate was no small task.  Speaking of my daughter, don't you just love her little wool knickers!?  They were a red and white houndstooth material.  So cute!  We put a little Santa hat on her, too and she looked so festive. 

And finally, on the opposite side, I used a white ink pen to write our names on.  Since you could see the holes from the grommets, I incorporated them into our names.  The "o" in Jeromy (I know, it's spelled weird!), the bottom loop in "a" for my name and the top loop in "e" for Ella's name.  It worked out beautifully.  I don't know what we would have done if we didn't have the right letters??

I love sending handmade cards each year.  We get so many compliments and our friends tell us they wait with anticipation each year to see what we are going to do.  They take a lot of time, but sending something that is well received is very rewarding.  And since I save one each year, it gives our family something fun to look back at for great memories.

So, to wrap up this Christmas in July series...  First of all, I hope you liked it. I hope I have provided you inspiration with plenty of time to prepare.  We all know Christmas sneaks up on us fast each year. 

I am thinking about selling Christmas cards this year.  Anyone interested in me making yours?  If anyone is interested in any of the designs you've seen, let me know.  I will book up quick, so get your orders in soon.    Email me with any questions or orders - apowers.apartystyle@gmail.com

Okay, now a complete turn away from Christmas.  July 31st is an important date in my life.  Eleven years ago today, I married my high school sweetheart.  By the time we got married, we had already been together five years.  It was a wonderful day - albeit HOT.  So this doesn't get too sappy for you guys, I'll tell you a funny story about the heat.  Not that we didn't know it was going to be hot in July in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but we didn't think it would end up being the hottest day of the year!  106 degrees at six o'clock in the evening.  Yikes!  To make matters worse, the limo driver didn't turn the car on until right when we were getting in after the ceremony.  When my husband and I got in, I told him "Get as far away from me as you can!!!!"  I know, so romantic right!?  He was probably thinking 'This is what I just married!'  I was just trying to cool off so I didn't melt - 30 pounds of dress and 30 pounds of make-up don't mix well with hundred plus temps.  Anyway, I love you, J and can't wait for the rest of our lives together.  I can't believe it has already been eleven years.  Time flies when you're having fun I guess!

xmas in july :: christmas card

I have yet another Powers Christmas card for you.  We're going back a few years here - our first Christmas with a baby!  (Babies and their first Christmas - is there anything better!?)  We used her little footprint and dubbed it "prints" of peace.
 

 

We dipped her foot in white acrylic paint and then pressed it on the red paper. To give it a little more definition, we traced her footprint with a white ink pen. I also wrote her name and age next to it.  We then printed a short blurb on vellum paper and laid that over the print. We wrapped it in peppermint inspired paper leaving our names and "prints" of peace showing.  Covering the wording made for a better presentation and it also made the reader remove it to see the footprint better.  Finally, we secured it all with a cute little paperclip and Viola!  

xmas in july :: christmas card

Yet another Powers Christmas card... As you can, see we used a play on words with a "peace" theme. See the puzzle "piece". Enjoy!





We bought several packages of the postcard sized puzzle mailers you can get at Michael's, broke them all apart and covered each piece in red glitter. We then traced and cut the matching shape puzzle piece (there was several different shapes in each package) out of the front cover so the picture would show. Attached the matching puzzle piece with an envelope closure and bakers twine. And finally, we stamped the "peace." on with little alphabet stamps to finish it all off.

As I'm writing this, I'm realizing you could buy a cheap puzzle at a tag sale or goodwill and probably save some money - Darn! Why didn't I think of that!? Since we completely covered the pieces (a time consuming task by the way) it doesn't matter what's on them.

More Christms cards still to come...

xmas in july :: christmas card

Hi everyone! I'm back from a wonderful vacation. I'll share photos soon, but in the meantime, we'll continue the Christmas fun...

Here is another one of our Christmas cards from a couple years ago. We ran with a "jingle bells" theme. Hence the "...laughing all the way..." We put each of our pictures (laughing of course) in a jingle bell shape. And to finish off the theme, we used red and white bakers twine to tie on three little jingle bells. I'm always trying to think of something out of the norm to get people excited about our annual correspondence.

xmas in july :: new series

I have a fun little series for you guys. Well, I think it's fun anyway. Christmas is my favorite holiday - time with family and friends, all the decorations, wonderful food, and of course, celebrating the birth of baby Jesus! I have been stockpiling all my Christmas ideas so I could do this "xmas in july" series. The other reason I wanted to do this in July is so you all have time to do the prep work if you wanted to use any of the ideas. I didn't want to wait until November/December when we are all too busy anyway, let alone to start a new project.

To start us off, I thought I'd show you all our family Christmas card from last year. Since my husband and I are both designers, we design and make our own cards every year. We have been doing for 6-7 years now.






Obviously, we used the MasterCard priceless campaign as our inspiration. We dressed our girls up in there Christmas dresses and did a little photo shoot of sorts. Little did we know this card would be so true. I thought we would take a couple of cute shoots and just keep going until the girls got tired and then we would get our "cranky" ones. Well, they had other plans. We had to take hundreds (yes, hundreds!) before we got one worthy of the priceless spot. Anyway, all that said, I think they turned out pretty cute.

Stay tuned for more Christmas fun!