Holiday Happenings: Keep Ahead of the Calendar

Yes, it's still July! Gorgeous sunshine, beautiful beaches and wonderful warm weather. It's the perfect time to get cool with your calendar and get ahead on those December holiday cards!

These lovely lazy days of summer will swiftly turn to the hectic pace of preparing for the end of vacation season, school starting, Fall festivals, Halloween, Thanksgiving and then all those winter holidays. If you get 5 to 10 cards done starting the 25th of each month beginning in July, you would have a stunning 25 to 50 handmade cards all done before December even starts!!

So, for the next 5 months on the 25th of the month, we will help you along with some inspirations for your holiday celebrations.

As many of us spend July outside enjoying the weather, let's focus our Holiday cards on subjects with outdoors themes!

Here's some starters for you:

- snowmen and snowwomen
- snowy landscapes and scenes
- outdoor fun like skating, skiing, or sledding
- icicles, snowflakes and snowdrifts
- people and animals bundled up in parkas and snowsuits

I used the last suggestion, people in parkas, to spur me to create my first Chanukah card of the season:

Stamp credits: woman (Stamping Bella) and menorah (Paper Salon)

I then turned to Christmas and general holiday cards and began looking through my stamps and, picking from the list above, decided to do a series of cards featuring sleds. I was amazed at how many different kinds of cards I could make.

Some were vintage in feel.

Stamp credit: Corey (Inka Stamps now available from Scrolls Work)

Stamp credit: sentiment (Hero Arts); Collage credit: girl on sled (Curious by Design)

Some were serene and simple.

Stamp credits: sled (Serendipity); snowy (Artistic Outpost)

Some were sassy,

Stamp credits: woman with sled and presents (Stampin' Up!)

and some were just silly!

Stamp credit: snowman (Cornish Heritage Farms)

Stamp credits: North pole, sleigh and Santa (Starving Artistamps)

Keep your cool this year and keep ahead of the holidays - so you can spend some time enjoying them!

Stay tuned next month on the 25th for another holiday card inspiration! Until then, if you have some "Outdoor" holiday cards to share, link them up to this post so everyone can enjoy them!

We can't wait to see what you create!