Christmas in July Blog Challenge

Hello crafty peeps and welcome to my crafty nook! I hope you have all had a good weekend and that the weather isn't too much for you. It's not actually too bad here on the Yorkshire coast and in fact we've had overcast skies for a couple of days with what my husband calls mizzle (mist/ drizzle) which hangs around in the air but doesn't reach the ground,

It might not be the weather for it but July is good time to start making your Christmas cards etc if you haven't already started. A lot of the craft companies have released their Christmas collections or are about to so there's lots of gorgeous crafty goodies to choose from. Tbh I'm not planning on buying any new Christmas products this time as I have boxes of stuff from previous years and I really need to use some of it up plus it's not going to be long before the craft magazines start churning out Christmas freebies so I need to make space for those.

This month's blog challenge is perfect for anyone with an already overflowing Christmas craft stash like me because I'd like you to shop your stash and make five cards and/or tags using five Christmas craft items. You can either make five cards, five tags or a combination of both - heck if you're really inspired you could make five of each! You can use basic craft items such as card, inks and adhesive but try not to go out and buy new items but instead adapt what you have available. The more you use up, the more space you'll free up for new goodies!

I've already made around twenty cards so to encourage me to stick to the challenge and not be tempted to cheat if life gets in the way (we have to have yet another flat inspection this time the electrics which means the electrician needs access to every single socket - most of ours are covered by furniture which means emptying the crudy again plus stuff in the bedroom - argh!!!) I am going to share them now. Don't worry,  I made the cards in batches so you're not going to have to look at twenty plus photos lol. That's a point, you can either make five batch cards/tags or five bespoke ones, it's entirely up to you.

 Made last year for my great-niece who decided not to make an appearance until after Christmas Day

Although the cards are made in batches, they are still individual cards because I have used different colours of card  etc for each design. This means you can make multiples of the same design quickly while retaining that individual and handcrafted look.

I hope you like my examples of batch and bespoke Christmas cards and I really hope you'll join in this five from five Christmas in July blog challenge. The closing date is the 30th July which gives us a few weeks to get the cards made. I would love it if you joined in, if you'd like your cards etc to be added to the blog then please email me with photos and a few details of your makes by midnight on the 30th July so I can add a new blog post by the 1st August 2018. My email is craftynook@outlook.com.  If you have any questions or comments then please leave them in the usual places and until next time - keep crafting!

Love and crafty hugs,

Sarah xx