Christmas in July Party: Coming Soon!

Last year, we celebrated Christmas in July here on Wayward Girls' Crafts. But something was missing: YOU!

This year, we want to celebrate Christmas in July with you! We'll host a Christmas in July linkup next weekend, July 22nd, for all your Christmas in July posts (okay, you can use your favorite December Christmas post if you really, really want).

What should you post about? Here's what we shared last year for Christmas in July:

Felt Advent Calendar

Christmas Cookies and Drizzle Frosting Recipe

Sculpey Gift Tags

Christmas Tradition: Memories and Predictions

Folding Noel Christmas Cards

Get ready to share your Christmas in July crafts next week!

Wayward Weekend Roundup!

Noel Cards

I have a rep for making my own Christmas cards. Seriously, one of my friends even mentioned my cards in the Christmas letter she sent out to all our friends! I am not bragging... I actually feel pressure to deliver. So far each year I have been fortunate enough to get an idea for the cards then work my fingers to the bone making them.  (I am open to ideas for this year!)

This was last year's card.

Supplies:
Coordinating 12 x 12 Christmas  paper. (I bought a tablet with a coupon so it was pretty inexpensive.)
Photos of your family. 3 1/2" square
Gluesticks
Time

For each card

Cut a 4" square from each of the four corners of the 12 x 12 paper. It will look kind of like this. Save the squares you cut. The inside of the card will be the plain side of the paper. The words will be glued to the printed side and the pictures will be on the plain side.

Fold each flap in toward the center.

Decide on what you want your card to say. I selected the word "Noel".

Writing.

Each square began with a letter in the word Noel. I downloaded some free Christmas fonts. I set up a table in a word processing program with 3 1/2" cells. I put one large capital letter in each square with the writing underneath it. Cut these out.

Stack everything (words and pictures) up so you can create an assembly line.

Put on a favorite Christmas movie and get to work.

With the flaps all folded in on the card, glue the N to the top flap. On the inside of that flap, glue the corresponding picture. (I had my pictures color copied. You could also use actual photographs.) Continue with each letter and each flap.

On the center of my card, I added an extra flap. Tape a square from a coordinating paper and put your message on that flap. Put a family photo under the flap. (Put the tape on the back of the flap so it doesn't show.)

I used scraps from all of the cards to decorate the back center of the card. The one shown is pretty simple (it was a leftover one,) but some of my others were pretty intricate with ribbons and mosaics.

When you fold your card for mailing, make sure you spell the word right. Don't make it say LEON!

Memories and Predictions Traditions

Ok so maybe this is a New Year's tradition but Christmas and New Year's are only a week apart! And you can do this for Christmas as well. Throughout the year we save a ticket or receipt or little mementos that represent something special we did as a family (or at least most of the family.) Usually, mom puts the little things in the box so we don't know what to expect when we open it. Each year, we open it, take a couple things out then go around in a circle and tell everyone what we got out of the box. It's a great way to remember the fun times we had throughout the year. Our box isn't anything special, just an old Werther's Original can. You can decorate your family's box or can together or just find an already decorative box.

We also make predictions for the next year. We predict something for each person in the family, whether they're there or not. We make predictions like "Jordan's youngest will learn how to walk," or "Mom will walk on the moon." Some we take more seriously than others...We read the last year's prediction when we open the box as well. Sometimes we actually predict things right too! It's a great way to bring together the family and have a good time.

Christmas in July- Gift Tags

Similar to my mom I love to give gifts. There is something magical when you have thought of the perfect gift for someone you love. You purchase it and have to keep the secret. You select special wrapping paper and you make sure it has a beautiful ribbon and of course your need an amazing gift tag!

I got an idea for gift tags made out of polymer clay (Sculpey) from this tutorial and I thought it would be cute to do holiday tags. I think the variations on this are endless. Here are a couple ideas that I had.

First pick the color you want and knead the clay to make it warm. You can roll it out with a small rolling pin (as shown in the picture) but I used my "clay conditioner" (similar to a pasta maker). I put it through the largest setting then when I moved it to a smaller setting I put it through width wise to widen it. Make sure your clay is warm or it won't go through. My gift tags are 1/4" thick. I wouldn't suggest going any thinner because they will be fragile.

Next pick a shape. I cut mine for a Christmas tree. You can use cookie cutters in this step as well. Make sure you cut a hole to tie them onto the package. I used a mini set of stamps to stamp in the "to:" and "from:"

Last bake them, put them on your package, and impress people. After I baked mine I used permanent marker to fill in the letters so you could read them. You can also use acrylic paints.

What variations can you think of?

Frosting Christmas Cookies and Drizzle Frosting Recipe

One of my favorite Christmas traditions as a child, and even now, is decorating Christmas cookies. It is the culmination of the season for our family, since we make and decorate them on Christmas Eve.

My mom makes the dough and the kids roll it out and cut the cookies. We make at least four cookie sheets worth!

I have to share a secret with you: We make UGLY cookies. And we love them. This is why it's so fun and why we're still decorating them even as adults.

 We use a drizzled kind of frosting, so the cookies are tasty but....not perfect in appearance. I think we've made some really cool cookies though.

Harry Potter cookies to go along with our obsession. These are Jasmine's. She made that golden snitch cookie that says "I open at the close" cool, huh? Don't forget about Harry, Ron, Hermione and Voldemorte

She made the Weasley family too!

Now for some not so pretty cookies:

Michael Jackson, RIP!

Jaime by Jaime (I added an elephant for some class)

My favorite on here is by my brother-in-law, he did the NC State cookie. I was impressed!

Frosting Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 lb Powdered Sugar
6 Tablespoons of Whole milk
6 Tablespoons of light corn syrup
1 Teaspoon of almond or vanilla extract

Directions:
With a whisk, combine sugar and milk until smooth. Then mix in corn syrup and extract. We put about 3/4 cup into a mug and then add food coloring and stir. We use spoons to drizzle the frosting on and tooth picks for accents.

Do you make Christmas cookies every year? Ever made ugly ones?

Christmas in July: Felt Advent Calendar

It's Christmas in July! All week on Wayward Girls' Crafts, we'll be blogging Christmas crafts. And next week, a very special week of craftiness!

Every year, our family uses a felt Advent calendar (you know, a calendar to count the days until Christmas). My mom's calendar is gorgeous, with details in gold thread and beautiful beads and sequins, including some shaped like holly leaves, snowflakes and more. When I made mine, however, I couldn't find the fancy sequins anywhere :( . It just wasn't the same, so I went for a different form of decoration in my calendar.

Materials:

• Felt
• Scissors
• Glitter fabric paint
• Tacky glue
• Thread
• 25 hooks and 26 eyes
• (Possibly: sewing machine or needle)

In this set of ornaments, I'm missing my reindeer and sleigh. The second row of ornaments are symbols of Christ (and technically, the candle belongs there).

I combined elements of my husband's family's felt Advent calendar, too: they have a Nativity scene among their ornaments, and I loved that sentiment. The Nativity characters are along the bottom row (the first one is an angel, but the silver and iridescent sparkles don't show up well here).

I tried to make sure that each ornament had some bling on it somewhere with glitter fabric paint. I glued the various piece of felt together with tacky glue. Here's a closeup of one of the pieces:

The background is a Christmas tree on red felt, with rows of pockets at the bottom for the ornaments. I couldn't find mine (I hope it's somewhere with the reindeer and sleigh!), but here's the idea:

Each day of December, you add another ornament to the tree using the hooks and eyes. We kept the last ornament, for Christmas Day, (we used the star; my husband's family used the baby Jesus) on an extra hook on the back of the calendar. We loved the calendar so much that we always fought over who got to put up the ornaments--but now that most of us don't live at home, sometimes Mom doesn't even put up the calendar until the week before Christmas!

My favorite ornaments, aside from the characters, are the snowflake and snowman. Which are your favorites? What would you put on your tree?