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GentlewoodFarms
July 16, 2017

'Tis The Season

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So the Inspirational Card Callenge for July has a Christmas in July theme, which is cool. There are seven categories, so there's plenty of project opportunities for all kinds of ideas. I double checked with Kathy before I started on these, because TECHNICALLY they aren't cards. But they ARE created to give to someone else.

I have two daughters and I create gift tags for them each Christmas. In the past, I've done three tags for each year, but this year ... things lined up really strangely. There's a back story - which you knew of course.

Last Christmas, Tom and I had vacation plans to go to San Diego for the holidays. My mom had somehow gotten herself roped into hosting her Sunday School Christmas party. She was in a panic because she does not decorate for Christmas anymore. She's 79 and she's a cancer survivor and it's a lot of trouble and she just doesn't have the strength or the energy to take on that kind of project. She called me and asked if I had any Christmas decorations she could borrow.

I told her, "Well, you'll have to take really good care of it, but I'll loan you my Christmas tag garland. You can hang it over your fireplace... It would be nice for SOMEone to enjoy it this year since Tom and I will be out of town." So I drove over and got her set up. I also loaned her the snowman that sits on my front porch bench, and he fit into her fireplace hearth just perfectly. Her house looked cute and festive.

Now - my Christmas tag garland has something like 85 or 90 tags on it. I completed all of the 12-tags-of-Christmas with Tim for the five or six years he did them, and I've been creating them a few each year ever since. So it's a really huge thing, and my mom wasn't really able to appreciate it because she doesn't DO crafty stuff. Except ....

Her Sunday School Class had a fit over it. Wanted to know where to get one. Wanted to know if I'd teach them how to do it... I said, "um.... maybe. But it won't be the same, it won't be as big, and the tags will be different because I don't go back and do the same ones over again...." Didn't matter. They were gung-ho for it and wanted to get started the day after Christmas. I managed to talk them into waiting until the second week of January.

So - for the past six months, once a month, I've been teaching tags to four little old ladies. They come to my house, we eat lunch, and they make a tag. It's fun. I enjoy watching them and hearing their stories. And I make my three tags - one prototype, one to check the instructions, and one as a demo in class. So my garland gets a tag, and my daughters each get a tag. And, just because I'm able to and I want my little ladies to have pretty garlands this year - not a skimpy little garland of 12 - I create them each a gift tag that is different from the one that I'm teaching.

AND the final upside? My mom is one of the ladies in my class, so she's getting a small education in being crafty, which is lots of fun to watch. She called after the first class and apologized over and over and over again. She said, "I had NO idea how much work you put into that thing. I had no idea how special or amazing it was. I feel so bad that I did not appreciate it adequately while it was here. Thank you so much for sharing something so special with me and helping me make a good impression with my class."

Anyway - if you've made it THIS far, this is my tag for next month. And it did not come out of my head. I followed a Tammy Tutterow debossing tutorial. It was simple, I had all the supplies I needed, and it went together really quickly, all things considered.

For the COLOR palette on the Inspirational Card Challenge.


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