So this is Christmas...

Okay, I know it's only July but it's the only month of the year where people on opposites sides of the world get to experience what Christmas is like for each other. Now, I live in Australia and Christmas at our house is always celebrated around the swimming pool with ice-cold drinks, cold meats, seafood, salad and beautiful cold desserts including the familiy favourites of cheese-cake, chocolate mousse, trifle and pavlova.

So when Imaginisce brought out their Santa's Little Helper collection and asked us to create projects with a theme of Christmas in July, I started thinking about what Christmas would be like on the other side of the globe. Cold weather, possibly even snow, hot mugs of egg-nog, chestnuts being toasted on the fire and definitely a hot meal inside the house.

It really doesn't matter where we celebrate the festive season, what matters is that we are together and that the original reason for Christmas doesn't get lost amongst the hype and commercialism that so often overshadows the whole meaning of the day.

So, instead of doing a layout with photos of presents being unwrapped, or someone who has overeaten and can't get out of their chair, I decided to create a framed keepsake that will act as a reminder of why we have come together on Christmas Day.

And for a bit of extra fun, I got to use My Little Shoebox Glitter Alphabet stickers on an Imaginisce project because the two manufacturers are having a product swap. And because I'm on both teams, I get to have twice the fun when I reveal my projects for My Little Shoebox that use Imaginisce products... confused? He he

A moment of madness!

Every now and again I have a moment of madness where I come up with an idea for a project without really thinking about the consequences of how long it is going to take... A Christmas bauble! You would think a simple little thing like a decoration to hang from a Christmas tree would be a quick and easy exercise... well stop right there! I thought the same and boy was I wrong. Grrr, I'd planned on doing a few projects in the one evening and guess what? I only did one!

I'm happy with it now, but at the time I cursed this little sucker more than I think it deserved! And here's a quick look at how I put this little ornament together.

1. Take one polystyrene ball.

2. Paint it! Put it in front of the fire to dry, then have to repaint it again because it fell off the stand, rolled onto the floor and took half the paint off. Then clean up the paint spill on the floor.

3. While you are waiting for the paint to dry the second time. Start punching out about 40 snowflakes, it's amazing how many it will take to cover such a small ball.

4. Using pop-dots adhere your snowflakes to the ball... be warned, you need to get them in the right place first go because if you try to pull them off to move them you will end up painting parts of your ball for a third time.

5.Add a bow with extra ribbon to hang your bauble. I used a concealed pin to attach my bow. Now, go back and add a step in between steps 3 and 4 because I forgot to put glamrocks on my snowflakes using the i-rock and seeing as I couldn't pull them off without taking half the paint off and having to re-paint my ball again. I had to add the glamrocks to the snowflakes after they were already attached to the ball so they wobbled around, fell off before I stuck them down, drove me nuts and basically caused me to have a slight melt down at this stage.

So, if anyone decides they want to make a Christmas bauble, I sincerely recommend buying them instead. On that note, I would like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas in July.

Don't forget to pop over to the Imaginisce blog to see all the amazing creations from the design team and to be entered in their give-away for one of three Santa's Little Helper prize packs.

From farm to you...