Christmas in July Day 20

One of the great things about Christmas in July is my amazing new blog friends!  I told you that I "sat in" on the Ornament Swap reveal over at the Magical Holiday Home forums chat, and we have a book chat coming up to discuss our CIJ 2011 book, The Snowglobe.  The bloggers over on the forums have the coolest recipes, craft ideas and decorating tips and I am learning so much this year.  Thanks to my friend Tammy, who blogs at Enter with a Christmas Heart, I have found Tim Holtz.  His creations are incredible - I love his 12 Tags of Christmas (check out his left-hand side bar for four years of tags!).  His step-by-step instructions are so clear and he makes me want to run right out and buy every tool that he has listed.  Alas, the budget says no, so I have had to do some improvising.

Today's ornament is this Music Star.

I didn't have any music paper but I did have some lovely Christmas paper left over from our Kettlewell Christmas Album 2001 which I thought had a distinctive Olde Worlde English theme and I also had some bits and pieces (die cuts and charms) left over as well.  So here is the result.

Bad camera, worse photographer, first experience with Modge Podge - loving this Christmas in July trial run period!  Need to refine my edging skills - distressing the edges as Tim demonstrates might have been the finishing touch.

On the movie front, I knocked out two today - too hot to do anything other than sit and have the fan waft a breeze over me!

White Christmas was first - love, love, love everything about the final scene, the show at the Inn.  We went to see White Christmas on stage the first Christmas we were in Rhode Island and that scene is just as amazing in a play.  Then it was today's offering from Netflix, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  I have to say that Martha May Whovier is my favorite character!

I've got a lot of fresh fruit left over (strawberries and blueberries were Buy One, Get One Free at my local market) from the Berry Brunch Pizza so I think I might whip up a cool dessert tomorrow.  I'm thinking that my Mandarin Cheesy Cakes could be adapted with berries so watch this space, I mean blog, for details tomorrow.

I got a Christmas goodie in the mail yesterday that I forgot to mention.  I really liked the Letters to Santa tube shown in the bottom right-hand corner of this Advent Calendar.

I found one online from a secondary source and stuck the site in My Favorites with the best intentions to order it later.  Well, later came along, and the site had been removed!  Time to turn to Ebay - I found one but it was green.  I figured green was better than nothing so I ordered it.  It was a bit larger than I expected but I love it and can't wait to put it on my tree.  I think I'm going to go back through our Christmas albums and type up all the Letters to Santa Sophia has written so I can put them inside.  That should give us a giggle when we put up our tree.  Here's her 2004 missive:

The bread is for the reindeer and the rest is yours, Santa.
Love, 
The C..... Family
P.S. I'm Sophia and I'm ten,  I've been really good this year.

Sometimes she'd give me a longer letter and ask me to mail it to the North Pole, but this year she must have forgotten and just slipped a note on the cookie plate!

I'm off to watch Love Actually - it ranks right up there with The Holiday on my faves list.