Howdy y’all! Welcome to the Christmas in July, Squirrel Style!!! That’s right, this month’s installment is themed Christmas in July and our supply/technique of the month is foiling! If you’ve been here before, you know the drill (and welcome back!!!). But for those of you who are very confused right now (Squirrelz??? Christmas? Theme?), I’ll take a quick moment to explain. My friends and I, affectionately known as the Squirrel Squad, come together every month(ish) and challenge ourselves to use items in our stash that have been neglected. To make it interesting, we pick a theme and then a supply or technique as an additional challenge. We thought foiling would be a perfect fit for a Christmas in July theme and with so many options for foil (Deco foil, hot foil, foiled papers/tape/washi), the possibilities are almost endless. I’m gonna apologize right now for the questionable photography. Shiny things are notoriously difficult to photograph, and I lack the skills to do this justice. I’m sure my Squirrel Sisters are better than I am though, so be sure you hop along to see their beautiful foiled creations! There’s only 5 of us, so it will take no time at all to get your inspiration for the day! Here is the lineup:

• Marie Bingaman
• Karen Page – YOU ARE HERE
• Lounon Riviere
• Anna Mahtani
• V Fairchild

OK, ready to be blinded by the shine off of these foiled cards???

Honestly, I struggled for hours to get anywhere, and kept switching ideas because I wasn’t loving anything at first. But the mojo finally started to flow and I was able to complete more than 1 card, so Yay Me! That’s how my brain works when crafting… I go from “this looks terrible, let’s try something else entirely” to “well, maybe I can fix that after all” to “ooh, I got another idea” and in the end I have multiple cards. Thank goodness my brain doesn’t do that with cooking!!! Could you imagine?!? 🤣 OK, let me stop rambling and get into this! First up:

This card is my favorite of the bunch! I knew right away I wanted to use this die from Gina Marie Designs called Pine Needle Frame that I got (appropriately) for Christmas last year. The green foil from Tonic has been in my stash probably 5 years and this was the first sheet used from the pack. I remember getting a great Black Friday deal and buying a bunch of colors, most of which have yet to be used, like this green. The struggle came in finding a background that didn’t compete with this shiny frame (this was where I switched off to another project, in frustration). I finally found this wintery wood paper that allowed the die cut to stand out, without being too bland. The Believe die cut from MFT was cut from a scrap of gold foil, (origin unknown it’s so old), and I was pleased to find it was the perfect fit! I have a literal crap ton (technical term) of Christmas stamps, but can you believe I don’t have one that says “believe in the magic of Christmas”?!? (Mental Note: rectify this immediately.) So, the sub-sentiment banner is computer generated and I really wish it was gold foiled but alas I don’t own a laser printer (2nd Mental Note: Also needs to be rectified ASAP.) so I settled for changing the color of the font. And finally, I found a pine cone die cut that was a magazine freebie, so I die cut it gold and backed it with vellum to help it show better. I really like the touch it adds!

The project I switched off to when frustrated with the 1st above started out only as a plan for a foiled background. I simply cut strips from silver foil and black cardstock and adhered them to a printer paper base to make card assembly easy. I didn’t really have a plan beyond that, but the background would have met the foiling criteria, and from there I could have added any Christmas stamp. But I was so pleased with the foiled die cuts from the first card, that I went digging through the hoard stash and found this Christmas tree die from a budget company called Firefly (a spin off company under the Momenta brand). I’ve had this stamp and die combo set for at least 4 years and never used this die. I used pieces of foil in my scrap stash to cut the tree in a variety of colors, layered them up on extra black die cut trees, stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from the same set, cut it on the same angle as the strips, and before I knew it I had 2 cards ready to go! And honestly, this layout gives me so many ideas for other cards… patterned paper trees, or solid trees on patterned paper, or maybe cut the trees from other specialty paper… oooooh, like flocked paper!!! See?!? You could go really CAS if you leave the background plain, or even vintage with the right papers. If only I had more time!!!

Now, I ended up doing all that die cutting thinking I didn’t have time to actually foil anything. But, I was thinking back to a previous Squirrel challenge hop (linked HERE) where I used Gina K Designs Foil Mates to foil a background. I kinda remembered making more than I needed for that hop, so I went rummaging through my stash of misc backgrounds… and low and behold I found this beauty that used a multi color foil called Emerald Watercolor that has a couple of greens and gold in it! (Triple points for the 1). actual foiling, 2). Christmas theme, and 3). using a background from the mountain of unused project pieces!!!) Still having fun with the foil die cutting, (and an aversion to pulling out the laminator) I grabbed another sentiment die, this one from Spellbinders and cut it from the previously mentioned scrap of gold foil paper. I fussy cut a shadow mat for it from vellum so it would be easier to read on the busy background, yet not cover up too much of it. (It needed something but I didn’t know what so I jumped back to the previous project and made the 2nd card with paper strips and more trees.) I felt like it needed some green to tie into the background more, so I used the same die to cut just the holly leaves of the sentiment die and fussy cut them to overlay. That same magazine freebie die set from the 1st card had a holly leaf and pine sprig, so I cut them from the green foil to add some pizazz. A final touch was adding an iridescent gem to the holly berry. Huzzah! (Mental Note: obtain foil epoxy dots in red and gold since I apparently used all of the ones I had.)

See how easily it is to go from 1 card to 4 without really trying??? Hopefully I didn’t bore you explaining my process! You know what is totally not boring??? The rest of the hop!!! Your next stop is undoubtedly going to be amazing because Lounon is super talented!!! And if you didn’t come here by way of the incredible Marie, make sure you go through the whole hop to see what gorgeousness she (and Anna and V) made! After all, its Marie’s love of Christmas that convinced us to make that this month’s theme!!!

Just a quick note to let you know that the Squirrel Squad is taking a little break, so we’ll be off the rest of the summer and will be back in September to pick up where we left off (God willing and the creek don’t rise). That’s not to say that the girls won’t be posting during that time, so make sure you’re subscribed if you don’t want to miss seeing their beautiful cards and projects!!! Thanks for dropping by!