Christmas in July PARTY--Homemade Gifts and Projects

Come on in!  Do you hear the crackling of wood in the fireplace?  No...it's just the eggs frying on the sidewalk.  It's clearly July, but it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here on the blog!  And we're having a Christmas in July PARTY!  

This party is going to be better than I envisioned, because we have two amazing blogging celebrity guests!

I already told you that Laurie from Tip Junkie, had agreed to come and judge our party:

But now I have another Christmas surprise!  I'm not sure I told you yet (there will be a big post with all of the details next week), but last Saturday I got to meet the illustrious Kim, from the TomKat Studios at an amazing photoshoot!  Not only is she super-talented, but she is super nice!

Kim is celebrating Christmas in July, too, with a 50% off sale on her fantastic Christmas labels and gift tags.  Stuff like this:

and this:

And here is the great news:

Kim has agreed to provide our 3 favorite party submissions (as chosen by Laurie) with both of her sets of Christmas downloads!!!  In addition, two party participants will be chosen at random to receive the downloads, as well!  (Now don't you want to hurry and link up a post!)

We are looking for your homemade Christmas gifts and projects!  What have you given in years past?  What are you making this year?  Are you starting now, or will you be up all night on Christmas Eve creating that special gift?

This is what I am supposed to be working on:

Actually, these ones are done!  Somewhere in the stupor of my third trimester, I agreed to do a felt food exchange with my sisters for Christmas gifts for our children.  We each make one set of food 5 times.  One of my sisters made these adorable french fries and burger.  I should have taken close-ups of the individual parts of the burger, but she sewed the veins on the lettuce and shapes on the pickles and tomato.

Another sister made the felt deserts.  I love the ice cream cone!  Each scoop of ice cream has velcro on the bottom, so they can stack on each other.  The cookies she made, each have a different number of chocolate chips, so they can be used to teach counting, as well as for play.

I was given the assignment of breakfast.  It shouldn't be too difficult.  I'm planning on it looking something like this: 

(photo found @ homemade by jill)

Except now, I'm hearing that IKEA is going to start carrying their own line of felt food.  And now I have a decision to make:  to make my bacon and eggs, or buy some from IKEA for everyone.  I actually think this will be a fun project to do with my oldest daughter, so we will probably make them, but we'd better get it on the calendar right away.  School starts in about a week, and Christmas will be here in the blink of an eye.

Now it's your turn!

What are you working on?  Link up any of your posts with great Christmas Gift/Project ideas.  Please add this button to your post so others can party with us, too! 

<br /> <a border="0" href="http://meandmyinsanity.blogspot.com/2010/07/christmas-in-july-party-homemade-gifts.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc115/irene_jazz/ChristmasinJulybutton.png"/></a><br />

 Also, make sure you have easy to find contact information on your blog, so I can contact you if you are one of the winners!  If not, leave a comment with your contact info.  Visit as many links as you can and share some Holiday cheer!  Don't we all need it?  Even in July!

Thanks to Laurie and Kim for their participation!  Let's get this party started!