While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

Description:For this week's Jingle Belles prompt we're asking you to show us your animals! (Flock ... get it?) It could be one of those sweet little sheep or perhaps a reindeer or camel … or maybe a Christmas Yeti is more your speed ... okay we're even allowing Christmas Monsters if you're in a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I found a trio of *vintage* animal stickers in my stash (vintage is a nice way of saying lost and forgotten about) and decided to channel my inner Tenia and make a trio of fun card designs featuring paint splattering, washi tape, twine, foam tape layers, and stitches. You can click-on-over to my blog to see the other two."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I never can resist Doodlebug stickers, generally, and their reindeer in particular. I was a little shocked to discover that, despite having bought several reindeer-inclusive sticker sheets this year, the little dude above is the LAST? Definitely time to re-order! I've kitted him out with some very majestic Eyelet Outlet Antlers (he'll grow into them!) and given him a beautiful Gina K foiled background in which to strut his stuff. i arranged all the bits and bobs according to the current Atlantic Hearts sketch (#286) which i think you'll agree is pretty inspiring."

Link your critter-centric creations here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 31st. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:22.

An InLinkz Link-up

In the PINK! ♥♥♥

We *ALWAYS* love the kindness and skill that goes into all of your amazing PINK CHRISTMAS creations, and this year is definitely no exception. If you haven't yet treated yourself to a thorough scroll through the gallery, please do, there is soooooooooo much inspiration to be found, we really did have a very hard time featuring just a few cards, which we'll get to in a minute.

But first, we know that everyone is longing to hear how much money you helped us raise for the Breast Cancer Reasearch Foundation! Counting posts with multiple cards... (for which we thank you VERY much indeed!) ...there were a grand total of *69*! We have both pledged $2 per card, which means we multiply 69 x 4 and come up with $276! Thank you so very much to EVERYONE who participated and extra special thanks to those who linked more than once, we are so grateful for your help each year! ♥♥♥

And now just a few shout outs to some of our faves:

Jerri of Coloring Outside the LineZ

...says she wasn't sure about *PINK* penguins at first. Jerri, we had no such doubts, they are AWESOME,! ♥

Bonnie of Stamping With Klass

...was worried that this amazingly lovely creation might not have enough pink in it, but we beg to differ! Granted it's just a splash... but it stands out all the more against the gloriously textural white!

Viv of Viv's Visuals

...created this serene but sparkly minimalist masterpiece on which we just cannot stop feasting our eyes!

Once again MANY thanks and a big WOW not just for the number of cards, but the fact that each and every one was exceptionally lovely! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will appeal to your love of CREATURE comforts?! :)

Deck the Halls... in ♥PINK♥!

We (Stephanie and Lauren) are still making PINK CHRISTMAS cards and donating $2 each to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each card that's linked up with us this fortnight. So we'd love for you to not only make some cards, but also spread the word! Thanks very much for your help!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other PINK Card

Lauren says, "I've used a few more bits and bobs from the Sugar Plum collection by My Mind's Eye, including the stripey pink paper and that beautiful badge. I've mixed in some other items-- and some darker pink-- in the form of patterned paper strips, some oversized pink fabric poinsettias, and a small (ancient!) sentiment sticker that was serendipitously exactly right!"

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I had several border strips leftover from last week's card, so I decided to cover my entire kraft card front with border strips.  I trimmed the Santa and sentiment from another pieces of paper in the Prima Santa Baby Collection and finished with a few strands of pearls."

Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one) for complete details and the linky tool! ♥

♥ Pink Christmas... for the Cure! ♥

If you've played along with us in other years, you may already know that at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we always devote the first theme of each October to making pink holiday cards as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that for each card that gets linked up, we (Stephanie and Lauren) each donate two dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. There are really no rules for this challenge other than the fact that each card has to be newly made, it has to have a winter holiday theme and it has to feature PINK prominently. Does your whole card have to be pink? Certainly not. Can you combine other colors with the pink? Of course! Should you have more pink than say two or three baubles on your green tree set against a snowy white background? Well, yeah... that'd be good. :) But other than that, we'll leave it to you to decide how much pink, what shade, and how to employ it!

We're not generally all that big on self-promotion around here, but this cause is near and dear to our hearts and we'd love to get GREAT participation, so be sure to tell all your cardmaking friends, and feel free to share the graphic and our link on your blog or social media.

But now let's get right to the cardmaking! Here's what we've made this week:

Stephanie's PINK Card

Stephanie says, "When I saw the new Santa Baby Collection by Prima at my local Scrapbook Store, I knew I had to have it for at least one of my Jingle Belles Pink cards.  I combined two papers with a journaling notecard and fun puffy stickers."

Lauren's PINK Card

Lauren says, "I also used a collection that I chose specifically with Pink Xmas in mind, but in my case it was "Sugar Plum" of a couple of years ago from My Mind's Eye. I combined patterned paper, a sentiment sticker and some cardstock diecuts together in a sort of landscape, completely with glitter paper snow, obviously!!!"

We'd love to get as MANY cards as possible for this one, so we can raise as much money as possible. So please link early and link often!!! Deadline is 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 17th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:21. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Put Your (PINK!) Thinking Caps On!

Because at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we always devote the first theme of each October to making pink holiday cards as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and for each card that gets linked up, we (Stephanie and Lauren) each donate two dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

We'll go live with this challenge at 12am (EST) October 5th and wrap up at 6pm on Wednesday, October 17th. Are there lots of rules? Nope! Other than the fact that each card has to be newly made, have a winter holiday theme, and feature PINK prominently. Can you enter more than once? YES!!! In fact, we'd be thrilled if you'd take it as a personal challenge to cost us as much money as possible for this wonderful cause!

PS: We're not generally all that big on self-promotion around here, but this cause is near and dear to our hearts so we'd consider it a big huge favor if you'd tell all your cardmaking friends, and maybe even share the graphic and our link on your blog or social media. Thanks! ♥♥♥

SNOW-tacular

We loved seeing all of the version of SNOW in the gallery ... so white a pretty for sure.

Here are a few that caught our eye.

Julie of Crafted by Jules

used the white space of her card to create an adorable snowy card.  The slight black shadow on the die cut make it pop perfectly off the white background.  CAS Perfection.

AJ of AJ's Creative Energy

shared a *Snowman Selfie* that made us giggle outloud ... love that little guy trying to squeeze into the picture at the back ... and those colors just pop for a fun snowy scene.

Aimeslee Winans of Paper Paisleys Art Adventures Blog

created this gorgeous, glittery, layered monochromatic SNOWY tag featuring some of our favorite vintage Basic Grey papers (Fruitcake) ... this girl knows how to rock the bling.

Make sure you come back at midnight for one of our Annual PINK events you won't want to miss.

Dashing Through the SNOW

We're still creating with SNOW this week and we love all of the variations in the gallery.

Here are our SNOWY creations for this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I'm not sure I've ever made a holiday card in shades of burgundy, grey and a tiny bit of holly green, but I have to admit I quite like this one! I started with a Simple Stories snowman journal card, then found some ANCIENT papers that matched it really well. A sticker sentiment, some exceedingly elderly snowflake stickers, skinny white mats and an Eyelet Outlet holly brad complete the design!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I built my card around Lawn Fawn's Stitched Snowflakes cut from Red & Blue Card Stock and Watercolor Paper.  I had fun layering them and added jewels to the centers.  I finished with a Lawn Fawn sentiment from Yeti Set Go! and a little card featuring children sledding in the snow."

Make sure you link your SNOWY card up by Wednesday, October 3rd at 6pm (EST) at the post directly below this one.