Wrapping Up 2023!

Once again we've reached the end of another Jingle Belles season. It feels like 2023 just few by, thanks to all of the fun we had seeing you build your holiday stash.  

We're once again sharing our beginning-of-December big pile-o-cards before we begin writing & addressing, so they can be mailed or hand-delivered to our favorite folks.  

Now it just remains to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. We'll be back on January 1, 2024 to start our 14th year of taking back December one holiday card at a time ... and we'd love for you to join us for our holiday mayhem once again! 

Stephanie's Pile-o-Cards

Lauren's Pile-o-Cards

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Here's one last link-up for the year;  you can use it to share your last-minute holiday cards and, if you have a few minutes, cruise through the other cards to be inspired and maybe leave a comment or two. 

Many thanks to everyone who helped to make this year our most fun EVER; we'd hope to see you back again at Jingle Belles in 2024! ♥

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Banner Celebration

What a fabulous way to celebrate the final challenge of our 2023 season: With an absolutely awesome collection of holiday cards inspired by our very own Jingle Belles Blog header! Here are just a few that particularly caught our eye; though truly, you really need to scroll back to the original post to see them all!

Gail L of What's Normal?

...captured the full-on blog banner aesthetic ...vibrant pink trees, collaged text background, swirls of bling, etc... using/adapting items from her stash for this lovely portrait-oriented card!

Alicia O'Bryant of Golden Goddess Designs

...embraced the color palette, the trees, and touches of sparkle, but fitted them into a fabulous modular sketch for a super-clean look!

Denise Bryant (who posts on SCS)

...used the elements and layout of the banner, but stuck to a more realistic color palette; and made us realize that the original design really SHOULD HAVE had a moose!!!

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A big thank you to everyone who participated, we genuinely do love seeing ALL of your amazing creations! We'll be back at midnight with a few final thoughts for the season AND, of course, our personal card pile pics, as tradition demands!

A Blog Header Christmas

We're still making cards this week inspired by our 2023 Jingle Belles Blog Banner, here's a reminder of what it looks like:

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I focused on the pink holiday trees with white splatter for my inspiration.  I also added in the repeating holiday sentiment & a pearl flourish design with puffy sticker sentiment."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Having gone as literal as possible last week, this time I wanted to see how far I could go in the other direction, but still have the influence of the banner show clearly. I rotated the rectangle shape to make a "tall card"; I used the layers of music, text and snowflakes for the background; I placed a tree toward the left of the frame; and finally I used the same Stamplorations "Jingle" die on glitter paper as my sentiment."

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Scroll down to the original Banner Inspired Holiday post to visit the Readers' Gallery and to link up your own card(s)!

Banner Inspired Holiday

It's hard to believe it's time for our final Jingle Belles prompt of 2023. This fortnight we're asking you to make a card inspired by our fabulous Lauren-designed 2023 Blog Banner. There are so many possibilities for inspiration: the pink + white + tan color palette OR the trees and/or snowflakes OR the glittery letters OR... well, you get the idea! Choose any aspect(s) that appeal to you; just be sure to let us know which elements you're incorporating into your design!

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went with the two tone ink design, white snowflakes, glittery letters and swapped the texty background for a musical pattern.  Paper is Prima's Santa Baby and those glittery letters have literally been on my studio table since I made this card a year ago (so glad they finally have a home). I added white snowflake stickers and some glittery silver Love from Lizi Peel-Offs to finish the design."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My card is VERY literal, as you can plainly see! I incorporated the basic sketch, colors, glitter and trees into my super-layered design. The background consists of patina-ed vintage sheet music, part of an ancient Hambly snowflake paper, bits of doily, and torn vellum with typed holiday lyrics. The forest of Taylored Expressions' Evergreens are diecut in pink with white "shadows" and the (quite appropriate) sentiment was made with Stamplorations (sadly out of print) Jingle All the Way die."

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A reminder that your card does not have to be a literal interpretation of our blog header, it just needs to be inspired by one or more elements therein! Link your creations right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 29th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2324.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sweet as Candy

Candy and cakes and cookies, oh my! The Hard Candy Christmas Readers' Gallery is overflowing with beautiful cards that the feature sweets and treats of the holidays! Here are a few that especially caught our eye:

Natascha of CreaStories

...built a charming and very detailed wreath full of seasonal candies, and her adorable gingerbread man can't wait to sample them!

Nora of A Creative Touch

...stamped a bold and vibrant hard candy background in one of our very favorite holiday color schemes, topped off with a most appropriate sentiment!

Barbara G of Barb's Creative Corner

...not only had exactly the right House Mouse to star in her clever dimensional design, she's paired him with not one but TWO perfect peppermint patterned papers!

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A big THANK YOU to everyone who joined our fun this fortnight. We'll be back at Midnight to reveal 2023's last official Jingle Belles prompt of the season!

Candy Cane Christmas

We're still creating with Candy, Cookies & other holiday treats for our Hard Candy Christmas.

Here's how we got sweet this week:

Lauren's Other Card(s)

Lauren says, "This week, I've got candy canes, Christmas cookies, hot cocoa, cupcakes, Christmas pudding and more, thanks to a partial page of older American Crafts mini journal cards I found in my holiday stash. I trimmed them down, popped them onto foam tape and added a couple of patterned paper layers... Pebbles' black text and Dare 2B Artzy's red dots, to be exact. There were too many for just one card, so I split them up and made a pair of A7s; because in mid-November it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to make cards too quickly, am I right?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I covered silver cardstock with clear candy stickers before cutting with a mini-slimline stitched die cut.  I used a few enamel dots to fill in some open spaces (and cover a tiny embossing machine boo boo) and finished with a Tim Holtz sentiment."

Hard Candy Christmas

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to make holiday cards featuring your favorite Christmas Candy (or cookie or other holiday food).

Here are our yummy cards for this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the fun Santa from a Christmas journaling card and filled his hands with a Holiday Coffee Cup and a Candy Cane - both brads from Eyelet Outlet.  I used the layout from Try Stampin' on Tuesday and a stamped sentiment from Impress."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Obviously there are lots of awesome ways to approach this prompt, but seeing as how Doodlebug's Gingerbread Kisses line has just arrived at Paper Anthology, it seemed silly not to let those fabulous papers, journal cards and stickers do most of the work for me. I was having so much fun I made not one but two cards to celebrate!"

Link your yummy holiday treats card(s) right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday evening, November 15th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2323.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter