a very ♥MERRY MONDAY♥ to you, jingle belles!

lauren here, just popping in to mention that i'm pretty excited to be a guest designer today at my favorite holiday card sketch, site merry monday! many thanks to lesley croghan and her very talented gang, who chose my monsta xmas card and invited me along; now i'd like to invite YOU along, as well, why not combine our creature feature prompt with their gorgeous sketch?!

here's my card:

there's plenty of time for you to get in on BOTH of these fun challenges:  

holiday creature feature runs through 6pm (EST) on halloween (that's this wednesday evening); and merry monday sketch #39 goes until sunday, november 4th at noon, PST! ♥

Creature Christmas Continues

We're still celebrating all living Creatures at Jingle Belles this week ... Lauren and I seldom discuss what cards we're going to make, so when I went to draft the post, I had to laugh that we were both still on a bit of pink kick (can you ever really have too much pink) ...

Here's what we made:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "ok, so for anyone who thought "monsta xmas" was a little tooooooo silly, i'm sure flamingo christmas is even worse! but i love flamingos, i love pink, i love BRIGHT tropical colors on holiday cards, and i love to do something unexpected. pretty sure i've succeeded in all of those goals this time, lol! the bottom line for me, when this stops being FUN, i will stop doing it. luckily, there's no sign of that yet!" :) :) :)

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I'm a pretty chaotic crafter & sometimes my best inspiration comes from the piles of remains that are left on my craft table.  As I was trying to figure out how I could incorporate the rest of these fun little dimensional penguin stickers ... I saw the Holiday Bingo Card among the paper scraps ... and voila ... Jolly Penguin Bingo was born (using this week's iSpy Sketch) ... love these fun little guys."

So keep those cards featuring all living creatures coming our way ... link them up by Wednesday, October 31st at 6pm (EST) using keyword JB12-22 for galleries & our  Jingle Belles Flickr Group ... who knows, maybe we'll even throw in a little holiday surprise for one lucky participant.

Holiday Creature Feature

The next Jingle Belles prompt is a Creature Feature  ... we're asking you to create a card with a living creature on it: reindeer, penguins, polar bears, moose, people, angels, elves... or, of course the most obvious Christmas Card presence ... Monstas.

Here's our take on this fun idea:

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "ok, yeah, it's probably only *ME* who uses monstas in this context, and if you're looking for the explanation by which that phenomenon makes sense, i'm sorry but there really ISN'T one. it's just that a few years ago i found this adorable paperchase giftwrap, and almost immediately, decided it would make great christmas cards! an admittedly weird decision which i stand by, because they still crack me up! :) but do feel free to take a more traditional route, there are LOTS of great creatures on THIS planet too, lol!"

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I used a several creatures including a tiny little holiday owl, a penguin and a reindeer (all from Hero Arts Merry Christams Ink 'N Stamp) on my Retro Sketch layout ... and I threw in a snowman for good measure.  I stamped each image & then punched them out with a medium star punch, using some foam tape for dimension and pretty aqua twine."

So break out your favorite holiday creature and see what fun cards you can create (or add a santa hat to your favorite non-holiday creature to get them in the holiday spirit).

Upload your cards by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 31st using keyword JB12-22 for galleries & our Jingle Belles Flickr Group ... who knows, maybe we'll even throw in a little holiday surprise for one lucky participant.

pretty (and proud!) in pink

take a bow, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, in addition to creating some of the most lovely and amazing holiday cards of the year, you've helped us to raise $400 for the susan g. komen fund and we could not be more pleased! thank you, thank you, thank you for your generosity in embracing our favorite non-traditional holiday color for this very good cause! here are a few cards we especially loved this week:

electra of wishin' i knew how to blog

proved that she not only knows how to blog, she also knows how to make really, REALLY awesome holiday cards, by submitting *TEN* UNIQUE AND BEAUTIFUL pink christmas cards!!! and yes, we are donating $4 for each and every one of them! do give yourself the treat of clicking through to see all ten, and while you're there, be sure to leave her some love! 

vickie o'dell of heARTful stamper

made two exceptionally lovely cards (the other is here) which prove that you can add a little accent of pink to even the most traditional color scheme and have it look amazing!

candy blake of stampin' with candy

not only incorporated the color, but also the message of our pink christmas prompt with her simple... and simply perfect... "season of hope" card!

we want to thank EVERYONE who participated, because we know for a fact that some of you don't even like pink, but you were willing to go along with us for a good cause! we'd also like to to mention/brag about a few other lovely belles who made multiple cards this week:  deanne, marika gabez, nikki c, berit synnove, eveline, julia aston, cyndie, gina, marie bingaman and andreja each made two or more AMAZING cards that we know you are going to want to go and see... and they all get counted in our donation tally, no matter how they were linked, we have counted EVERY individual card submitted--even the ones we made-- for a grand total of 97... how ♥FABULOUS♥ is that?!  multiply 'em by $4 per card... and we came up with $388, but some of us really hate math... (ok me, lauren, lol) ...so we rounded that up to a nice even $400, just to make the division and subtraction easier; and we've zapped that contribution to susan g. komen for the cure; they have a super-convenient online donation form... just sayin'... something else we're just sayin' is: 

thanks

♥JINGLE BELLES♥

you all

SO TOTALLY ROCK!

♥♥♥

(by the way, we'll be back at midnight with the new prompt; c'mon back and play!)

pink-a-licious

we're totally thrilled with the response so far to our "pink christmas" prompt, both in terms of numbers AND the sheer gorgeousness of the cards involved! remember, you still have nearly a week to participate, and there's no limit to the number of new pink holiday cards you can link up, so g'head and make a second one, if you have the time and inclination.  we did! ♥

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "this has been a craaaaaaaaazy week for me, so i really needed to make a FAST card, and there's nothing like using products from the same manufacturer for speeding things up, is there? i've combined crate paper's peppermint collection with a few bits and bobs from other lines; made my own word art; and grabbed merry monday sketch #36 for my placement to finish in record time!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I combined one of this month's Hero Arts Sketches with fun papers from KaiserCraft's Christmas Carnival Collection ... love a holiday paper collection that includes lots of pink."

And remember ... we'll be donating a total of $4 for every linked-up card to the Susan G. Komen Foundation ... so help us support a cure for breast cancer.

♥ pink christmas... for the cure! ♥

if you played along with us last year at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ you might remember that we dedicated the first card-making prompt of october to breast cancer awareness month, and that stephanie and i (lauren) honored all of the brave women who are coping with, or have battled, that disease in a couple of ways: first by making pink christmas cards, and then by donating a dollar each to the susan g. komen fund for every pink christmas card our fellow belles made and linked up with us during the challenge period, and we raised $75! this year our prompts are twice as long, so we've decided to go twice as big: we'll be donating $2 each, for a total of $4 per card. so for anyone who's been thinking about joining in with us, but hasn't yet, *THIS* is the week, you guys, let's RAISE SOME MONEY!!! but first, let's make some ♥pink♥ christmas cards! 

the rules are simple: you can choose any shape, size, style, theme, sentiment, papers, embellishments and additional colors you want; you may combine with other challenges, use sketches from anywhere you like, and enter as many times as you wish, but you must make a NEW holiday card each time, and there has to be some pink on it somewhere! how much, and in what shade, we leave entirely up to you! 

we went all out, as you can see:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I decided to get pinky-inky for my card this week ... it started with a grunge board Christmas tree inked with Distress Stains, chalk ink and sprays of Glimmer Mist for all-over sparkle.  I used what I call my Flourish Surgical Technique (explained in more detail on my blog) to decorate my tree.  Finally, I used Distress Stain on a lacy doily for a pink background."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i think everyone knows by now that i LOVE pink! i love it in every shade, from salmon to fuscia, from blush to cerise; i love it for birthdays and baby showers, and i really, REALLY love it for christmas! i don't think i can be alone in this, either, because every year i see a few more holiday paper lines with pink in them. on the other hand, you don't NEED a lot of specialty products; in fact, apart from my snowflakes and sentiment, everything on my card is from my "everyday stash" and yet i think it's very festive... and there's no arguing that it's definitely very VERY pink!"  

of course the ♥PINK CHRISTMAS♥ cards we're really longing to see are YOURS, jingle belles, so break out your pink cardstock, papers, ink, rhinestones, snowflakes, and... well... anything else you like, and link up here by 6pm (EST) on wednesday, october 17th. keyword for galleries and our flickr group is JB:12:21. 

There's No Business Like ♥SNOW♥ Business...

...and nobody who ROCKS the snow-themed papercrafts quite as well as our fellow ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! Here are a few cards which especially warmed our hearts this week:

Allisa
of Rocky Mountain Paper Crafts

used peaceful neutral tones to create a striking elegant snowflake design.

Delphine
of Delphine's Place
created a beauty in blue with these sweet little snowmen
that make us smile ... JOY for sure.

Berit Synnøve 
Berit's Hobbykrok

created a lovely vintage snowy design with lots of
fantastic details and textures (click through for close-ups) 

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we always love to see what you do, and we're sure YOU will love to see what your fellow belles did this fortnight, so be sure to scroll down and check out the Fabulously Dashing Snow Gallery! We'll be back at midnight with a prompt we hope finds you in the pink... and we'll have a bit of a charitable "proposition" as well! Hope to see you then!