December to Remember

We know how hard you've worked on holiday cards all year, and if you made one card per week along with us, you've now got a stash of *48* unique and beautiful greetings ready to send to your family and friends!  But maybe you still need a few more cards, or maybe-- like us!-- you're just really feeling "in the swing" now and want to play along with some of the other fun Christmas card challenges out there on the wonderful world-wide web?! (Check out our links list on the sidebar for a few ideas!) Whatever the case, if you're still making holiday cards, we still wanna see 'em, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! So we've added a special "Anything (Holiday) Goes" link, below, for you to display your Christmas, New Year's, Hanukkah, Solstice, or even just generally "wintery" cards; alternately, you can use it to check out what your fellow Belles are making and find some clever ideas!

To further inspire you, one lucky cardmaker who links up with us on this post between now and 6pm (EST) on Friday, December 21st will receive this lovely prize package:

PaperTreyInk 2010 Holiday Tags Stamp Set

Stampin' Up Reason to Smile Stamp Set

8"x8" North Country Paper Pad by Prima

We'll even do our best to get that in the mail to you in time to play along with our first official prompt of 2013, which will debut right after the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Day, and we hope ♥YOU♥ stop by and check it out! In the meantime, happy cardmaking, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and Happy Holidays! 

♥♥♥  

xoxo 

Lauren and Stephanie

a ♥FEAST♥ for the eyes!!!

sometimes, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, you guys link up sooooooo many amazing and wonderful holiday cards, that it's almost impossible to choose only a few to feature; what a very sweet "problem" to have! do be sure to scroll down and check out all the links, because your fellow cardmakers have outdone themselves with the "christmas feast" prompt. in the meantime, here are a few cards that really made our mouths water:

Brenda B of Brenda's Crafty Corner

did much more than "slide by" with her fabulously fun and creative gingerbread man on his candy cane sled! each image is hand cut and perfectly embellished, while details like the twine scarf and fluffy polyfil snow add even more texture and interest!  

Lyn Jones of Cartisan Crafts

cleverly paper-pieced this simple and lovely christmas pudding stamp in a charming patchwork style, for an effect that's completely unique-- as is her card's wonderfully personal greeting!

Carin of BwithCa

stamped and beautifully colored her adorable image, then cut, shaped, layered, trimmed, distressed, iced, inked, embellished, decorated a card in which one just keeps on finding the sweetest treasures!

many thanks to everyone who participated in this prompt, and extra helpings to those of you who supported us throughout the entire year. it truly is our fellow ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ who make this so much fun! we've had a blast for the last eleven months, and heartily invite you to join us again on january first when we'll kick off our third year of holiday hijinks! 

even though this was our last OFFICIAL prompt of 2012, we know that your wonderful holiday cardmaking creations will continue into december, so do stop back at midnight for a little something "extra" to spur you on! in the meantime, may we be amongst the first to wish you a very...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, 

JINGLE BELLES!!!

♥♥♥♥♥

oh bring us some figgy pudding!

of course, by "bring us", we mean metaphorically, in card form; and it needn't be figgy pudding, as such; ANY type of holiday holiday food will do! but you've still got nearly a week to make a card featuring festive foodstuffs and link it up in the post right below us! just in case you need a little inspiration, here are two more tasty treats we've cooked up for you:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stef says, "Gingerbread is a favorite holiday treat ... I have such fond memories of decorating the little boys & girls with my Grandma.  The horizontal strips are Martha Stewart Border stickers ... sentiment and the *zig-zag stitching* are both SRM Stickers ... and the corrugated circle is also a food elements ... punched from a thermal coffee sleeve I saved for just such an occasion ... layout is the November Sketch For You To Try."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "this year i was completely fascinated and inspired by the 12 days of christmas card ideas on the prima blog, and fell particularly in love with cari fennel's card from day 5. here is my take on that idea, but with a twist: candy canes and other sweet treats make up part of my floral bouquet, to prove that this prompt is pretty flexible: your festive food can be the centerpiece of your card, or merely an accent, it's entirely up to you!"

Remember ... cards made with food (unlike a big plate of stuffing and mashed potatoes) have no calories ... so create away.

christmas feast

can you believe we're already midway through november, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥?! nor can we, but a quick glance at the calendar confirms that not only is (american) thanksgiving a mere week away, but that today marks the start of our very last holiday card prompt for 2012*!!! in honor of both thanksgiving AND the many glorious and delicious seasonal foods which appear around the holidays, this time we're asking you to create a holiday card which has some sort of FOOD on it... whether it's visions of sugarplums, cookies and cocoa for santa, roast turkey or goose, plum pudding, a cup of christmas tea... well, you get the idea, right? here are some tasty treats we've whipped up to inspire you:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "There are certain foods (yes, I most definitely consider candy a food) that always remind me of Christmas, and Candy Canes are most certainly one of those.  My Grandma put a Candy Cane in our stocking every Christmas, so this card reminds me of how much I enjoyed celebrating the holidays with her.  I cut out a candy cane card base (the card fold is along the left) and covered the entire shape with white glitter wrapping paper.  I used extra-strong double-sided tape to adhere the red glitter wrapping paper stripes and finished with a sentiment tag backed with more red glitter paper & a tiny red gem for accent."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i have to confess that i'm more interested in the DECORATIVE properties of gingerbread than actually eating it, but for years i've been fascinated by a local competition in which artists of all ages build the most fantastic and fabulous gingerbread houses you've ever seen! each year i say i am going to try my hand at it, and one of these days i *WILL*! (but this year i've settled for a reallllllly cute little card made with imaginisce rub-ons using this week's saturday card sketch challenge at two peas in a bucket!) :)

so bring us your figgy pudding... and any other festive foodstuffs you can fit on a card! be sure to link it up right here between now and 6pm (EST) on wednesday, november 28th. keyword for galleries and our flickr group is JB12-24.

*but yes, if you're wondering, we WILL be back in 2013 with more fortnightly card-making hijinks, and we're looking for a few "lovely guest stars" to help us out! have a great idea for a prompt? always wanted to try your hand at a card sketch? or maybe you'd just like to come along as a guest designer some week? drop us a line at jinglebellesrock @ hotmail [dot] com! and whether or not you'd like to participate in that way, why not plan to join us on january 1st as we kick off the new year in a RESOLUTIONARY way!!! ♥♥♥

Sketch-tactular

First, a HUGE thank you to the talented Allison Fillo for our wonderful Sketch this week.

Next, here are a few of our favorite sketchy creations from this week.

Carol Cel

of

Crazy for Card Making

used a fabulous cut-out and floating element for your sketch design ... 

click through to see her cool transparency element.

Linda

of 

Snail's Pace

used a clever glittery pennant for the triple element of the sketch ...

not to mention an adorable punny sentiment.

Andreja L.

of

Ustvarja Un.La

used wonderful earthy tones for her beautiful holiday angel ...

and added some fun jingle bells too.

Thanks to all of you for joining us for our sketchy fun ... check back at midnight for a delicious new prompt.

Let It Sketch

We're back with more fun cards created using Lovely Guest Star Allison's fabulous Sketch ... hope you'll find time to get sketchy with us this week.

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "we're still without power after hurricane sandy, so i went with the "quick and easy" option of using all readymades including the fabulous basic grey snowflake, a crate paper sentiment and that gorgeous mme ribbon... and of course allison's sketch really did MOST of the work anyway, lol!" :)

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I went more rustic using Halfway Cafe's Amarillo paper from Cosmo Cricket paired with Kraft and Distress Inked Ivory.  Stamps are from Hero Arts ... for me, that circle element in the sketch just cried out for a holiday wreath."

Remember, you have until 6pm EST on Wednesday, November 14th to link-up.

Do You Sketch What I Sketch?

We are thrilled to have returning lovely guest star Allison Fillo with us at Jingle Belles this week ... and she also provided a fantastic sketch to inspire us.

Allison manages a team of writers, trainers and curriculum developers by day and wild jackals by night (AKA as her children, Tristan, Charlotte and Avery). When she does get to venture into her craft room she enjoys cardmaking, scrapbooking and designing periodic sketch challenges for the Playing in Paradise Challenge.

If you're looking for sketch ideas, the first place to stop each week is Allison's blog Stampin' When I Can, where she has a post that compiles links to the various sketch challenges around the blogosphere (that also shows a thumbnail of the sketches if you're looking for something specific).

Here's your holiday card sketch:

and here are our sketch card designs:

Allison's Card

Allison says, "My card features rich color tones and fun button embellishments ... with a touch of  glitter for some holiday sparkle."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I decided I wanted to use some Basic Grey holiday papers this week, so the snowman background paper is where my design began ... I thought this fun Savvy Stamps Snowman fit right in with that motley snowman crew ... I paper-pieced his scarf leaving the ends loose, so it looks like the scarf is blowing in the wind."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i've held on to this beautiful over-sized piece of german scrap for several years, waiting for just the right idea to come along, and when i saw allison's gorgeous sketch it was the very first thing i thought of! since it is so nice and big, i really didn't need much else to flesh out my 6x6" card... just some basic grey "jovial" papers, a little bit of vintage foreign text paper, and some musical themed tape to fill in all the shapes of the sketch, and i was all set!"

Upload your sketchy cards by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, November 14th using keyword JB12-23 for galleries & our Jingle Belles Flickr Group.

Creature Congratulations

We absolutely loved seeing all of the creative creature cards for this prompt ... so much fun.

Here are a few that caught our creature feature fancy:

Mary Alice Bellis

of

Marvelous Possibilities

created a card featuring a whimsical owl decked out in holiday hues who is hanging-up his stocking ... so very cute.

Kristina (happycrafter)

of

Reflections of a HappyCrafter

featured a holiday reindeer as her creature in her amazingly detailed window scene ... the inky bricks look so real and she even added a lacy curtain.

Rose
of
My Happy Place

rocked the polka dot monsta ... perfectly decked out for the holidays ... what a super-fun holiday card.

Thanks to everyone who joined our fun Creature Feature ... check back at midnight for a super-special lovely guest star and another fun holiday card prompt.