Creature Feature

We love all of the fun you're having with Christmas Creatures ... here are a few more that we made.

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "For me, Christmas isn't Christmas without a Yeti or two ... my sister and I always exchange a variety of Yeti fun over the holidays, so this card will likely find its way to her.  Stamps are Lawn Fawn Yeti Set Go (colored with Spectrum Noir Markers) and sketch is Mojo Monday."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I fell in love with these beautiful felt cardinal stickers, but then I was a bit puzzled as to how I would use such tiny elements on a card... UNTIL... I saw this week's Retro Sketch which gave me the perfect plan!"

Remember, you have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday November 5th to link-up your Christmas Creature Creation.

Not a CREATURE was stirring ...

Yes, sometimes we love prompts so much, we revisit them each year ... like this one.  

We wait all year for October not just because of the money we raise/donate to fight breast cancer (thanks again to everyone), but also because October is the month that celebrates creatures, costumes and characters.

This prompt is to create a holiday card that features a *creature*. Your creature might be a mouse, a moose, a bird, a robot, elves, reindeer, snow-people ... or yes, even a Monsta. Just have fun with it ... you know we did.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I love mail-themed images, so I could not resist featuring this super-cute digital puppy from Mulberry Wood. I added a stamped sentiment using this week's Mojo Monday Sketch."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Ok, so, here's a shocking true confession for you: a biiiiiiiiiig part of the reason we do a "Creature Feature" at Halloween each year is so that I can make a Christmas Monsta card (or two!) fair and square. What can I say? I'm a woman of simple pleasures, and these cards make me inordinately happy! I used Sweet Sunday Sketch #241 because it totally rocks, and a pink robot bunny monsta dude cut from my ancient Paperchase giftwrap because I still can't believe how totally AWESOME you guys made this year's PINK XMAS celebration! Thank you!" ♥♥♥

So now it's time to see how *YOU* will feature a creature! Link up here before 6pm (EST) Wednesday, November 5th; Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:14:22.

An InLinkz Link-up

Best Gift Ever!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping making this the best ♥PINK CHRISTMAS♥ in Jingle Belles' history, both in terms of the loveliest cards submitted and the most money raised, as well! Counting the "extras" that so many of you placed in your posts, there were a total of 144 cards!!! Calculating those at $4 each, we've amassed a total donation of $576 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and we could not be more excited, more grateful or more proud of you guys for making it happen!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

♥♥♥♥♥

Choosing only a few cards to feature is ALWAYS a difficult task, but this fortnight it was nearly impossible, since every single cardmaker seemed to be at peak performance, as befits this special occasion! But choose we must, so here are a few particularly prime pink creations. ok, yes, there might be a few extras, but hey, this was a special occasion!

Jerrie from Coloring Outside the LineZ

...combined stamps, embossing powders and papers; then she topped her gorgeous blingy, sparkly tree with that awesome pink ribbon!



Diane from Lydia's Post
...made SEVEN uniquely beautiful cards that each cleverly featured a beautiful vintage element of some sort! This sewing pattern lady is a fave, but be sure to check out this post, also.

Sue N. (who posts on Splitcoast Stampers)

...pretty much defines the phrase "Merry and Bright" with her amazingly minimalist, yet still satisfyingly sparkly, creation!



Donna Digby from DAT's My Style
...made SIX fabulous pink creations, all using the same stamp set; now that's what you call flexible! (Be sure to check out her other creations here, here, here, here and here!)

Betty from Created by BJK

...made two equally gorgeous versions of pink poinsettia perfection that each made us feel a bit swoony! (There's also lovely green one, as well, and it's so cool to see how different they all are!)


Joyce M from Cards-by-the-Sea
...made TEN (ten!) beautiful CAS masterpieces, each one amazing in its own right, so be sure to check our her other posts here, here and here!

Finally, our heartfelt thanks to the supremely lovely Jessi Fogan for sharing our hostessing duties, linking up gorgeous extra cards in the readers' gallery, and just generally being a really fun person to hang out with! ♥ We'll be back at midnight with a new prompt we hope will help you appreciate the creature comforts of the holiday season!

Almost at the finish line...

...of our ♥PINK CHRISTMAS♥ prompt raising money for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. We are overwhelmed (in a really really GOOD way!) by how many of you have already joined us, but if you still want to play, there's some time left before the link closes, tomorrow night at 6pm, Eastern.

 Thank you very much to everyone who's participated!

♥♥♥

Daniel Craig wants you to make a ♥PINK♥ Christmas card!

Ok, sorry, that's a total lie, but it got your attention, darlings, didn't it? Which was my point. This is Lauren, as if you didn't guess, lol; don't tell Stephanie I've hijacked the blog for a minute, ok? 

Not to be shamelessly self-promotional... well no, actually that's EXACTLY what i want to be, but not for myself... for our JINGLE BELLES "Pink Christmas" prompt! I know you already know we're making ♥PINK♥ holiday cards and that for each one linked up we'll donate $4 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation; I also know you know there's a post with all the details and a cool challenge graphic right below this one. I hope you'll scroll down and check it out, then link up a card (or two, or ten?!) and then tell all your friends! Thanks very much for your support, now back to our regular ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ reminder post!

We're still feeling in the pink, so here are the cards we made this week:

Jessi's Other Pink Card

Jessi says, "I went with a sassy boob image... I figured it was fitting given the cause, lol. This card took a little longer to create than usual, as I kept starting cards and then -DOH- forgetting pink."
*shakes head*

(Lauren says, "Jessi, I am soooo happy to hear I'm not the only one who does that!)

Lauren's Other Pink Card

Lauren says, "I hardly ever take a 'do over' on cards, but I actually made the card you see here last week, and I really liked it, but for the grand debut of Pink Christmas 2014 I decided it wasn't quiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite pink enough for my liking. So I made the ornament card and posted it first. But of course your card doesn't have to be all pink or even mostly pink... it just has to have some noticeable pink on it, and this one definitely fits the bill; plus I have always adored and hoarded the mustard gold Christmas paper Rhonna Farrer designed for Autumn Leaves years and years ago with the swirly trees on it, so this seemed like a great time to use one of those!"

Stephanie's Other Pink Card

Stephanie says, "I went *all PINK* this week using three different pink designer papers (none of which are actually *Christmas* papers) and two pink cardstocks.  The layout is this week's Retro Sketch and stamps are from Clearly Besotted."

♥PINK♥ Christmas!!!

We're pretty sure everyone who's ever played along at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ saw this one coming, but that doesn't make it any less exciting! Yes, once again, in honor of October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we are celebrating ♥PINK CHRISTMAS♥! What does that mean? Well, we'd like to see holiday cards with a noticeable bit of pink on them, and for every card you guys link up, Stephanie and Lauren are each donating $2 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation!

There's no limit to how many times you play, so please link early and link often!!! We'd also love for you to pass the news along to all your card-making friends, so we've made a special challenge graphic and a paste-able blurb to make this really easy to blog about! :)

The "Pink Christmas" prompt will run at JINGLE BELLES from 12am on Friday, October 10th to 6pm on Wednesday, October 22nd; as in previous years, Stephanie and Lauren pledge to donate $4 per linked-up card to The Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The only requirement is that all link-ups be NEW holiday cards with some noticeable pink on them... so in other words, not just Rudolph's NOSE, lol!

Participants may use sketches, combine challenges, and include any other colors in addition to pink; you can showcase however many cards you'd like in one post, don't worry, we'll still count every single one of them towards the total!

Thank you very much for your support!

♥♥♥

To give you even more than the usual amount of inspiration, we're pleased as punch to welcome our very lovely and mega-talented friend Jessi Fogan!

Here's what we made:

Jessi's Card

Jessi says, "I'm absolutely THRILLED to be joining the Jingle Belles for their annual Breast Cancer Awareness challenge - this is a cause very close to my heart, as my oldest friend is a recent one year survivor! Living across the country I couldn't be there in the traditional ways to support her through her battle, but dye my hair pink? I can do that. Surprise her with this? I can do that too! Angela's written about her journey much more eloquently than I ever could - her blog is right here. She's FUNNY, and I love her. "

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "It's probably not surprising that I purchase almost any holiday paper collection that includes pink ... this card features the vintage Christmas Carnival Collection from KaiserCraft.  I used a sketch from Winnie & Walter's World Cardmaking Day Challenges ... and I really have no explanation how I ended-up featuring a sock monkey ... sometimes you just have to go where the Muse takes you."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "It's definitely *NOT* a requirement of the challenge to make a card which is ENTIRELY pink, but you can if you want to... and I seriously doubt anyone is surprised that I wanted to, lol! It might be easier than you think, however; I'd like to point out that apart from the sentiment strip which is trimmed from some Echo Park Christmas paper and the rhinestone snowflake, there are NO holiday products on my card. Most of the smaller bits of patterned paper are scraps, even!"

 So why not take a good look at ALL your pink supplies and make some pink ornaments or pink trees or pink sock monkeys or heck, how about some pink reindeer?! This is *DEFINITELY* a case of "more is merrier" so please tell your all your card-making friends and let's raise as much money as we possibly can for Susan G. Komen! Keyword for galleries and flickr is JB:14:21. Link closes at 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 22, 2014. Thank you for joining us! ♥♥♥

An InLinkz Link-up

Pretty Paper

We loved seeing all of the creative ways you combined beautiful designers papers.  Here are a few that particularly caught our eye.

Becca Cruger

of

The Damsel of Distressed 

(isn't that a great blog name)

used three fantastic holiday papers on her background ... and then created her own embellishment using a fourth paper (so clever)

Deborah Frings 

of

Deborah's Gems

used her designer papers for some rockin' paper piecing ... I seriously want one of those hats ... and the plaid cardinal is awesome.

Alica

of

Alica's Too

Used a perfect combination of patterns and colors for this gorgeous designer paper gem ... oh, and did I mention she made twenty-five of these ... go girl!

We hope you'll come back tomorrow for some COLORFUL October fun.

The Patterns & The Designs

We're still celebrating designer paper at Jingle Belles this week ... creating cards using at least *three* different patterns (same or different company or collection, it doesn't matter, as long as it includes three different ones).

Here's what we created with our papers this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I used another favorite designer paper technique this week ... using squares of six different papers (this time from the same collection We R Memory Keepers North Pole), a few SRM Stickers, and a sketch from The Paper Players.  I use my punch upside down, so I can see where I position my square to capture the exact portion of the design I want to feature.   This is also a great technique for paper scraps."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I was totally inspired by the current sketch at Stuck on U Sketches, and immediately thought the three overlapping rectangles would be a great use for the tags that used to come with older Basic Grey collections. Once I had the centerpiece of my design assembled, I only had to choose a few additional patterns to be my mats. I went with one large scale and one small scale red pattern (by k and co and october afternoon, respectively) and a plaid by Echo Park to bridge the gap between them, while also pulling in some of the other colors from the tags" 

Remember, you have until Wednesday at 6pm EST to link up your patterned paper beautifies.