Snow Far, Snow Good

We are loving all of your snowy inspiration ... here's our second card incorporating that cool white stuff.

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I pulled out my favorite Hero Arts Stunning Snowflakes Backgrounder and created an emboss resist design using my new Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolors.  I always stamp my image on a larger piece of watercolor paper, so I can use the painted edges for stamping my sentiment.  I finished with some silver sequins and a few opalescent snowflakes"

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Having built my last few cards from the ground up, this week I was in the mood to make something that was 100% pre-made products, especially after I found the adorable snowman (or woman?) jar in Pebbles' "Home for Christmas" collection. I added a fun frame, stickers, cloth + paper flower layers and a scrap of ribbon, then stacked the whole thing on a top of collection of paper scraps I made into a festive background. Easy, peasy!"

Remember, Link-up your snowy creations here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 3rd ... keyword for galleries &  our Jingle Belles Flickr Gallery is JB:15:11. 

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Yes, we know it's Memorial Day weekend in the US ... the beginning of *summer* for many people ... so what better time to celebrate SNOW?

We're creating projects that celebrate the white fluffy flakes of snow ... it might be snowmen, snowflakes or just snowfall, but include some snow on your creations. 

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "What says snow better than a vintage Frosty image from Artistic Outpost.  I stamped him in Navy Ink, and all I had to do was add a few red sequins to finish the design."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've been in a watercolor phase lately, so when I had trouble finding just the right background paper, I made my own. I painted little pools of a blue and grey, letting them blend into each other randomly, then sprinkled some salt on top and let the paint dry. when i rubbed off the salt, there were cool little crystaline clusters of white, that resemble the designs Jack Frost leaves on our windows when it's really cold. A few white white glittery snowflake stickers, a flower + snowflake cluster, sparkly letters, and I called it a day!"

Link up your snowy masterpieces right here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 3rd. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:11.

An InLinkz Link-up

Pretty in Pixels

We were in hybrid heaven this fortnight, checking out all the fabulous ways you guys came up with to use your digital treasures! Here are a few cards that made us especially giddy:

Pauline of Crafting with Cotnob

Paired a gorgeous image and paper from a crafting cd with real life touches like skinny mats and that luscious red bow!

Eemeli of Eemeli's Home

Layered a perfectly colored pair of digi-stamped snow people over a beautiful background of text in a simple but lovely font!

Mel C aka Cards by Mel

Cleverly replicated the jingle bell image from that fab Deedee's Digis "Jingle All the Way" kit to make a garland, then layered it over a super-cute snowman digi stamp! (Be sure to check out her other cool jingle bell card, as well!) 

And now it's time to find out who's going to be having a little shopping spree later today at Deedee's Digis. The fine folks at Random.org have chosen #1 which means that...

♥EMA MARTINEZ♥

...is the lucky winner of the $15.00 gift certificate at the Deedee's Digis shop! Ema, please email Lauren at llaurenb @ hotmail (dot) com to received the codes you need to GET SHOPPING!

We hope everyone who played along will join us in thanking the lovely ladies at Deedee's Digis for their sponsorship, for sending along the fun "Jingle All the Way" kit for us all to play with and for the stellar work of their awesome design team; we really appreciate all off the above. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt to help make your Memorial Day weekend super cool! :)

We Wish You a Digital Christmas

...and so does our lovely sponsor, Deedee's Digis, who are giving ♥YOU♥ an early holiday present by placing a brand new, super-fun, super-festive kit called "Jingle All the Way" in the very cool freebies section of their shop for the duration of this challenge! Of course you can use ANY digital element to make your own hybrid holiday card, and be sure to link it up on the Hybrid Holiday post (right below this one) before next Wednesday night for a chance at a fabulous $15.00 shopping spree at Deedee's Digis!

Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "One of the fun things about digital images is that you can manipulate and re-orient them.  I erased the white background and then horizontally rotated my image in PhotoShop, so I could have two Jingle Bells for my card ... I also used the scraps of my digital paper from my first card for my layout."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My favorite trick with digital elements is to try them out on all different types of printing media. In this case I've layered the "Jingly" sentiment on top of the "Bells" paper in Photoshop, then printed the whole thing on an inkjet transparency. Apart from giving it a cool new look, I'm pretty sure this is the easiest way ever to make a shaker card! I did some machine stitching over the beautiful script of "Jingly" to make it stand out even more, and added a few flowers held with a jingle bell brad, before backing the edges of the panel with foam tape to hold the tiny heart confetti inside the shaker part of the card. 
Easy Peasy!"

Happy Hybrid Holidays

We are extra excited this fortnight to have Deedee's Digis as our fabulous sponsor! 

Please join us in extending a warm welcome, and let's learn a little bit about them:

"Deedee's Digis offers wholesome digital "stamps" and printable digital papers that are the original creations of Deedee Anderson. All of our sets include both outline and pre-colored images, in both JPG and PNG formats. Our products are offered in high 300dpi resolution so that they are fully resizable to meet your crafting needs. We are a Christ-centered company, and you will find that many of our sets include KJV Scripture verses, in addition to encouraging sentiments of all sorts. We feel very blessed to be part of such a talented community of paper crafters, and thank you for allowing us to sponsor this challenge! 

One lucky, randomly-chosen cardmaker who links up a brand new "Happy Hybrid Holidays" card with us this fortnight will win a $15 shopping spree at the Deedee's Digis Shop. To be eligible, all you have to do is make a brand new holiday card that includes some sort of digital element... such as a digi-stamp, brush, paper, etc. Don't have anything fabulous? Well, Deedee has created a brand new, super-festive kit just for this occasion called "Jingle All the Way" and it will be available to our readers FOR FREE during this challenge! Just jump on over to the "Try Before You Buy" section of the shop, where it... and a bunch of other cool (free!) goodies... await you!  Here's a little preview of what's inside:

We're thrilled to have four members of the Deedee's Digis Design Team with us to help us kick off what we know will be an especially festive fortnight. Please be sure to visit their blogs and leave them some love!

Marji's Card

Features the "Mouse and Cat" and "Jingle Bell" image, as well as the "Jingly" sentiment and the grid and bell papers!

Faith's Card

Features the "Jingle Bell" image and all three papers from the kit!

Tamara's Card

Features the "Mouse and Cat" image and the "Wish" sentiment!

Donna's Card

Features the "Jingle Bell" image and the "Jingly" sentiment.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I used the colored "Mouse and Cat" digital image, the "Jingly" digital sentiment and the plaid digital paper with this week's Retro Sketch ... all I had to do was find a few scraps of coordinating cardstock and a snip of Christmas ribbon."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I printed the grid paper and "Jingle All the Way" in the traditional way, on plain paper and sand colored cardstock, respectively. I printed the "Jingle Bell" image on plain copier paper and used it as a template to paper piece twice: once on colored cardstock and once on gold glitter paper. I used my Cropadile and a craft knife to cut out the holes in the bells and backed them with scraps of black paper. To bump up the texture factor, I swapped out the printed bow in the image for a "real life" version in red satin, embellished with dimensional florals and velvetty leaves. All of the above are popped up on textured red cardstock layered with a scrap of chunky metallic ribbon for my stash. The result is a bit lumpy-bumpy, so I'll be mailing this card with a gift in December, but I love how it turned out!"

Now it's time to see what ♥YOU♥ will create! Use your favorite digital stamp, brush or paper OR download the festive *FREE* "Jingle All the Way" kit from the "Try Before You Buy" section at Deedee's Digis and go to town! Remember, one lucky, randomly chosen cardmaker who links up a brand new holiday card with us this fortnight will win a $15 shopping spree at the Deedee's Digis Shop, so be sure to link up before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, May 20th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:10.

An InLinkz Link-up

Sketch-tastic!

There were so many ♥FAB♥U♥LOUS♥ sketch cards this time, we hardly knew where to look first; thank you for giving us such an awesome "problem" lol! Here are a few sketch cards that made us especially happy:

Lisa J. of Snowy Moose Creations

...combined patterns of different scales to really emphasize the clean lines of the sketch, plus check out those uber-sweet birds!

Linda S. of Snail's Space

...rocked our world with her amazingly clever ONE LAYER embossed panel that delineates the sections of the sketch with ♥COLOR♥!

LeAnne of Wee Inklings

...added texture and interest to each of the sketch's sections with embossing, stamps and glittery trim!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we ♥LOVE♥ to see what you will do! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt and a lovely new sponsor-- so YES, there's an excellent chance of prize-- come on back and hear all the delightfully digital details! :)

SKETCH-ing Around the Christmas Tree

We're still sketch-ing this week at Jingle Belles ... remember, the circle element in the design can be any shape.

Here's what we created:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I started out with a completely different-- much more colorful-- idea; but then I found the awesome glittery Papaya Art sentiment sticker and a scrap of belovedly hoarded kraft+silver Hambly snowflake paper and the whole neutral-but-glitzy idea was born. I filled in with florals, a premade vintage-look snowflake diecut and a few rhinestone flourishes that i snipped apart and put back together in a shape that worked better for my design; then called it a day.

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I created a monochromatic design using three different teal green designer papers from Lawn Fawn's Snow Day Collection.  I used strips of red paper from the same Collection to break-up the panels and finished with a piece of flair (because who doesn't love receiving a little flair for Christmas).  Click-on over to my blog if you'd like to see two more cards I made with the same papers."

Can't wait to see what you create with my sketch.  Remember, the link-up ends at 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, May 6th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:09. ♥