The Hanukkah Song

This week's prompt is to make a card for your friends or family who don't necessarily celebrate Christmas. 

This could take the form of one of the other winter holidays (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year or Winter Solstice to name a few); or you could go totally non-denominational with a general winter-themed design.

Here's what we created:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I loved creating peaceful snow-themed designs ... this one layers on the details of a doily with the softness of felt and the texture of embossed paper.  I decided to omit the sentiment, so I could have it available for one of those unexpected card needs in December.  Sketch is from Cardabilities."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I'm pretty hooked on stencils right now, and when I was flipping through my (embarrassingly large) collection, I realized that while I don't have a menorah, I *do* have a stencil with skinny stripes... that could turn into candles; and one with raindrops... that could turn into flames! I added silver glitter Thickers, a few silver stars and some machine stitching, and called it a day!"

Now it's your turn to embrace your favorite non-Christmas winter holiday, make a card, and link it up before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 7th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:20.

An InLinkz Link-up

Superlative Stash-Shopping!

Soooooooooooo many gorgeous holiday cards linked up this fortnight! Here are a few feats of stashly derring-do which especially caught our eye:

Bobbi of Bobbi's Treasure

...stamped a previously uninked partridge onto vellum and layered it over sheet music, for a card that'll put a song into anyone's heart!

Pink Unicorn of Invisible Pink Cards

...mastered her previously unused spritzer tool to create this incredibly cool snowflake-bedecked background!

Janis of Her Peaceful Garden

...revived this beautiful Angel stamp from several years ago and created this fabulous metal effect (it's called Molten Double Embossing) to really show her off!

I suppose we'd all love to know who won those super-fun goodies, as well, eh? Be sure to hop over to Shopping Our Stash to see who won that prize; meanwhile as for the ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ portion of the festivities, the fine folks at Random.org have chosen #37... which means that

♥Carol L♥ 

of Our Little Inspirations
is our lucky winner!

(please send your snail mail to lauren via llaurenb @ hotmail (dot) com to claim your prize!)

Many thanks to everyone who played along, and a big cyber high-five to our lovely friends at Shopping Our Stash, for co-hosting with us! Stephanie and Lauren will be back at midnight with a brand new prompt guaranteed to give you more than eight crazy nights of fun, be sure to pop back then! ♥

Stashing through the Snow

Let's face it, we *all* have more supplies than we need, but they're sooooooo much fun! Luckily, Shopping Our Stash posts a new challenge every Tuesday, specially designed to encourage us to use a few older items. This fortnight, we Jingle Belles are proud to help in that particular mission, and we invite you to make a holiday card using something at least a year old, link it up here and at SOS, and be eligible for two different prizes. Sound like fun? Scroll down to last week's post for full details. Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:

Donna's Other Card

Donna says, "Designer paper is from a 2013 kit; stockings, twine and sentiment are at least a year old!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I think I could probably shop my stash every day for a year and find something new each time.  I found these gorgeous Darkroom Door Noel Stamps I'm sure have been stashed away for several years without ever seeing any ink ... until now.  I combined them with some ancient green designer paper and some new designs from Simple Stories Claus & Co."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I could *definitely* shop my stash every day... and in fairness, I do make it a point to do so most of the time, not just for my SOS design team cards. I really do like a mix of old and new stuff together. For this card I've combined some vintage sheet music, Studio Calico holiday paper from a few years ago, an absolutely ancient sequin and brad, plus a brand new Memory Box snowflake border die. Oh and the ornament is made using my two newest obsessions: Ken Oliver's Color Burst Powders and Viva Glitter Paste!"

Be sure to check out the other fabulous design team cards at Shopping Our Stash!

Shopping Our (Jingly!) Stash!

Long-time readers are probably aware that in addition to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ Lauren also makes cards each week at Shopping Our Stash, where the crafty mission is to re-discover and creatively use the neglected or forgotten older supplies we already own. You may also remember that last year our two blogs teamed up for a super-fun "Christmas in July" event. So fun, in fact that we're doing it again... though not the July part, obviously. :)

Would you like to make one card and get two link-ups, plus a chance at two lovely prizes?! We thought you might! Can you predict what we're going to ask for? We bet you can! The Jingle Belles part is to make a brand new holiday card, of course; the SOS part is to use something from your stash that is at least a year old and be sure to tell us what that item is, so we can marvel at how cleverly you've used it!

In addition to all the other "twos" this fortnight, we've got gorgeous and inspirational cards on both blogs, so be sure to check out what Barbara, Chris, Donna and Stephanie have done over at Shopping Our Stash. Meanwhile here are the rest of our design team cards:

Leslie's Card

Click through to Leslie's blog, "The Crooked Stamper" to find out what her stash items are!

Deena's Card

Click through to Deena's blog,  "A Deena Card" to find out what her stash items are!

Jessi's Card

Click through to Jessi's blog, "One Crafty Mama" to find out what her stash items are!

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Since Stephanie and I got to spend some crafty time together last week, we decided to add a little *extra* level of challenge to our own cards by using the same stamp. This Christmas tree qualifies as senior stash, since it's from D.O.T.S. --a company that's been gone for at least a decade! For my card I decided to stamp it on several different scraps of green paper, then piece them all back together. When my tree didn't quite fill up the green panel, it occurred to me I could stretch it a bit by stamping and cutting out a few extra layers, which I think worked pretty well. I used Sweet Sunday Sketch #285 to guide my layout."

You may recall that we mentioned *prizes*? Be sure to check out SOS for the details of that one; meanwhile here at Jingle Belles one randomly chosen card-maker who links up with us this fortnight will win this little bunch of (appropriately) brand-new-but-older goodies from the prize box:

Now it's time to search through your stash, find something that's at least a year old... (though we bet you can find something reallllllllly elderly if you put your mind to it!!!) ...and use it to make a brand new holiday card. Link it up here and at Shopping Our Stash before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, September 23rd. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:19.

An InLinkz Link-up

We're the Winners!

Every time we challenge you ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ the prize is seeing how wonderfully you will rise to the occasion, and this fortnight was no exception. Here are a few cards we thought had particularly winning ways:

Brenda of Brenda's Scrappy Blog

...placed silver glitter paper behind snowflakes diecut into her card, then added green stamping for sentiments on a card that delights in every possible way! (*WHY* did we never think of this, eh?!)

Hansi Brittain of Quilting With Paper

...made three versions of a supremely elegant card in which bling centers adorn perfectly diecut flakes of snow! (It was hard to choose only one, so be sure to check out the others on her blog!)

Barb Housner of Paper Therapy Ponderings

...layered a fabulous vintage Santa diecut (note the cool two-fer!) on a gorgeous combination of distressed paper layers and accented with gold stamping and enamel dots. What else could you need in a holiday card? 

(Hint: not a single thing!)

Many thanks to all who took part, as usual, the gallery was full of nothing but winners!!! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new challenge, some especially lovely guest stars, and the chance at a prize or two. Hope to see you then!

Tic-Tac... Two?

We're in the second week of  our fun holiday card Tic-Tac-Toe game and we'd love for you to join us in another round of cards based on this board:

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I went with the middle horizontal row this time, so I had Brads + Diecut+ Ribbon to work with. The ribbon is kind of buried, but I *think* you can see it, it's blue grosgrain with  snowflakes on it. It's partially hidden by my two diecuts, the sparkly "peace" sentiment (by Impression Obsession) and the suuuuuuper-skinny snowflake border (by Memory Box). Finally there's a big honkin' snowflake brad that came from Oriental Trading, quite some time ago... but I still really like the big impact it makes!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I used the middle vertical row - Bling+Diecut+Snow. I used my new Poppy Stamps Frozen Flakes on silver glitter paper with lots of tiny blue bling.  I added a silver doily and a sentiment from Clearly Besotted for relatively CAS Blue design (we never see what the other one is making before we create the post ... so I love how we're both blue & silver this week)."

Remember, you have until 6pm EST on Wednesday, September 9th to link-up your design.