Sketch-O-Licious

This fortnight we have an extra-fab challenge, thanks to our resident Sketch Mistress, Stephanie, who has whipped up an especially lovely sketch to inspire us:

Feel free to rotate or flip the sketch, use different shapes, play with the proportions or otherwise make it your own; as long as we can see "the bones".

Here are our sketch cards:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I created my sketch card using a sheet of puffy snowman stickers on a teal glitter background ... so much fun."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Clearly I'm still a little bit stuck on the Bling theme from last fortnight, so there's a lot of sparkly white, silver and gold on my card! I've compressed the sketch a bit to fit my square card, so I've staggered a few of the shapes horizontally, but otherwise, I've done a pretty straightforward version of the sketch... Well heck, that's the best thing about a great sketch, it saves you time and energy, right?!"

Stephanie, who is a Stampin' Up demonstrator (e-mail her if you'd like to place an order), also has a fun little present for one lucky, randomly drawn cardmaker who links up with us this week. It's a brand new --but retired-- Stampin' Up set of sentiments - SUITE SEASONS - that can be used for a variety of occasions, including Christmas:

To be eligible to win, just link up one or more sketch cards right here, before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday,  April 12th. Keyword for galleries or Flickr is JB:17:07.

An InLinkz Link-up

Shining Stars

We loved all the bling and sparkle in the gallery ... here are a few of the shining stars.

Emily

of 

Pen and Paperie

created this fun North Pole Shaker which paired perfectly with her holiday holiday elf ... such shimmery fun.

Carol

of

Our Little Inspirations

showed how a single gorgeous gem can become the focal point of a lovely wintry design.

Deborah Frings

of

Deborah's Gems

used a coat of clear glitter pen combined with gorgeous coloring to really make her holiday card sparkle.

Keep Blingin' It!

Here are this week's sparkly creations:

Lauren's Other (Much More Laureny) Card

Lauren says, "I confess that I really liked my card last week, but anytime I make something that pared down, it generally freaks me out a tiny bit, and I have to make something EXTRA lumpy, bumpy and embellished the next time, lol. So that's what I did. Luckily I had the current Sketch (#455) Saturday layout to inspire my choices, some fab My Mind's Eye glitter-adorned paper and a fabulous Eyelet Outlet Pearl Bling Flourish."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I took my inspiration this week from Inspired by All the Little Things for a non-traditional holiday design.  I thought the dark purples with the golden glitter looked rather regal.  I inked my DCWV designer paper with several Distress Inks for more shading around the edges and finished with a purple gem flourish."

Remember, you have until March 29th to Link-Up and join the fun.

BLING! on the Holidays

This week we're going to sparkle & shine ... we're making cards which incorporate jewels, gems, beads, studs, pearls, glitter, stickles or *ANYTHING* sparkly!

Here are our BLING-a-licious creations.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started by die cutting my Christmas Tree from Glitzy Glitter Paper from DCWV.  Next I used Eyelet Outlet Bling Swirls to add lots of decorative sparkle.  I finished with a big bling square for the star and some sticker sentiments.  The stitched frame is from STAMPlorations and I covered my card base with the same fabulous glitter paper."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I realize this card is quite restrained for me--because of course my first instinct was to pile on jewelled flourishes and glitter diecuts and really go crazy! But then I found this little scrap of ancient Prima paper with the dangly beads and snowflakes on it, and I thought how cool it would be to bling it up. And despite my efforts to add lots and lots; it turned out that the design was prettiest and most dramatic when I picked out just a few of the baubles, with some small faceted Tim Holtz stars and tiny clear gems. Go figure! Could it be that I'm learning restraint in my middle aged years...? Naaaaaaaah! Don't worry, I'm bound to more than make up for such understatement next week!"

So now it's your turn to break out the BLING and create. Link up here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, March 29th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:17:06.

An InLinkz Link-up

Garden of Delights

Well, it seems as if we are not the only ones who enjoy festive foliage! Judging from the amazing gallery for "The Holly and the Ivy" green and growing things appeal to nearly all of our fellow ♥Jingle Belles♥. Here are a few cards that planted the seeds of inspiration this time:

Melissa of Mel's Card Corner

...shows us that even a tiny accent of green makes any card even fresher and more inviting; especially when colored by an expert!

Rosina of Rosina's Scrapcards

...proves that festive foliage needn't be *green* (and really OUGHT to be sparkly) with her beautiful white-on-white bauble creation!

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...reminds us how much we love diecuts (especially the gorgeously realistic kind!) and how much elegance embossing folders add to an already lovely design! 

Many thanks to every single cardmaker who joined in our festive foliage fun, you never cease to inspire us! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will make your creativity sparkle and shine!

Festive Foliage

As we mentioned last week, "The Holly and the Ivy" have lots of other holiday foliage friends, such as the evergreen, the mistletoe and even the poinsettia! Any or *ALL* of those will work really well for our current greenery-related brief and coincidentally, a few of them are on our cards this week... what are the odds, eh??! :)

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This card employs my favorite trick for fast cardmaking: I've combined all ready-made items, from the pine garland journal card, to the cardstock mistletoe sticker, to the uber-fab plaid paper; then added in lots of perfectly themed Eyelet Outlet holiday embellishments, like Wide Pine Washi, Holly Brads and Tiny Pearls that look EXACTLY like mistletoe berries, don't you think?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I had fun creating a holiday wreath with all sort of green paper scraps, three different leaf/branch punches, and Eyelet Outlet Poinsettia Brads for the accent.  The sentiment is an SRM Sticker.  I went a little crazy punching our my leaves/branches, so there's a second wreath card on my blog."

Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one!) for full details and to link your own masterpiece! ♥

The Holly and the Ivy

You may have guessed from the title that we're celebrating holiday foliage this fortnight. So in addition to --or perhaps instead of?-- the eponymous holly and ivy, it's time to break out the evergreen and mistletoe. Oh and by the way, did you know that poinsettias, which totally look like flowers, are actually composed entirely of leaves, no matter what their color?

For that matter, you needn't build your card exclusively around foliage, just include a bit of Christmas greenery somewhere in your design. Of course, if you want to build your card entirely around foliage and flowers, we won't stop you, lol! (Because, coincidentally, that's what we both did!)

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I chose to cover my card with foliage ... Mondo Poinsettias and leaves to be exact.  I used two shades of red for variation and filled the centers with champagne bling for a bit of texture and sparkle.  Sentiment is from Essentials by Ellen Merry & Bright and layout is this week's Sketch from The Paper Players."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Everyone knows I love florals and foliage so it's probably not a huge surprise that I was able to easily compose an entire lumpy bumpy card from holly, ivy, poinsettias, pine cones, red berry sprigs and a few other flowers, all in a traditionally Christmassy red and green palette. My favorite part, though, is the background of birch bark patterned paper (by Basic Grey) with an accent of Eyelet Outlet Pine Tree washi tape. Of course it also helped that I found the *PERFECT* sketch-- #201 from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge."

And now it's time for you to break out your own favorite holiday foliage-related goodies, whether it be in the form of stamps, patterned paper, tape or... whatever! Make a card and link it here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, March 15th. Keyword for galleries, etc, is JB:17:05.

An InLinkz Link-up

CLEAR-ly Fabulous

We loved seeing all of your CLEAR-ly fabulous creations ... here are a few that caught our eyes:

Lisa J

of

Snowy Moose Creations

shopped her stash and found this gorgeous clear acetate and velvet flourished paper and turned into and absolutely elegant holiday card design ... love the pierced die cut and scalloped frame too.

Sybrina

of

Chapter 3

used acetate and a sketch challenge to create this fantastic shaker card design ... love the Santa Belt and fun twine frame.

Wendi R

of

Cártaí

rocked the Staz-on ink with a torn strip of vellum to create a fantastic holiday card design ... the snowflake embellished with holly leaves is so fun.

We'll look forward to seeing you at midnight tonight for another fun prompt to inspire you.