Blue Ribbon Cards!

There were nothing but Big Winners in our Ribbon Gallery this fortnight, if you don't believe us, go and see for yourself! Here are a few that especially caught our eye:

Vickie O'Dell of HeARTful Stamper

...made two equally awesome cards featuring this beautiful poinsettia digi and that gorgeous gathered ribbon. She even changed the color and saturation of the image to create a soft watermark effect *inside* the cards!

Meg of Bits and Pieces

...made the cleverest snowmen EVER by stamping the face, adding ribbon bowties and gem buttons. Pure genius. Why didn't *WE* think of that, eh??!

Bobbi of Bobbi's Treasure

...brilliantly used the negative space of this sweet tree diecut to frame out a panel bedecked with many lovely holiday ribbon scraps! We are definitely trying this idea!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we love seeing ALL your cards! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope you'll think has a nice ring to it... :)

RIBBON Rendezvous

This week we're still creating holiday cards featuring ribbon, lace, seam binding, fibers, ric rac, twine or any other trimmings you have in your stash.

Here's what we made this week.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "For week two I've broken out the uber-cuteness: adorable holiday-print grosgrain ribbon from Doodlebug, loads of miscellaneous stickers and baker's twine that I saved from an actual bakery near my house, who still package things in a white cardboard box tied with the eponymous twine! Because let's face it, although the craft stores have a better selection of colors, their twine hardly ever comes with a side order of cannoli, does it?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I created a ribbon background by covering cardstock with adhesive and attaching pieces of ribbon from my stash.  It all started with that red & gold ombre seam binding and I built the colors from there.  I hadn't pulled out my Taylored Expressions grumplings yet this year, so his hat & scarf were perfect to color to coordinate with my ribbon background.  I had enough of the background left to make a second card if you want to click through to see it."

I hope we've inspired you to pull out your ribbon stash and create with us ... remember, you need to link-up by Wednesday at 6pm CST to join the fun.

Tie a Holiday RIBBON Around the Christmas Tree

This fortnight we're "tying one on" Jingle Belles! By which we mean we'd like to see ribbon, lace, seam binding, fibers, ric rac, twine or any other trimmings you can think of-- and attach-- to your holiday cards!

Here's what we made:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I pulled out a vintage spool of Burlap Ribbon from my ribbon drawer (yes, I have an entire dresser drawer filled with ribbon spools) and attached it using wide double stick tape.  I used the sketch from Paper Craft Crew Challenges with a Penny Black Sticker, a gold sticker sentiment and some punched leaves.  The background was sprayed with Dylusions Post Box Red Spray before attaching all of my elements."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've got two different sizes of scalloppy trimming that is meant to be misted or inked to match your project, but in this case I left it plain. I've also layered on some wide printed ribbon and velvet flower trim. My background is a page of pretty snowflakes from a vintage storybook, and the focal point is a beautiful vintage postcard that I scanned, reduced slightly and printed on semi-gloss photo paper."

Link your ribbony creations here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, May 30th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:11.

An InLinkz Link-up

Home Sweet Home

Every card in the "Little Town of Bethlehem" gallery is a beautiful example of everything we love about cardmaking and cardmakers; here are three that made us feel especially happy to be at home with our Jingle Belles!

Jane Willis of Onions and Paper

...paired a sweet diecut village with simple squares of festive paper and tied everything together with elegant navy blue mats.

Susan B of Cardmaker's Garret

...made two versions of this perfect holiday cityscape card in different colorways and the difference is kind of mind-blowing! 

(The other one is rainbow colored and you REALLY need to see it!)

Amy Marshall of Split Coast Stampers

...combined a fancy frame, amazing coloring and glittery dimensional details on tags that will be the perfect accompaniment for her homebaked goodies.

Many thanks to everyone who participated, seeing your cards is truly our favorite part of the Jingle Belles experience! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt, we hope you'll join us!

HOME for the Holidays

We're still creating with BUILDINGS this week ... can't wait to see what you create.

Here's how we interpreted our theme:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I let the patterned paper do most of the work for me! I zeroed in on this beautiful vintage-inspired scene on a piece of Craft and You Design paper I got at my favorite store, Paper Anthology last autumn, and knew exactly what to do with the results thanks to the fine folks at Sketch Saturday!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This house reminds me of so many that I wandered past in our neighborhood when I was young.  It's from Nathalie Kalbach's Stroll Around the Block Stamps by RubberMoon.  I used an abstract coloring technique with two colors of green markers harkening back to the 70's colors of my childhood.   It's hard to see in the photo, but I used a silver glitter pen to add strings of sparkly lights along all of the edges of the home where Christmas lights would be.  The sentiment is also RubberMoon called Hope and is a new favorite."

Scroll down to the original post (just below this one) for all the details and to link up your amazing creations!

Oh Little *TOWN* of Bethlehem

Did you guess this week's theme from the title?  We're creating cards that feature BUILDINGS ... it could be a snow-covered house, a country church, or even a  bit city skyline.

We can't wait to see what buildings you incorporate into your holiday card designs.

Here is what we made:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I featured an iconic building (at least in Iowa) ... the house from Grant Wood's American Gothic (his work is currently being featured at the largest Grant Wood show at the Whitney Museum of Art) with a snowy twist of Snow People from Sparkle N Sprinkle.  I paired them with a vintage Hero Arts sentiment because those just seemed like the right words for those faces."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I used this Impression Obsession Small Cabin Die in a class at Paper Anthology last fall, and I've been using it ever since. It's got A LOT of tiny pieces... but then the dies with the most detail are the ones that look the most interesting on a card, don't you think? This time I've made a little wintery landscape on a label-shape to hold my sweet, snow-covered cabin, then mounted the whole thing on a neutral background of paper and washi tape. Easy, peasy!

Link up here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, May 16th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:10.

An InLinkz Link-up

Rockin' Recycling!

We've always said that some of the best and most creative cards in our Jingle Belles year get made during our Earth Day special, and this year is no exception. Here are three cards that made us especially proud to host this challenge:

Jane Willis of Onions and Paper 

...literally had this challenge in the bag --or rather ON the bag-- when she upcycled a little trinket-sized bag into a thing of beauty!

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...reminds us that you don't need big focal images to recycle: she's punched shapes from a few different cards and giftwraps that were too pretty to toss and made them into something completely new and totally awesome! 

Jenni (Mom2Two) of Wish I Was Scrappin'

...trimmed the beautiful illustration and sentiment from a photo card, then built her own amazing greeting around it!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who participated, and remember that even though we only have one official recycling-themed challenge per year, reusing pretty bits of paper rather than tossing them away is ALWAYS a great idea and leads to some really lovely cards! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new challenge we hope will make you feel right at home!