Hello, 2019!

It's nearly time for another season of fun, friendship and inspiration at Jingle Belles and what better way to celebrate than with a brand new header for 2019!

2019 Jingle Belles banner created by Lauren Bergold using Photoshop Elements 9 and the following digital products: reindeer and snowflake: Winter Woodland kit, Celeste Knight, Design House Digital; star and snowflake scatterz: Christmas Shimmer element set, Studio Flergs; frame: Decorative White Frames No. 1, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals; background paper: Frosted Winter paper set, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals; lace and gingham ribbon: Vintage Christmas kit, Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals; pearls: Pearl Swirls, Pattie Knox, Designer Digitals; 

And while we're at it, how about a new blog badge as well?

We'll be back at midnight to kick off the New Year, hope to see you then! ♥

Taking Back our ~EIGHTH~ December

It's hard to believe that we've wrapped up yet another ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ season, but here it is November 30th (already?!) and we've been working towards this all year long, so we've got a pretty nice stash of cards built up. We're looking forward to spending December doing all the fun holiday stuff with our friends and family, and we hope you are, as well!

Thanks very much for turning our Holiday card-making into something enjoyable and fun all year long. We'll be back again on January 1, 2019 to start this whole shindig over again, and hope to see you then. Meanwhile we wish you the loveliest of Decembers and the happiest of holidays! Remember, if you have prompt ideas, we'd love for you to join us as a Lovely Guest Star ... just send us an email jinglebellesrock@hotmail.com  ...we really do love making this a group event.

Stephanie's Christmas Card Stash for 2018

Lauren's Holiday Card Stash for 2018

Of course, we don't rule out making another card or two in the next few weeks, and just in case you need to make a few more, as well, we'll leave this linky open until Christmas Eve so you can upload your cards, get a little inspiration and spur each other on to the finish line! ♥

An InLinkz Link-up

Delicious Leftovers

Thanks for sharing your holiday treats with the Jingle Belles ... it was so fun seeing all the different ideas.

Here are a few of our favorite eats & drinks:

Elisabeth of Paper Anthology

die cut and decorated a whole plate of holiday cookies ... 

the addition of the doily and striped twine were both perfect finishing touches.

Jane Willis of Onions and Paper

shared Rudolph the *very* red-nosed reindeer and his bottle of Christmas spirits ... 

we loved how his Santa hat is even a bit askew ... so much holiday spirit!

Amy T of Tsuruta Designs

cleverly combined stamps & dies to produce three different

mugs of holiday cheer ... Oh What Fun!

And now I know we're all waiting do find out who wins that fun prize, right?

The completely random selection is:  ***Lorraine Mastalski of Paper Vernissage***! please email smilynstef@aol.com so Santa can get that on its way! ♥  and for an extra, here's her adorable card.

It's hard to believe this is our LAST official challenge of 2018, isn't it? We've had so much fun this year and we hope you have, as well. Many thanks to everyone who followed along, linked up, left comments and just generally made the first eleven months of our year fly by so quickly! We'll post one last link-up tomorrow, for those who aren't quite finished their cards yet... and of course we'll be back on January 1, 2019 to start this whole thing all over again! Happy happy holidays to everyone! 

XOXOXOX

Stephanie and Lauren

Christmas Feast

We're still celebrating the food & drink of the Holidays this week at Jingle Belles (and remember, we've got a little prize for one lucky participant).

Here's what we're dining on this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Prima Marketing's "Santa Baby" collection recently arrived at my LSS, Paper Anthology, in Kenvil, NJ, and I'm completely obsessed already. I suppose it's a good thing it wasn't released earlier in the year, or most of my holiday cards would bear an eerie similarity to each other lol. I've mixed also in some of Prima's "Havana" collection from this summer as well as some older, more neutral, papers to ground the design a little more. My layout was inspired by the current sketch saturday (#540)."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I couldn't resist going straight for the Christmas candy (pretty much like I do at any Christmas gathering) ... that's me, Sweet but a bit Twisted (where's the dark chocolate)."

And the Jingle Belles are already looking forward to inspiring your with a year of holiday cardmaking in 2019 ... as we continue taking back December one Holiday Card at a time.

Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

Description:Of course by “bring us” we mean metaphorically, in card form.

It need not be figgy pudding as such … ANY type of holiday food (or beverage) will do … as long as it's festive food (or drink) stuffs.

And for one lucky participant in our final prompt of 2018, we've got a little Holiday Prize ... a Taylored Expressions Cross Stitch Embossing Folder and Magenta Floral Holiday Trio Stamp.

Here are our delicious creations:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I cut into a hoarded piece of Alexandra Renke's German Treats designer paper for this card (and more on my blog).  Since the paper is so lovely, I kept the cards simple.  Her gingerbread and apples look good enough to eat ... apples always remind me of Christmas, because there was always one in the toe of our stockings."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My favorite holiday treat HAS to be Xmas cookies, especially those cookie press Spritz ones! Alas, I do not bake, but luckily I have adorable Eyelet Outlet Cookie Brads. All of the other bits and bobs are from different sources. The cocoa and Santa were each part of larger journal cards (American Crafts and Doodlebug, respectively) but since I didn't have stickers the right size, I had to fussycut them. It's exciting to see that Julee Tilman's awesome Mojo Monday sketch challenge is back, fortnightly now, and being held on her personal blog, Poetic Artistry. I absolutely love the current sketch. But ok, yes, I might've got slightly carried away with the scallop border section lol!" 

Link your food-centric holiday creations right here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, November 28th, for a chance at that fun prize! Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:24.

An InLinkz Link-up

Bloomin' Awesome!

It seems we are not the only cardmakers in the world who looooove to create with holiday blossoms. A quick glance at the Mele Kalikimaka gallery very clearly shows that absolutely every card was enitirely gorgeous! Here are a few that especially tickled our fancy:

Robyn Oliver of Waterlily Cards

...combined stencils and diecuts in a way that sings with CAS perfection!

Maria of Rieslingmama

...used a variety of bright, beautiful shades to instantly make this impressionist poinsettia stamp feel totally tropical!

Janie Rinta of The Crafter's Castle

...proves that amazing Christmas flowers can come in ANY color, including this luscious shade of denim blue!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every single card! We'll be back with a midnight snack for your creative appetite! 

Under the Mistletoe

We're still creating with flowers to celebrate, "Mele Kalikimaka" and you still have time to join the fun, which we hope you will! Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I had this American Crafts floral paper in my hand last week, but it wasn't quite the right home for a flamingo, so I moved on. I hadn't stopped thinking about it though, which was a head start for this week's card. As soon as I saw the current Sketch Saturday (#538) I was smitten...  so that took care of positioning. A white flower, badge center and velvet holly leaves were all pretty straightforward. Believe it or not, the hardest part was finding a sentiment sticker which made sense, fit the space, and didn't clash, lol!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I learned that photographing the beauty of foil is a bit of a challenge.  My background was made with Decofoil Transfer Gel, Brutus Monroe Tide Pool Foil & Carabelle Studios Accumulation De Ronds Stencil. My flowers are from the lovely Little Birdie Handmade Flowers and the remaining elements are from Authentique Jingle Elements (nothing like mixing together lots of different companies)."

Scroll down to the original post to see the gorgeous readers' gallery and link up your own floral fabulousness! ♥

Mele Kalikimaka

Since Mele Kalikimaka is a tropical Hawaiian holiday greeting, we're making cards featuring flowers … which could be a tropical hibiscus … or a traditional poinsettia … or anything in between. Maybe even both? (But probably only if your name is Lauren, lol!)

Here's how we're blooming this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I loved the various floral designs in an unopened package of Pebbles Cardstock Shapes sitting on my *Christmas* shelf ... they were perfect to feature with some coordinating Basic Grey Papers in the Mojo Monday Sketch (yay! Julee has brought her sketches back)."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I couldn't resist going a bit tropical, of course, but actually Heartfelt Creations' system for making awesome dimensional flowers-- in this case poinsettias-- was my number one inspiration. I used the coordinating stamps and dies on their very cool foam paper, added some color and ultra-fine glitter,  then used my heat tool to make the petals curl into realistic looking blossoms. once I had loads of lovely poinsettias, of course i added some hibiscus, plumeria, palm fronds a flamingo and faux polaroids. Ok yeah... I might've gotten a teeeeeeny bit carried away!"

And now it's your turn to get festive with flowers! Remember you don't need to incorporate anything tropical or Hawaiian! Any type of flowers, in any style of design, will do. Link up here before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, November 14th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:23.

An InLinkz Link-up

Christmas Creature Feature

We loved all of the creative Christmas Creatures that filled the gallery ... here are a few we thought were extra fun.

Trina P of Phamtastic Design

not only featured an adorable wintry penguin ... 

she also provided a tutorial for an amazing reflection technique.

Jen Mitchell of I Create

rocked a perfect CAS design with our favorite grumpling Moose ...

because everyone has at least one grumpling at Christmas.

Toni at Frankie Helps Craft

used masking, drawing & coloring

with some white ink splatters for snow 

to create an absolutely perfect winter scene.

Come back and join us at midnight for a little *blooming* fun.

not a CREATURE was stirring

We're still creating with CREATURES this week ... for most of us that means animals ... but it could mean a Winter Yeti ... or even an October Monster if you dare ... as long as it has a holiday theme, all creatures are fair game.

Here are the creatures we featured this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I'm totally loving the Gina K Wreath Builder system. This week I discovered that if you use one of the larger round stamps to frame the center, you can punch the middle out and make a little window to reveal a sentiment or... in this case... a bunny! To create the wreath I used a bunch of different shades of green Distress Ink, most of the foliage branches in the Holiday Wreath Builder set, and some fab Eyelet Outlet Holly Brads. I chose the fun Pebbles' tree paper as a background before I started stamping, so that I could coordinate the greens to match!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I went with another reindeer-themed design.  I've had this gorgeous sheet of Christmas Reindeer paper for a long time ... so I paired it with my fun new Triangle Deer & Sentiment from Lesia Zgharda Design.  I added a red enamel dot to his nose to help him stand out in that herd of funky reindeer (of course I had to make sure I featured the texty deer that had part of Jingle Belles)."

Remember you have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 31st to link up your creature-feature designs. The keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:22.

While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

Description:For this week's Jingle Belles prompt we're asking you to show us your animals! (Flock ... get it?) It could be one of those sweet little sheep or perhaps a reindeer or camel … or maybe a Christmas Yeti is more your speed ... okay we're even allowing Christmas Monsters if you're in a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I found a trio of *vintage* animal stickers in my stash (vintage is a nice way of saying lost and forgotten about) and decided to channel my inner Tenia and make a trio of fun card designs featuring paint splattering, washi tape, twine, foam tape layers, and stitches. You can click-on-over to my blog to see the other two."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I never can resist Doodlebug stickers, generally, and their reindeer in particular. I was a little shocked to discover that, despite having bought several reindeer-inclusive sticker sheets this year, the little dude above is the LAST? Definitely time to re-order! I've kitted him out with some very majestic Eyelet Outlet Antlers (he'll grow into them!) and given him a beautiful Gina K foiled background in which to strut his stuff. i arranged all the bits and bobs according to the current Atlantic Hearts sketch (#286) which i think you'll agree is pretty inspiring."

Link your critter-centric creations here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 31st. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:22.

An InLinkz Link-up

In the PINK! ♥♥♥

We *ALWAYS* love the kindness and skill that goes into all of your amazing PINK CHRISTMAS creations, and this year is definitely no exception. If you haven't yet treated yourself to a thorough scroll through the gallery, please do, there is soooooooooo much inspiration to be found, we really did have a very hard time featuring just a few cards, which we'll get to in a minute.

But first, we know that everyone is longing to hear how much money you helped us raise for the Breast Cancer Reasearch Foundation! Counting posts with multiple cards... (for which we thank you VERY much indeed!) ...there were a grand total of *69*! We have both pledged $2 per card, which means we multiply 69 x 4 and come up with $276! Thank you so very much to EVERYONE who participated and extra special thanks to those who linked more than once, we are so grateful for your help each year! ♥♥♥

And now just a few shout outs to some of our faves:

Jerri of Coloring Outside the LineZ

...says she wasn't sure about *PINK* penguins at first. Jerri, we had no such doubts, they are AWESOME,! ♥

Bonnie of Stamping With Klass

...was worried that this amazingly lovely creation might not have enough pink in it, but we beg to differ! Granted it's just a splash... but it stands out all the more against the gloriously textural white!

Viv of Viv's Visuals

...created this serene but sparkly minimalist masterpiece on which we just cannot stop feasting our eyes!

Once again MANY thanks and a big WOW not just for the number of cards, but the fact that each and every one was exceptionally lovely! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will appeal to your love of CREATURE comforts?! :)

Deck the Halls... in ♥PINK♥!

We (Stephanie and Lauren) are still making PINK CHRISTMAS cards and donating $2 each to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each card that's linked up with us this fortnight. So we'd love for you to not only make some cards, but also spread the word! Thanks very much for your help!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other PINK Card

Lauren says, "I've used a few more bits and bobs from the Sugar Plum collection by My Mind's Eye, including the stripey pink paper and that beautiful badge. I've mixed in some other items-- and some darker pink-- in the form of patterned paper strips, some oversized pink fabric poinsettias, and a small (ancient!) sentiment sticker that was serendipitously exactly right!"

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I had several border strips leftover from last week's card, so I decided to cover my entire kraft card front with border strips.  I trimmed the Santa and sentiment from another pieces of paper in the Prima Santa Baby Collection and finished with a few strands of pearls."

Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one) for complete details and the linky tool! ♥

♥ Pink Christmas... for the Cure! ♥

If you've played along with us in other years, you may already know that at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we always devote the first theme of each October to making pink holiday cards as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that for each card that gets linked up, we (Stephanie and Lauren) each donate two dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. There are really no rules for this challenge other than the fact that each card has to be newly made, it has to have a winter holiday theme and it has to feature PINK prominently. Does your whole card have to be pink? Certainly not. Can you combine other colors with the pink? Of course! Should you have more pink than say two or three baubles on your green tree set against a snowy white background? Well, yeah... that'd be good. :) But other than that, we'll leave it to you to decide how much pink, what shade, and how to employ it!

We're not generally all that big on self-promotion around here, but this cause is near and dear to our hearts and we'd love to get GREAT participation, so be sure to tell all your cardmaking friends, and feel free to share the graphic and our link on your blog or social media.

But now let's get right to the cardmaking! Here's what we've made this week:

Stephanie's PINK Card

Stephanie says, "When I saw the new Santa Baby Collection by Prima at my local Scrapbook Store, I knew I had to have it for at least one of my Jingle Belles Pink cards.  I combined two papers with a journaling notecard and fun puffy stickers."

Lauren's PINK Card

Lauren says, "I also used a collection that I chose specifically with Pink Xmas in mind, but in my case it was "Sugar Plum" of a couple of years ago from My Mind's Eye. I combined patterned paper, a sentiment sticker and some cardstock diecuts together in a sort of landscape, completely with glitter paper snow, obviously!!!"

We'd love to get as MANY cards as possible for this one, so we can raise as much money as possible. So please link early and link often!!! Deadline is 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 17th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:21. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Put Your (PINK!) Thinking Caps On!

Because at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we always devote the first theme of each October to making pink holiday cards as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and for each card that gets linked up, we (Stephanie and Lauren) each donate two dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

We'll go live with this challenge at 12am (EST) October 5th and wrap up at 6pm on Wednesday, October 17th. Are there lots of rules? Nope! Other than the fact that each card has to be newly made, have a winter holiday theme, and feature PINK prominently. Can you enter more than once? YES!!! In fact, we'd be thrilled if you'd take it as a personal challenge to cost us as much money as possible for this wonderful cause!

PS: We're not generally all that big on self-promotion around here, but this cause is near and dear to our hearts so we'd consider it a big huge favor if you'd tell all your cardmaking friends, and maybe even share the graphic and our link on your blog or social media. Thanks! ♥♥♥

SNOW-tacular

We loved seeing all of the version of SNOW in the gallery ... so white a pretty for sure.

Here are a few that caught our eye.

Julie of Crafted by Jules

used the white space of her card to create an adorable snowy card.  The slight black shadow on the die cut make it pop perfectly off the white background.  CAS Perfection.

AJ of AJ's Creative Energy

shared a *Snowman Selfie* that made us giggle outloud ... love that little guy trying to squeeze into the picture at the back ... and those colors just pop for a fun snowy scene.

Aimeslee Winans of Paper Paisleys Art Adventures Blog

created this gorgeous, glittery, layered monochromatic SNOWY tag featuring some of our favorite vintage Basic Grey papers (Fruitcake) ... this girl knows how to rock the bling.

Make sure you come back at midnight for one of our Annual PINK events you won't want to miss.

Dashing Through the SNOW

We're still creating with SNOW this week and we love all of the variations in the gallery.

Here are our SNOWY creations for this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I'm not sure I've ever made a holiday card in shades of burgundy, grey and a tiny bit of holly green, but I have to admit I quite like this one! I started with a Simple Stories snowman journal card, then found some ANCIENT papers that matched it really well. A sticker sentiment, some exceedingly elderly snowflake stickers, skinny white mats and an Eyelet Outlet holly brad complete the design!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I built my card around Lawn Fawn's Stitched Snowflakes cut from Red & Blue Card Stock and Watercolor Paper.  I had fun layering them and added jewels to the centers.  I finished with a Lawn Fawn sentiment from Yeti Set Go! and a little card featuring children sledding in the snow."

Make sure you link your SNOWY card up by Wednesday, October 3rd at 6pm (EST) at the post directly below this one.

Let it SNOW

We're Letting it SNOW at Jingle Belles this fortnight ... creating cards featuring snow … it might be a snowy scene, snowflakes or maybe even a cute little snow-person.

Here are our SNOW-filled creations:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "When I see the Jingle Belles theme for the week, I usually go shop my stash to see what I have that I might incorporate into my design.  This week, I stopped when I saw this snowflake paper from Shimelle's Christmas Magic Collection (collection is still available digitally).  I paired it with the super-fun stamps from The Ink Road's Happy Holla Days.  The layout is the sketch from Crazy 4 Challenges."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My card features an adorable My Mind's Eye snowperson, set atop a background made with an awesome set of Winter Wishes word dies from Elizabeth Craft Designs. I cut "Let it Snow" multiple times from scraps of glossy white cardstock backed with "Stick It" adhesive sheets from Ken Oliver Crafts, so all i had to do was peel off the backing and arrange them. I embellished with Eyelet Outlet snowflake brads, heart pearls and washi tape and called it done."

Link your snow-centric creations here by Wednesday, October 3rd at 6pm (EST). Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:20.

An InLinkz Link-up

Peace & Love

Nothing makes us feel more peaceful than gazing at a beautiful gallery of handmade holiday cards. And you guys really pulled out all the stops for "PEACE on Earth"! It's hard to feature only a few, but we think you'll agree that these are pretty impressive choices:

Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff

...created an amazing watercolor galaxy background as the night sky, then found the perfect set of adorable stamped creatures to be appropriately awed by it!

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...made us realize that from now on we definitely need to add, "or a DOVE!" to our list of elements which perfectly sum up "PEACE" in greeting card form.

Sonja aka Oldpunca of Na obisku pri Oldpunci

Combined diecuts, a CAS asethetic and a limited color palette for a card that offers the peace of perfect simplicity!

Many thanks to every cardmaker who joined us. We LOVE seeing all of your amazing  creations! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt. We hope you won't be too snowed under to join us... ;)