Leave it in Neutral

Rather than the traditional red & green, we're still asking you to feature your favorite NEUTRAL papers, inks and embellishments this week for your holiday card. Let those whites, ivories, tans, browns, blacks & greys shine in your creations. And don't forget the metallic neutrals: silver, copper and gold are all fair game, too!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I punched a bunch of hexies from scraps of white, off-white and tan patterned paper; arranged them on a nicely patinated page from an ancient and partially water-stained copy of 'A Christmas Carol'; then added machine stitching, a big chunky wood veneer sentiment, and some Eyelet Outlet Heart Pearls and Snowflake Brads."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "My process was to grab my scrap bin and start trimming papers for a neutral collage.  I added some vintage sheet music and a bit of transparency before wrapping with some golden threat.  I finished with some Idea-ology ephemera and holiday sticker sentiments."

Neutral Noel

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're creating holiday cards which embrace only the neutral color palette: white, cream, ivory, ecru, black, gray, charcoal, obsidian, brown, tan, kraft, camel, oatmeal, sienna... ok, you get the picture! Use them all together, or chose just one hue and rock the monochromatic design. As long as it's NEUTRAL it's in. Need some texture to replace the missing color? There's burlap, jute, paper bags, cork, chalkboard, sandpaper, lace... so many choices! 

Here are our Neutral Noel creations:

Stephanie's Card (or cool layered tag gift-card holder)

Stephanie says, "My card was inspired by Ardyth's Layered Tag Card Tutorial that she recently shared on SplitcostStampers.  I used two Manila and one Kraft tag and tied them together using lots of non-holiday neutral items including three coordinated journaling cards, neutral hexagon tags and papers from Ciao Bella Blue Note Collection.  I finished with three sizes of snowflake buttons, SRM Clear Stickers and Tim Holtz Holiday sentiment stickers.  I used a die on the journaling card on the front card and attached it with foam tape created a side opening gift card pocket.  You can click through to the blog to see the individual tags."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I combined a bunch of different browns and tans, with accents of silver and white. My focal image is once again an older Ciao Bella patterned paper; plus I've got some copper-enhanced specialty cardstock; silver metallic mats and diecut sentiment; rounding off with a few Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and silver Star Sequins on a dark brown A7 card."

 

Link your amazing creations right here, by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 30th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-21-13.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Luxurious Layers

So many beautiful bunded-up wonders in the Jingle Belles gallery ... here are a few that rocked the layered theme.

Helen of Helen's Craft Haven

used color to unify all of her wonderful patterned papers ... 

and how cute are those Christmas Carolers.

Granmargaret's Cards 'n Stuff

overlapped these adorable snow globes for her awesome

layered design ... such lovely colors.

LoopyLooCards

turned her layers into this adorable holiday scene

with trees, candy canes and a gingerbread man parade.

Thanks to everyone for layering-up with the Jingle Belles.  We'll be back at midnight with a colorful prompt to inspired your designs.

More Layers? (Yes, Please!)

We're still celebrating "All Bundled Up" cards at Jingle Belles; by which we mean cards that have three or more layers. We both happen to love layers (especially Lauren!) but for all you minimalists out there, remember that you only need to add a few skinny mats to achieve instant layeryness in a way that embraces a CAS aesthetic!

Lauren's Other Layery Card

Lauren says, "The tag at the center of this week's card is a combination of layered leftover elements (a pretty thumbnail image from a Ciao Bella paper pack, half an embossed label shape, part of a punched border, a vellum poinsettia that I drew, cut out and then didn't use, etc); then I layered all of that onto a card base which has two more layers: some Echo Park plaid paper into which I punched EK Success snowflakes, and a larger piece of Ciao Bella bokeh paper. I finished off with Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling and silver Star Sequins; not to mentions a little machine stitching."

Stephanie's Other Layery Card

Stephanie says, "My layers come from the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Mini Christmas Paper Stash Pad.  The strips were cut from one of the plaid designs and there's an extra layer of black cardstock to frame the sentiment from Stampers Anonymous Bold Things Number Three.  I used the layout from the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown swapping the smaller square for some vintage candy cane ephemera.

Scroll down to the original post to link your card in the "All Bundled Up" gallery.

All Bundled Up

We're All Bundled Up this week ... which means we're asking you to create cards with lots of layers (at least three).  Break out your favorite papers, ephemera and embellishments and layer it on.

Here is how we got bundled up this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie say, "I decided to break out a favorite vintage paper collection from BasicGrey and see how many layers I could put together.  I used six different papers from the Evergreen Collection including the sentiment cut from one of the pages.  I finished with a layer of bling and a Christmas sticker to finish the design."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "It was Fifth Saturday at Sketch Saturday, so I took the opportunity to browse through the archive and choose one that leant itself towards layers. I also made sure to mat pretty much every piece of paper I touched! The pattern of tiny houses and that fun brad are from MME's "Cozy Christmas" collection of several years back; the green damask-y pattern is a luscious bit of Blue Fern Studio (non-holiday) paper; the red cardstock is Gina K; the dies are all ancient, but you could basically put ANYTHING in the center of such a great sketch and be good to go!"

♥

Link you layer-laden loveliness right here, by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 16th. 

Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-21-12.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Bling-a-licious!

So much sparkle in our "Bling on the Holidays" gallery, it does our glitter-loving hearts good. Here are just a couple of "gems" we especially loved:

Cass of Cass Creating Now

...added the perfect amount of hand-painted silver glitter accents to her impressive Copic Coloring; and though it's not part of the "bling" brief, we can't help but adore that sweet vintage kiddo, too!

Darnell of DJ Kard Kreations

...made us gasp with her dramatic rainbow of shimmering foil, set against that bold black frame; not to mention the perfect accent of those three little jewels.

Aimeslee of Paper Paisleys Art Adventures

...incorporated EVERY type of sparkle: glitter cardstock, gold embossing, metallic diecuts, and shimmery organza ribbon; and we love absolutely all of it!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we love seeing every single card. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will pile on the inspiration!