Skating, Sledding & Skiing ... oh my

We're back celebrating all sorts of Winter Fun activities.  What do you do when the weather gets cold?

Here are our Winter Fun creations.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "As I was sorting through my holiday dies, I came to these gorgeous Tim Holtz Ice Skates from Sizzix and knew exactly what I wanted to make. I'm not particularly sporty, but as a kid I did enjoy skating. The fabulous purple paisley paper and both background layers are from Blue Fern Studio's "Eclectic Charm" collection; the silver metallic skate blades and wordfetti sentiments are Idea-ology; and the Evergreen Branches are Tim Holtz's Holiday Greens Thinlits in both regular and mini size. I finished off with sparkly golden enamel stars are from Eyelet Outlet and embroidery floss skate laces."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "For this week's card, I went searching through my collection of vintage Ideals Magazines and found this wonderful Sepia illustration depicting all sorts of winter fun from Skating to drinking hot cocoa.  I added lots of Tim Holtz Sticker Sentiments, which to me made it feel sort of like a page out of a Richard Scarry book."

Winter Fun

This fortnight we're making cards that feature ways to have FUN during the winter time. 

You might enjoy skiing, ice skating or sledding … or you might be more about sitting inside watching the snowfall from your favorite chair while drinking hot cocoa and reading a book. Whatever says winter fun for you, include it on your card & tell us why you (or the recipient) enjoy it.

Here's how we had our Winter FUN this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I've never tried snowboarding, but I do have several people on my Christmas card list who love the sport. This 1997 snowboarder stamp from Stampington & Company is one of the oldest stamps in my stash (so I used the Sketch from the Retro Rubber Challenge for my layout).  I inked him using four ink colors creating a rainbow for the Caffeinated Christmas Challenge with my tiny coffee cup from Hero Arts balanced on the board.  I inked the Memory Box sentiment with the same colors reversing the order."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Something Lovely Husband Jeff and I especially enjoy in December, is driving around to see all the Christmas lights and decorations. I've tried to encapsulate that in card form, using Lawn Fawn's adorable Car Critters and Christmas Add-On stamps set in a simple patterned paper landscape, with loads of colorful punched trees and a computer-generated sentiment."

Link your wonderful Winter Fun cards right here, by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, May 4th. keyword for galleries, etc is JB-22-09.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Happy Earth Day to All

We never stop being amazed and impressed by our fellow Jingle Belles' clever creativity, and the Earth Day festivities are always an especially great showcase for that! Of course EVERY entry was wonderful, but here are three examples of cards with recycled, upcycled and reused elements that particularly caught our eye: 

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...has played along with us since the very beginning of Jingle Belles in 2011, and since she's absolutely awesome at saving and reusing items all year long, of course she ALWAYS rocks this challenge. Her  gorgeous card has five (5!) recycled elements... including a candy wrapper, kraft paper packaging, part of a box, a gift card envelope and some carefully saved ribbon!

LeAnne Pugliese of Wee Inklings

...has used --in grand style-- one of our all-time favorite items to upcycle: store bought holiday cards! We all get dozens, and so many are much too lovely to consign to the recycling bin. LeAnne has made these gorgeously glittery snowmen into a brand new card and has even added the perfect details INSIDE to match!

Sandy J of Adventures of a Stamping Writer

...started with a foil packet from a tea bag, which she embossed and colored with alcohol inks to make her incredibly artistic snowy panel. Oh yeah and the mat is the inside of a junk mail envelope!!!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every card! 

Stop back after Midnight for a brand new prompt we hope will inspire you!

recycle... reuse... and JINGLE!

 We're still celebrating EARTH DAY with cards that include recycled elements.

You know you've got them ... those things you save because they're just too pretty to go into the recycling bin.  Today is the perfect opportunity to let them shine on a holiday card.

Here's how we recycled this week.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I don't think I've ever done TWO yeti cards in a row, but that's what happened, so I'm rollin' with it! This week's yetis come from my little hoard of saved wrapping paper; and as it turns out, this is the easiest card I've made all year, because after I backed the paper with cardstock and cut out the framed yetis, I arranged them on some Doodlebug patterned paper, added a mat and a sentiment strip, and called it good!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "After making a recycled packaging card last week, I fully intended taking another approach with this week's card ... until I opened my PinkFresh Studio drawer and had another lovely pile of packaging staring back at me.  They have some of the seriously pretty packaging in the industry.  I incorporated two pieces of their packaging and a piece of tissue box together with some PinkFresh Studio papers, chipboard frame & enamel dots.  I love the retro-modern feel."

Let There Be Peace on EARTH (Day)

If you've played along with us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ over the last few years, you already know there are two prompts that never change: at the beginning of October we honor Breast Cancer Awareness Month with "Pink Christmas"; and in April we celebrate Earth Day by making holiday cards that feature re-cycled, re-used or up-cycled elements. 

Here's how we up-cycled for our Earth Day cards.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "My card combines four different pieces of recycled packaging that I saved in my recycle box just for this month's cards.  I added stitch stickers from Pretty Little Studio to tie them altogether.  I finished with vintage holiday die cuts & sentiment stickers from Pretty Little Studio and a row of red bling."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My friend Betty saw this adorable yeti on a tissue box and was kind enough to think of me and save the box! I covered up the logo using sections of curvy, snowy foreground cut from the side panels of the box. Then, since there are few things sadder than a lonely yeti, I stamped and colored a Lawn Fawn friend for the big guy, as well as an appropriate sentiment. I added a skinny mat of glittery aqua cardstock and then a bigger one of an ancient Studio Calico geometric snowflake patterned paper that serendipitously matches incredibly well (gotta love it when that happens, right?!) and finally, what arctic landscape is complete without some Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Sequins?"

Link your eco-friendly cards right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, April 20th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-22-08.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Forever Plaid

It's been a plaid and pretty fortnight here at Jingle Belles! We've loved seeing red plaid and green plaid (not to mention red AND green plaid!) as well as pink plaid, grey plaid, black and white plaid, gingham, hounds tooth... frankly we haven't seen a plaid card we didn't love; but here are just a couple that especially caught our eye this time:

Carol L of Our Little Inspirations

...dressed her adorable gnome friend in gingham and polka dots, then built a coordinating card that shows him off to perfection! 

Jen Mitchell of I Create

...used a bright, fresh, tone-on-tone diagonal plaid in vivid green as the background for her beautifully CAS sketch card!

Vanessa Osbourn aka @vclaireo on Instagram

...combined a red plaid and a green plaid on TWO sweet and charming cards which remind us that swapping out plain white cardstock in favor of kraft is a FAB idea when coloring characters!

♥♥♥

We'll be back at Midnight with some brand new inspiration; we hope hope you're ready to rock, roll and recycle with us! 

Mad for PLAID

We're still creating with plaids this week ... remember, it can be paper, stamps, ribbon, washi tape, or your own creation ... just use plaid somewhere in your design. Link up at the original Plaid Christmas post, directly below this one.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I broke out my Ken Oliver ColorBurst pigment powders and brushes of various size to paint a fun, slightly wonky plaid design of my very own in shades of pink, red and yellow. Then I traced a set of oversized metallic letters to make a HUGE custom sentiment and layered it over several layers of patterned paper including a super-cool My Mind's Eye plaid from a year or two ago. This may not be the busiest card I've ever made, but it's probably pretty close, lol!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I went with another Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid paper, this time using it for the background, Yeti Accessories and even the Christmas Tree with this week's Sketch Saturday Layout ... I do love those Yetis."