Christmas Cards for Men

This week, we continue to make cards for the men and boys in our lives.  Beverly from Bev's Creative Path is back to join us for round two

Here are our Masculine Holiday cards:

Beverly's Other Card

Beverly says, "When I think of masculine, I always think of pick-up trucks.  Maybe it was because I wanted to ink up the Gnome Peeking stamp set by Simon Says Stamp.  I stamped the images and colored using alcohol markers.  I used my Scan 'N Cut to trim them.  The sentiment was cut out with a circle punch.  The patterned birch tree paper is from a paper pad by Recollections.  I finished it off with two different washi tapes at the bottom and a baker's twine bow in the upper left corner!  I want to thank Stephanie and Lauren for inviting me to guest design for their fun masculine challenge."

Lauren's Other Card(s)

Lauren says, "These are some of the simplest cards ever made, thanks to Graphic 45's Christmas Time collection, which I got at Paper Anthology. I cut out the steampunk-inspired journal cards, gave them all skinny black mats, added Eyelet Outlet Holly, Star, Compass and Gear Brads and called it a day. Two more cards added to my holiday stash!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a natural handmade paper for my slimline card base and topped it with a green Gel Press printed tag.  I adorned my tag with a 

3-D cookie/candy jar tag, a DYMO-like sticker sentiment 

and topped the tag with a fun Santa Hat."

Masculine Merry Christmas

This fortnight we're making holiday cards for the men in our lives.  

What makes a card masculine?  It could mean lots of different things ... natural textures, neutrals, male imagery ... whatever feels *masculine* to you.

And this week we are thrilled to have a guest designer joining us for this prompt - Beverly from BevsCreativePath.

Here's a little about Bev - "I'm a Southern gal who lives in northwest Alabama. One of my favorite things to do is make cards (and have the stamps, dies and papers in my craft room to prove it...wink). I have been making cards for almost 26 years. After seeing a Stampin' Up ad in a magazine, I became one of their demonstrators for ten years because I thought it looked like fun. It was a way to share my love of stamping plus meet like minded crafters (and it helped support my new "habit. No, not drugs....more stamps.) I have traveled and demonstrated Sizzix product over the United States. Ellison asked me to do this as a result of winning several of their Sizzix contests years ago. Back in the day when craft magazines were popular, I was published many times. I was on The Stamps of Life design team for many years plus Hampton Art. These days I only make cards to mail to family and friends. To help get my creativity going, I enjoy doing cards for various challenge blogs (like Jingle Belles). In addition to card making, I enjoy reading, baking and growing flowers in the summer."

Beverly's Card

Beverly says, "Nothing says masculine to me like a deer or moose head. I was recently gifted a set of older Erin Lee Creative dies which had a moose head silhouette die. I used it to cut seven from black card stock and adhered them together for depth. I also used a circle die by Spellbinders and the pine bough is by Sizzix. The papers are from a 6x6 package of pretty Christmas patterns by Scrapbook Customs. The sentiment stamp is by Mama Elephant. Four snowflake brads and baker's twine complete my masculine card. I want to thank Jingle Belles for asking me to guest design for the Masculine Christmas card challenge. It was FUN!"

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "Some of the men on my Christmas Card list really love winter sports like skiing and snowboarding, so I thought this card and sentiment would be perfect for them.  I used the Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Stitched Snowflake Backdrop for the background, added a frame from Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Say Cheese and finished with Lawn Fawn Lawn Cuts Stitched Snowflakes in two shades of blue glitter cardstock before finishing with my holiday sentiment."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I based my card around a postcard-sized pre-printed panel from Penny Black, called Masterpieces Made Simple, which I got at Paper Anthology. I added an Idea-ology sticker sentiment, some Eyelet Outlet Snowflake and Moose Brads, plus a few mats and I was done! Since this card was so fun (and FAST!) to make, I decided to use the other three cards in the set right away. You can see the others on my blog!"

Link your Masculine Masterpiece(s) right here, by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, June 1st. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-22-11.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Hooray for Gray

...and also HOORAY for pink, cream, white and silver... the colors of our fantastic photo inspiration! With an additional HOORAY for our fellow cardmakers who were inspired by this beautiful palette. It was especially hard to only choose three cards to feature, because honestly they were all terrific! But here are a few that especially caught our eye:

Tina Z. Treebug

...beautifully colored her sweet House Mice enjoying a holiday beverage and paired them with gray and pink patterns and lots of white to tie the whole thing together!

Prudence N. aka Penguin Parade on Instagram

...combined a beautiful grey tag with pink and silver snowflakes and several styles of washi tape (one of which "saved the day!) in her fantastic CAS design!

Deborah Frings of Deborah's Gems

...inked a "Turnabout" stamp in exactly the right colors to make her fabulously festive background, then used it to create two different takes on this beautiful sketch!

And now the winner of the super-cute Gina K Designs' 

Christmas Magic Stamp Set & Coordinating Die Cuts...

CONGRATULATIONS

to our lucky winner:

 #11 Eliz Stewart of Paper Sweetness!

Elizabeth, please send your snail mail address to

 llaurenb@hotmail.com so we can get your prize to you ASAP!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we hope you had as much fun with this lovely palette as we did! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt, we hope you'll MAN-age to join the fun!

We Wish You a Colorful Christmas

This week we're still creating cards using the colors from the tray of cookies by Sweet Sugarbelle at The Cake Blog - grey/silver, pink and ivory/white.  You may also be inspired by the images, but make sure you incorporate the three colors in your card.

(Source)

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week, I went through my holiday stash by color, to see how many pink, grey, silver and white items I could find. I started with the puffy Santa and tree stickers, leftover from Prima Marketing's Santa Baby collection of several years back. I added a journal card from the Havana collection, layered some sparkly Tim Holtz snowflake diecuts, Echo Park grey and white snowflake paper and a jeweled snowflake of uncertain origin. It's a little bit lumpy, what with all the gems and multiple layers of foam tape, but I kinda looooove how this funky combination of elements came out."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I used greys and pinks to color my Avery Elle Joyeux Narwhal and paired it with silver shimmer cardstock and pink designer paper."

Winter Grays

This time at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to make cards inspired by the color palette of this plate of cookies from Sweet Sugarbelle at The Cake Blog – Pink, Grey (or Silver) and Ivory (or White). 

You can also take inspiration from the cookies too, but please make sure you stick with the color palette. 

Source

Here's how we were inspired to use those colors in our cards this week.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I used this week's Try Stampin' on Tuesday Sketch together with a grey & white floral designer paper from PinkFresh Studio for the Caffeinated Christmas Challenge.  I added a strip of coffee cup paper and a wooden coffee cup sticker together with a clear snow globe sticker.  I finished with silver sequins and a grey and white twine bow.  The sentiment is from Impression Obsession Christmas Words."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "When I saw the inspiration photo, the first thing I noticed --and wanted to mimic-- was the way some of the cookies were rectangles framing up design elements like the stylized tree. I made some cookie-sized rectangles and use the inset diecutting technique to get a similar effect.The (ancient) snowflake die is from Spellbinders, the tree is Echo Park and the foliage is Sunny Studio. I've changed the proportions of the colors (obviously I love dark pink more than the baker does, lol!) but otherwise stuck faithfully to the palette. A mix of plain and shimmer cardstock, glitter paper, and metallics make the design more interesting and textural, and Eyelet Outlet Pink Pearls look similar to the candy dots used to decorate the cookies."

And how about a little giveaway fun ... one lucky participant will receive Gina K. Designs Christmas Magic Stamp set AND the Coordinating Die Cuts.

Link your cards right here, by 6PM (Eastern) on Wednesday, May 18th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-22-10.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Winter Fun for Everyone!

We loved seeing all of the different ways that our fellow Jingle Belles enjoy Winter Fun. Here are just a few cards that especially caught our eye this time:

Beverly Sizemore of Bev's Creative Path

...has made a TREE-mendously lovely winter scene, inspired by her happy childhood memories of choosing the family Christmas tree!

Helen of Helen's Craft Haven

...reminds us how much fun it is to build a snowman; ESPECIALLY when it's a snowman who has learned to juggle!!!

Steffi H (posting on Flickr)

...proves that sledding reindeer are Winter Fun by in any standard, especially when the reindeer are THIS CUTE and they're frolicking in such a fabulous snowscape!

Many thanks to everyone who played along. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope will provide Sweet Inspiration!