Happy (nearly!) New Year

We love to start each new Jingle Belles season with a new header and badges; this year there's a larger square, as well, for those of us who love to post on Instagram. 2023 is starting off pink and white and kraft and sparkly! Stay tuned because we'll be back at 12:01am, January 1, 2023 with the very first card prompt of the year!

2023 Jingle Belles banner design by Lauren Bergold featuring:

 Katie Pertiet ARToptions Mini Mix 09 (recolored from green to pink) from Katie Pertiet Designs; Anna Aspnes Music Notes 01 Brush Set and Snowy Map Prints Overlays from O'Scraps; Frosted Cardboard Paper Pack by Gypsy Couture from Digichick; Text Clusters Brushes and Stamps 03 by Katie Pertiet and Pearl Swirls by Patti Knox from Designer Digitals; Free Fonts: Poster (windows); Bakery and Bohemian Typewriter (dafont); Studio Flergs Over the Rainbow Glitter Style from Sweet Shoppe Designs; Composed in Photoshop Elements 9

Five Favorites of 2022

We thought it would be fun to each do posts that capture our five favorite holiday cards we made in 2022. Here's one favorite from each of us; click through to our blogs using the links below our photos, to see our entire lists. 

Stay tuned for the new festive header, debuting later this week; then at 12:01am on January 1, 2023, we'll kick off our THIRTEENTH year of Jingle Belles and we'd love for you to join us!

One of Stephanie's Favorites

Stephanie says, "One of my favorites was this card I made for our Plaid Christmas Prompt at Jingle Belles.  I love Yetis and I thought the plaid was a perfect opportunity for them to shine.

Here are my Five Favorites of 2022."

One of Lauren's Favorites

Lauren says, "I adore this Tim Holtz/Sizzix Ice Skates die, and it only has a few elements, but mysteriously, it always takes longer than I think it will to piece out all the parts and make it into a card; thus it gets used only a few times a year. This time was for our "Winter Fun" prompt. Click over to m'blog for my other four faves of 2022!"

♥♥♥

We're looking forward to starting up again on January 1, 2023; hope to see you then for another year of fun, friendship, and festive cardmaking!

Wrapping Up 2022!

It's hard to believe we've come to the end of another Jingle Belles season already; it seems like 2022 has just flown past at record speed, thanks to all of the fun we had seeing your beautiful and creative holiday cards each fortnight!

Below are our traditional beginning-of-December sprawling card pile photos, featuring all the holiday cards we made this year. Now we just have to get started writing, addressing, and sending them out into the world. Then on January 1, 2023 we'll start our 13th year of taking back December one holiday card at a time... and we'd love for you to join us once again! 

Stephanie's Big Old Pile-O-Holiday-Cards

Lauren's Big Old Pile-o-Holiday-Cards!

Here's one last link-up for the year;  you can use it to share your last-minute holiday cards and, if you have a few minutes, cruise through the other cards to be inspired and maybe leave a comment or two. Many thanks to everyone who helped to make this year our most fun EVER; we'd hope to see you back again at Jingle Belles in 2023! ♥

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

It's a Banner Day

We're thrilled to see all of the lovely cards you've made inspired by various aspects of our very own Jingle Belles 2022 blog banner. Here are just a few that especially caught our eye:

Bonnie of Stamping with Klass

...was inspired by the sweet Santa on the header and the red and green color palette; she designed this beautiful card which also incorporates some botanicals and a tiny bit of sparkle!

Sonja of Na Obiscu pri Oldpunci

...was inspired by the traditional red and green color palette and the beautiful poinsettia on the banner. She's done a gorgeous CAS design using those elements; and made not one, but FIVE cards!

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...went "The Full Monty" and used the sketch, the musical background, lots of florals, a perfectly colored Santa and a prominent sentiment. Every single element is not just beautifully done, they add up to so much more than the sum of their parts!

♥♥♥

Once again we want to thank EVERYONE who played along this fortnight and throughout the 2022 season. We hope you had as much fun as we did, and that you've either finished your holiday cardmaking duties or at least gotten off to a very good start. We'll be back at Midnight with the official wrap up for the season and of course the traditional yearly photos of our card stashes thus far!

A Blog Header Holiday

This week we're still creating cards inspired by our 2022 Jingle Belles Blog Header/Banner ... remember to tell us how your card was inspired.

This is how we were Banner Inspired this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Once again I've used the traditional red and green color palette of the header. I also incorporated a vintage style Santa (via an Authentique journal card) and some botanical elements, in the form of Eyelet Outlet Poinsettia Washi Tape, plus Simple Stories cardstock stickers. Something that's a bit subtler is the fact that there are several collagey layers going on, which reflect the way I assembled the original artwork using translucent digital elements."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I started with a Santa trading card that reminded me of the Santa in the banner, as well as a scan of a vintage piece of Jingle Bells sheet music.  I mounted it on red, since the banner is framed in red and added Sizzix Thinlits Poinsettia Pieces Die cut from Green Glitter paper to bring in both the flowers and glitter from the blog design.  I finished with a sticker sentiment and little candy cane sticker to bring in a bit more red & green."

♥♥♥

Scroll down to the original post to link your Blog Banner Inspired masterpieces!

Banner Holiday

For our final prompt of 2022, we're asking you to make a card inspired by our 2022 Jingle Belles Blog Banner. You can choose as many (or few) elements as you desire: maybe you love the vintage Santa, the traditional red and green color palette, the sparkly letters or the seasonal blooms? Be as literal or tangential as you like, but do make sure you tell us what parts of the banner inspired your card.

Here is where we found inspiration:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie say, "I started with a Christmas postcard that had flowers that reminded me of the ones Lauren used on the left side of the design (and a green background like she used behind the title).  I found some Poinsettias in my ephemera and added it on the right side.  Next step was to find a vintage Santa and add a bit of glitter (a few strips of green glitter paper).  I finished with trading stamps that reminded me of what is going on behind Santa's head in the banner.  I finished my mounting it all on a piece of vintage sheet music."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My card was inspired by the positioning of the elements in the header (in card challenge parlance we call it the "sketch") so I concentrated most of my images to the bottom left and top right of the card. I incorporated Santa and some botanical images, but since they are stickers from Doodlebug Design, they have a much different mood than those on the header. I stuck (mostly) with the traditional red and green palette of the blog and I couldn't resist making the background from sheet music. And thanks to a Cut-Plorations die that Stephanie gifted me, I had the PERFECT sentiment!"

♥♥♥

Link your Banner Holiday cards right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 30th. 

Keyword for galleries or Flickr is JB-22-24.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Ho, Ho, Ho + Ha, Ha, Ha!

So many fun and FUNNY cards in the gallery this fortnight. You guys keep making it hard for us to choose, but that is our favorite "problem" to have! Here are three cards that especially caught our eye this time:

Lols at Lorraine's Loft

...chose an especially adorable, rather hilarious House Mouse image and colored it with impressive skill!

Michelle B of Krazee Kraftin' Mama

...did an amazing job of coloring her sweetly chagrined little lady AND used washi tape to make the simplest and most appealing background ever!!!

Toni of Frankie Helps Craft

...used her creativity superpowers to combine a Halloween image with exactly the right accoutrements to make a very funny and totally appealing Christmas card!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your amazing cards! We'll be back at Midnight with the last prompt of the 2022 season, we hope you've had a Banner Year! ♥

Ha Ha Holiday

We're still creating holiday cards that make you smile (or laugh out loud) this week.

Here are our Funny Ho! Ho! creations:

Lauren's Other Cards

Lauren says, "This week, I knew that I wanted to use up the ugly sweaters on a sheet of older American Crafts paper, so I cut them out and was ready to roll when I realized that I didn't have a good sentiment to go with them. Luckily, I when I messaged Stephanie, she came up with a bunch of goodies that I formatted and printed out. Problem solved AND I have a bunch of "the same but different" cards to send to my nieces at college!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I always love the look on the face of this Technique Junkies Christmas Kitty ... like he just finished knocking over the Christmas Tree ... so to me, it's perfect paired with the Dear Santa sentiment."

Funny Ho! Ho!

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're asking you to create humorous holiday cards. They can be funny, punny or snarky, but make sure they're something that will induce a smile or a belly laugh.

Here's how we were funny this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "When I think of funny holiday cards, I usually grab my Taylored Expressions Grumplings.  This week's card features an Elf Grumpling who has gone on strike."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "In the process of making my card, I discovered that I have hardly any humorous holiday sentiment stamps. Luckily, I have a computer and plenty of cute fonts, so I was able to re-create a something I saw on a novelty t-shirt in a catalog. The lady is an older Authentique journal card, the typeface is called Mom's Typewriter and was free from dafont.com; the papers are from the scrap bag. This is one of those cases where thinking up what to do took muuuuuuuuuuuch longer than actually doing it. Am I the only one to whom that happens??!"

*****

Link your Funny, Ho! Ho! card(s) right here, 

by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 16th. 

Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-22-23.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Cute and Clever Creature Cards

There are SO MANY beautiful critter and creature cards, it's VERY difficult to only choose three! We do hope you'll cruise through all three pages of the Readers' Gallery, because there's even more inspiration to be had than usual... which is really saying something! Meanwhile, here are three cards that especially caught our eye:

Shani Thomas of Paperesse

...chose the sweetest mouse as the star of her beautiful shaped bauble card, which features amazing coloring, and the perfect composition of layers and patterns!

Ellie of Ellibelle's Corner

...made a scene in the best possible way; from the softly stenciled bricks to the striped carpet, not to mention the pretty diecut tree and of course the adorable cats!

Elaine from KraftiKards Kreations

...entitled this lovely creation, "On a Cold Winter's Day" and it lives up to that perfectly; there are so many wonderful little details and the rabbits and birds are so realistic! 

And now we need to find out where that fabulous set of sentiment dies will be heading off to!

The random number generator has chosen lucky #22, which means that...

Becca Yahrling 

is our lucky winner!

♥

Congrats, Becca!

Please send your snail mail info to:

llaurenb @ hotmail.com

and we'll send your dies ASAP!

Many thanks to everyone who played along with our Creature Feature, we loved seeing every single card! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that puts the, "HO HO" into Holiday!

Holiday Creature Feature

We're back for week two of, "Not a Creature Was Stirring" - creating cards featuring Creatures (Animals, Yetis or Monsters).

Here are our Creatures:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Nothing is quite as festive as a reindeer road trip, am I right? This seemed like the perfect time to pull out my Lawn Fawn Car Critters stamp set and Christmas add-on to do some paper-piecing. I always have LOTS of little scraps that are perfect for this sort of card. Additionally, all of the background diecuts came from the scraps box as well, including that perfect A2-sized panel of ancient MME Cozy Christmas with the cars on it! Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and various sizes and colors of Enamel Dots round off the design."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "For my Creature, I went with a little Christ-Moose holiday greetings with a Taylored Expressions Woodland Squad Moose die cut from Gel Press Prints with some Doodlebug Eye See You Shape Sprinkles.  I paired him with a sentiment from Taylored Expressions Mini Strips - Holiday keeping the layout clean & simple on a confetti card base."

Remember, one lucky participant will win the Unity Stamp Company Say It Big Holiday Die Set.

You have until 6pm EST on Wednesday, November 2nd to link-up your creation.

Not a Creature Was Stirring

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to Feature a Creature! That of course includes every imaginable animal... like a sweet sheep, a plucky little duck, or perhaps a rowdy reindeer; or yes, even a monster or a Yeti if you're in a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme!

Here are our Creature Cards for this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie Says, "I always need at least one Yeti Card for the holiday, so this was the perfect opportunity to break one out.  This one was cut from wrapping paper (that I specifically purchased to make cards, not wrap packages).  I framed him with several layers and tiny gems to accent the stars in the sky, and then attached it to one of my red & white gel press prints.  I finished with a sentiment from My Favorite Things Beast Friends."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Stephanie got me hooked on Yeti Cards, and this one features Lawn Fawn's super-cute version! I've stamped on some tiny text paper and fussycut the happy little dude so he could be part of my snowy scene, made from scraps of patterned paper. I added a diecut sun and clouds as well as couple of Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads, because super-furry Yeti like their weather on the chilly side!"

♥♥♥

And for a bit more fun, we're throwing in a prize for one lucky participant ... the Unity Stamp Company Say it Big Holiday Die Cut Set.

Just a reminder that your card can feature ANY animal or creature, you need not make a Yeti card, though of course you can if you want to! Link your masterpiece(s) right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 2nd. Keyword for galleries or Flickr is JB-22-22.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Pretty in Pink!

Many thanks to everyone who played along with our PINK CHRISTMAS challenge, not only were your cards incredible, you've helped us raise $200.00* for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and we're very happy about that. Round of applause, please, for all the cardmakers! ♥

It's always very difficult to only choose three feature cards for our "Shout Out" posts, but when it comes to PINK CHRISTMAS it's nearly impossible; because EVERY card is pink perfection! Nevertheless, here are a few that caught our eye:

Cindy Chiu of Escape to Stamping

...combined patterned paper, embossing paste and diecut trees in FIVE luscious shades of pink to make a soft, dreamy card that we just can't stop looking at!

Julene of Julene By Design

...proved that a gnome can easily carry a "tall" card if he's got enough personality; we're awarding bonus points for the fact that she's also used actual PINK RIBBON in her design!

Loll of Stamping with Loll

...used an incredibly lovely 3D embossing folder to make not one but two versions of her stunning pink poinsettia card; we can't possibly pick a favorite, though the sentiment on this one sums up PINK CHRISTMAS perfectly!

♥♥♥

Once again our gratitude to everyone who played along, we loved seeing ALL of your cards and we especially love that it helped us raise money for a cause that's near and dear to our hearts. We'll be back at Midnight with a new prompt that our October veterans miiiiiiiight just be able to guess at...?

♥♥♥

*In addition to the 35 links, we had extra cards from Loll, Bonnie and Patrice which means we counted 42 cards times $4 ($2 per card from both Lauren and Stephanie) which totals $168, which is an excellent if slightly odd number, so obviously we had to round up a tiny bit! :)

♥ Pink Christmas... for the Cure! ♥

This week we're still creating PINK holiday cards to support breast cancer research ... and for each one linked-up, Lauren & Stephanie will each donate $2.00 per card to Breast Cancer Research Foundation. 

Remember, you can link as many times as you'd like, but the majority of each card should be pink; and they do need to be newly made; so please no back-linking to cards made prior to the challenge.

Here's how we went PINK this week:

Lauren's Other PINK card

Lauren says, "Prima's new holiday line, Candy Cane Lane, is coming soon to my LSS, Paper Anthology. Luckily, I was allowed to sneak a few of the gorgeous papers a teeny bit early, so I could use them for week two of PINK CHRISTMAS! This Santa's face miiiiiight be my favorite image in the line, though the whole collection is so adorable, it's hard to just pick one. I did some tearing, some fussycutting, some distressing and layered on flowers, ribbon and White Lace Tape for extra interest. Would it be wrong to send this one to myself in December??!"

Stephanie's Other PINK card

Stephanie says, "I went with a different Doodlebug Collection this week - Night Before Christmas.  I paired three different papers from the collection with the Layout from Sketch Saturday."

Scroll down to the original PINK CHRISTMAS post for details and for the Linky tool to add your own card(s) to the gallery!

I'm Dreaming of a PINK Christmas

If you've played along with us in prior 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 each (Stephanie and Lauren) donate two dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. 

There aren't many 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, yes... that would be good, lol. But other than that, we'll leave it to you to decide how much pink, what shade, and how to employ it!

We're pretty low key about 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 official graphic and our link on your blog or social media.

Here's how we created with PINK this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I used papers from one of my all time favorite pink holiday collections, Doodlebug Winter Wonderland.  I used a sketch from Try Stampin' (or Not) on Tuesday and a tiny little A Muse sentiment to finish my card."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "It's no secret that I love pink at any time of year, especially at Christmas, so I had plenty of readymade items from which to choose: an ancient pink My Mind's Eye chipboard tree, diecut poinsettia layers from leftover patterned papers, an Eyelet Outlet Pink Pearl Brad and Enamel Dots, a shimmery stripey border sticker, and kraft paper with pink polka dots that is so old I don't know whence it came!"

♥♥♥

Link your PINK cards right here, by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 19th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-22-21.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sketch-o-licious

There were fewer entries for our Merry Sketch-mas Challenge, but on the plus side, every single one was outstanding! If you haven't scrolled down to see the gallery, we highly recommend the trip. In the meantime, here were a few ideas we found especially inspiring:

LeAnne Pugliese of Wee Inklings

...used a coordinated line of celestial papers and embellies for a beautifully cohesive look, with a sophisticated palette of greens, gold and white.

Vicky of Vicky's Scrapping Passion

...cleverly made the center diamond into a shaker, then used a beautiful bauble-shaped die to hold a sweet chickadee and an assortment of bead berries.

Patrice who posts on Instagram

...rotated the sketch to landscape format, made a handsome cardinal the star of the show, and added lots of golden touches for an extra elegant vibe.

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who joined our Sketch-mas fun, we loved seeing all of your amazing creations. We'll be back at Midnight for our first prompt of October, so those of you who've joined us before may already know what color of INK we might want you to THINK! ;)

SKETCH-ing in a Winter Wonderland

We've got another week of SKETCH-y fun for you this week at Jingle Belles.

Remember, you can rotate or stretch ... as long as we can see the bones of the sketch in your design.

Here's how we got SKETCH-y this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I rotated the sketch, and placed my focal point slightly off center. I also went a bit mad for plaid, with two different bold green varieties that match surprisingly well considering that they are older scraps from different companies. I trimmed down an American Crafts journal card and overlapped it on one of my oldest dies (Sizzix's Tree, Christmas #2); added some Eyelet Outlet Red Snowflake Bling, Red Star Sequins and a Poinsettia Brad, and called it a (holi)day!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a coppery patinaed Gel Press Print and accented with turquoise designer papers and a vintage focal element.  I finished with sticker sentiments and some holly leaves for the corner elements."

Remember, you have until 6pm EST next Wednesday, October 5th to link-up your SKETCH-y design to join the fun.

Merry Sketch-mas

We're getting SKETCH-y at Jingle Belles this week with a Sketch that holds lots of possibilities:

It can be clean & simple or all decked out vintage... cardstock or designer paper or stamps (or all of the above). You can flip, rotate, compress or stretch the sketch... just be sure we can see the "bones" of it in your finished card. We can't wait to see what you create!

Here is how we got SKETCH-y:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with inspiration from the Inkspirational Photo Challenge using kraft, twine, text and some dry wall tape (in place of the lace).  Next I die cut a vintage postcard for the diamond element in the layout.  I used a fun sticker sentiment and finished with red jewels that coordinated with St. Nicholas."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Lawn Fawn's Critters in the Arctic has been around a while, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that my friend Elisabeth at Paper Anthology was still able to special order it for me! I paper-pieced the critters on the diamond shape in the sketch, where I fashioned abstract layers of sky, snow and water. In my washi stash, I found the perfect grey tape to act as a sentiment. I matted out the design with some silvery Lawn Fawn snowflakes and a bit of stylized graph paper. My diamond got a bit bigger than I planned, so I slightly truncated the sketch, in order to make it fit a 6" square card.

Link your fabulous sketch-inspired masterpiece(s) right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 5th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB-22-20.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter