The Spirit of Christmas Past

This fortnight we're celebrating the Spirit of Christmas Past, which is to say, we're creating cards with a vintage or retro vibe. That could mean incorporating actual vintage elements, using new products that have a vintage style, or using stamps or images that convey a retro vibe; whatever says vintage to you.  

And to add a little extra incentive to your endeavors, this week we are sponsored by Lauren's fantastic Etsy Shop Just Enough Stuff, so there's a sweet little pack of vintage Christmassy things for one lucky card member who links-up their vintage design.

Here are our vintage creations for this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie say, "I went with some Tim Holtz papers that are marvelous vintage reproductions.  I paired them with a big bold sentiment in a vintage-like font from Unity Stamp Company holiday. faith. hope. love and stickers frim Simple Stories Vintage Rustic Christmas using a layout from Sketch~N~Scrap."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I recently found a little stash of well-hoarded German Scrap that I had put aside, including this gorgeous Father Christmas. I've made a distressed background from vintage sheet music, accented with red and green patterned papers, set off by a strip of Eyelet Outlet Washi Tape that features images of vintage postcards."

And now let's hear more about that prize!

One randomly selected cardmaker will receive: 

A Deluxe Christmas Assortment of holiday-themed vintage and found papers from Just Enough Stuff, plus a set of Christmas Word Art clear stamps, some very fun holiday Stickpins, and a collection of doilies in various shapes, sizes and colors. 

Link your vintage-inspired holiday creations right here by 6pm on Wednesday, September 6th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2318.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

TREE-mendous!

Evergreens are endlessly inspiring, and if you have any doubt at all about that, please take a few moments to cruise through the Readers' Gallery where evergreen trees, boughs and branches can be found in every size, shape, color; each one more creative and beautiful than the last. Here are just a few that caught our eye this time:

Marina of My Perfect Life

...layered triangle trees in several shades and sizes, stamped a sentiment, and framed her simple-yet-stunning CAS masterpiece in another shade of green. 

Wies of Wies Creablog

...made an incredibly clever "Never-Ending" card that folds backwards and forwards into many interesting shapes including... yes! A Christmas Tree!

(Her post also has a link to the video where she learned this cool method!)

Elaine aka Kraftikards

...stamped several amazingly intricately snowscapes, all of which embrace beautifully unexpected color palettes; this one, in black, white, grey and purple, miiiiight be our favorite!  

(Check out those amazing shadows!)

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing ALL of your amazing ideas! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope will inspire some good old-fashioned creativity!

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

We're still celebrating the wonderful Christmas Tree (or evergreen boughs; or pine branches) at Jingle Belles this week.

Here's what we created this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "My card features Honey Bee Stamps' Layering Holiday Bells diecut in pink and gold, dangling from an evergreen bough, on a pierced background made with Pinkfresh Studio's Ornate Medallions Coverplate die, with a fun accent of pink argyle washi tape. Coincidentally, this card is the sample for August's Paper Anthology Holiday Jumpstart Card Kit, which you can read about HERE.";)

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I decided to turn the ICAD (Index Card a Day) into this week's card.  It featured Christmas Trees from Simon Says Stamp framed in green and red on a grey snowflake card base."

♥♥♥

Scroll down to the original post to see the Readers' Gallery and link your own card(s)!

Oh Christmas Tree

This week we're asking you to feature a Christmas Tree (or Pine Branches) on your card. Here's how we featured Christmas Trees this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I cut triangles from four green papers from BasicGrey Evergreen Collection to form my wonky tree with a brown designer paper trunk.  I decorated my tree with gold gems and topped it with a gold glitter star attached to a red Christmas Tree covered card base. I finished with a Simon Says Stamp Reverse Christmas Sentiment Strip."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've only just acquired Simon Hurley's "Treescapes" set from Ranger, but it's already a very strong favorite! I was so in love with the stamped layers of color, I kept my embellies really sparse: just a diecut snowflake (and an Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brad), a simple sentiment, and a few mats of plain and patterned paper. Easy, peasy!"

♥♥♥

Link your TREE-mendous creations right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, August 23rd. 

Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2317.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Noteworthy Neutrals

It turns out a neutral palette can be as elegant, exciting and glamorous as a more colorful selection, as a wander through the Readers' Gallery will demonstrate. Here are a few Neutral Noel cards that especially caught our eye:

Prudence N aka Penguin Parade on Instagram

...not only embraced the neutral palette but managed a one-layer CAS masterpiece with just intricate gold embossing and a few perfectly placed copper sequins.

Vicky of Crafting Clare's Paper Moments

...used an embossing folder and ink daubers to create this incredibly realistic and totally textural slimline pine perfection!

Melissa Miller of Mel's Card Corner

...artfully torn paper in multiple tones of taupe, grey and white make this beauty a super-star stand-out in any company!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your amazingly creative ideas! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new theme that we hope you'll think is TREE-mendous! ;)

Keep it in Neutral

We're still embracing a neutral color palette this week and you still have until Wednesday evening to join the fun. You can choose from white, ecru, ivory, beige, tan, brown, gold, copper, bronze, silver, grey, charcoal, ebony, black and everything in between. Make it monochromatic... or mix it up. As long as you keep it in neutral, you're good to go!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I had intended to go with more of a silver/grey/white scheme this time, but I still had some of the tan/cream/brown items out from last week; then I discovered an entire herd of adorable tan Impression Obsession diecut reindeer, which sort of clinched the deal. I used Penny Black's Trees and Hills dies to make a landscape and my trusty Nestabilities Diamonds to frame them up, with some highly patina-ed vintage sheet music and Carta Bella starry patterned paper to round off the design."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I combined recycled packaging (mostly covered with glittery poinsettias) with handmade paper and some vintage BasicGrey grid paper using this week's Sketch Saturday layout.  I blinged-it-up with some pearl flourishes and two sentiments from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips - Christmas.