Getting Ready for 2024!

And since we like to see each Jingle Belles year as a fresh new start, here's the new blog banner for the year, as well as a small badge and a nice big square for those of us who like to post on Instagram!

Header and graphics created in PSE9 by Lauren Bergold, featuring images and elements from Katie Pertiet Designs, including Christmas Spectacular Essential Rub-ons; Classic Glam Elements Gold 01; and her Adalicia Paper Pack, which seems to have gone out of print, though if you type "Neutral Paper Pack" into the search box at KPD, you'll get lots of excellent options, including this Vintage Artistry Pack, which is very close indeed! Fonts are Brusher and Bohemian Typewriter, both free from Dafont.com. 

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We'll be back at 12:01am on January 1, 2024 with the first prompt of the year and a couple of cards we hope will inspire you to join the fun. See you then!

Five Faves of 2023

Last year we started a fun new tradition where each of us (Stephanie and Lauren) looked back on all of our Jingle Belles/Christmas cards from the year and picked five favorites. This seems like the perfect time to re-visit 2023, so here's one favorite from each of us; then, if you'd like, click through to our blogs using the links below our photos, to see our complete lists. 

Stay tuned for the new festive header, debuting after Christmas; then at 12:01am on January 1, 2024, we'll kick off our FOURTEENTH year of Jingle Belles and we'd love for you to join us!

One of Stephanie's Favorites

Stephanie says, "The combination of recycled packaging, handmade paper, sentiment stripes, pearl flourishes and glittery poinsettias came together for a wonderful Neutral Noel."

One of Lauren's Favorites

Lauren says, "Prima's Candy Cane Lane line is one of my all-time favorite holiday paper collections, and this card is loaded with various bits of it, though the glittery pink snowflakes and classic Memory Box Jingle Bells (thank you Ms. Lorraine!) cut from velvet paper miiiiight be what takes this one over the top for me. Plus... it's PINK!"

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Once again, a reminder that Jingle Belles will return on January 1, 2024 with a new prompt every other week and an inspiring card from both Stephanie and myself every week until the end of November. If you'd like to chip away at your holiday card list in a stress-free way AND meet some awesome new cardmaking friends, why not plan to join us then

Wrapping Up 2023!

Once again we've reached the end of another Jingle Belles season. It feels like 2023 just few by, thanks to all of the fun we had seeing you build your holiday stash.  

We're once again sharing our beginning-of-December big pile-o-cards before we begin writing & addressing, so they can be mailed or hand-delivered to our favorite folks.  

Now it just remains to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. We'll be back on January 1, 2024 to start our 14th year of taking back December one holiday card at a time ... and we'd love for you to join us for our holiday mayhem once again! 

Stephanie's Pile-o-Cards

Lauren's Pile-o-Cards

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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 2024! ♥

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Banner Celebration

What a fabulous way to celebrate the final challenge of our 2023 season: With an absolutely awesome collection of holiday cards inspired by our very own Jingle Belles Blog header! Here are just a few that particularly caught our eye; though truly, you really need to scroll back to the original post to see them all!

Gail L of What's Normal?

...captured the full-on blog banner aesthetic ...vibrant pink trees, collaged text background, swirls of bling, etc... using/adapting items from her stash for this lovely portrait-oriented card!

Alicia O'Bryant of Golden Goddess Designs

...embraced the color palette, the trees, and touches of sparkle, but fitted them into a fabulous modular sketch for a super-clean look!

Denise Bryant (who posts on SCS)

...used the elements and layout of the banner, but stuck to a more realistic color palette; and made us realize that the original design really SHOULD HAVE had a moose!!!

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A big thank you to everyone who participated, we genuinely do love seeing ALL of your amazing creations! We'll be back at midnight with a few final thoughts for the season AND, of course, our personal card pile pics, as tradition demands!

A Blog Header Christmas

We're still making cards this week inspired by our 2023 Jingle Belles Blog Banner, here's a reminder of what it looks like:

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I focused on the pink holiday trees with white splatter for my inspiration.  I also added in the repeating holiday sentiment & a pearl flourish design with puffy sticker sentiment."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Having gone as literal as possible last week, this time I wanted to see how far I could go in the other direction, but still have the influence of the banner show clearly. I rotated the rectangle shape to make a "tall card"; I used the layers of music, text and snowflakes for the background; I placed a tree toward the left of the frame; and finally I used the same Stamplorations "Jingle" die on glitter paper as my sentiment."

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Scroll down to the original Banner Inspired Holiday post to visit the Readers' Gallery and to link up your own card(s)!

Banner Inspired Holiday

It's hard to believe it's time for our final Jingle Belles prompt of 2023. This fortnight we're asking you to make a card inspired by our fabulous Lauren-designed 2023 Blog Banner. There are so many possibilities for inspiration: the pink + white + tan color palette OR the trees and/or snowflakes OR the glittery letters OR... well, you get the idea! Choose any aspect(s) that appeal to you; just be sure to let us know which elements you're incorporating into your design!

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went with the two tone ink design, white snowflakes, glittery letters and swapped the texty background for a musical pattern.  Paper is Prima's Santa Baby and those glittery letters have literally been on my studio table since I made this card a year ago (so glad they finally have a home). I added white snowflake stickers and some glittery silver Love from Lizi Peel-Offs to finish the design."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My card is VERY literal, as you can plainly see! I incorporated the basic sketch, colors, glitter and trees into my super-layered design. The background consists of patina-ed vintage sheet music, part of an ancient Hambly snowflake paper, bits of doily, and torn vellum with typed holiday lyrics. The forest of Taylored Expressions' Evergreens are diecut in pink with white "shadows" and the (quite appropriate) sentiment was made with Stamplorations (sadly out of print) Jingle All the Way die."

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A reminder that your card does not have to be a literal interpretation of our blog header, it just needs to be inspired by one or more elements therein! Link your creations right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 29th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2324.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sweet as Candy

Candy and cakes and cookies, oh my! The Hard Candy Christmas Readers' Gallery is overflowing with beautiful cards that the feature sweets and treats of the holidays! Here are a few that especially caught our eye:

Natascha of CreaStories

...built a charming and very detailed wreath full of seasonal candies, and her adorable gingerbread man can't wait to sample them!

Nora of A Creative Touch

...stamped a bold and vibrant hard candy background in one of our very favorite holiday color schemes, topped off with a most appropriate sentiment!

Barbara G of Barb's Creative Corner

...not only had exactly the right House Mouse to star in her clever dimensional design, she's paired him with not one but TWO perfect peppermint patterned papers!

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A big THANK YOU to everyone who joined our fun this fortnight. We'll be back at Midnight to reveal 2023's last official Jingle Belles prompt of the season!

Candy Cane Christmas

We're still creating with Candy, Cookies & other holiday treats for our Hard Candy Christmas.

Here's how we got sweet this week:

Lauren's Other Card(s)

Lauren says, "This week, I've got candy canes, Christmas cookies, hot cocoa, cupcakes, Christmas pudding and more, thanks to a partial page of older American Crafts mini journal cards I found in my holiday stash. I trimmed them down, popped them onto foam tape and added a couple of patterned paper layers... Pebbles' black text and Dare 2B Artzy's red dots, to be exact. There were too many for just one card, so I split them up and made a pair of A7s; because in mid-November it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to make cards too quickly, am I right?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I covered silver cardstock with clear candy stickers before cutting with a mini-slimline stitched die cut.  I used a few enamel dots to fill in some open spaces (and cover a tiny embossing machine boo boo) and finished with a Tim Holtz sentiment."

Hard Candy Christmas

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to make holiday cards featuring your favorite Christmas Candy (or cookie or other holiday food).

Here are our yummy cards for this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the fun Santa from a Christmas journaling card and filled his hands with a Holiday Coffee Cup and a Candy Cane - both brads from Eyelet Outlet.  I used the layout from Try Stampin' on Tuesday and a stamped sentiment from Impress."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Obviously there are lots of awesome ways to approach this prompt, but seeing as how Doodlebug's Gingerbread Kisses line has just arrived at Paper Anthology, it seemed silly not to let those fabulous papers, journal cards and stickers do most of the work for me. I was having so much fun I made not one but two cards to celebrate!"

Link your yummy holiday treats card(s) right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday evening, November 15th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2323.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Holiday Creature Feature Extravaganza

WOW, there are soooooooooo many fabulous Creature Feature Creations it was even harder than usual to just pick three, but you know that's out favorite "problem" to have! Since every single card in the Readers' Gallery is outstanding, we're going to get right to our choices because we know you'll want to scroll through and see the rest of them, as well. 

Trina of Phamtastic Design

...raises the bar for stamping, masking and coloring to mind-blowing levels with the adorable (and utterly seamless) indoor scene on her "Meowy CAT-mas" card!

Donna of Keep Calm and Snark On

...made not one, not two, but FOUR colorful Christmas creature cards from the same kit, and all of them are delightful, but obvs the one with the pink reindeer was always gonna be our fave, right?!

Lorraine of Paper Vernissage

...had already met the challenge when she stamped and colored the adorable fishing gnome and his sweet penguin pal; but then she created an entire holiday tree of absolutely awesome silver metallic diecut "Christmas Fishes" too! 

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, we've always thrilled to see new faces AND old friends in the gallery! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope you'll think is a sweet card-making treat!

Holiday Creature Feature

We're still creating with fun creatures, whether they be animals, or other fun creatures like gnomes, yetis or monsters. Here's our holiday creature feature for this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Lawn Fawn's Car Critters might just be my all time favorite animal-themed stamp set. I mean seriously: Reindeer driving home for the holidays? Hard to beat, right? I've had my original set (which has sweet little bears) and the Holiday Add-On (which has the reindeers) for a couple of years, but I'm still not tired of thinking up little scenes for them. In this case, I've used patterned paper for everything but the deer themselves, which I colored with my Tombow Dual Brush Pens from Paper Anthology."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "You know I'm not going to pass-up the chance to break out a Yeti ... this time a new Winter Yeti Die Cut from Lawn Fawn.  I used the Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflake Backdrop on the background and paired him with a sentiment from Lawn Fawn Snow Day."

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Scroll down to the original post for more inspiration and the linky tool to add YOUR Creature Feature card(s) to the gallery!

Not a Creature was Stirring

This fortnight at Jingle Belles is a holiday Creature Feature.

We're asking you to break out your animals ... it could be a sweet little sheep or perhaps a reindeer ... okay, or even a monster, gnome or yeti if you're in a bit of a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme.

Here's how we got CREATURE-y this week.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "My creatures are the Christmas Cheer Gnomes from Rubbernecker Stamps.  With that mug of coffee, I'm also linking-up at the Gnomes & Coffee Challenge at Caffeinated Christmas."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Here's a funny story: the other week online, I saw what I consider Lawn Fawn's best punny sentiment ever, "Joyeux Narwhal", in their Simply Celebrate Winter Critter Add-On Greeting stamp set. I excitedly made my own version using the Winter Narwhal stamp set and some pink puffy letter stickers, and I was absurdly proud of the result. Then, as I was photographing and uploading (at the last minute, of course) I suddenly realized... I've spelled both words wrong! Ugh. Obviously I'll be doing a bit of remedial sticker-spelling, but I figured I'd post the card anyway and let you share my rueful laughter."

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Link your own Creature-centric card right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November first. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2322.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Pretty in Pink

Once again we are floored by how many amazing and wonderful PINK CHRISTMAS cards you guys have linked up with us... when we added up the "extras" that you guys added into your posts there was a total of *50* so that when each of us (Stephanie and Lauren) donate $2 per card we've managed to raise $200 for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! THANK YOU so much for making that happen! It's even more difficult than usual to choose just a few featured cardmakers (please know that we loved EVERY card in the Readers' Gallery!) but here are three that especially caught our eye:

Trina of Phamtastic Design

...built an entire monochomatic scene (in PINK, naturally) to show off her newest, most adorable Memory Box holiday goodies!

Diane H of Nellie's Nest 

...proves that you can "PINK-ify" a traditional color scheme of red and green by adding touches of pink when coloring, stamping and adding embellies!

Loll Thompson of Stamping with Loll

...made two amazingly vibrant PINK clean and simple cards which we adore; this one was second in her post and thus you'll not have seen it in the Gallery, but it counts towards our total!

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, we always appreciate your participation, but never more so than for this event each October. If you haven't checked out all the cards, we highly recommend a visit to the Readers' PINK CHRISTMAS Gallery AND that you click through to the actual posts, because, as we said, there are extra cards! 

We will, of course, be back at midnight with a brand new prompt, though, as we move into the endo of October and Halloween approaches our Jingle Belles alumni mayyyyyyy have an inkling of what's in store... :)

♥ Pink Christmas... for the Cure! ♥

We're still celebrating our annual Pink Christmas for the Cure by creating PINK Christmas Cards for the cure this week where Stephanie & Lauren will each donate $2 to Breast Cancer Research Foundation for every card that gets linked-up.

Here are our PINK creations for this week:

Lauren's Other PINK Card

Lauren says, "This week I raided my stash of supercute Doodlebug Candy Cane Lane stickers and made a fun little snowglobe scene. I re-used that pretty pink snowflake wrapping paper for the sky and cut into some well-hoarded Lawn Fawn Knit Picky paper to make the background. I think the sentiment sticker might be ancient Prima, but as it was in the "orphaned" sticker envelope, I'm not entirely sure."

Stephanie's Other PINK Card

Stephanie says, "Doodlebug Designs always comes through with fun pink holiday paper creations.  I cut the little tags from one of the pieces of paper from the Candy Cane Lane Collection using a sketch from the Build Your Stash Holiday Cardmakers Challenge with a stamped sentiment from Impress Cards & Crafts."

Scroll down to the original post to see the Readers' Gallery and link up your own PINK CHRISTMAS cards!

We're Dreaming of a Pink Christmas

It's the first week of October and thus it's time for PINK CHRISTMAS at Jingle Belles; the annual event where we ask YOU to make and link up as many predominantly PINK holiday cards as you possibly can, because WE (Stephanie and Lauren) are each going to donate $2 per card to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation! 

So what qualifies as a PINK CHRISTMAS card? It's pretty simple: the cards should be newly made, with a winter holiday theme, and they should 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! Can you link up more than one PINK CHRISTMAS card? Yes, indeed, please do!

Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's PINK CHRISTMAS Card

Stephanie says, "My sweet sister-in-law gifted me with these adorable Tim Holtz Christmas Cartoon stamps (which remind me a bit of vintage Calvin and Hobbes), so I couldn't resist stamping them in Catherine Pooler Party Dress Pink on a pink card base.  I used a light pink marker to ground the images."

Lauren's PINK CHRISTMAS Card

Lauren says, "I built my card around my favorite pink ink: Wendy Vecchi's Rosey Posey Archival from Ranger, so it seemed like a good idea to also break out the gorgeous poinsettia from Wendy's awesome Doodle Christmas stamp set. I gold embossed the blooms and used a waterbrush filled with Isopropyl Alcohol to paint them with the aforesaid Rosey Posey and Leaf Green. I added Sunflower Liquid Pearls to the centers and made a larger flower cluster on top of a background featuring a scrap of ancient Prima pink plaid paper, torn sheet music and a few strips of washi tape. I have literally no idea where that little sentiment sticker came from, but it was the perfect size and shape, so on it went!"

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Link as many PINK CHRISTMAS cards as you'd like, right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 18th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2321.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Christmas Story Stars

It seems we're not the only cardmakers who LOVE the various Stories of Christmas, which made it a bit difficult to only choose three cards to feature. For the record, this is by far our favorite "problem" to have!

Aimslee of Paper-Paisleys Art Adventures

...made a bold and beautiful card inspired by fond memories of watching Frosty the Snowman with her younger brother; we kind of want to watch Frosty again, right now!

Lols of Lorraine's Loft

...combined two classic Raymond Briggs stories, The Snowman and Father Christmas, in this fabulous mixed media card! 

Lisa of This Sweet Madness

...was inspired by a favorite Hallmark holiday movie called Cranberry Christmas, and made us excited to realize that there are NEW holiday stories and memories being made every year!

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your gorgeous and inspiring cards. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt; Jingle Belles Veterans, can you guess what we're doing to celebrate our first prompt of October?!

Stories of Christmas

We're still creating cards inspired by the many holiday books or movies that we all adored in childhood (and likely still adore them today). 

Here are the Christmas stories that inspired us this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Like everyone else, I have probably seen a few dozen movie and tv versions of "A Christmas Carol" (including the classic Alastair Sim film AND a musical version featuring the Muppets!) but I don't think I had actually ever read Dickens' novella until about fifteen years ago. Now I re-read it each year, either in print or via audiobook, and this week it is the inspiration for my card. The oversized journal card is from Graphic 45, the sheet music is from my stash, the paper flower is ancient Prima and the washi tape is October Afternoon."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "Bumble the Abominable Snowman aka Yeti from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 1964 Stop Motion Animation Special has always been my favorite Yeti.  I built my card around this long-hoarded foam sticker adding the glittery star and Eyelet Outlet Candy Cane Brad in his Yeti hands.  I paired with with snowflakes & candy cane striped designer paper with him perched on a stitched die cut oval from one of my red gelliprints.  The perfect sentiment is from Hello Bluebird Yeti or Not."

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Scroll down to the original post to peruse the Readers' Gallery and to link up your own Story-inspired card.

A Christmas Story

This time we're asking you to create a card inspired by the many holiday books or movies that we all adored in childhood (and likely still adore them today). 

So whether you love “A Christmas Carol”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” or “It's a Wonderful Life” we're asking you to create a card inspired by your favorite holiday book or movie. 

Here are the Christmas stories that inspired us this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "My card is literally inspired by the movie A Christmas Story, which I didn't actually watch all of the way through until a few years ago.  I sprayed my papers with Fortune Teller & Cocktail Party Distress Mica Stain Sprays with my Leg Lamp stamps from The Ink Road.  The die cut panel is Pinkfresh Studio Rounded & Braided Rectangle Die.  I'm also linking-up at the Red/Purple Color Hues Challenge and V is for Vivid at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.  I finished with some Pinkfresh Studio Glitter Drops."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Growing up, my favorite holiday story was "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and it still is today. Over the years I've found or been gifted a number of editions, all of which I treasure. A few years ago, I scanned in some of my favorite illustrations and reduced them so that I could use them on cards. Here I've paired a Santa page with a (digital) Jenni Bowlin Holiday Bingo Card, a small cardstock tree diecut and some coordinated patterned papers from my stash. Three Eyelet Outlet Peppermint Candies and a scrap of embossed cardstock add a little extra texture."

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Link your card(s) right here, by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 4th. 

Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2320.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Spectacular SKETCH-mas

With such a beautiful sketch to work from, it's hardly surprising that every single card in the Readers' Gallery is a knockout. But it's our tradition to select just three on these occasions, so here they are now:

Kez of Crafts by Kez

...proves that caffeine and Christmas work perfectly together, as does a neutral palette with just a few hits of red; we're awarding bonus points for the supercute gingerbread folk on the coffee cup sleeve!

Fabiola of Mon P'tit Monde

...swapped the hexagon for a golden star and made the circle element into a dangly bauble that coordinates perfectly with her beautifully minimal embossed background!

Gail aka IonaBunny of Crafty Nomad

...found a piece of white glitter paper which had a snowflake diecut from it, and there was just enough room to use her favorite hexagon die... chalk this one up for serendipity!

And now let's find out who's won that fabulous Simon Says Stamp holiday stamp and die bundle!

The Random Number Generator has chosen #11 which means that...

LeAnne Pugliese is our Lucky Winner, Congratulations!

Please email llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com with your snail mail info 

so we can get that on its way to you ASAP!

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every single one of your gorgeous cards. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope you'll find inspiring... hope to see you then!