2024 Favorites

December is an excellent time to look back on our crafty year; so without further ado, here's one each of Stephanie's and Lauren's favorite Jingle Belles cards; the bolded text below the photos link to our personal blogs where you can check out the rest of our 2024 Fave Five lists! 

One of Stephanie's 2024 Faves

Stephanie says, "This was one of my cards for the Sweet EMBOSS-able You prompt.  I just love how the texture, inky goodness, shimmer spray, and layered die cut sentiment all came together for a gorgeous, but still mailable, design."

One of Lauren's 2024 Faves

 Lauren says, "I went more or less chronological with my picks this time, so my first choice is from the second week of JB2404: Text Me, which ran early in February. Stephanie had given me this awesome Uniko Christmas Block Party stamp a few years ago, and although I don't use it nearly enough, I always LOVE the results when I do. Oh and it's great for incorporating a bunch of Eyelet Outlet Brads and Bling, too, as you can see!"

♥♥♥

We'll be starting the new Jingle Belles' season on January 1, 2025 and we'd love to see you then. As always, there's no need to make a commitment; play as often as you can find the time and feel inspired! We realize that the first few months it seems funny to be making holiday cards "out of season" but on the plus side, cruising in to a hyper-busy December with the bulk of one's holiday cards FINISHED is the best feeling ever! Feel free to link as many new cards as fit the current prompt; make extras when you have the time and energy; and if you skip a few weeks or months just hop back in whenever you can. There's no judgement here, just crafty friends hanging out and cheering each other on! Wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons and that 2025 will be your most creative year yet! 

2024 Wrap Up!

It's that time again, we're wrapping up the 2024 Jingle Belles season, but no worries, we will return on January 1, 2025, when we'll kick off a brand New Year of creativity and fun! 

Now all that remains is to thank everyone who played along in 2024 (we loved seeing EVERY single card!) and to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. Also, at this point, we traditionally like to show off the big sprawly pics of ALL our holiday cards for the year, so here are those are right now:

Stephanie's Big Giant Pile-O-Cards

Lauren's Big Giant Pile-O-Cards

♥♥♥

And now here's one last Link-Up that will run until Christmas Eve: Link your last minute makes; scroll through and get inspired; maybe even leave your fellow cardmakers a little love if you have time! We'll be back on January 1st with another season of inspiration! Happy Holidays!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Banner Day

So exciting to finish off our 2024 Jingle Belles season with so many GORGEOUS cards, inspired by our 2024 Blog Banner. As always, we thank everyone who participated, we genuinely love seeing each and every card. Here are three that especially caught our eye:

Trijntje of Trijntje's Kaarten

...was inspired by the poinsettias, as well as the red, green and gold color scheme. She also assembled some fabulously intricate layers that we adore!

Toni of Frankie Helps Craft

...made not one, not two, but three gorgeous poinsettia panels that capture the bold floral exuberance of our blog banner, while exploring other (beautiful!) colorways.

Liz Cavill of Craft Sunflower

...created a mind-blowing Triple Stepper Card that captures the elegant vibe of our poinsettias and foliage, but adds a three-dimensional facet AND hits of white that make the whole thing pop!

♥♥♥

And now let's find out to whom that fun little holiday floral prize will be heading:

The Random Number Generator has selected Lucky Number 4!

Which means that Bunny Hoyle is our Lucky Winner!

Congrats, Bunny! 

Please email Lauren with your snail mail info, so we can get that out to you ASAP!

llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com

♥♥♥

This is the last official Jingle Belles prompt of 2024, but no worries, we will return at Midnight with the official wrap-up/ round-up post; plus photos of our person crop of holiday cards for the year. We'll also have a link-up you can use to post your creations right up until Christmas Eve. Then on January 1, 2025 we'll kick off the New Year of creativity and fun at Jingle Belles! ♥

Blog Header Inspired

This week we're still creating cards inspired by the Jingle Belles 2024 Blog Header.

Maybe you're drawn to the candy canes ... or the poinsettias ... or glittery sparkle.  Just make sure you tell us how your card was inspired.

Here is how we were inspired this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I've made a less literal version, but I've still embraced the colors, the florals, and the red glitter and golden metallic accents. That pretty flower cluster is Hero Arts' Christmas Roses stamp, it's embossed with Ranger Gold Embossing Powder and watercolored. The diecut sentiment is Penny Black. The tiny star sequins are Eyelet Outlet."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "My design started with this candy cane striped glitter tag.  I found identical green & red glitter paper in my stash to die cut the Poinsettia and Holly Leaves from Essentials by Ellen Poinsettia & Pine.  I backed them with a white cardstock shadow to help them stand out from the tag.  I added a gold glitter frame, gold stars, gold ribbon & gold thread to pull in those elements from the Blog Header design.  I finished with a Scrapbook.com Wordfetti December sentiment."

And remember there's a fun little prize for one lucky (randomly selected) participant:

Simon Hurley create Bold Holiday Blooms Background Stamp; 

Recollections Holly Leaves; Echo Park Floral Swag Washi Tape and two packs of Paper Lace Ribbon

Link your cards on the original post by 6pm on Wednesday evening, December 4th. The linky tool is in the original post, which can be found directly below this one.

Banner Holiday

For our final prompt of the 2024 Jingle Belles season, we're asking you to make a card inspired by our gorgeous Jingle Belles Blog Banner (created by Jingle Belle Lauren). You might be inspired by the glittery letters and frame, the red poinsettias and candy canes, the jingle belles (or jingle bells, lol) ...just make sure you tell us what inspired you in your post.

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started by looking for a star die in my stash, and found this one from Jaded Blossom.  Then I went hunting through my designer paper and found a piece with big red poinsettias. I searched through my Jaded Blossom Stamps and found this fun Christmas Spirits Wine Bottle that had some Jingle Bells.  I colored it with Alcohol Ink Markers and a gold Sharpie for the bells.  I added a wide gold glitter frame like the one in the banner and positioned it off-center like the banner frame.  I finished with a sentiment from the Jaded Blossom Christmas Spirits set and a few bits of gold bling."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "For inspiration I chose the poinsettias, the foliage, and the red + green + gold color palette. I used Wendy Vecchi's Build-a-Plaid Layered Stencils and the Christmas Add-On Stamp and Die Set (both from her 2024 Spellbinders' NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection) to make the background and focal point, respectively. There's additional info and pics showing how I built the diecut holly leaves into poinsettias on my personal blog, if you'd like more detail. For the plaid I used Wendy's Archival Inks in Carnation Red, Red Geranium, Fern Green and Sunflower, with a little extra sparkle from a glittery gold pen."

♥♥♥

There's a small poinsettia-centric prize for one 

randomly selected cardmaker who links up with us this time:

Simon Hurley create Bold Holiday Blooms Background Stamp; 

Recollections Holly Leaves; Echo Park Floral Swag Washi Tape and two packs of Paper Lace Ribbon

♥♥♥

Just to be clear, this is only marks the end of the 2024 season; we Jingle Belles will be back for a brand new year of holiday cardmaking, starting January 1, 2025! Meanwhile, for a chance at the prize and to get a few steps closer to Holiday Card Readiness, link your Jingle Belles Banner-Inspired creations right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, December 4th. Keyword is JB2424.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A Feast for Your Eyes

There are so many clever, beautiful and delicious looking holiday cards in the Christmas Feast Readers' Gallery, if you haven't taken time to scroll through ALL of them, we highly recommend the trip. In the meantime, here are three that especially caught our eye:

Irene M of Irene's Scrapbook

...made an adorable show-stopper of a stair step card, absolutely loaded with sweet treats and sweet wishes!

Gloria Lee of Gloria's Craft Room

...served up a double helping of Christmas Tea for Two in two different (but equally lovely) colorways, with extra-fun paperpieced china patterns!

PaperPapier

...created a lusciously inky snowy background, colored an adorable House Mouse stamp to perfection and had EXACTLY the right sentiment to go with!

♥♥♥

And now I bet we'd all love to find out who the winner of that super-fun Tim Holtz Sizzix Santa die set is, right? So without further ado, the Random Number Generator has selected...

Lucky Number 34

which means that Denise Bryant is our Lucky Winner!

Please email llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com with your snail mail information so we can get that heading out to you ASAP!

♥♥♥

A big shout out to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your amazing designs! We'll be back at Midnight with the last official prompt of this 2024 Jingle Belles season, which we hope will have lots of inspiration HEADING your way! ;)

Cookies and Candies and Cocoa... Oh My!

It's the second week of Christmas Feast, our celebration of holiday sweets and treats and since you've still got plenty of time to join the fun, let's get right to it.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "The mini journal cards from Carta Bella's Christmas Cheer collection were absolutely perfect for this. I chose four with the strongest baking theme, made them into a grid, rounded the outer corners, added a few stickers et voila! Job done!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I always love Christmas Cookies ... this card reminds me of  fond childhood memories of making them with my Grandma.  I paired three 3-D Cookie Stickers with a Taylored Expressions Just Saying ... Christmas Sentiment and the inside of the Pinkfresh Studio Ornate Rectangle Frame Die Cut."

And one lucky participant in the Christmas Feast prompt will win a brand new Tim Holtz Santa Claus Thinlits Die Cuts.

The Christmas Feast challenge (#JB2423) runs until next Wednesday evening, November 20th. You can link up on the original post at Jingle Belles. 

Christmas Feast

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're celebrating one of our very favorite aspects of the holidays: The Christmas Feast! There are lots of iconic holiday foods, from cookies and candies to gingerbread in all its forms; sugar plums, Christmas pudding, Buche de Noel, even the Grinch carving the Roast Beast!

 Make a holiday card in any color, style or size you like... just make sure it features a tasty holiday treat.

Here's how we're FEASTING (in card form!) this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went with the iconic coffee (or in my case hot cocoa) and a peppermint candy cane for this week's card featuring Lisa Horton Crafts Winter Layering Snowman Stencils and brads from Eyelet Outlet (Candy Cane & Holiday Coffee Cup).  I created my card in traditional holiday colors of Red & Green for the Caffeinated Christmas Challenge theme and finished with an Eyelet Outlet Cardinal brad perched in the pine tree."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "As often happens when I get out my adorable Doodlebug Design holiday stash, I couldn't just make ONE card. In my defense, D-bug always includes a lot of sweet (in every sense lol) treats, which are perfect for this particular theme. For these cards I raided the patterned papers and sticker from the aptly named Gingerbread Kisses and Candy Cane Lane collections. I used coordinating papers from my scrap box, and couldn't resist adding a few Eyelet Outlet Gingerbread and Candy Cane Brads." 

And one lucky participant in the Christmas Feast prompt will win a brand new Tim Holtz Santa Claus Thinlits Die Cuts.

♥♥♥

The Christmas Feast challenge (#JB2423) will run until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 20th. Link up your tasty treat cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Creature Feature

There are so many amazing cards featuring holiday critters that you really do need to check out the entire Readers' Gallery in the "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" post, but in the meantime, here are three that caught our eye:

Valerie of Le Scrap de Vava

...chose an adorable Christ-MOOSE mascot and created a CAS-but-layery scheme that shows him (or her?) off to perfection!

Melanie of Cards by Melanie

...is hosting a Penguin Party as well as showing off one of the coolest versions of the postage panel trend that we've ever seen!

Ellie of Ellibelle's Corner

...employed her very strong stamping, coloring and inking skills to best advantage on this charming card that tells a humorous little story!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every single one of your creative and inspiring cards! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt for you to FEAST your eyes on! ;)

Not a CREATURE was Stirring

We're still creating holiday cards with Animals (or Yetis... or Monsters); whatever CREATURE you choose to share with us.

Here's our Creature Feature for you this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I found a beautiful older pack of adorable animal stickers from Recollections in my holiday stash, so I immediately knew I wanted them to be the stars of the show. I didn't realize how well they'd coordinate with that very fun October Afternoon critter-bedecked washi tape; but having seen a few Team Spellbinders cards in which the smallest two sizes of Wendy Vecchi's Pinking Edge rectangle dies (from NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection's Birthday Add-On set) were used to make the most fabulous frame for a little scene, so I worked in that idea, as well. Ancient Heidi Swapp decotape and skinny mats of black glossy cardstock complete the design."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I had fun dressing up Lawn Fawn Bear & Reindeer in their Christmas Sweaters from Lawn Fawn Ugly & Bright. (you know I had to add tiny googley eyes).  I embossed Lawn Fawn Spiffier Speckles designer paper with the Lawn Fawn Backdrop Stitched Snowflakes.  I created my card using a monochromatic blue-grey palette for the Lawnfawnatics Monochromatic Challenge."

♥♥♥

"While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" (JB2422) runs until 6pm (Eastern) next Wednesday evening, November 6th so you still have plenty of time to join our Jingle Belles fun! Link your cards at the original post, directly below this one.

While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

This fortnight we're asking you to break out the animals for your holiday card ... it could be a sweet little sheep or perhaps one of Santa's reindeer ... or even a monster or Yeti if you're in a bit of a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme.

Here's how we interpreted this week's theme:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I was hunting through my stash for my animal options, and I saw these fun Scooby-Doo Stickers.  When I looked at them and tried to think about how I might incorporate them, I saw a Christmas tree grounded by the Mystery Machine and topped with the logo.  I figured, what have I got to lose (as I tell my friends, it's just paper), so I gave it a try ... and I giggled a bit when it worked.  I added bits of bling for some tree decoration and attached my Scooby tree to a glittery card base.  I finished with a sentiment that I printed using a groovy font."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "As I was getting out my much-loved Lawn Fawn Winter Narwhal mini stamp set, I also found a sadly neglected Critters in the Arctic set, as well as Jen Long's Tons of Love Sizzix stamp and die set AND Rubber Moon's adorable Nerdy Narwhal. (Those latter two, sadly, are out of print though the Lawn Fawn sets are still available.) And since obviously it'd be IMPOSSIBLE to just choose one of the above, I decided to stamp my own little pod of narwhals to star in their own punny card inspired by my favorite Narwhal and Jellie book, "Happy Narwhalidays"! I used stripey Thickers and Doodlebug My Type alphas to create the sentiment, clustered the paper-pieced pod around it, added a few mats and called it good!"

♥♥♥

"While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" (JB2422) will run until 6pm (Eastern) onWednesday, November 6th and you're invited to link up with us right here at Jingle Belles!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Pretty in Pink

Many thanks to EVERYONE who made and linked PINK CHRISTMAS cards for the cure! This year, counting the "extra" cards linked up inside various posts, we amassed a total of 58 PINK CHRISTMAS CARDS, and since Stephanie and Lauren are donating two dollars (each!) per card, that means we'll be making a donation of $232.00 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! Thank you for helping us do that! Apart from the fund-raising aspect, this fortnight saw some of the most beautiful cards of the year as well, making it even harder than usual to choose just three, but here, in no particular order, are a trio which particularly caught our eye:

Trina of Phamtastic Design

...created a beautiful, eye-catching, unconventional holiday tree shape from gorgeously colored PINK mushrooms that we just cannot stop staring at!

Sandy of Adventures of a Stamping Writer

...used an incredibly clever reverse-masking tutorial to create a truly lovely wreath in several shades of pink within a single layer of cardstock for a card that's as impressive as it is pretty!

Nora N of A Creative Touch

...went BOLD with several vivid shades of pink, gold embossing, pressure embossing, distressing and... well, every time we look at this beauty we see something new to love! 

♥♥♥

We are truly grateful and appreciative to EVERYONE who took time to make cards, link them, and even go round and leave some love for your fellow Jingle Belles. Thank you so much for making this our favorite challenge of the year! We will be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will have lots of lovely cardmakers FLOCKING around to participate! ;)

Pink Christmas: Week 2

It's the second week of our gala PINK CHRISTMAS celebration here at Jingle Belles, in which we're asking YOU to make holiday cards that are predominantly pink... and WE will donate to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each card that gets linked up! Visit the original PINK CHRISTMAS post directly below this one for all the details as well as the Linky Tool to add your cards. 

Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I raided my happy little stash of Doodlebug Design papers, journal tags and stickers to make this sweet (in every sense, lol) little card that's mostly pink... with touches of tan gingerbread and reindeer; as well as some fun green Christmas tree cookies. I used an ancient pink background paper with a strong horizontal element to it, which made lining up the decorative strips super-easy!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Since all of my pink designer paper scraps were still out on my table, I decided to combine three of them for this week's card.  I topped the papers with a fun pink Baking Spirits Bright Doodle-Pop from Doodlebug Designs.  I finished with a perfect AMuse sentiment and some pink glittery enamel dots."

♥♥♥♥♥

Link your gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS creations (because YES, you definitely can make as many as you'd like!) on the original post which is directly below this one. This challenge (#JB2421) runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 23rd. 

PINK CHRISTMAS (For the Cure!)

It's that time again here at Jingle Belles, our favorite prompt of the year: PINK CHRISTMAS! In which you make and link new holiday cards that are predominantly PINK and we (Stephanie and Lauren) donate $2 (apiece!) per card to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! 

Just to anticipate a few basic questions: Yes, you can link as many cards as you'd like to; and no, your cards don't need to be entirely PINK but it should certainly be the main color! You can use any additional colors that you'd like; and the cards can be any size, shape, theme and style. 

Sound good? Then without further ado, here are our PINK CHRISTMAS cards:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went shopping in my designer paper scraps and pulled out every pink paper I could find (including one of my own inky sprayed papers).  I cut 3/8" strips to cover my card front.  I finished with a fun Doodlebug Designs tag that I matted with a thin white frame to make it pop a bit more against that busy background."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I am currently obsessed with Wendy Vecchi's NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection from Spellbinders, so for this card I broke out the Christmas Add-On Stamp and Die Set and used the triple holly leaf die to very quickly cut lots of layers from textured pink cardstock; which I then inked and stacked, in two five-petal layers for each flower, into poinsettias, finishing off with the three berry cluster at the center, and finally a few tiny stick-on pearls plus a few cuts of the beautiful, delicate greenery die. I used the sentiment stamps from the set and a Build-a-Plaid background made with the second smallest stencil and Pink Peony Archival. A little bit of lace, some darker pink mats and a bit of machine stitching and I was good to go! There's a little more detail about the making of the poinsettias and the use of the Build-a-Plaid Stencils on my blog."

♥♥♥

Link your gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS creation(s) right here. This challenge (#JB2421) runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 23rd. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sketchy Stunners!

This time literally ALL of the holiday cards made for our special sketch challenge were outstanding, so here they are and CONGRATS to everyone who did a brilliant job!

Leslie of L Rose Creates

...added a sweet firelplace and stocking scene to the focal panel and clearly trained holly leaves to go up and down both sides of the card!

Deb of Sendable Sentiments

...chose and elegant gold, cream and navy color palette and added just enough perfect distressing to each element!

Pat G who posts on Instagram

...brilliantly swapped the rectangle and strip shapes from the sketch for poinsettias and holly that make her gorgeous stencilled backdrop stand out even more!

Fabiola of Mon P'tit Monde

...made a completely faithfulversion of the sketch and it turns out to look even lovelier in landscape mode; plus we love the luscious soft snowy colors!

Annette Elias of de Kijkkast

...flipped the sketch horizontally and added impressive amounts of eye-catching dimension and texture... not to mention displaying her amazing coloring skills!

♥♥♥

We'll be back at midnight with a brand new (but seasonally predictable!) prompt we hope will tickle you PINK! ♥ 

Gettin' Sketchy

We're still making cards based on Stephanie's awesome card sketch and you're still invited to join the fun! First here's a reminder of the sketch:

And now, here's how we got sketchy this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I went almost entirely vintage this week. Only my sentiment is cut from a modern Simple Stories mini journal card... oh and there's a silver metallic cardstock mat layer... but otherwise: the background collage is all vintage paper; the postcard is scanned and re-sized but it's from my IRL collection of vintage postcards. Maybe my favorite things are those beautiful vintage Plaid Trading Stamps that Stephanie found and gifted to me and which not only matched perfectly, they work perfectly as the "strips" in the sketch!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I found this adorable vintage Santa & Reindeer image from Pretty Little Studio's Jolly Santa Die Cuts (I wonder which reindeer get their own bed).  I paired it with cardstock banners and a sentiment to wish them all a good night's sleep after their hard work is done.."

♥♥♥

You've got until next Wednesday evening (10-9-24) to link your sketch-inspired cards on the original post, located directly below this one. Remember you can flip it, stretch it, rotate it, smoosh it or change shapes; just make sure we can see "the bones" of the sketch in your card! 

SKETCH-tivus for the Rest of Us

We're asking you to get SKETCH-y with us this fortnight. Take a peek at the inspiring sketch Stephanie has created for us and feel free to flip it, stretch it, rotate it, smoosh it or change shapes; just make sure we can see "the bones" of the sketch in your card!

Here's how we celebrated SKETCH-tivus:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "A tag is the perfect thing for the horizontal element in the Sketch.  My card is made completely from Doodlebug Designs papers, which I love for their bright happy colors."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "A frame is also a nice choice for the focal element in the sketch, and since this one was oriented vertically, I rotated the sketch 90 degrees counterclockwise, but otherwise my card is quite faithful to the original. I filled said frame with sheet music and some supercute stickers, added various washi strips to the beautiful 49 and Market background panel, did a little stitching, et voila!"

♥♥♥

Link your sketch cards right here by 6pm (eastern) on Wednesday, October 9th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2420.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter