May OLD Acquaintance be Forgot ...

... or, alternatively, be mixed with some crafty new goodies and incorporated into a lovely holiday card? 

That's right, we're still celebrating "Something Old AND Something New" so be sure to scroll down to last Friday's post for all the details and to link up your own gorgeous cards. 

Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week, my new item is this fabulous Simon Hurley create Winter Woodland Stamp Set from Ranger, which I've colored with my trusty (older) Tombow Dual Brush Pens from Paper Anthology. But the oldest thing here is the set of Spellbinders' classic Nestabilities Labels 2 die set, probably the second or third thing I purchased, back in the day, after I got my Cuttlebug! There's a mix of old and new foliage diecuts, old and new papers and of course I had to add a couple of Eyelet Outlet Poinsettia Brads."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "These Simon Says Stamp Wonky Christmas Tree-O die cuts were a birthday gift that were still unopened, so it was the perfect time to use them as my NEW this week.  I die cut them multiple times from an OLD strip of ink-sprayed watercolor paper that was just the right size for these small dies.  My other NEW (as in never opened) was the Simon Says Stamp Holiday Typewriter sentiment set. My other OLD was the Stitched Mini Slimline Stacklets that I used for the coral cardstock."

Something Old ... Something New

This fortnight we're asking you to create a holiday card that features BOTH something OLD and something NEW.  

For example, combine an item (or two or three) that you've had in your stash for some time with some of the new goodies that Sant brought you for Christmas (or maybe you were your own Santa and you shopped those Black Friday sales and bought it yourself).  We're pretty sure Santa was good to all of the lovely ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ so we know you've got lots of goodies to showcase.

Here's how we combined our OLD & NEW this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "For Christmas, I treated myself to the fun Christmas Gift Tag Stack Stamps & coordinating Gift Tag Stack Die cut from LDRS Creative. Rather than use the sentiments that came with the Tag Set, I used a the fun little sentiments from Tim Holtz Christmas Cartoons that I already had in my creative inventory ... that meant the font was coordinated across the three different tags, which I liked.  I used a scrap of silver glitter paper together with a red Love from Lizi Peel-Off Strip to pull in the red from the red twine i used on my tags."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My NEW item is Spellbinders' Stylish Merry Christmas die set, though I confess I got it at Paper Anthology months ago but had (quite mystifyingly) never used it yet?! My OLD items are... well... pretty much everything else on this card! Including ancient Basic Grey and My Minds Eye papers and a Tim Holtz sticker book that I know was from The Ink Pad. The Eyelet Outlet Poinsettia Brads are a style that's several years old, though I just gotten yet another new pack because they are definitely on my "most used" list... since they seem to look good EVERYWHERE!"

♥♥♥

Link your "Something Old... Something New" masterpieces right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, January 31st. Keyword for galleries etc is JB2402.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wrap Stars!

It's wonderful to see so many of our fellow papercrafters getting a jump on 2024's holiday card production AND upcycling some of the beautiful giftwrap received in 2023; it seems like the perfect way to start a new year! As always, we loved seeing ALL of your cards, and it was difficult to only pick a few to feature, but here are three that especially caught our eye this time:

ArtMBR of Od Materiala Do Izdelka

...fussycut the beautiful flora and fauna ornaments from one style of giftwrap and layered them on a background made out of a second paper. She also made several cards, so be sure to check them out!

Kathe D of Kathe's Adventures

...made marvelously minimalist inchies by affixing supercool snowflake tissue to white cardstock, then combined a few challenges, including a FAB sketch to produce this CAS masterpiece!

Tracy of Small Smackerels

...has just re-booted her blog, and started the crafty year off big with EIGHT cards featuring three styles of giftwrap and several different types of tag, as well. Welcome back, old friend, we're happy to see you!

♥♥♥

And now it's time to find out which lucky random cardmaker will be getting that very cool Simon Says Stamp Mid-Century Holiday die plate!

The Random Number Generator has selected #22 which means that...

Barb Housner of Paper Therapy Ponderings 

is our lucky winner!

Congrats, Barb!

Please send your postal info to

llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com

and we'll get your prize on its way to you ASAP!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing all of your beautiful, creative cards! We'll be back at the same old time (midnight) with a brand new prompt that we hope will inspire you to keep building your holiday card stash!

It's a Wrap

This week we're still asking you to create cards using leftover wrapping paper, ribbon or tags before you put them away for the season.

Here's how we Wrapped it Up this week:

Lauren's Other Card(s)

Lauren says, "There was quite a lot of teeny tiny fussycutting involved in this week's endeavor; enough to make TWO cards. But since the repeats are so small, there were LOTS of Santas on my "rescued" wrap and it seemed a shame to just toss them in recycling. I made faux-polariods from offcuts of white Kromekote inset with little squares of cloud patterned paper; added the Santas and accessories; mounted the design elements on my own leftover sandy/snowy wrapping paper; added red skinny mats, washi, and glittery diecut sentiments... et voila!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Did you know that Lauren is the world's best package wrapper?? ... and I am the world's worst.  I like to think I'm a great gift buyer, but when it comes to wrapping, it's probably not happening.  However, when I gift arrives from Lauren, I will place it in a position of reverence where I can admire it for days before I finally open it to see what is inside.  This gorgeous metallic snowflake ribbon was on a holiday gift from Lauren this year, so I saved it to incorporate it into a card.  I wrapped it around a piece of cardstock I had used to clean alcohol ink from a stencil (gotta love those leftovers).  I went through multiple possible embellishments before settling on a big bold seashell carved button from my step-mom's collection (this card will likely got to one of my siblings who will appreciate the keepsake).  I added a bit of blue twine, a strip of glitter paper, and a vintage woodblock sentiment from A Muse Artistamps."

And remember, to sweeten the pot for a good start to 2024, we're offering a little prize to one random participant - the Mid Century Holiday Die Cut Plate from Simon Says Stamp.  You have until 6pm EST on Wednesday, January 17th to wrap it up with us.

Wrap It Up!

We've just WRAPPED up 2023 and are embarking on our fourteenth (14th!) Jingle Belles season; many of us have also just WRAPPED and/or UN-WRAPPED a gift or two, so before you put away your wrapping supplies, pull out some of your favorites (or some of that paper from a present you unwrapped that was just too pretty to recycle) and make a card featuring wrapping paper or gift tags. 

If this is your first time here, your Jingle Belles hostesses are Stephanie and Lauren, we're avid cardmakers who started this holiday card inspiration blog so that we could avoid the stress of mass-producing holiday cards in December. We post a new theme every other Friday (with reminder posts and new inspiration cards in between) and you can link up as many NEW holiday cards as fit the prompt. We're mostly a Just-For-Fun challenge, but we throw in a prize every now and then, just to keep it interesting. There's no need to participate every time, but if, like us, you'll need quite a few cards when the holidays roll around, you should know that starting now and making one card per week means you'll have FORTY-EIGHT done by December first... a considerable advantage in terms of stress-busting! 

And now it's time to show you how we incorporated gift wrap into our first holiday cards of 2024:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I remember going on a hunt one holiday for my treasured roll of Birch Bark wrapping paper. I thought it paired nicely with the Pinkfresh Studio Folk Snowflake in muted wintry hues.  I adorned it with a few gems and paired it with one of the sentiments from the same Folk Snowflake stamp set."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I still have quite a bit of this Santa-centric paper from last year, which has five or six different, easy-to-cut-out medallions, of which I chose four and backed them with plain white cardstock which I had run through my Xyron machine, and fussycut. I chose four off-cuts of patterned paper in appropriate colors to serve as backgrounds on my 5.5" square cards; them selected four smaller, coordinating pieces to trim into smaller squares, round corners, and back with skinny cardstock mats. I added Tim Holtz Idea-ology Christmas Label Sticker sentiments et voila! My 2024 holiday card stash is already looking pretty jolly!"

And to sweeten the pot for a good start to 2024, we're offering a little prize to one random participant - the Mid Century Holiday Die Cut Plate from Simon Says Stamp.

♥♥♥

Link your "Wrap It Up" cards right here by 6pm (Eastern) on January 17th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2401. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter