Loves Labor Day Lost

Since Monday, September 2nd, will be Labor Day here in the United States, we've decided to celebrate by giving you a bit of a head start with this week's card design.

We're asking you to CASE (Copy And Selectively Edit) any of the cards that Lauren or Stephanie have made for any of the previous Jingle Belles prompts (yep, you've got 13 1/2 years of cards to choose from). Be sure to link to the card that inspired you and tell us the selective edits you made to the design.

Here is how we inspired one another.

Stephanie says, "For my inspiration, I chose this Masculine Card that Lauren made in May 2022.

Lauren's Inspiration Card

I used a different Penny Black Across the Miles Masterpieces Made Simple (mine is horizontal vs. vertical) and added different Eyelet Outlet Brads (a cardinal in the tree branch and a poinsettia by the sentiment for a bit more red in the design).  I also chose to use a different color to frame my sentiment than the frame for my Masterpiece, and added a strip of white glitter paper for a vertical element."

Stephanie's Card

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Lauren says, "For my inspiration, believe it or not, with NO IDEA what Stephanie had chosen or made, I picked I this card of Stephanie's from July of 2022, which in an amazing, totally coincidental, example of magnificent mindmelding, ALSO features a Penny Black Masterpieces Made Simple illustrated panel!!!

Stephanie's Inspiration Card

"I didn't have the exact same Penny Black illustration, but I did have three other horizontally oriented ones from various Masterpieces Made Simple sets (hilariously including the illustration Stephanie used this week!) so rather than try to choose my favorite, I decided to make three cards this week. I used a different style of Eyelet Outlet Fancy Bling, but luckily it was long enough to cover all three cards, though I couldn't quite take it to the edge. I added very skinny mats in a shimmery cream cardstock and chose to put the sentiments on top of the panels instead of beneath."

Lauren's Card(s)

Remember, you can choose ANY Jingle Belles card(s) by Stephanie or Lauren from our entire 13+ year history, just be sure to link to the inspiration card(s) and tell us what your "selective" edits are. Link them right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, September 11th. Keyword is JB2418.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Vintage Virtuosity

We loved seeing ALL of the amazing cards in the Spirit of Christmas Past Readers' Gallery, so if you haven't scrolled through them yet, we definitely recommend having a look. Meanwhile, here are three cards that especially caught our eye:

LeAnne Pugliese of Wee Inklings

...chose traditional colors, an elegantly worn background, and an utterly gorgeous Father Christmas image to make what might be the ultimate vintage-style holiday card!

Majda of Majdinustvarjalninemir

...combined the sweetest vintage snowpeople with a palette of earthtones, lots of perfectly considered distressing, and a wisp of beautiful fabric to make heart-shaped card we LOVE!

Loopyloo of Loopyloo Cards

...cleverly used layers of one of the COOLEST washi tapes we've ever seen to create her focal image, which she has framed, matted and added a sentiment!

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And now to award that fun little Vintage Christmas Assortment from Lauren's Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff! The random number generator has chosen... Lucky #16 which means that Bonnie Lynn is our lucky winner. Bunny, please send your snail mail info to llaurenb (@) hotmail (dot) com and we'll get that on its way ASAP!

We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope will give you a CASE of inspiration! ;) 

An Old-Fashioned Holiday

We're still celebrating a vintage/retro holiday vibe and since there's a nice little prize of holiday vintage goodies from Lauren's Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff, you might like to join the fun by making a new holiday card featuring vintage or vintage-inspired items or a theme/graphics that feel vintage to you. 

Scroll down to the original Spirit of Christmas Past post to link your cards and get a look at the prize.

 Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week my card is composed of nearly all genuine vintage and found papers, similar to those that are in the Deluxe Christmas Assortments in my Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff; in fact, the reason I started my shop was because I had collected such an extensive stash of goodies, it seemed like I should probably try to share a few of those, lol. For my card, I made a largely random collage of vintage text paper and sheet music, though I confess that I did take care to let the title of "The Holly and the Ivy" have a prominent position. A bit of foliage cut from a vintage illustration and some lovely torn Christmas seals from 1957 complete the background, which I lightly edged with Antique Linen Distress Ink and matted on both red and white cardstock before machine stitching around the perimeter. The handsome cardinal is from a piece of giftwrap I saved last December; I backed it with plain white cardstock before fussy-cutting, then popped it up on a bit of foam tape for extra dimension."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I found this vintage holiday card at an estate sale.  I die cut the poinsettia image from the front of the card, and then I stamped the Savvy Stamps Happy Holidays Block on the back of the card and die cut it with a circle.  I added some gold thread using the current Atlantic Hearts Sketch."

The Spirit of Christmas Past

This week we're celebrating the Spirit of Christmas Past … which means creating a card with a vintage design. 

That could mean incorporating actual vintage elements, using new products that have a vintage style, or using stamps or images that convey a vintage 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 random cardmaker who links-up their vintage-inspired design.

Here's how we brought on the Spirit of Christmas Past this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went to my vintage drawers and pulled out all sorts of bits to create my glue-as-I-go collage.  I started with a vintage hymnal page of a Christmas Carol (which ended-up almost completely obscured when I was done).  There are vintage trading stamps, a vintage hand-written cake recipe, a vintage dictionary page, a vintage holiday stamp, a translucent lily and lots of Tim Holtz vintage-y bits.  I finished my stamping a few sentiments from Tim's Stampendous Tiny Text Christmas."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "This week, I elected to go use new (well, new-ish, lol) commercial products that have a vintage/retro flair. My journal card and patterned papers are Authentique, the sentiment is Simple Stories and those luscious velvet holly leaves are absolutely ancient 7 Gypsies. I did lots of distressed edges and a bit of machine stitching to add to the worn, old-fashioned feeling."

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And now how about a peek at that prize from Just Enough Stuff?

It's a Deluxe Christmas Assortment featuring 20+ different sheets of vintage and found holiday-themed papers; including sheet music, text, children's illustrations, recipes, and much more. Use the originals as is or scan and re-size them for perfect card-sized embellishments!

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Link your vintage-inspired or retro-centric holiday cards RIGHT HERE by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, August 28th. Keyword is JB2417.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

We Love Leftovers!

Clearly we are not the only crafters who save scraps, swap diecuts and stamp things, then fail to use them. Equally clearly we are not the only cardmakers who value the opportunity to sift through those lovely unused items and make them into beautiful holiday cards. 

Brenda B of Brenda's Scraps of Life

...happened upon an orphaned journal card, some pretty diecuts and even a stamped-but-unused sentiment; then used them to whip up this lovely confection of a card!

Marina of My Perfect Life

...cleverly took some of her leftovers along on vacation and used them to make a discarded fancy-fold with pretty paper panels into this adorable interactive greeting!

Barbara G of Barb's Creative Corner

...made this adorable and vibrant card entirely from items in the (temporarily) discarded pile... even that super-cute owl was already stamped, colored and fussycut!

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, there were some incredibly inspiring cards, so if you haven't scrolled through the Leftovers Readers' Gallery, we highly recommend the trip. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope will inspire some good old-fashioned creativity!

Raiding the Refrigerator (or Craft Stash)

We're still creating with Holiday Leftovers at Jingle Belles this week ... remember we want to see you use all of those little crafty leftovers that you saved because they were too pretty to throw away or recycle. 

Here how we raided our crafty stashes this week to create our holiday cards:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Periodically, I get in the mood to make this sort of quiltish, paper-pieced strip backgrounds, so I'll make a bunch, use a few, put the rest aside, and... forget all about them, lol. So in a way, this is a story about DOUBLE leftovers, because the background itself was made from offcut strips; and then it, too, became a leftover! On top of the background I've got a blue patterned paper offcut from last week's card; some poinsettias embossed with Ranger's Red Glitter Embossing Powder; the last three brads from an ancient My Mind's Eye brad set; and a glossy red metallic Cut-plorations' Jingle Bells diecut. I added all of the above to a white A6 card, machine-stitched around the whole thing... et voila!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I went back the same pile of leftovers on my studio table, and I was thrilled to be able to put together a second card using-up most of my leftovers and a teal card base.  I was so glad I found a home for that cute little Polar Bear.  I finished with some red bling and a Hello Bluebird Typed Christmas Sentiment."

Holiday Leftovers

One of our favorite things about the holiday meal is the leftovers... maybe you enjoy a little stuffing and cranberry sauce on your ham sandwich; or eating sweet potatoes topped with pecans and  marshmallows for breakfast.

So this fortnight, we're celebrating Holiday Leftovers by creating cards using all of those little leftover pieces of papers, alphabet letters, stickers, ribbon; you know, all those things we've saved somewhere because they were just too lovely to throw away or recycle. Well, now we want you to retrieve a few and use them to make some fun holiday leftover cards.  

Here's how we created with our Leftovers this week.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "This card was made from all of the leftovers I had sitting on my studio table (pile shown on my blog).  I loved how the bits leftover from several of my last few holiday cards worked together to form this ultra-layered design.  I was even able to find a *sentiment* from one of the scraps."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My batch of leftovers (you can see them on my blog) consisted of an already paper-pieced version of Spellbinders' Snowman Hugs die set; a background where I stamped and masked with several different Wendy Vecchi background stamps and her gorgeous Leaf Green Archival Ink; a few paper strips that had been border-punched; and the de-bossed side of a panel of green cardstock on which I had inked the em-bossed side... but then not liked it. All I had to do to make the leftovers into the card was round the corners on the two panels, add another layer of patterned paper, and machine-stitch around the edges. Easy, peasy!"

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This "Holiday Leftovers" challenge runs until 6pm (Eastern) on the evening of Wednesday, August 14th. Keyword for galleries, etc, is JB2416.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Dashing Through the Snow (Wrap-Up)

Many thanks to everyone who played along in our special Christmas in July crossover with the Double Trouble Challenge Blog, including the Double Trouble Design Team whose cards are incredibly inspiring. It you haven't had a change to check out the Readers' Gallery here at Jingle Belles and also at Double Trouble, we highly recommend the trip. Meanwhile, here are a few SNOWY masterpieces that especially caught our eye:

Lia of Lia's Design

...constructed a beautifully intricate and detailed snowy landscape scene with a fully functioning window and a sleigh-load of vintage style!

Jacinda of Lazzie J's Crafting Corner

...has completely mastered the art of "flat layers"! By virtue of foiling, ink blending, masking and stamping she's created an impressively dimensional-looking scene, that's entirely postal-friendly!

Jeanne J of A Kept Life

...proves that snowy cards can totally embrace lots of BRIGHT colors; while incidentally also presenting perhaps the best ever version we've seen of the Postal Collage trend!

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Now we need to know where our fun little snowy prize pack will be heading off to! 

The Random Number Generator has chosen... 

Lucky Number 16 

which means that Susan Sudbury of Eden Land Designs is our lucky winner!

Congrats, Susan, if you'll send your snail mail info to llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com those goodies will be on their way ASAP!

Stay tuned because we'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we think you'll find especially useful right after all the wonderful Christmas in July festivities we enjoyed this summer!