BLING on the Holidays!

This fortnight we're celebrating (...you may have guessed it from the title...) BLING! All you need to do is make a card featuring jewels, gems, beads, pearls, glitter, stickles, or anything sparkly and join the fun by adding it with the Linky tool at the bottom of this post.

Meanwhile, here's how we're BLING-ing it this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "Bling is the perfect way to decorate a Christmas Tree, especially this three layer Kaleidoscope Christmas Tree die cut set from Spellbinders.  I cut the bottom layer of my tree from white glitter paper for even more sparkle.  And for a bit more shine, I topped the tree & die cut the My Favorite Things PEACE Die-Namics sentiment from Concord & 9th Champagne Foil Paper.

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've had these Bling Snowflakes from the big box store for aggggggggges, so I was determined to use them for this prompt. I found a funky gel print made (at some un-remembered time, lol) by using an ancient Darice snowflake embossing folder to remove paint from the plate. I added some older Tim Holtz metallic rub-on transfers to enhance the holiday theme. My sentiment and mat are white glitter cardstock and the finished card is an A6."

♥♥♥

JB2505: BLING on the Holidays runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, March 12th. Link your beautiful BLING-centric card(s) right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Clearly Awesome

Clear elements can be challenging to work with, but the Midnight Clear Readers' Gallery (clearly!) proves that the effect is worth the effort! Here are three cards that caught our eye this fortnight:

Jolanda Johnstone of The Inque Spot Studio

...layered vellum squares over her elegant trio of candle images, giving them a soft nostalgic feeling that works perfectly with her traditional red and green palette!

Beverly Sizemore aka @bevscreativepath on Instagram

...pressure embossed an alphabet folder on a piece of clear acetate (bonus points for upcycling a piece of packaging!) enhancing the sweet scene of  critters mailing letters to Santa!

Renate of Made by Renate

...made a BEARY cute shaker card that's got so much dimension, texture and charm it's practically a gift all on its own!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every card! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will BLING on your holiday creativity!

CLEAR-ly Christmas

We're still creating cards with transparent and/or translucent items (think vellum, acetate, lucite) if you can see the light through it, it works.

Here's how we were CLEAR-ly Christmas this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I love Sunny Studio's Build a Tag #2 Die Set and that's what I used to make the tags and reinforcers on this pair of A2 cards. I punched square windows into the tags, backed them with scraps of clear acetate, and made a little winter scene with Eyelet Outlet Glitter Tree Tape, Sparkle White Glitter Tape hills and Snowflake Sequins. I finished off with Snowflake Brads and Penguins or Snowy Trees; then added tag-shaped mats and panels adorned with Glitter Tall Tree Tape, sticker sentiments and a few more sequins. Gotta love an easy two-fer, right?"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a Dina Wakley Pattern Play Media transparency, which I painted on the back with Dylusions Shimmer Paint.  Next I use puffy stickers to build a little scene on top (and give me places to use adhesive to attach the transparency to my card).  I finished with a die cut sentiment from Concord & 9th Jolly Holiday Greetings.

Remember, you have until 6pm EST on Wednesday, February 19th to link-up your CLEAR creations.

It Came Upon a Midnight CLEAR

This fortnight at we're asking you to make a holiday card that contains at least one see-through element. 

It can be a glass embellishment, an acrylic transparency, some vellum, acetate or "ghost" shapes, clear stickers, Lucite buttons, shrink plastic... whatever you like. If you can see through it (AND figure out how to attach it to your card) put it on there and link it up!

Here's how we were CLEAR-ly inspired this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started my card with this weeks Sketch Saturday layout and a lovely clear piece of Hambly Screen Printed lace.  Then, as I was working through the rest of the Sketch elements, I realized I could turn the Tim Holtz Ephemera Tag Box into a shaker if I added some clear acetate, so my card for this week is a CLEAR-ly a two-fer."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I still have a fun little stash of the late great Hambly Screen Prints transparencies, which are so thick and sturdy you actually can make a card base out of them and build your entire design on top. Fair warning: however well a transparency card comes out IRL, it will be VERY hard to photograph (as you can see) but other than that, I'm pleased with this one. I used nearly an entire sheet of Hero Arts' Holiday Messages Rub-on Transfers and three out of four ancient dimensional snowman stickers from the big box store. I added a plain white diecut panel inside the card (see the pic on my blog) for writingon, but realized belatedly that the front is so transparent, I might add another panel to the back of the card and add my personal greeting that way."

♥♥♥

And now it's time to start planning what YOU will make, then link it up right here! JB2504: It Came Upon a Midnight CLEAR runs until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, February 26th. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

In Great Shape!

There are some amazing cards in the Shape Up Readers' Gallery, so if you haven't yet taken a little scroll for inspiration, we highly recommend the trip. Meanwhile, here are just a few that especially caught our eye:

Fabiola of Mon P'tit Monde

...constructed an beautiful winterscape as a clever (reverse) J-shaped side-step card; which has so much dimension and interest, this is basically a piece of decor rather than just a card!

ArtMBR

...made perhaps the most elegant (and sparkly!) round card EVER in black, white and gold; and reminded us how much we love the classic round card design!

Wendy of Cartai

...drove her perfectly pieced and shaded vintage VW Beetle car (with holiday tree on top) straight into our shaped-card loving hearts!

♥♥♥

A big giant heart-shaped THANK YOU to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every single card! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new challenge that we hope you'll deem to be CLEARLY inspiring! ;)

Holiday Shape Up

It's the second week of "Shaping Up for the Holidays" so we're still making SHAPED cards and you're still invited to join the fun! Here's how we got in shape this week: 

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I found a cute clipart hat online, printed a couple of copies on plain white cardstock so I could cut it into a pattern; then paper-pieced the hat, brim and bobble using two sizes of Lawn Fawn's Knit Picky papers. I had been planning to adorn the brims with brads, but stumbled upon these fun Doodlebug enamel leaves and berries and just like that, my choice was made!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I let this fun Anna Griffin layered sleigh die do all of the shaped-card work for me this week.  I cut the base from gold metallic cardstock and the sleigh from red.  I paper pieced two shades of green cardstock for the presents and then used the outline to cut my card base & the inside of the card.  The finishing touches were a chipboard sentiment and chipboard snowflake from Thickers."

♥♥♥

All the details (and the Linky tool) for joining our Jingle Belles Shape Up fun are on the original post, which is HERE. This challenge wraps up on Wednesday evening, February 12th.

Shape Up for the Holidays

Since January is often the time for healthy resolutions, we figured it was a good time to start Shaping-Up for the Holidays, which means we're making shaped cards … anything other than a square or rectangle will do.

Here are the shapes we chose this week:

Stephanie's Shaped Card

Stephanie says, "I thought these Jumbo tag dies from Scrapbook.com would make a fun card.  I used two sizes and some handmade papers I made in an online collage paper class ... they use acrylic paint and water splatter (the bigger tag) and a rolling gum ball in a box with gold paint (the smaller one).  Then I die cut the Concord & 9th Ornament Inlay die from a darker pink cardstock and backed it with a lighter pink paper.  I added a gold metallic ornament topper and some pearlescent gems to finish the design.  The sentiment is from Concord & 9th Big on Christmas."

Lauren's Shaped Card

Lauren says, "I confess to not being the most adventurous shaped-card-maker, I tend to do the same shapes-- for which I've made handcut templates-- over and over. This bauble is a fave, as you can see, lol. But then, the combination of a classic ornament shape with well-hoarded Basic Grey holiday papers is too good to resist, imo! This time I added a Scrapaholics laser-cut wooded pine cone sprig tinted with Distress Oxides, a few ancient Imaginisce velvet flowers and a tassel. job done!"

♥♥♥

Link your newly made SHAPED holiday cards right here! JB2503: Shape Up for the Holidays runs until 6pm EST on Wednesday, February 12th.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Colorful Candy Christmas Cards

So many clever, creative and colorful takes on our Candy Christmas photo inspiration challenge; you guys always make it so hard to just choose three! We highly recommend a scroll through the entire Readers' Gallery, but in the meantime here are a few cards that caught our eye: 

Helen of Made by Helen

...zoomed in on a single element-- the red and white striped candy canes-- and made them (plus a perfectly chosen chunky sentiment) the star of her card!

Brenda B of Brenda's Scraps of Life

...cleverly reproduced the basic elements of the room in the photo: a fireplace complete with red and blue stockings, a white tree with pastel ornaments, lots of presents and a soft blue wall treatment. Fabulous!

Cindy Major posting on IG as @encrepapierciseaux

...made a beautifully colorful pastel nutcracker the centerpiece of her design; then surrounded him with candy and sparkles for a card we're still smiling about!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing your creative takes on the Candy Christmas inspiration photo. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will help you SHAPE your next holiday card!

Hard Candy Christmas

We're still taking our inspiration for our holiday cards this week from the fun Candy Christmas inspiration from Turtlecreek Lane.

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I remain fixated on the tree and the candy, lol. This week I approached it in a more abstract way, with a subtle peppermint(ish) background and LOTS of bauble(ish) shapes. I used the soft blue wall coloring to make my chunky sentiment stand out, giving the lertters a white drop-shadow for more emphasis."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with my fun little bunny image from Pretty Little Studio Christmas Cheer, which reminded me of the fun little Grinch Doggie Max who was in the photo.  I loved how he was wearing the light blue that was similar to the walls in the photo, that he had a stocking like the ones lining the fireplace, and that there was a Candy Cane included.  I die cut two papers to create my little scene and added some Pretty Little Studio Sugar Plum A Stitch in Time Stitches Stickers.  Next, I added the pile of gifts and the circle sentiment, which were also Pretty Little Studio ephemera.  I added a frame of the blue to tie in the night shirt and the walls in the image to finish the card."

Remember, you have until 6pm EST on Wednesday, January 29th to link-up your photo-inspiration card.

Candy Christmas

It's a fabulous photo inspiration this fortnight at Jingle Belles, so we're asking you to create a holiday card (or cards!) inspired by this fun Candy Cane Christmas image from Turtlecreek Lane. 

You can use as many or as few aspects of the photo as you'd like: maybe you love the the white tree smothered in ornaments; or the red and blue stockings could be your fave; perhaps you'd just like to create a mantel with stockings and decor; or you might adore that handsome Nutcracker. Anything and everything in the pic is fair game, just make sure you let us know what part(s) of the photo inspired you.

Here's how we were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "For this week's card, I was really drawn to the fun colors and all of the white space in the room.  I stamped and die cut the Concord & 9th Big on Christmas Merry & Bright Sentiment.  Next I cut 1/4" strips of the four primary colors that I saw in the image.  I finished with fun Doodlebug Designs Candy Cane Lane puffy stickers of candy and other holiday images."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I was immediately drawn to the photo's gorgeous white tree, smothered in candy-themed, candy-colored ornaments, so luckily I remembered that I still had stickers left from Doodlebug's Candy Cane Lane collection of a few years ago. I employed one of my oldest dies (Sizzix's Christmas Tree #2) to cut a tree shape from white cardstock, then spent an enjoyable half hour adding pastel candy canes, gum drops and hearts, plus some tiny pearls, before adding lots of colorful presents under the tree. I made my background a soft blue similar to the wall in the inspo photo and added another mat of red and blue as a little salute to those bold stockings."

Link up your own photo inspiration greetings right here. JB2502: Candy Christmas will run until 6pm (Eastern) on January 29, 2025.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Old Friends, New Friends!

How exciting to see so many cards in the Readers' Gallery for the first challenge of the year, "Something Old... Something New"; especially since we're seeing lots of Jingle Belles veterans, as well as plenty of new folks joining in. Our fifteenth season may actually be the most fun ever, and we thank you for coming along to play. Here are a few cards that especially caught our eye; though it was definitely a tough assignment to only pick three!

Marja of Marja's Scrapfun

...cleverly combined old and new reindeer images to make this beautifully striking card with a gorgeous color palette of soft blue, tan, brown and white!

Liz Williams of Old Right Brain Madness

...is showing off two especially lovely new stencils with which she has used her good old Distress Oxide Inks and a classic diecut sentiment to make an amazing floral design that is also triumphantly mail-able!

Jo of Jo Blogs

...says that bauble stamp is so old it no longer has its backing sheet, but it still stamps perfectly and pairs extremely well with the cat and sentiment she's combined from two new stamp sets. It's not every crafter who can "make a scene" as adorable as this one!

♥♥♥

Again, we say THANK YOU very much to all who played, ALL of your cards are wonderful, and we genuinely enjoyed seeing each and every one. We're off to a great start for the year, so let's keep going. Yo that end, we'll be back at midnight with a brand new challenge with some eye candy we hope will inspire your next holiday card! 

In with the NEW (and OLD)

We're still creating with something new that you got for Christmas ... together with something old that you have in your stash.

Here's how we created with the OLD and the NEW this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "In November, I was lucky enough to win a gift card from Sunny Studio Stamps in the Coffee Loving Papercrafters' Fall/Winter Blog Hop, and the very first thing I chose was their adorable Holiday Hugs set, because I just LOVE that bear! I was already planning my card when I saw that January's Caffeinated Christmas Card Challenge was "Snowflake" so I went sifting through my snowy patterned papers and found this scrap of ancient green and white that I think was from My Mind's Eye's Bohemian collection (that's going back a bit, eh?!) and which just happened to have the perfect spot to place a coffee- or cocoa drinking bear. I paper-pieced his knitted scarf and adorned the cup with an Eyelet Outlet Polar Bear Brad; then built in a few extra layers of soft green, tan and brown... all from older collections... before adding a sentiment from the stamp set and a few extra glittery snowflakes using a tiny die that was included as an "extra" with my Sunny Studio prize!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Santa Stephanie gave me this adorable Echo Park Chilling with my Snowmies paper collection.  I couldn't resist pairing it with the fun Eyelet Outlet Holiday Coffee Cups Brads that I always have in my stash - which is also perfect for the Caffeinated Christmas Coffee & Snowflakes challenge.  I finished with a Happy Holiday sentiment from my often used Impress Holiday Words."

Our Jingle Belles Something Old, Something New challenge (JB2501) runs until next Wednesday evening, January 15th. Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one) to see the Readers' Gallery and link up your own OLD + NEW masterpiece(s)!

Something Old ... Something New

Hello and welcome to the 2025 Jingle Belles season! If you've played along in other years, we're happy you've come back; if you're brand new to Jingle Belles, then we're excited that you've found us. Our mission... (we are Stephanie and Lauren, btw!) ...is to make at least ONE holiday card per week between now and December 1st. Thus we will be heading into the festive month with 48+ unique holiday cards. (Woohoo!)

There aren't many rules around here. We post a new theme every other Friday. You may link as many NEW holiday cards that fit the current theme. You don't need to commit to playing every fortnight; just join us when you can. Oh and we absolutely insist you have FUN!

For our first cardmaking prompt of our 15th year of Jingle Belles Mayhem, we're asking you to create a holiday card that features something OLD and something NEW. 

For example, combine an item (or two) that you've had in your stash for some time with some of the new goodies that Santa brought you for Christmas (or maybe you were you're 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♥ and we know you've got lots of goodies in your stash. Be sure to tell us what your OLD and NEW items are in your blog or social media post!

Here's how we combined our Old & New this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I was doing some cleaning and organizing in my stash, and I found this *old* but never used Vicki Boutin Wrapped in Ribbons paper pad, so that rectangle with the tree & holly leaves was my starting point.  Next I added lots of new products from Pretty Little Studio that Santa Stephanie got for me (the large circle sentiment, racoon and my favorite stitching stickers).  Then I added a few things from my Spellbinders Crafty Advent Calendar (the bird on the tree and the holiday cheer banner).  Before I attached the pieces to my black card base, I added a red strip from one of my *old* Gelliarts prints, and then I finished with a Merry & Bright stamp from the *old* but again, never used, stamps set Wordfetti Holly Jolly from scrapbook.com.  I had so much fun putting this all together."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I treated myself to Simon Hurley's Sketched Snowmen Stamp Set just after the 2024 JB season wrapped up, so of course it was the NEW thing I was dying to use. For my OLD selections I've pulled out my White Ranger Embossing Powder and all my favorite blue Distress Inks to make an "old favorite" technique of emboss/resist; used my ancient Nestabilities frame dies and some tiny Eyelet Outlet 1/16" Round Brads from years ago to hold the sentiment. There's some glittery Frosted Lace Stickles on the torn paper snow, as well, which didn't show up in the photo but is nicely sparkly IRL."

♥♥♥

So what's next? Make one or more new holiday cards featuring Something Old and Something New and remember to tell us what your items are in your blog or social media post. Link said card(s) right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, January 15th. Oh yeah and remember to HAVE FUN making, as well as thinking about how stress-free your December will be!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter