Stuck on You

We're celebrating STICKERS this fortnight, one of the first types of embellishments we started collecting early in our cardmaking days; and a crafty must-have that we both still absolutely adore. We're guessing that, like us, you have a little stash of holiday stickers you could raid for this challenge; whether they are fun little 3-D images, or sentiment strips, or even your favorite holiday washi tape will work. Whatever your sticker/ stick-on choice, break them out and use them on your holiday cards!

Here's how we stuck to it this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I recently picked-up Simple Stories Snow Pine Lodge paper collection that included a sheet of lovely stickers.  I adorned the top of my journaling card with a flower cluster sticker and added a sentiment sticker framed by holly leaves stickers.  I added more tumbling leaves and branches and finished with a candy cane.  I just love this unexpected color combination."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Probably my most hoarded stickers are the Basic Grey alphabet sheets that came with all of their holiday collection packs back in the day. It's not that I didn't use them at the time, or in the meantime; but nevertheless I've amassed a bit of a collection... though admittedly not all of them still have any vowels left. So this week I decided to mix and match several colorways to make a fun texty background for my card. Then I added some nice big ornament stickers from BG's Figgy collection, a mat of red, and some machine stitching around the edges et voila!"

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JB2618: Stuck on You runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, September 9th. We cannot wait to see what you'll make with STICKERS!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Magnificent Masculine Merriment

Some People (like Lauren!) struggle with masculine card designs, but the past fortnight proves that quite a few crafters totally have this whole genre covered, and they've linked holiday "guy cards" which prove this point quite conclusively. So if you haven't checked out the Readers' Gallery yet, we highly recommend a little scroll through all of the fine inspiration. In the meantime, here are three cards that especially caught our eye:

Jolanda Johnstone of The Inque Spot Studio

...combined the perfect patterned paper with lots of texture and a truly outstanding sketch layout to make a masculine card that rocks on SO MANY levels!

Leslie M of L Rose Creates

...assembled a penguin Dream Team who are very definitely ready to help you celebrate RIGHT NOW! The Penguin Leader is paper-pieced, then popped up on a wobbler for even greater joy!

Lorraine A of Lorraine's Loft

...chose the handsomest of House Mice, colored him beautifully, and then added matted panels of several different patterned papers which coordinate perfectly AND help tell the story that sweet stamp started.

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And now it's time to find out whose home that sweet Doodlebug "Winter Wonderland" stamp set will be heading off to. The Random Number Generator has selected... Lucky Number 6! Which means that Michele F of I Card Everyone is our Lucky Winner! Congrats, Michele, please send your snamil m,il info to llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com and we'll get those sweet Yetis on their way ASAP!

Many thanks to all who participated. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt and we hope you'll STICK with us for that! ;)

More Masculine Merriment

We're in our second week of making "Guy Cards" here at Jingle Belles, by which we mean holiday cards with a masculine vibe.

Here are our contributions to Masculine Merriment this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This card is 99% composed of gorgeous vintage-themed elements from Tim Holtz's Idea-ology Christmas Emporium Layers, a curated collection of elements that I snagged on the Ranger website. I've added in a few paper scraps, some twine, and woodgrain background. I distressed the edges of literally every single piece, which  which might arguably be considered "too much" but it was quite relaxing and soothing to do, so there's that."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "When I thought about potential masculine themes, I thought it would be fun to incorporate a card ... and thankfully, right on top of my yet-to-be-used pile was this adorable Snowman Reindeer Car from Cottage Cutz.  I had fun piecing it all together on top of a hexagon die cut from one of my Gelliarts prints on top of foiled All That Sparkles paper by Lawn Fawn.  I added a sentiment from Waffle Flower Classic Holiday Sentiments."

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JB2617: Masculine Merriment runs until the evening of next Wednesday, August 26th. Link your newly made, holiday "guy cards" on the original Masculine Merriment post; directly below this one.

Masculine Merriment

The next prompt for you at Jingle Belles is Masculine Merriment. We're asking you to create a holiday card for the men in your life … might be your Dad, Brother, Boyfriend, Husband, Uncle, Co-Worker, Mail Carrier or any other man in your life who deserves a special holiday card.

Here are our masculine creations for this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I decided holly is the perfect masculine holiday greenery, so I built my card around it using the Wrapped in Ribbons papers from American Crafts by Vicki Boutin.  I framed the focal element in black cardstock ... it features several masculine elements including an ink rings, spatters and a graphic holiday tree made of strips.  I stamped the Savvy Happy Holidays Block sentiment in black and positioned it over one of the black strips in the tree using foam tape."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've had Doodlebug's Winter Wonderland stamps for several years, and I really don't use them enough... and just LOOK how cute that yeti is! I found two inky embossed backgrounds in my "leftovers" box and they seemed perfect for this card. The paper with the trees is Pebbles I think (and ancient!); and the tiny 1/16" Round Brads are from Eyelet Outlet. Historically, I've found the masculine card genre very challenging, but I think I did ok with this one!"

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If you love YETIS as much as we do, here's a fun little prize that one lucky, randomly-selected cardmaker who links up with us this fortnight will score:

Yep, it's a brand-new, unopened copy of Doodlebug's Winter Wonderland stamp set, and it's YETI to Party!

♥♥♥

  JB2617: Masculine Merriment runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, August 26th, and you can link as many newly-made MASCULINE cards as you'd like to before that time!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Tic-Tac-Toe Triumph

Possibly the only thing more fun than playing Treeskirt Tic-Tac-Toe is seeing the amazingly creative ways our fellow Belles have used the Tic-Tac-Toe Board to inspire their beautiful cards. Every single one is worth a closer look, so we highly suggest a scroll through the Readers' Gallery, but in the meantime, here are three that especially caught our eye: 

Jenn Borjeson of StampinAngelJenn

...didn't just rock the Tic-Tac-Toe board in ONE direction, she's got two complete rows (die cut/red or green, heat embossing on the diagonal; and heat embossing, ribbon + stamping going down) as well as a boatload of  adorability and style!

Trina of Phamtastic Design

...also pulled off an impressive double play... on a CAS card (top row - snowman, glitter/bling, dry/heat embossing & bottom row - die cut/punch, santa, stamping) and made our jaws drop by virtue of her fabulous stamping, masking and coloring skills!

Crystal O. Minkler of Tawny Owl Paperie

...took the board straight down the middle with Glitter + Red or Green + Santa; then gave us the best and most elegant version of all three!

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Special Note:

If you LOVE holiday card challenges as much as we do, please be sure to check out our friend Jo Avery's fun, fresh and fab Christmas Kickstart Challenge where the current theme is FRIENDSHIP and we (Lauren and Stephanie) are honored to be the Guest Elves!

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Many thanks to all who played along, truly every card linked up was an emphatic winner of this fun Tic-Tac-Toe game! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new challenge we hope will prove to be a manly splendored thing! ;) 

Saint Nick-Tac-Toe

We're still playing a game of Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe this week; here's a reminder of what the board looks like:.

Here is how we played the game this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I chose the right-hand vertical column, which gave me: Dry or Heat Embossing + Ribbon + Stamping. I'll admit I did that partially because I unexpectedly rediscovered my Dina Wakley Soaring embossing folder and once I saw it, I HAD TO use it immediately. My ribbon is of the gorgeous, pink, semi-sheer May Arts variety (which I think you'll agree stages really well!) And finally, my stamping is just the sentiment (from Taylored Expressions' Flip the Snowflake set) but I chalked up a second type of embossing by using Ranger's lovely Pink e/p. I diecut Hero Arts' Snowflake Corner twice (from pale pink and also silver glitter cardstock) and added a single Eyelet Outlet 1.5" Snowflake Bling to give it even more sparkle."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the BYSH Cardmakers Sketch and decided to go diagonal down from the top left side with dry embossing, red/green and a die cut.  I used the Penny Black Geometric Embossing Folder for my wavy panel (using the debossed side) and then I die cut using a stitched hilly landscape die on each side.  I used a red and green color palette featuring a Penny Black Woodland Splendor Stickeroo image (for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge Things with Wings) and finished with some enamel dots and a stamped Penny Black Banner sentiment."

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Scroll down to the original Tic-Tac-Toe post to link your card(s) today!

Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe

This fortnight, we're playing Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe, which is a bit like "Beach Blanket Bingo"... but much more Christmassy... and with a lot more embellishments! We'd love for you to join us; all you have to do is pick a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and create a lovely new holiday card featuring all three elements in that row. (Please note that you can, of course, use more than one snowman, more than one diecut, etc. etc.)

Sound like fun? We thought so! Here's how we played the game this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went with vertical down the left side with a Snowman Die and a Flower adorning her cute little cap.  Dies and Stamps are all Memory Box with one of my woodgrain Gelliarts prints used for the arms ... and of course, I never pass up and opportunity for googly eyes."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I chose the center horizonal row, which gave me: Flowers + Red or Green + Ribbon. I couldn't wait to use my new Simon Hurley Festive Holly Layering Stencil set for the "red or green" portion; I used Simon's Iced Out and Tropical Tango Stellar Inks for the holly leaves and stems, with Prom Queen for the berries. My "flowers" consist of the single white silk poinsettia I had left, stacked with two layers of Tim Holtz's Tattered Poinsettia die, which I cut from deep pink felt and held on with an ancient holly themed brad. For "ribbon" I used two different patterns from an older set of Doodlebug Design holiday ribbons. At the very end I sewed around the perimeter (those ribbons are ON THERE lol!) and added a couple of mulberry paper ivy leaves of unknown origin."

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JB2616: Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe runs until 6pm (Eastern) on the evening of Wednesday, August 12th. Link your totally terrific Tic-Tac-Toe cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Unicorn Magic

We had so much fun creating cards with the fun Unicorn Holiday color palette, and we're glad to see that you did, too! Every single entry is most definitely worth a look, so we recommend scrolling back to the original post and checking out the FAB Readers' Gallery. In the meantime, here are three cards that especially caught our eye this time: 

Meghan of Made by Meghan K

...used all of the colors, not to mention an amazing selection of adorable patterns; with an extra award for terrific coloring skills!

Cindy Major aka @encrepapierciseaux on Instagram

...not only used all the colors from the board in this super-detailed nutcracker diecut, she also managed to combine several different challenges very impressively!

Charmaine Stack of Tweedcurtain Productions

...creatively blended three of the colors to make the sky behind her handsome snowpeople look like the Aurora Borealis; bonus points for an excellent take on the postage craze!

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Many thanks to all who played along, we hope you loved this fun palette as much as we did. We'll be back with a brand new prompt at Midnight... when we'll let the games begin! ;)

Unicorn Colors Christmas

This week we're still asking you to create a holiday card using at least three of the colors from our Unicorn Holiday graphic. You can also be inspired by the image, but it's not required!  Neutrals (brown, black, white, kraft) are also allowed. 

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I couldn't decide between recreating Stephanie's amazing card from last week or using my new Simon Hurley create Tangled Lights Layering Stencil Set; so I did a bit of both! I used Simon's Inks for the lights; and a set of nested dies to make the four graduated circles from Stephanie's design. I considered a yeti... or a narwhal... even Hello Kitty; but in the end I chose the snow person in Simon's North Pole Sentiments set from Spellbinders, and had fun dressing him up using scraps from the same colors of cardstock that make up the circles."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I cut cardstock from four of the colors into 3/4" strips for my angled card base.  I used the fifth color for Santa's hat and the stamping ink.  I'm also linking-up my card up at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers X is for Xmas in July, since I believe Simon Says Stamp Santa Man dies paired with sentiments from CZ Design's Sassy Christmas are the perfect snarky fun."

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Scroll down to the original post to link your Unicorn Holiday cards.

Unicorn Holiday

This fortnight we're asking you to create a card that is made using at least three of the colors from this fun Unicorn Christmas color palette from Artsy Fartsy Life (your card does not have to be inspired by the image, but certainly can be as long as it includes at least three of the five colors) … additional neutrals are allowed.

Here's how we used those colors this week.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started by using the darkest color to accessorize my adorable little Lawn Fawn Winter Yeti adding a Santa Hat from Lawn Fawn Hats Off to You (that I've embarassingly had FOR-ever and never used).  I embossed the Lawn Fawn Stitched Snowflake Backdrop on the other four colors cutting out circles for my background.  I finished with an outline Happy Holidays sentiment from Lawn Fawn Offset Sayings. I'm also linking-up this cutie at the Lawn Fawnatics Christmas in July Challenge."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I was excited to find this ancient piece of SEI "Twitterpated" striped paper which had all of the colors in the palette! Then I pulled out some pale green paper to coordinate and grabbed some diecuts and stickers from the serendipitously matching Simple Stories' Snow Pine Lodge collection. Finally I added Eyelet Outlet Poinsettia and Holly Brads for a little extra texture. Et voila!"

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JB2615: Unicorn Holiday runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, July 29th. Link your magical cards right here:  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Stars of the Stars and/or Stripes!

How fantastic to see so many gorgeous Stars OR Stripes designs in the Readers' Gallery. We thank the gang from the Double Trouble Challenge Blog for including us in their Christmas in July festivities; and Try a Sketch on Tuesday for not one, but two fabulous layouts. As always, we're grateful to our regulars for linking up such inspiring cards. Whether you've just found us or are an old friend, we hope you'll keep in mind that we post a new holiday card prompt every fortnight, January through November, and you're welcome to come and play along as often as you wish!

Now, without further ado, here are three cards that especially caught our eye:

Le Anne from Wee Inklings

...made us say, "Hooray for the red, white and GREEN!" in a big big way; we love the bold simplicity of her CAS design!

Kim Crouch of Tuff az Nailz

...included stars, stripes and SNOWFLAKES in a patriotic palette of red, white, blue and neutrals; while combining the Double Trouble Recipe and one of the great sketches from Try a Sketch on Tuesday!

Debbie B of Paws to Scrap

...stenciled a red and green peppermint stripe sky as the perfect background for her adorable reindeer-driven holiday train to traverse. Bonus points for her amazing coloring skills, too!

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Many thanks to all who participated, we loved seeing every single card. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will color you happy! ;)

Stars OR Stripes, Forever (Week 2)

It's our second week of Stars or Stripes, Forever; plus we are also the "Twisted Sister" option on the Double Trouble Challenge Blog's Christmas in July event, where there is a basic recipe: (three colors + two layers + one holiday image) required for all entries at Double Trouble. Then there's a TWIST: to add Stars and/or Stripes and also link with us here at Jingle Belles. Then there's a DARE: to use one of two sketches from Try a Sketch on Tuesday.

Remember, you only need Stars or Stripes to enter here at Jingle Belles, but if you're up for a bigger challenge, consider hopping over to Double Trouble for all the details!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I elected to attempt all of the aspects of the Double Trouble challenge. Therefore, I used one of the sketches from Try a Sketch on Tuesday; I also incorporated the basic recipe from Double Trouble: three colors (red, green and blue); two layers (blue and striped papers from Basic Grey) and one or more holiday images (a cluster of MME diecuts). And of course I've got stripes and stars (admittedly just two stars lol) for our own Jingle Belles challenge. Woohoo!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I used this week's Just Add Ink Sketch adding "stripes" of striped & star designer papers from Echo Park Happy Holidays collection.  I added one of the journaling cards that has a more traditional star on the top of the tree and finished with a favorite Catslife Press stamped sentiment."

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JB2614: Stars OR Stripes, Forever (for which you need only... as the title says... stars OR stripes!) runs until next Wednesday evening, July 15th. Link your cards on the original post (directly below this one).

Stars OR Stripes, Forever (Week 1)

Since July 4^th is Independence Day in the United States of America, this fortnight we're asking you to incorporate the USA flag elements of either stars or stripes into your card design. It doesn't need to be red, white or blue, but certainly can be… just stars or stripes (or both!) in any medium you choose.

In addition, we are also the "Twisted Sister" option on the Double Trouble Challenge Blog's Christmas in July event, where there is a basic recipe: (three colors + two layers + one holiday image) required for all entries at Double Trouble. Then there's a TWIST: to add Stars and/or Stripes and also link with us here at Jingle Belles. Then there's a DARE: to use one of two sketches from Try a Sketch on Tuesday.

Remember, you only need Stars or Stripes to enter here at Jingle Belles, but if you're up for a bigger challenge, consider hopping over to Double Trouble for all the details!

Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "Since I had my patriotic cardmaking supplies on my studio table, I decided to see what I could find to use this week.  I combined a scraps of red swirls, blue stars and blue stripes for my layout.  Then I went looking in my holiday papers and found these neutral toned tags.  I finished with red gems."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My stars and my stripes are in the form of two different (ancient!) patterned papers, the red is DCWV and the green is Carta Bella. I found half a pack of Pebbles' diecuts and made them into a cluster that connects the four staggered background panels. There are a few elderly chipboard stars courtesy of Echo Park; and the sentiment sticker is from Doodlebug."

♥♥♥

JB2614: Stars OR Stripes, Forever runs until 6pm (Eastern) on July, 15th. Link your starry and/or stripey masterpieces right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sketch Stars

Everyone did an amazing job making gorgeous cards based on Stephanie's superb sketch! If you haven't checked out the Readers' Gallery, we highly recommend a little scroll through all of the fine inspiration. In the meantime, here are three sketch cards that especially caught our eye: 

Sandy J of Adventures of a Stamping Writer

...colored this lovely image with pencils and made it her focal point; then chose just the right elements to fill in the sketch!

Fabiola of Mon P'tit Monde

...stretched the sketch into a landscape format to hold an amazingly well coordinated snow scene for her adorable critters to inhabit!

Darnell of DJKard Creations

...streamlined the sketch into a CAS masterpiece with her choice of subtle papers, a bold sentiment, and lots of breathing space for that super-cute snowman! 

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Many thanks to all who participated, we loved seeing your superb sketch cards. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt and we hope you'll flag the occasion! ;)

Merry SKETCH-mas

We're still making cards this week using this fun sketch layout:

This is how we got sketchy this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I only have a couple of Penny Black's pre-printed Masterpieces Made Simple journal cards left, but luckily one of them was landscape oriented, because I wanted to rotate the sketch this time. I found this stencil-printed piece of white on dark blue cardstock in my "ufo" box and loved the way the colors and branches sort of echoed the background of the deer illustration. I added a strip of glitter silver tape to serve as the strong line inside the sketch, and a small glittery snowflake is swapping in for the circle piece. The tiny white pearls get a little bit lost in the white branches at the bottom left, but the ones on the top right show up well. Finally I chose a Tim Holtz Idea-Ology wordfetti sticker as my sentiment, and placed it towards the top of the snowscape scene."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I wanted to use this fun tag from Simple Stories All Wrapped Up Big Bits, so I flipped the sketch on it's side.  I paired with with Simple Stories All Wrapped Up papers and a fun little Bella Boulavard St. Nick Bella-Pop 3-D sticker for the "circle" element in the sketch."

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas runs until next Wednesday evening, July 1st. Details and Linky Tool are on the original post.

'Twas The SKETCH Before Christmas

For our next holiday card prompt we're using a sketch to build our cards, designed by our very own Sketch Scholar, Stephanie!

Here's how we got sketchy this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "When I first saw the sketch, I thought of a scrapbooking journaling card as the focal image, so I opened the never-before-used Carta Bella Merry Christmas Flora Collection and used it to build most of my card.  I decided to part with a piece from my hoarded Flair collection for the circular element and also added a few wraps of red metallic card on the horizontal paper strip."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I started by embossing Hero Arts' Christmas Rose in white on kraft cardstock; then colored the blooms with Prismacolor Pencils. I trimmed the panel to slightly smaller than journal card size, and matted on a scrap of shimmery hot pink cardstock. The background of the sketch is composed of three coordinating papers: the top and border are actually giftwrap I had saved and backed with thin cardstock; the pink stripey paper is ancient Kaisercraft. I did some machine stitching, punched a circular sentiment from a journal card, added some Eyelet Outlet White Matte Enamel Dots and called it a day. I've been very nearly 100% literal in my interpretation of the sketch, though I did have to move the sentiment circle as it was covering up too much of my fancy coloring!"

♥♥♥

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, July 1st. Link your sketch-centric cards right here: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Flat Out Fabulous

The single layer card is quite a challenging category, but the folks who linked up this time have definitely rocked it! If you haven't checked out the Readers' Gallery, we definitely recommend the trip; and maybe a couple of right-clicks that you save for the next time this type of assignment pops up. In the meantime, here are three Flat Feliz Navidad cards that especially caught our eye: 

Robyn Oliver of Waterlily Cards

...not only stamped this beautiful image exactly at the center of her card front, she colored and shaded it beautifully with watercolors! 

(So carefully that it didn't even bleed through to the inside!)

Helen of Helen's Craft Haven

...not only made one layer work, she took the vibe even more CAS by omitting color as well. 

(It turns out that white embossing on kraft cardstock creates an instant gingerbread village!!!)

Deb Horst of Sendable Sentiments

...not only stamped and colored her focal image to really stand out... she masked and stamped; then masked and stenciled; then masked and stenciled some more to fill the whole cardfront! 

(Making the most impressively maximalist and detailed single layer card we've ever seen! Brava!)

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Many thanks to all who participated. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that might just be a tiny bit "sketchy"! ;)