Under the Mistletoe

We're still creating with flowers to celebrate, "Mele Kalikimaka" and you still have time to join the fun, which we hope you will! Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I had this American Crafts floral paper in my hand last week, but it wasn't quite the right home for a flamingo, so I moved on. I hadn't stopped thinking about it though, which was a head start for this week's card. As soon as I saw the current Sketch Saturday (#538) I was smitten...  so that took care of positioning. A white flower, badge center and velvet holly leaves were all pretty straightforward. Believe it or not, the hardest part was finding a sentiment sticker which made sense, fit the space, and didn't clash, lol!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I learned that photographing the beauty of foil is a bit of a challenge.  My background was made with Decofoil Transfer Gel, Brutus Monroe Tide Pool Foil & Carabelle Studios Accumulation De Ronds Stencil. My flowers are from the lovely Little Birdie Handmade Flowers and the remaining elements are from Authentique Jingle Elements (nothing like mixing together lots of different companies)."

Scroll down to the original post to see the gorgeous readers' gallery and link up your own floral fabulousness! ♥

not a CREATURE was stirring

We're still creating with CREATURES this week ... for most of us that means animals ... but it could mean a Winter Yeti ... or even an October Monster if you dare ... as long as it has a holiday theme, all creatures are fair game.

Here are the creatures we featured this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I'm totally loving the Gina K Wreath Builder system. This week I discovered that if you use one of the larger round stamps to frame the center, you can punch the middle out and make a little window to reveal a sentiment or... in this case... a bunny! To create the wreath I used a bunch of different shades of green Distress Ink, most of the foliage branches in the Holiday Wreath Builder set, and some fab Eyelet Outlet Holly Brads. I chose the fun Pebbles' tree paper as a background before I started stamping, so that I could coordinate the greens to match!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I went with another reindeer-themed design.  I've had this gorgeous sheet of Christmas Reindeer paper for a long time ... so I paired it with my fun new Triangle Deer & Sentiment from Lesia Zgharda Design.  I added a red enamel dot to his nose to help him stand out in that herd of funky reindeer (of course I had to make sure I featured the texty deer that had part of Jingle Belles)."

Remember you have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 31st to link up your creature-feature designs. The keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:22.

Deck the Halls... in ♥PINK♥!

We (Stephanie and Lauren) are still making PINK CHRISTMAS cards and donating $2 each to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each card that's linked up with us this fortnight. So we'd love for you to not only make some cards, but also spread the word! Thanks very much for your help!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other PINK Card

Lauren says, "I've used a few more bits and bobs from the Sugar Plum collection by My Mind's Eye, including the stripey pink paper and that beautiful badge. I've mixed in some other items-- and some darker pink-- in the form of patterned paper strips, some oversized pink fabric poinsettias, and a small (ancient!) sentiment sticker that was serendipitously exactly right!"

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I had several border strips leftover from last week's card, so I decided to cover my entire kraft card front with border strips.  I trimmed the Santa and sentiment from another pieces of paper in the Prima Santa Baby Collection and finished with a few strands of pearls."

Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one) for complete details and the linky tool! ♥

Dashing Through the SNOW

We're still creating with SNOW this week and we love all of the variations in the gallery.

Here are our SNOWY creations for this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I'm not sure I've ever made a holiday card in shades of burgundy, grey and a tiny bit of holly green, but I have to admit I quite like this one! I started with a Simple Stories snowman journal card, then found some ANCIENT papers that matched it really well. A sticker sentiment, some exceedingly elderly snowflake stickers, skinny white mats and an Eyelet Outlet holly brad complete the design!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I built my card around Lawn Fawn's Stitched Snowflakes cut from Red & Blue Card Stock and Watercolor Paper.  I had fun layering them and added jewels to the centers.  I finished with a Lawn Fawn sentiment from Yeti Set Go! and a little card featuring children sledding in the snow."

Make sure you link your SNOWY card up by Wednesday, October 3rd at 6pm (EST) at the post directly below this one.

In Great SHAPE

We're still creating with SHAPES this week ... making cards that are any shape other than a square or rectangle.

Here's how we got SHAPELY this week.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Yes, I've been a bit more ambitious this week! I made a star fold card, using this tutorial from Crafting with Joanie. I also tried out a new set of flower stamps, dies and shaping molds from Heartfelt Creations. They even make realistic stamens, that really take these to the next level, imo. Being a bit of a dimensional flower junkie, I LOVE that I can now easily custom make blossoms exactly the right size, shape and color for each of my projects!" 

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I hand-drew my coffee cup on some two-sided Authentique Nostalgia papers (love those reindeer in scarves and that yummy texty background) and then drew my lid on the reverse side of the same paper and traced around it with a black sharpie.  The sleeve was traced  from the cup on kraft cardstock and topped with a Spellbinders Be Merry Die Cut.  I attached my top-fold card to the back of my cup ... perfect Christmas card to deliver with a gift card to the local coffee shop."

Make sure you link-up your shaped cards HERE by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, September 5th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:18. 

Do you SKETCH what I SKETCH?

We're still making holiday cards based on Stephanie's awesome sketch and you're still invited to join us! Here's the sketch:

And here's how we were inspired by the sketch this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This is one of the fastest cards ever, because it's not only 00% faithful to the sketch, I've also used all readymade items to complete my card. There are circle icons that I've punched and matted on slightly larger circles, border stickers as a ground for the focal point, and an ancient (but still awesome, imo) sticker sentiment. Easy peasy, and that's another flat/mailable card added to my stack for December!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie say, "My original intention was to my favorite Penny Black Snowman Joy be the three circles in the sketch and have a vertical sentiment from the top ... but he seemed a bit lonely, so I added two penguins from Essentials by Ellen Arctic Pals to join him in the snow and a horizontal sentiment from the left ... so my card is really doing double-sketch-duty."

And now it's your turn to be inspired by this fun sketch. Scroll down to the original post for all the details and to link up your own cards!

Getting Ahead(er)

We're still making cards inspired by our lovely Jingle Belles Blog Banner this week.

Here is how we were inspired.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I again chose to use the basic color palette of neutrals with pops of lime, silver glitter and teal. I also tried to do a version of the header's very layered background, though instead of digital elements, I used a variety of rub-on transfers, which kind of unintentionally added to the "distressed" vibe of the collage! But there are echos of many of the same shapes, including those shiny scattered gold stars, which miiiiiight be my favorite!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I used a larger deer and tree as my focal images and added embossed texture, pearls, texty sentiments and some bling at the top of the tree ... as I created, I just kept thinking WWLD (what would Lauren do)."

Can't wait to see what you create ... link-up your card at the original post by 6pm EST on Wednesday.

A Bundling We Will Go

We're still making "All Bundled Up" cards... by which we mean cards with three or more layers. Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I took my color queue from this week's Sunday Stamps Tranquil Cottage Color  Challenge by layering gorgeous Graphic45 St. Nicholas Collection Papers.  If you look at the bottom right corner you'll see I have seven layers of paper for a perfectly mailable card ... gotta love it.  The layout is from the Sketch Saturday Challenge and the Believe Sentiment is from Essentials by Ellen Brushstroke Christmas (which I thought paired well with the Santa-theme of the background paper).  I sponged a little Taylored Expressions Pineapple Ink on the punched stars to cover any of the white edges of the paper and add some shading."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I love layers, generally and torn layers, in particular. In this case I've combined the fronts and backs of two of my favorite papers in the "Silent Night" collection from Craft and You Design and used a round icon from the same set as my focal point. I can rarely resist a bit of vintage sheet music or some old lace... so I didn't even try to leave them out!"

Scroll down to the original post for complete details and to link up your own masterpieces!

Pinstripes & Super Novas

We're still celebrating with STARS and/or STRIPES for Christmas.

Here's our second round of cards:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Since June 30th was the 5th Saturday of the month, we could choose ANY sketch from the Sketch Saturday archives. I chose #283 because it had a star already on it (!) AND two great places to put strips of stripey paper. Which I did! I flipped the sketch horizontally to suit the direction that cute My Mind's Eye chipboard station wagon was driving, but otherwise I was quite faithful. Easy, peasy!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with my grungy Star Collage Background from Technique Junkies on a scrap of Gel Press paper that Lauren & I created during our annual Art Camp.  I added the Christmas Kitty & Dear Santa Sentiment, also from Technique Junkies (all stamped in Midnight Blue StazOn) and finished with some Enamel Stars.  If you like any of these stamps, there's a 10% discount if you use my code TJ10Stephanie at checkout."

Scroll down to the original post to see the glorious starry, stripey reader's gallery and to link up your own creations!

Winter WHITE

We're still creating cards featuring the color (or lack of color) WHITE.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I've been having fun this week using up scraps of paper to make this fun (easy!) herringbone pattern, so while I was still in that phase, I decided to make a card using all of my white, cream, ecru, magnolia and nearly-grey-but-not-quite scraps! There are some process pics in this blog post, but I'll warn you right now, it's addictive, lol! Meanwhile the combination of snowflakes + flowers never stops looking good to me, so I've added a stack, secured with a fancy Eyelet Outlet pearl brad."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I went with Lauren's tip from last week and added texture.  I die cut and embossed my Tim Holtz Layered Holiday Wreath on white textured cardstock.  Then I cut it a second time from gold cardstock and off-set them slightly to create a *shadow*.  I curled the leaves & bow for a bit more texture and added a sticker sentiment & white pearl."

Scroll down to the original White Xmas post to see the gorgeous readers' gallery and link your own masterpiece(s)!

Put a RING On It

We're still going ring-a-ding-ding with Bells at Jingle Belles ... create a card that features one (or two or three).

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "My card is only Jingling Half Way with my Taylored Expression Grumpling and a single jingle bell.  I embossed the front of the kraft card base with a Plaid Embossing Folder for a bit of texture and added color with Stampin' Up markers."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Surprise-- I've made another collage-y style card with lots (& lots!) of tiny embellies! I've got a glitter diecut tree, tag and deer all from an older October Afternoon collection; two snowy patterned papers, snowflake stickers, teeny tiny white flowers, plus my all time favorite Memory Box Xmas die for those glorious glittery jingle bells. I finished off with a little vintage trimming and a couple of mats and that's it."

Remember, you have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 13th to link-up your bell card ... keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:12.

RIBBON Rendezvous

This week we're still creating holiday cards featuring ribbon, lace, seam binding, fibers, ric rac, twine or any other trimmings you have in your stash.

Here's what we made this week.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "For week two I've broken out the uber-cuteness: adorable holiday-print grosgrain ribbon from Doodlebug, loads of miscellaneous stickers and baker's twine that I saved from an actual bakery near my house, who still package things in a white cardboard box tied with the eponymous twine! Because let's face it, although the craft stores have a better selection of colors, their twine hardly ever comes with a side order of cannoli, does it?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I created a ribbon background by covering cardstock with adhesive and attaching pieces of ribbon from my stash.  It all started with that red & gold ombre seam binding and I built the colors from there.  I hadn't pulled out my Taylored Expressions grumplings yet this year, so his hat & scarf were perfect to color to coordinate with my ribbon background.  I had enough of the background left to make a second card if you want to click through to see it."

I hope we've inspired you to pull out your ribbon stash and create with us ... remember, you need to link-up by Wednesday at 6pm CST to join the fun.

HOME for the Holidays

We're still creating with BUILDINGS this week ... can't wait to see what you create.

Here's how we interpreted our theme:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I let the patterned paper do most of the work for me! I zeroed in on this beautiful vintage-inspired scene on a piece of Craft and You Design paper I got at my favorite store, Paper Anthology last autumn, and knew exactly what to do with the results thanks to the fine folks at Sketch Saturday!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This house reminds me of so many that I wandered past in our neighborhood when I was young.  It's from Nathalie Kalbach's Stroll Around the Block Stamps by RubberMoon.  I used an abstract coloring technique with two colors of green markers harkening back to the 70's colors of my childhood.   It's hard to see in the photo, but I used a silver glitter pen to add strings of sparkly lights along all of the edges of the home where Christmas lights would be.  The sentiment is also RubberMoon called Hope and is a new favorite."

Scroll down to the original post (just below this one) for all the details and to link up your amazing creations!

Go Planet ... it's your EARTH Day

Yep, we're still celebrating Earth Day this week by creating cards that feature recycled, repurposed or upcycled elements. Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "My recycled elements this week are both pretty pieces of giftwrap saved from holiday packages last xmas: the kraft and red paper with the pine boughs, plus the adorable midcentury-modern-style animals that were obviously way too cute to toss away. I've used the brand new sketch from Sketch Saturday to make my card extra fresh, however!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I won't lie ... when I saw this adorable Yeti on the packaging for the Glad Storage Containers I buy each holiday season, I let out a little *woot* right there in the grocery aisle. I knew that cutie was going on my Earth Day card.  Turns out it took me over an hour to remember where I hid the little cutie, but I finally found him and put my card together.  I had to do some creative trimming to get rid of the words, but I like how it sort of looked like an ornament when I was done."

Scroll down to the original Earth Day post for all the details and to link up your amazing eco-friendly creation! ♥

An ORANGE in your Stocking

Did you get fruit in your stocking when you were a kid?  We always got a bit navel orange and an apple (and a glass bottle of Coca Cola, which pretty much filled the stocking).

Today we're still creating cards inspired by this lovely holiday scene.

Here are our inspired designs:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I mentioned last week, for anyone who's not a fan of the bright orange-- or perhaps just doesn't have much in the way of orange supplies-- there are a couple of ways to go: you can ignore the colors completely, and focus on selected elements like the tree, the fireplace, the presents, etc; OR you can just tone them waaaaaaaaaaay down. My card this week is probably closer, proportionally, to how much bright color is in that room compared with how much white + neutral there is. Once again, there are no "holiday" supplies, except for that awesome Memory Box die, "Marvelous Pine". I've got a bunch of different whites-- including a white-ish woodgrain and some white glitter paper for a bit of sparkle. My pops of vivid color come from washi tape, and I've put the entire panel onto a much softer orange background."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I did a riff on Lauren's Washi Tape card for last week's post.  I loved combining all of my orange and green patterns for a fun striped background.  For the big bold white element, I stamped a sentiment from STAMPlorations Miracle of Christmas and finished with a sprinkling of sequins."

Scroll down to the original post to see the readers' gallery, check out the complete challenge details, and link up your own masterpiece!

Sing a Song of Christmas

Welcome back for another week of MUSICAL creativity ... break out your favorite musical elements and join the holiday fun.

Here's what we created this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "There's nothing to say that sheet music can only be a background on our cards! Here I've built a sentiment with my own diecut Music Alphas from my Etsy shop, Just Enough Stuff, then filled in with ordinary Xmas stash items: adorable, dimensional Doodlebug stickers, super-useful chipboard letters, and maybe the best Christmas plaid paper of all time, courtesy of Photoplay!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This was not the card I initially intended to make for this week's prompt ... but sometimes you fall in love with the cards from the leftovers more than the original creations (you can click through to see the original card and one other leftover design).  I used musical papers, border & elements from Kaiser Kraft Frosted Collection.  I accented with some vintage stamps from the National Wildlife Federation (that I stumbled upon when I was looking for some holiday stickers that are currently lost somewhere in my stash ... so much of my creativity is serendipitous."

Remember, you have until Wednesday, March 14th at 6pm EST to link-up your holiday designs.

Celebrating TINY Tim

We're still creating with LITTLE things this week ... INCHIES or TWINCHIES; they can be square or round or... well, maybe you have a brand new concept on this idea, in which case, bring it on!

Here is our second round of LITTLE creations:

Lauren's Other Card(s)

Lauren says, "I had really, truly, intended to make some tiny one-inch collages, this week; or at least cut a larger vintage image image up into one or two inch squares! But then I found an oversized Simple Stories journaling card with all of these adorable tiny one-inch icons, just begging to be made into super-easy, flat, mailable holiday cards. And I mean, it would've been rude to say no, really, don't you think?! I went with an easy grid design and added fussy-cut sentiment banners from a couple of other journaling cards in the same collection."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I inked-up the tiny Irreverent Elf Messages from Hero Arts to create my Inchies (they're actually 1 3/4" squares with mat).   Small squares are the perfect way to feature tiny stamps (like planner stamps)."

Scroll down to the original post (just below this one) for more inspiration and to link up your own LITTLE masterpieces! ♥

We Bring You Season's Colorings

We're still breakout out all sorts of coloring mediums at Jingle Belles this week ... so many possibilities.

Here's what we created for our second round of holiday cards.

Marianne's Card

Marianne says, "This week I decided to get inky. I started by creating a few panels using ink smooshing, both on plain white Neenah and watercolour cardstock. My Neenah panel looked a hot mess, but after some additional ink blending, embossing with a new to me embossing folder and blending some Pentart vanilla stencil paste over the raised embossed pattern (and, unintentionally, the rest of the panel as well), my panel had quite unexpectedly been transformed into something soft and pretty AND shimmery. A die cut sentiment and a heat embossed sentiment strip were all the embellishments it needed."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Stamping and coloring is not my forte, but... these Lawn Fawn reindeer and Pretty Pink Posh trees are kind of irresistible, aren't they? Luckily, both companies have blogs with lots of examples of GREAT coloring with shading, etc, which really helped me get it right! Once I had all the stamped elements done, all I had to do was build a wintery background using Penny Black dies and various white patterned papers!"

Stephanie's card

Stephanie says, "Sometimes all you need is a little coloring to bring an image to life ... like the colored pencil highlights I've added to my Technique Junkies Christmas Kitty ... green for the eyes, pink for the nose & red for the Santa hat.  I used the sketch from Sunday Stamps."

Remember, Link your gorgeous "COLORING" masterpieces right here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, February 21st. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:18:04. 

Oh Christmas Words

We're still getting *texty* at Jingle Belles this week ... here is what we made with words:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I had to recycle this fun texty Santa image into a new holiday card by mounting it on a vintage dictionary page that contains the word Santa (although it ended-up hidden behind the image).  I finished with some Holly gem embellishments for the Holly Jolly Christmas theme."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Let's talk rub-on transfers for a second: being less of a stamper, I love the idea that you can place a beautifully executed sentiment or image EXACTLY where you want it and it will attach flawlessly with zero effort or mess. Ok, you can theoretically anyway. In actual fact, even when you have new, brand name product, it's possible that some of your rub-ons will transfer perfectly and some will not. So when I opened these elegant golden words, and wound up with "_OFL" instead of "NOEL" I decided to make the best of it and just scatter them. collage-style, all over two corners of some ledger paper and call it a "design decision". It's not the card I thought I was making, but I like it. There are links to a few more examples of this technique on my blog today, too."

There's still plenty of time to join our texty fun, which we hope you will! Scroll down to the original post to see the glorious readers' gallery and link up your own masterpiece!

Three of a Kind ... working on a Full Christmas House

We're back creating in trios this week ... cards that feature three of a single design element.

Here are what we made with our *threes* this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "My 'three' are pretty obvious this week-- in the form of red flowers so old I'm not entirely positive where they came from. I know they've got Eyelet Outlet Sticky-Back Pearl centers, though. And that they're accenting the scanned and re-sized vintage postcard I used as focal image. And that my layout is based on the awesome current sketch from Sketch Saturday."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I liked the paper I used last week so much, I used the rest of the 12x12 sheet to make a second card.  I call this one a triple-triple ... three groups of three ... don't you just love those little snowmen.  all I had to add were a few paper scraps, a sticker sentiment, and a couple of enamel dots to add a little dimension to the balls on top of their winter hats."

Scroll down to the original post to see the already awesome Readers' Gallery and link up your own masterpiece!