Sketching in a Winter Wonderland

We're thrilled to have lovely guest star Brenda Barton joining us this week with a fabulous sketch for our creative inspiration.  Brenda's beautiful work can be seen on her blog, Brenda's Crafty Corner, as well as at The Sketch File where she is a design team member. We're so excited by her wonderful sketch we cannot wait any longer to show it, and then we'll let Brenda herself tell you a little about the process of creating it and her own gorgeous card!

And now here are our takes on this great sketch:

 Brenda's Card

Brenda says, "I decided to try my hand at designing a card sketch with Microsoft Paint, a computer program I've never really used. Both the sketch and card came together quickly. To create the card, I stuck to the sketch very closely with the exception of the colors. In the sketch I used cream and turquoise. I didn't have any turquoise cardstock, but have plenty of dark green. I started by cutting diamonds of graduated sizes from scrap pieces of cream cardstock, halved some of them and arranged them in the shape of a tree. I added a hand cut tree trunk and highlighted it with a white colored pencil. Next I used a paper crimper to add texture to a piece of green cardstock and used it as a mat on the cardbase. I added a half circle on the left and attached a strip of green to it. I used punched stars and a handwritten sentiment to finish the card."

Lauren's Card
Lauren says, "I had a completely different idea, which used Brenda's gorgeous sketch in a more traditional way, but flipping through my fabulous MME "All is Bright" paper pad, I found the perfect curve... being used as a sort of bunting at the top; which made me decide to rotate the sketch, add a few more fussy-cut collage elements, and layer the heck out of everything! I have to say (rather immodestly!) that I am pretty pleased with the results!" 

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I used a snowman from The Crafty Christmas Stack by DCWV, Chipboard Snowflakes and Buttons from Paper Issues, and an SRM Sentiment sticker for this quick and festive holiday card."

Now we cannot wait to see what ♥YOU♥ will do with Brenda's beautiful sketch! Link up here between now and Wednesday, February 27 at 6pm (EST). Keyword for galleries and our Flickr group is JB:13:04. Have fun, and be creative!

hail the SNOW (and ice... and watercolor...) QUEENS!

the only problem with linking up so many AMAZINGLY lovely and creative cards for our HO HO H20 prompt, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, is that you made it almost impossible for us to choose only three to feature! don't stop though... it's the kind of "problem" we relish! and now here are a few cards which really melted our hearts this time around:

lacey stephens of hand stamped by lacey

went above and beyond in the field of meritorious coloring, then embellished this adorable image to perfection for her lovely and intricate card! 

barbara m. of polka dot paperie

punched simple shapes to create a custom focal point which coordinates perfectly with her fabulously fun snowman patterned paper! (love*LOVE*love that "sentiment scarf" as well!)

marianne of marianne's cards 'n stuff

made *THREE* unique and beautiful cards for this prompt: this astonishingly gorgeous watercolored sky; a brilliant use of spray ink + template; and a wonderful stamped CAS masterpiece; some of which were "homework" for an online card class... proving that even really accomplished papercrafters can always learn a few awesome "new tricks"!

as always we thank everyone who participated, and offer an extra helping of gratitude to the lovely and uber-talented linda of snail's space for thinking up such a wonderful prompt and then totally inspiring us with her own gorgeous cards! we'll be back at midnight with another fabulous guest star, so please be sure to join us then! ♥

Snow, Sleet, Rain ...

...and incredibly GORGEOUS holiday cards are the result of the wonderfully inspiring "HO HO H20" prompt, suggested by our lovely guest star, linda of snail's space! we couldn't resist another go at this fun idea!

Linda's Other Card

Linda says, "I love colouring cute images that make me smile; this was coloured with distress inks and the jingle bells were coloured with distress stain and shaped with a stylus."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "For this week's card, I started by sanding Cord'dinations dotted cardstock and then sprayed it with  several pumps of Whipped Cream Memories Mist, which reminded me of the splatter of snow when a snowball hits its target.  So next, I added glittery City Sidewalks chipboard snowflakes and a Winter SRM sentiment to finish the design, using this week's Retro Sketch." 


Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "we've told you before that stephanie and i never compare notes, and even though she's often done her card before i start mine, i tend to not go and look at it, to keep from being 'influenced' by her awesome ideas... and yet... sometimes things like this happen: two snowy cerise cards based on this week's retro sketch! loooooooooove that!!! :) mine uses a prima 'paintable' 6x6 paper as its base, which i've colored with water-soluble wax crayons before adding martha stewart sparkly snowflake stickers and then finally going crazy with my sewing machine."

you've still got nearly a week to join our fun... if you need a little more inspiration, scroll down and check out our fellow belles' amazing creativity in the reader gallery!   

Ho Ho H2O!

Hello, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and welcome to our very favorite title of the year so far! You might be wondering what we mean by "Ho Ho H20" so we'll cut right to the chase: this time we're asking you to create a holiday card which features icicles, snow, frozen ponds, or any water-related image; OR use water-based products on your project, such as watercolor paints, water-based markers or sprays, etc. This fabulous idea comes to us from one of our favorite fellow belles, Linda, of Snail's Pace, who is our lovely guest star* this fortnight! We're quite sure you've seen many of her gorgeous cards on her blog, in our various galleries (and several "shout out" posts!) but let's get to know her a little bit better!

"Hi, my name is Linda and I LOVE to colour with a paintbrush and usually distress inks, but I also use water based markers, watercolour pencils and twinkling H2Os, which is how I came up with the idea for this prompt. Severe rheumatoid arthritis forced me to give up all of my creative activities so I was happy to discover I could stamp and colour. I’m currently a design team member of the Penny Black and More challenge blog and my local stamp store, Papercraft Cafe. Thank you Lauren and Stephanie for inviting me to play along!"

And now, here are our cards this week:

Linda's Card

Linda says, "I try to balance clean and simple with patterned papers and keep the image as the focal point. I coloured this snow woman with both letraset aqua markers and distress inks and added stickles to her hair."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started by clear embossing Hero Arts Sparkling Snowflakes & embossing my black sentiment on watercolor paper. Next I used Derwent Inktense Watercolor Pencils, sprays of water, and my fingers to create my water-washed background.  I embellished with a snowflake punched from a scrap of the water-washed paper."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i had the intention of making something intricate and inky, so i'm not exactly sure how i wound up going soooooooo far in 'another direction', lol! but i adore these funky snowmen and when i stumbled across them in my xmassy stash, they just sort of took over the whole card! this  offbeat style is PERFECT for my friend josh, so i just went with it; since he doesn't celebrate christmas, as such, i kept my design and sentiment more general. by the way, if you don't happen to celebrate christmas, but love to make hanukkah or other "winter holiday" cards, they are always most welcome here at JINGLE BELLES! we ask that you observe whatever the current prompt is, but we do try to make most of our themes as flexible as possible, and we hope that EVERYONE can come along and feel welcome!" 

So how will you "roll" with this one? Will you focus on water-based products, or concentrate on more thematic watery elements, like snow and ice? Or maybe combine the best of both worlds, like Linda did so beautifully? Whatever you choose, we can't wait to see it! Link up between now and 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, February 13th; the keyword for galleries and our Flickr group is JB:13:03! 

*If ♥YOU♥ have a great idea for a prompt, or if you'd just like to come along some week and make a card with us as our "lovely guest star" we'd love to hear from you! Email us at jinglebellesrock @ hotmail [dot] com!

Red, White & Wonderful

Wowza ... the gallery for the Scandinavian Christmas prompt was A-Maz-ing ... choosing only three to feature this week was a very difficult task ... we loved them all so much.

But, alas, we had to narrow it down, so here are three we thought extra-worthy of a shout-out this week:

Brenda B.

of Brenda's Crafty Corner

When we saw this texty snowman, we fell in love ... but when we read the description of how she hand-cut all of the elements and used a white gel pen to draw the Scandinavian Snowflake pattern on the scarf and hat band, we were jaw-droppingly amazed.

Jose of

Jose's Scrapboat

The stamping on this Scandinavian inspired beauty is perfection ... such a lovely combination of elements with the checked ribbon adding the perfect finishing touch.

Liselot

of Kaarten Van Liselot

This snowman quartet is colored beautifully (love those rosy cheeks) ... and the combination of patterned papers is perfection ... a true Warm Winter Wonderland.

Make sure you join us at midnight for another fun prompt and super-lovely guest star.

Red, White & Jul

We're still making cards inspired by our Scandinavian Christmas picture this week.

Here's our second take on the inspiration photo:

Lauren's Other Card
Lauren says, "i have a confession to make: i'm not actually in love with my card this week. i love all the elements... (especially the border, which i had a great fun designing and hand-stitching!) ...but somehow the card itself just doesn't quite "gel" for me, despite the fact that i used this week's awesome retro sketch #47 for the layout. however, the very best part of making my cards one-per-week all year long, is that i will have 48 done by december first, and if even 50-75% of those are FAB, i will consider my year very well spent. so am i gonna throw this one out and start over? no way! because, there is NO SUCH THING as a "bad" handmade christmas card; every single one is full of our love and creativity, and thus someone will appreciate seeing this one in their mailbox over the holidays!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "The elements I wanted to incorporate from the photo this week were the aged  metallic texture & a heart.  I embossed metallic silver cardstock & then rubbed on Black Soot Distress Ink to age it.  I die cut the heart from Basic Grey Nordic Holiday paper & attached with several layers of foam so I could shape the heart for dimension.  I added a scrap of embossed paper incorporate the texture of fabric to the design.  I finished with a felt snowflake, Aspen Frost Flair, and Hero Arts Get Merry! sentiment."

Remember, you have until Wednesday, January 30th at 6pm EST to link-up your cards ... can't wait to see what you create!

Scandinavian Christmas

This week we're celebrating the Red, White & Jul ... and bringing you a picture of some Scandinavian Christmas Ornaments to inspire your designs ... maybe you'll be inspired by the colors, the shapes, the grouping of elements ... just go with whatever makes you excited to create.

Source

Here's what we created:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "When I saw the picture, I knew I wanted to use red felt Stampin' Up snowflakes I've had in my stash for some time.  I layered several with a white felt snowflake and vintage white button (tied with red & white twine).  I wanted my background to have the softness of the fabric in the inspiration photo ... so I embossed a piece of adhesive white felt and love the sweater-like effect.  I also loved that I was able to adhere a rub-on directly to the felt."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i actually thought *I* had some red felt snowflakes, too, but i was wrong; all of mine were the traditional white, darn it! :) so i used one of those, and colored a plain chipboard flake with a red sharpie marker, instead. then i realized i DID own products which could duplicate many of the other elements i loved from the photo, so i loaded them up: gingham heart, vintage buttons, a little bit of metal, and finally a bit of  lace and some machine stitching to give the feeling of fabric, even though i've used paper for 99% of my card!"

And in case you don't have anything in your stash that you think will work, here's a link to some awesome Good Jul tags you can incorporate into your design.

So keep that holiday card production going in 2013 and show us your inspired creations.  Be sure to link-up between now & 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, January 30th ... keyword for galleries & our flickr group is JB13-2.