Only 359 Days Until Christmas...

...time to get started on those cards, people!!! :) :) :)

Ok, that's the single silliest thing anyone has ever said, right? Except... if you're a papercrafter who celebrates Christmas, you've likely just experienced the equivalent of the cardmaking olympics, otherwise known as "December". How did yours go? Did you sit down at the beginning of the month and spend a few leisurely hours writing notes inside a stack of gorgeous cards before mailing them off to your lovely friends and family? If so, well done, off you go to watch the Doctor Who marathon on BBC America!

If not, may we take five minutes of your New Year's Eve to say that the reason we (Stephanie and Lauren) started Jingle Belles in 2011 is that we'd both just experienced one too many of the *other* kind of December. The kind spent frantically mass-producing holiday cards, at the expense of actually experiencing the fun holiday activities said cards are meant to commemorate. Which, when you think about it, is quite a bit sillier than making ONE beautiful, individual card per week... even if the latter course does actually involve starting in January. Because for us, the success of "Taking December Back" lay in establishing the at-first-totally-weird-feeling habit of spreading the job throughout the year. And establishing that habit was infinitely easier and more fun when we did it together, in the company of all our lovely fellow cardmakers, giving and taking inspiration and --most importantly-- cheering each other on.

But do we really HAVE TO start on New Year's Day??! Well, no... but can you think of a better day in the entire year to symbolically inaugurate a brand new habit? Plus, you've likely still got all your Christmas supplies out, and you've maybe even received some cool new goodies that you didn't get to play with yet... do you really wanna wait until November to bust those out? ;)

Our first prompt of 2016 will go live at midnight, with new posts every Friday. And yes, you can jump in *any* time! So please consider yourself officially invited to come along and join us for as many or as few weeks of the year as you'd like. Meanwhile,

HAPPY 

(almost) 

NEW YEAR!

♥♥♥

Jingle Belles 2016!

Hello, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we hope you've had a wonderful holiday and that you're even now enjoying the company of family, playing with your brand new supplies, and eating the leftover Christmas cookies! We'll be back on New Year's Day (that's FRIDAY... can you believe it?) to kick off the 2016 season, meanwhile, we're freshening up the blog with a new header and badge!

See you on Friday! ♥

Happy, Happy Holidays!!! ♥

Can you believe it is December 4th already?! The 2015 ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ season certainly flew by at record speed! But that shouldn't surprise us, since it's a well-known fact that "time flies when you're having fun" and we've had an absolute blast making cards with our friends all year long! Plus we're excited to each have *48* uniquely wonderful holiday greetings ready to be addressed and sent out to the special people in our lives.

If you're done your holiday card-making we congratulate you! If you're still working, we've added one more link-up at the bottom of this post so you can share your creations and we hope our last two cards of the year will inspire you! We'll be back on January 1, 2016 for a brand new year of fun, friendship and stress-free holiday hi-jinks and we hope to see you then!

Meanwhile we wish the 

♥ Happiest of Holiday Seasons ♥ 

to you and your family !

xoxoxo

Stephanie and Lauren

aka the 

JINGLE BELLES

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My card-making process always includes getting out way too much stuff, which means there will even be leftovers when I'm making "leftovers cards", lol! Which is what happened last week, so I've used them here: a blendy Color Burst ornament topped with Viva Decor glitter embossing paste; some holly leaves cut from an old greeting card; remnants of rhinestone flourishes I trimmed down to fit on smaller cards; all atop a piece of vintage text paper adorned with experimental inky stenciling. I never expected *ALL* of these elements to get combined into one card... but I confess to liking the result!" ♥

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I incorporated many of my favorite things into my final card design ... stenciling some Color Burst on a vintage piece of sheet music and then decorated a glitter tree ... this has certainly been the year of the sequin, and I'm still not tired of them yet."

We've set up one last linky for you to share your December creations, we'll leave it open through Christmas Eve so you can show off your favorite makes, check out what others have created, and grab some last-minute inspiration! 

An InLinkz Link-up

Leftovers...

...make the best after-Thanksgiving meals AND the best holiday cards, as you guys have proven pretty conclusively this fortnight. Such a glorious gallery of luscious leftovers... here are a few we found particularly delicious!

Toni at Frankie Helps Craft

...diecut this ♥AMAZING♥ mixed media tree using the leftovers from another project and it couldn't be more lovely, could it?!  (Bonus ingenuity points for the fact that, not having any of the watercolor pigment powders which are so popular right now, Toni used fabric dyes she already owned to get a similar effect; cleverness is the ultimate renewable resource, so there's always some of that leftover!!!) 

Tenia Nelson of Jazzy Paper Designs

...constructed her gorgeous baubles from scraps of patterned paper and watercolor paper, then used lots of little "bits and bobs" to dress up this utterly lovely card!

Joan W of Late Night Stamping

...had been saving this incredibly beautiful triple-embossed Santa tile and we agree that she found *exactly* the right home for it!!!

Many thanks to everyone who played along with us this week and the whole rest of our ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ year, we're especially thankful to have a whole box full of holiday cards done with the entire month of December still to be enjoyed! We'll be back at midnight with one more set of holiday cards we hope will inspire you!

Raiding the Refrigerator

For me, the leftovers are almost better than the main holiday meal ... so that is why we're still celebrating Holiday Leftovers at Jingle Belles.

Pull out that box of scraps, leftover die cuts, and orphaned stickers and let them find the perfect holiday home.

Here's what we created with our leftovers this week.

Stephanie's Second Card

Stephanie says, "My work team all dressed as dominoes for Halloween, which meant I spent a few hours die cutting circles from white adhesive felt.  I had saved the bigger scraps of felt and they have been sitting on my studio table since October.  This prompt was the perfect push to use the adhesive felt to die cut a collection of snowflakes ... two of which are featured on this card.  I also used a stray button and a ribbon scrap for this week's Retro Card Sketch.  I felt so inspired by the leftover theme that I made a second card from the *leftovers* of this design, which you can see on my blog."

Lauren's Second Card

Lauren says, "Once again, unintentionally, my card turned out to be composed entirely of scraps... what can I say? I've got A LOT of scraps! In this case, I found a few that were too small to make a whole card, so I used 'em together, kind of like a quilt block. Btw, that is my favorite tip for paper scrap usage: check out blogs and patterns and pinterest boards related to applique and quilting-- because sewing people definitely know a thing or two about how to turn tiny unrelated items into glorious art!!!"

Make sure you link-up your card by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, December 2nd. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:24.  You never know ... there might even be a little *LEFTOVER* prize surprise for someone.

Holiday Leftovers

One of our favorite things about a big Thanksgiving dinner ... are the leftovers (turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich anyone?) ... so this week we're celebrating Holiday Leftovers at Jingle Belles.

We're asking you to make a card using paper scraps, offcuts, an image you colored or diecut or fussy-cut but never used, a small piece of ribbon too pretty to toss away, the last sticker in the packet or... whatever "leftover" bits and bobs you have laying around. Of course you can mix in new stuff too. Oh and be sure to tell us what your leftovers are so we can marvel at your cleverness! 

Here are our "leftover" creations:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I have a container where I toss all of my *extra* die cut images.  I decided to see if I could make a card using only those *leftovers* as my focal image.  I combined Pretty Pink Posh Stitched Filmstrip in Silver with the outline from Memory Box Tall Taper Candle in a silver flecked navy.  I used this week's Retro Sketch incorporating scraps of paper for the rest of the design and a Tim Holtz Sticker for the sentiment."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I make a lot of layery, collagey cards and i tend to "dry fit" things together before committing to an actual design. So I tend to wind up with LOADS of stickers cut away from their backing sheet, diecuts that were made in several colors before i decided which i liked, and all the usual bits of paper that were too small to live in my ordinary file-folder-like storage but to big to toss away. On the plus side, this sort of arrangement means that for the card above i was able to use ALL "leftovers" and still have plenty of choice, lol; I also used Sketch Saturday #387 because it's totally awesome!"

Now it's your turn to raid the "leftovers" ... add in what every new things you'd like ... and link up a gorgeous holiday card before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, December (!!!) 2nd. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:24.

An InLinkz Link-up

Feasting Faves

We can never say no holiday treats... whether they're proffered on a plate, or on a lovely holiday card! Here are a few we found especially irresistible:

Christine Dring of Chrispy's Creations

Miss Chris totally *ROCKED* the genre of shaker card, accruing beaucoup bonus points for having tiny candy cane gems inside the shaker!!!

C.G. of C.G. Says (Something Loudly)

How fun is this amazingly textural gingerbread man sweater?! Also, you HAVE TO click through and see the amazing concertina fold of this card... off the charts of cool... ♥ 

Helen of Helen's Craft Haven

On the other hand, there's something to be said for the perfection of a minimalist CAS design, and this card says it most eloquently! (and thus we forgive Helen for making us want a cupcake right now!!!) :) :) :)

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we never get tired of seeing your ♥AMAZING♥ creations. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope will deliver you more than a scrap of inspiration!