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.

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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

Getting Ready...

...for a brand new season of stress-free holiday cardmaking Jingle Belles. As usual, we're starting off with a new banner, plus small badges for blogs and a nice big square for Instagram.

 (You needn't download or post any of these to participate, but they're here if you'd like them.)

Banner and badges designed by Lauren Bergold using PSE9

Digital design products: ArtOptions MiniMix09 and Winter Ice Kit from Katie Pertiet Designs; Over the Rainbow Glitter Style by Flergs; Bohemian Typewriter, Pretzel and Rainy Days fonts from DaFont.com

2024 Favorites

December is an excellent time to look back on our crafty year; so without further ado, here's one each of Stephanie's and Lauren's favorite Jingle Belles cards; the bolded text below the photos link to our personal blogs where you can check out the rest of our 2024 Fave Five lists! 

One of Stephanie's 2024 Faves

Stephanie says, "This was one of my cards for the Sweet EMBOSS-able You prompt.  I just love how the texture, inky goodness, shimmer spray, and layered die cut sentiment all came together for a gorgeous, but still mailable, design."

One of Lauren's 2024 Faves

 Lauren says, "I went more or less chronological with my picks this time, so my first choice is from the second week of JB2404: Text Me, which ran early in February. Stephanie had given me this awesome Uniko Christmas Block Party stamp a few years ago, and although I don't use it nearly enough, I always LOVE the results when I do. Oh and it's great for incorporating a bunch of Eyelet Outlet Brads and Bling, too, as you can see!"

♥♥♥

We'll be starting the new Jingle Belles' season on January 1, 2025 and we'd love to see you then. As always, there's no need to make a commitment; play as often as you can find the time and feel inspired! We realize that the first few months it seems funny to be making holiday cards "out of season" but on the plus side, cruising in to a hyper-busy December with the bulk of one's holiday cards FINISHED is the best feeling ever! Feel free to link as many new cards as fit the current prompt; make extras when you have the time and energy; and if you skip a few weeks or months just hop back in whenever you can. There's no judgement here, just crafty friends hanging out and cheering each other on! Wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons and that 2025 will be your most creative year yet! 

2024 Wrap Up!

It's that time again, we're wrapping up the 2024 Jingle Belles season, but no worries, we will return on January 1, 2025, when we'll kick off a brand New Year of creativity and fun! 

Now all that remains is to thank everyone who played along in 2024 (we loved seeing EVERY single card!) and to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. Also, at this point, we traditionally like to show off the big sprawly pics of ALL our holiday cards for the year, so here are those are right now:

Stephanie's Big Giant Pile-O-Cards

Lauren's Big Giant Pile-O-Cards

♥♥♥

And now here's one last Link-Up that will run until Christmas Eve: Link your last minute makes; scroll through and get inspired; maybe even leave your fellow cardmakers a little love if you have time! We'll be back on January 1st with another season of inspiration! Happy Holidays!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter