Vintage Valedictorians

You all did such an amazing job making gorgeous cards featuring vintage and retro-inspired holiday cards, it makes it very difficult to select just a few to feature. So if you haven't checked out the Readers' Gallery, we highly recommend a little scroll through all of the inspiration. In the meantime, here are three cards that especially caught our eye:

Joanda Johnstone of The Inque Spot Studio

...went with a midcentury modern vibe that is so spot-on you can practically hear Frank Sinatra singing holiday songs in the background. The stamps, the colors, the gems, the speckles... YOWZA!

Valerie Kaye of VK Inkspirations

...found the absolutely PERFECT set of vintage-style papers to use; and then was clever enough to realize they only needed a tiny bit of inking and distressing to become a gorgeous card!

Cindy Beach of Stamps, Paper and Ink

...caught our eye with this soft and lovely nostalgic design, but the clincher was her confession that she started out with one idea and the supplies drove her in a different (& BEAUTIFUL) direction! 

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And now let's find out the winner of that fun little pack of holiday-themed ephemera from Lauren's Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff, shall we?

The Random Number Generator has selected...

Lucky #14!

Which means that Deb Horst is our lucky winner!

Congrats, Deb! Please send your snail mail info to

llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com

so we can get that on its way to you ASAP!

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Once again, many thanks to all who participated. We'll be back at Midnight with a bit of a "recycled" prompt we hope will will appeal to all fans of saving miscellaneous pretty things that non-crafters *might* be tempted no to save! ;)

Spirit of Christmas Past

This week we're still Walking in a Vintage Wonderland … which means creating a card with a vintage or retro-inspired design. That could mean incorporating actual vintage elements, using new products that have a vintage style, or using stamps or images that convey a vintage vibe – whatever says vintage to you. 

And to add a little extra incentive to your endeavors, this time we are sponsored by Lauren's fantastic Etsy Shop Just Enough Stuff, so there's a sweet little pack of vintage Christmassy things for one lucky random card maker who links-up their vintage-inspired design. (Scroll down to the original post for more details about that!)

Here's how we went Old School this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week, I made a random collage of torn and layered vintage and found papers including: some sheet music; a dictionary page with a reindeer (technically a caribou); an order form and advertisement from a vintage Christmas Ideals magazine; some S&H Green Stamps and... ok, I think that's it, lol. Since the background is quite busy, I only needed a fussycut Authentique bauble (which luckily had a bold sentiment!) and a few Katie Pertiet Christmas Collageable Banners that I machine stitched while I was doing the edges."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a full page poinsettia photo from the 1979 issue of Christmas Ideals Magazine.  I cut it into 3/4" strips and assembled it on a green card base using the layout from BYSH Cardmakers.  I used Spellbinders Essential Stylish Oval Dies to cut a vintage Tim Holtz Poinsettia image from the Vintage Christmas Paper Dolls 2023 and finished with a vintage-like Tim Holtz label sentiment sticker."

Remember, you have until 6pm EST on Wednesday to link-up for a chance to win.

Walking in a Vintage Wonderland

This fortnight we're Walking in a Vintage Wonderland … which means creating a card with a vintage design. 

That could mean incorporating actual vintage elements, using new products that have a vintage style, or using stamps or images that convey a vintage vibe – whatever says vintage to you. 

And to add a little extra incentive to your endeavors, this week we are sponsored by Lauren's fantastic Etsy Shop Just Enough Stuff, so there's a sweet little pack of vintage Christmassy things for one lucky card member who links-up their vintage design.

Here's how we went back in time this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a vintage holiday card illustration of ornaments and holly in a silver bowl.  I framed it with a faux-vintage Tim Holtz Idea-ology Christmas Layer Frames.  I added a Tim Holtz Postmarked Stamp Sticker and sticker sentiments on top of the frame.  I finished with some vintage trading stamps peeking out before attaching it to an ivory card base to help balance out the busyness of the design."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My card is a mix of actual vintage and vintage-inspired papercrafting products, it breaks down like this: Background paper, mailbox, sentiment and holly are 49 and Market; the funky steampunk Santa and present are Graphic 45; I've added real vintage sheet music and S&H Green Stamps to bump it up a bit. Then I did loads of edge-distressing on everything and a bit of wonky machine-stitching to finish off."

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How about a look at the prize? One lucky, randomly chosen cardmaker will score a vintage- and found paper holiday ephemera pack, like this one, from Lauren's Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff just for linking up with us this fortnight.

 JB2608: Walkin' in a Vintage Wonderland runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, April 22nd. Link your vintage- or retro-inspired cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

A World of Wonderful Whimsy

"Whimsical Wonderland" was a new theme for us, but clearly it's a rich vein. There are so many sweet, funny, charming and adorable cards in the Readers' Gallery, we do hope you'll take time to check them out. For the moment, here are three that especially caught our eye:

Kate of Cards a la Kate

...proves that small details can make a big impact: her jolly jumping elf has a white felt beard, shiny shoes and a nose made dimensional with glossy accents; he's jumping (on a wobbler) out of a beautifully shaded box diecut, in front of the perfect sentiment, all set in a rather splendid (and dare we say whimsical) funky frame! (Wow!)

Chrissy (xx) from Truly Chrissy

...found this sweet and adorable image un-colored in her to-do box and built this beautiful and vibrant card around it!

Ellen of Ellen's Kaarten

...devised an entire holiday scene for us with frisky mice, lots of candy canes and a perfectly decorated mushroom home; so charming!

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Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing ALL of your fabulous cards. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will supply you with some good old-fashioned inspiration! ;)

More Holiday Whimsy

As we mentioned last week, "Whimsical" describes something, "Playfully quaint, fanciful, imaginative and slightly odd; often suggesting a lighthearted, unpredictable or charmingly unusual quality not based on strict logic." So this fortnight we're asking you to use that definition and make a Whimsical holiday card… it might be mice decorating the holiday tree, a space-age midcentury modern wreath, some fun little holiday gnomes, or maybe even adorable tiny reindeer driving a red plaid car?!

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I probably only use my Lawn Fawn Car Critters + Holiday Add-On stamp sets a couple of times a year. I nearly always paper-piece the little guys and use the curvy road template I made when I first got the sets; thus it's a pretty similar version each time, but it always makes me smile, so I see no reason to stop now. Most of the paper used here was scrap pieces I stamped on or punched. The trees background was a freebie from Flow Magazine; the red is Carta Bella. I stamped a Lawn Fawn sentiment on graph paper and colored the gifts with Tombows."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "When I thought of whimsical animals, I was immediately taken back to one of my favorite authors/illustrators of my childhood, Richard Scarry.  I just bought a shirt with his art from Out of Print. I found a Richard Scarry book in my collage stash, so I hoped there would be the perfect whimsical illustration for a card ... and of course there was.  How cute is that little guy all bundled-up marveling in the gorgeous snowfall.  I found the perfect sentiment in Tim Holtz Tiny Text Christmas stamps.

JB2607: Walking in a Whimsical Wonderland will run until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, April 8th. Scroll down to the original post to add your card(s)!

Walking in a Whimsical Wonderland

Whimsical describes something playfully quaint, fanciful, imaginative and slightly odd … often suggesting a lighthearted, unpredictable or charmingly unusual quality not based on strict logic. 

We're asking you to use that definition and make a Whimsical holiday card … it might be mice decorating the holiday tree, a modern wreath, some fun little holiday gnomes, or whatever says whimsical to you.

Here is how we walked through a whimsical wonderland this week.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I got the Spellbinders Fragmented Gaze Dies by Jaycee Gaspar this week, and I thought it would be "whimsical" to try to turn her into a sassy version of Mrs. Claus (I guess you could say I went with the imaginative and perhaps slightly odd).  I started by using Mirror Ball Luxe Silver Glitter paper as the base (not realizing it would give her a rather creepy glittery eyeball, which I solved with a few cardstock scraps).  I had fun combining some designer papers with cardstock in a holiday palette.  I finished by hand-cutting her Santa Hat that I adorned with some jeweled holly and attaching her to a de-bossed minty card base.  I finished with what seemed like the perfect holiday sentiment from My Favorite Things Sassy Pants Holiday."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My friend Gina wrapped my holiday gifts in super-cute Hello Kitty holiday paper; which of course I saved carefully and backed with cardstock. Then I cut out alllllll of those presents, trees and Kitties. (Yes, I am indeed nuts; thank you for asking.) I wanted my whole background to be that pale green snowflake paper, but alas there wasn't enough. As it turns out, I think that was a good thing, because it completely changed how I used the tiny cut out houses and trees... for the better! The pine tree background is ancient Pebbles; the scrap of plaid is, I believe, Echo Park; and also quite elderly."

♥♥♥

JB2607: Walking in a Whimsical Wonderland will run until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, April 8th. Link your wonderful, whimsical greetings right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thrice as Nice

Creating with trios is fun and satisfying, as everyone who linked up this ofrtnight has proven pretty conclusively! If you haven't scrolled through the Readers' Gallery, we highly recommend the trip. In the meantime, here are (coincidenally!) three cards that especially caught our eye:

Helen of Helen's Craft Haven

...notes humorously in her post that she realized we did not *literally* ask for cards with Three Kings, but when she realized she could do that, it was impossible to resist. We couldn't agree more!

Robyn Oliver of Waterlily Cards

...made this trio of elegant baubles by dipping an empty bathroom tissue roll in watercolor paint, then filling in the circles with sparkly shimmering color!

Jolanda Johnstone of The Inque Spot Studio

...went all in with glorious gold: gold paper, gold foil, gold embossing; this card is most definitely "good as gold"! 

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Many thanks to all who participated. We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will warm your whimsical heart!