Friday, November 8, 2024

Christmas Feast

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're celebrating one of our very favorite aspects of the holidays: The Christmas Feast! There are lots of iconic holiday foods, from cookies and candies to gingerbread in all its forms; sugar plums, Christmas pudding, Buche de Noel, even the Grinch carving the Roast Beast!

 Make a holiday card in any color, style or size you like... just make sure it features a tasty holiday treat.

Here's how we're FEASTING (in card form!) this week:


Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went with the iconic coffee (or in my case hot cocoa) and a peppermint candy cane for this week's card featuring Lisa Horton Crafts Winter Layering Snowman Stencils and brads from Eyelet Outlet (Candy Cane & Holiday Coffee Cup).  I created my card in traditional holiday colors of Red & Green for the Caffeinated Christmas Challenge theme and finished with an Eyelet Outlet Cardinal brad perched in the pine tree."


Lauren says, "As often happens when I get out my adorable Doodlebug Design holiday stash, I couldn't just make ONE card. In my defense, D-bug always includes a lot of sweet (in every sense lol) treats, which are perfect for this particular theme. For these cards I raided the patterned papers and sticker from the aptly named Gingerbread Kisses and Candy Cane Lane collections. I used coordinating papers from my scrap box, and couldn't resist adding a few Eyelet Outlet Gingerbread and Candy Cane Brads." 

And one lucky participant in the Christmas Feast prompt will win a brand new Tim Holtz Santa Claus Thinlits Die Cuts.

♥♥♥

The Christmas Feast challenge (#JB2423) will run until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 20th. Link up your tasty treat cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Creature Feature

There are so many amazing cards featuring holiday critters that you really do need to check out the entire Readers' Gallery in the "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" post, but in the meantime, here are three that caught our eye:


...chose an adorable Christ-MOOSE mascot and created a CAS-but-layery scheme that shows him (or her?) off to perfection!


...is hosting a Penguin Party as well as showing off one of the coolest versions of the postage panel trend that we've ever seen!


...employed her very strong stamping, coloring and inking skills to best advantage on this charming card that tells a humorous little story!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every single one of your creative and inspiring cards! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt for you to FEAST your eyes on! ;)

Friday, November 1, 2024

Not a CREATURE was Stirring

We're still creating holiday cards with Animals (or Yetis... or Monsters); whatever CREATURE you choose to share with us.

Here's our Creature Feature for you this week:


Lauren says, "I found a beautiful older pack of adorable animal stickers from Recollections in my holiday stash, so I immediately knew I wanted them to be the stars of the show. I didn't realize how well they'd coordinate with that very fun October Afternoon critter-bedecked washi tape; but having seen a few Team Spellbinders cards in which the smallest two sizes of Wendy Vecchi's Pinking Edge rectangle dies (from NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection's Birthday Add-On set) were used to make the most fabulous frame for a little scene, so I worked in that idea, as well. Ancient Heidi Swapp decotape and skinny mats of black glossy cardstock complete the design."


Stephanie says, "I had fun dressing up Lawn Fawn Bear & Reindeer in their Christmas Sweaters from Lawn Fawn Ugly & Bright. (you know I had to add tiny googley eyes).  I embossed Lawn Fawn Spiffier Speckles designer paper with the Lawn Fawn Backdrop Stitched Snowflakes.  I created my card using a monochromatic blue-grey palette for the Lawnfawnatics Monochromatic Challenge."

♥♥♥

"While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" (JB2422) runs until 6pm (Eastern) next Wednesday evening, November 6th so you still have plenty of time to join our Jingle Belles fun! Link your cards at the original post, directly below this one.

Friday, October 25, 2024

While Shepherds Watched their Flocks

This fortnight we're asking you to break out the animals for your holiday card ... it could be a sweet little sheep or perhaps one of Santa's reindeer ... or even a monster or Yeti if you're in a bit of a Halloween mood and want to stretch the theme.

Here's how we interpreted this week's theme:


Stephanie says, "I was hunting through my stash for my animal options, and I saw these fun Scooby-Doo Stickers.  When I looked at them and tried to think about how I might incorporate them, I saw a Christmas tree grounded by the Mystery Machine and topped with the logo.  I figured, what have I got to lose (as I tell my friends, it's just paper), so I gave it a try ... and I giggled a bit when it worked.  I added bits of bling for some tree decoration and attached my Scooby tree to a glittery card base.  I finished with a sentiment that I printed using a groovy font."


Lauren says, "As I was getting out my much-loved Lawn Fawn Winter Narwhal mini stamp set, I also found a sadly neglected Critters in the Arctic set, as well as Jen Long's Tons of Love Sizzix stamp and die set AND Rubber Moon's adorable Nerdy Narwhal. (Those latter two, sadly, are out of print though the Lawn Fawn sets are still available.) And since obviously it'd be IMPOSSIBLE to just choose one of the above, I decided to stamp my own little pod of narwhals to star in their own punny card inspired by my favorite Narwhal and Jellie book, "Happy Narwhalidays"! I used stripey Thickers and Doodlebug My Type alphas to create the sentiment, clustered the paper-pieced pod around it, added a few mats and called it good!"

♥♥♥

"While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" (JB2422) will run until 6pm (Eastern) onWednesday, November 6th and you're invited to link up with us right here at Jingle Belles!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Pretty in Pink

Many thanks to EVERYONE who made and linked PINK CHRISTMAS cards for the cure! This year, counting the "extra" cards linked up inside various posts, we amassed a total of 58 PINK CHRISTMAS CARDS, and since Stephanie and Lauren are donating two dollars (each!) per card, that means we'll be making a donation of $232.00 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! Thank you for helping us do that! Apart from the fund-raising aspect, this fortnight saw some of the most beautiful cards of the year as well, making it even harder than usual to choose just three, but here, in no particular order, are a trio which particularly caught our eye:


...created a beautiful, eye-catching, unconventional holiday tree shape from gorgeously colored PINK mushrooms that we just cannot stop staring at!


...used an incredibly clever reverse-masking tutorial to create a truly lovely wreath in several shades of pink within a single layer of cardstock for a card that's as impressive as it is pretty!


...went BOLD with several vivid shades of pink, gold embossing, pressure embossing, distressing and... well, every time we look at this beauty we see something new to love! 

♥♥♥

We are truly grateful and appreciative to EVERYONE who took time to make cards, link them, and even go round and leave some love for your fellow Jingle Belles. Thank you so much for making this our favorite challenge of the year! We will be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will have lots of lovely cardmakers FLOCKING around to participate! ;)

Friday, October 18, 2024

Pink Christmas: Week 2

It's the second week of our gala PINK CHRISTMAS celebration here at Jingle Belles, in which we're asking YOU to make holiday cards that are predominantly pink... and WE will donate to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each card that gets linked up! Visit the original PINK CHRISTMAS post directly below this one for all the details as well as the Linky Tool to add your cards. 

Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:


Lauren says, "This week I raided my happy little stash of Doodlebug Design papers, journal tags and stickers to make this sweet (in every sense, lol) little card that's mostly pink... with touches of tan gingerbread and reindeer; as well as some fun green Christmas tree cookies. I used an ancient pink background paper with a strong horizontal element to it, which made lining up the decorative strips super-easy!"


Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Since all of my pink designer paper scraps were still out on my table, I decided to combine three of them for this week's card.  I topped the papers with a fun pink Baking Spirits Bright Doodle-Pop from Doodlebug Designs.  I finished with a perfect AMuse sentiment and some pink glittery enamel dots."


♥♥♥♥♥


Link your gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS creations (because YES, you definitely can make as many as you'd like!) on the original post which is directly below this one. This challenge (#JB2421) runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 23rd. 

Friday, October 11, 2024

PINK CHRISTMAS (For the Cure!)

It's that time again here at Jingle Belles, our favorite prompt of the year: PINK CHRISTMAS! In which you make and link new holiday cards that are predominantly PINK and we (Stephanie and Lauren) donate $2 (apiece!) per card to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Just to anticipate a few basic questions: Yes, you can link as many cards as you'd like to; and no, your cards don't need to be entirely PINK but it should certainly be the main color! You can use any additional colors that you'd like; and the cards can be any size, shape, theme and style. 

Sound good? Then without further ado, here are our PINK CHRISTMAS cards:


Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went shopping in my designer paper scraps and pulled out every pink paper I could find (including one of my own inky sprayed papers).  I cut 3/8" strips to cover my card front.  I finished with a fun Doodlebug Designs tag that I matted with a thin white frame to make it pop a bit more against that busy background."



Lauren says, "I am currently obsessed with Wendy Vecchi's NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection from Spellbinders, so for this card I broke out the Christmas Add-On Stamp and Die Set and used the triple holly leaf die to very quickly cut lots of layers from textured pink cardstock; which I then inked and stacked, in two five-petal layers for each flower, into poinsettias, finishing off with the three berry cluster at the center, and finally a few tiny stick-on pearls plus a few cuts of the beautiful, delicate greenery die. I used the sentiment stamps from the set and a Build-a-Plaid background made with the second smallest stencil and Pink Peony Archival. A little bit of lace, some darker pink mats and a bit of machine stitching and I was good to go! There's a little more detail about the making of the poinsettias and the use of the Build-a-Plaid Stencils on my blog."

♥♥♥

Link your gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS creation(s) right here. This challenge (#JB2421) runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 23rd. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Sketchy Stunners!

This time literally ALL of the holiday cards made for our special sketch challenge were outstanding, so here they are and CONGRATS to everyone who did a brilliant job!

...added a sweet firelplace and stocking scene to the focal panel and clearly trained holly leaves to go up and down both sides of the card!


...chose and elegant gold, cream and navy color palette and added just enough perfect distressing to each element!


...brilliantly swapped the rectangle and strip shapes from the sketch for poinsettias and holly that make her gorgeous stencilled backdrop stand out even more!


...made a completely faithfulversion of the sketch and it turns out to look even lovelier in landscape mode; plus we love the luscious soft snowy colors!


...flipped the sketch horizontally and added impressive amounts of eye-catching dimension and texture... not to mention displaying her amazing coloring skills!

♥♥♥

We'll be back at midnight with a brand new (but seasonally predictable!) prompt we hope will tickle you PINK! ♥ 

Friday, October 4, 2024

Gettin' Sketchy

We're still making cards based on Stephanie's awesome card sketch and you're still invited to join the fun! First here's a reminder of the sketch:

And now, here's how we got sketchy this week:


Lauren says, "I went almost entirely vintage this week. Only my sentiment is cut from a modern Simple Stories mini journal card... oh and there's a silver metallic cardstock mat layer... but otherwise: the background collage is all vintage paper; the postcard is scanned and re-sized but it's from my IRL collection of vintage postcards. Maybe my favorite things are those beautiful vintage Plaid Trading Stamps that Stephanie found and gifted to me and which not only matched perfectly, they work perfectly as the "strips" in the sketch!"



Stephanie says, "I found this adorable vintage Santa & Reindeer image from Pretty Little Studio's Jolly Santa Die Cuts (I wonder which reindeer get their own bed).  I paired it with cardstock banners and a sentiment to wish them all a good night's sleep after their hard work is done.."

♥♥♥

You've got until next Wednesday evening (10-9-24) to link your sketch-inspired cards on the original post, located directly below this one. Remember you can flip it, stretch it, rotate it, smoosh it or change shapes; just make sure we can see "the bones" of the sketch in your card! 

Friday, September 27, 2024

SKETCH-tivus for the Rest of Us

We're asking you to get SKETCH-y with us this fortnight. Take a peek at the inspiring sketch Stephanie has created for us and feel free to flip it, stretch it, rotate it, smoosh it or change shapes; just make sure we can see "the bones" of the sketch in your card!

Here's how we celebrated SKETCH-tivus:


Stephanie says, "A tag is the perfect thing for the horizontal element in the Sketch.  My card is made completely from Doodlebug Designs papers, which I love for their bright happy colors."


Lauren says, "A frame is also a nice choice for the focal element in the sketch, and since this one was oriented vertically, I rotated the sketch 90 degrees counterclockwise, but otherwise my card is quite faithful to the original. I filled said frame with sheet music and some supercute stickers, added various washi strips to the beautiful 49 and Market background panel, did a little stitching, et voila!"

♥♥♥

Link your sketch cards right here by 6pm (eastern) on Wednesday, October 9th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB2420.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thursday, September 26, 2024

Holiday Hilarity

So many fun and funny holiday cards in the Ho Ha Ha gallery, if you haven't already had a look, we highly recommend the trip. In the meantime, here are three that especially caught our eye and tickled our funnybone:


...made an adorable SHELL-ebration with a cute and clever desert theme, including a stenciled sandy background, a cactus xmas tree (with appropriately tan/brown lights!) and amazing coloring!


...sums up many of the qualities we OWL-ways love in a friend, at Christmas and the rest of the year; and gets bonus points for her fab coloring and a fun layout!


...paired the perfect digital image and sentiment for a beautifully clean and simple MEOW-y Christmas card that definitely made us chuckle!

♥♥♥


And now we'd all love to know where that super-fun, 
Santa-centric Hero Arts stamp set will be going, right?

The Random Number Generator has selected...
(drumroll, please!)
Lucky Number 6
which means that
(who made two beautiful and hilarious cards, btw!)
 is our Lucky Winner!

Julissa, please send your snail mail info to:
llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com
and we'll get that right on it's way to you!
♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing EVERY card! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt that might seem a liiiiiiittttttttle bit sketchy, but we think you'll like it! :)

Friday, September 20, 2024

Fun, Fun, Funny

We're still making a cards that are funny, punny, silly or snarky, and we'd love for YOU to make us laugh, smile or chuckle with your Humorous Holiday cards. Here's what we made this week:



Lauren says, "I loved Stephanie's Taylored Expressions Grumpling card from last week, and it reminded me that I own the Mythical Grumplings stamp set, with it's supercute sourpuss of a yeti, to whom I've given an Eyelet Outlet Santa Hat Brad. The (sadly out of print) Stamplorations' "Jingle All the Way" die was perfect for the top part of the sentiment, and the rest is computer-generated, using a free font called Bohemian Typewriter. A nice big Nestabilities label die trimmed the center panel; which I layered onto a piece of offset chevron patterned paper... (so ancient I have no idea who made it) ...augmented with some seasonal skinny washi tape strips."



Stephanie says, "Another line of stamps I love for fun & snark are My Favorite Things Sassy Pants (this is Sassy Pants Holiday).  I paired the sentiment with some fun puffy elf stickers I've had in my stash for longer than I remember ... aren't they laugh-out-loud perfect."


And don't forget, there's a little prize for one lucky participant - the Hero Arts Ho Ho Ho Santa Faces Stamp Set.


You still have until next Wednesday evening (9-25) to link up your own humorous holiday card(s); just scroll down to the original Ho Ha Ha post, directly beneath this one.

Friday, September 13, 2024

HO HA HA!

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to create Humorous Holiday Cards. They can be funny, punny, snarky or silly but make sure they're something that will induce a smile, a chuckle or a laugh.

Here's how we're sharing our humor this week:


Stephanie says, "When I think of humor and snark, I immediately go to the Grumpy Characters from Taylored Expressions.  For this week's card, I used Taylored Expressions Big Grumpy - Cat with a sentiment and antlers from Taylored Expressions Big Grumpy-Christmas.  I positioned him onto a piece of Taylored Expressions Build a Scene Christmas paper with a tiny bit of holly on the sign finishing the design.



Lauren says, "As I was pursuing a completely different idea, I found this teeny (1" square) HUMBUG stamp which I think has to be 20+ years old, and I wondered if I could make it into a full-sized A2 card. As it turns out, YES, I could; though it's definitely a bit more pared down than my usual style. A little matted diecut frame, some foam Thickers, and a few patterned paper panels in appropriately coordinating "Humbug Green" et voila!


And just for giggles (get it LOL) - for one lucky participant, we've got a fun little prize - 


♥♥♥

JB2419: Ho Ha Ha will run until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, September 25th. 
Link your humorous holiday cards right here: 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thursday, September 12, 2024

Just In C.A.S.E.

It seems that CASE-ing previous Jingle Belles cards was indeed a considerable challenge, so we are extra-impressed by those who did an amazing job!


...chose a card of Lauren's (see below) and did an amazing job replicating the structure, the pink and the ribbon... then added a few incredibly lovely twists of her own!

Deb's inspiration; by Lauren


...chose a card of Stephanie's (see below) and did a fabulous job of making Stephanie's design entirely visible, while using her own beautifully chosen shapes and colors!

Jolanda's inspiration; by Stephanie



...made TWO amazing versions of two different cards made by Stephanie and they're so awesome we cannot possibly choose between them!



♥♥♥♥♥

Tune in at Midnight for a brand new prompt we think will be good for a laugh or two!

Friday, September 6, 2024

It Came Upon a Midnight CASE

This week we're still asking you to CASE (Copy And Selectively Edit) any of the cards that Lauren or Stephanie have made for any of the previous Jingle Belles prompts (yep, you've got 13 1/2 years of cards to choose from). 

Be sure to link to the card that inspired you and tell us the selective edits you made to the design.


Lauren says, "This week I was inspired by Stephanie's Neutral Noel collage card from June of 2021 (see below) I swapped the cool "found relatives" style photo for a scanned and re-sized vintage postcard of appropriate colors that is portrait rather than landscape-shaped; and of course my collage and vintage bits are different, but I kept to the footprint of the original card and made sure to include some sheet music, some softly patterned paper, a small piece of transparency, and... my favorite... that cool wrap of twine!"

Stephanie's Inspiring Card


Stephanie says, "I chose Lauren's Man with the Bag card from June 2022, but I swapped Santa for a different Doodlebug Doodle-Pops Sugarplum Street 3-D stickers.  I also moved my sentiment underneath my scene and with my rotated oval die cut.  I had so much fun creating my paper scrap quilted background."