Banner Holiday

Can you believe we've reached the final Jingle Belles prompt of the 2025 season? This year just RACED past at lightning speed! For the last few years, we've ended with a challenge inspired by the Jingle Belles Blog Banner, which this year looked a bit like this:

You can choose as many aspects of the banner as you like: maybe you can't get enough of the color palette; maybe the sparkly white letters and jeweled snowflakes rock your crafty boat; perhaps it's the watercolor vibe or the frosty trees that you love? Any or all of those are great choices; just be sure to let us know what aspect(s) inspired you if it isn't obvious.

Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I combined two setts of adhesive letters with a collection of silver glitter snowflakes & silver bling for this flat mailable holiday card.  It's also perfect for the Teal & Silver Color Hues Challenge."

Lauren's Card

Lauren Says, "Yes, my card is VERY literal; and NOOOOO yours need not be!!! As I was thinking about the header, I realized that I owned real-life versions of nearly every feature, so I just grabbed ALL of them and got to work. I found an ancient Webster's Pages vellum sheet of exactly the right shade; Stampabilities' "Jingle All the Way" die looks pretty fab in white glitter cardstock; Taylored Expressions' Evergreens are each cut twice (once from white and once from scraps of blueish green or greenish blue); and the background is made sparkly with several Want2Scrap Bling Snowflakes. Job done!"

♥♥♥

Link up your own Banner-Inspired designs right here. JB2524: Banner Holiday runs until 6pm (Eastern) on the evening of Wednesday, December 3rd.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Delicious Leftovers

It turns out there are LOTS of crafters who save up their "Holiday Leftovers" and have some pretty brilliant ways to use them! So if you haven't checked out the Readers' Gallery yet, we highly recommend taking a good scroll through all the entries, so as not to miss any of the fabulous inspiration. Meanwhile, here are three cards that caught our eye:

Tracy aka @crafty_whoistracy on Instagram

...shows that small dies + colorful scraps are an outstanding way to make a unique and beautiful background pattern!

Jacinda of LazzieJ's Crafting Corner

...rescued a vivid black and gold embossed panel from a crafty experiment and gave it a beautiful new life as a festive coffee cup on this clever card and giftcard holder!

Marina of My Perfect Life

...combined unrelated leftovers from her work desk and made a masterpiece of both whimsy and minimalism. Seriously... who could resist that reindeer?!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to all who played along, we loved seeing every single card. We'll be back at midnight with the final prompt of the 2025 Jingle Belles season and we hope you'll stop by and check it out! 

More Leftovers? (Yes, Please!)

We're still rounding up those Crafty Leftovers and using them to make fun and festive holiday cards. Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I found a couple of A2 sized panels in my "leftovers" box: one white with pierced snowflakes; and one red with embossed dots. I'd trimmed them to 1/3 and 2/3 respectively and started trying to decide which proportion I liked better when it hit me: I like BOTH! Luckily I had plenty of red and white scraps, which I started trimming into little flags and attaching at the dividing point... in the card equivalent of wainscotting, lol. I adhered two red metallic mats to two white A6 cards; found two red and white circular sentiments and diecut one red and one white scalloped circle from sticky back felt et voila!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "One of the things I don't love about leftover creating is that I have no idea the original source of all of these bits, but I did manage to make a second card entirely from pieces in my leftover bin.  I love the silver die cut sentiment (I remember I die cut several using my friend Chris' die set when we were creating together, but have no memory of the maker).  I also love how the die cut stitching looks on that thin piece of wood.  The larger piece is die cut from one of my Gelliarts prints, and I love how you can see the variation from the rolled-on blue paint."

♥♥♥

Need a little more inspiration, check out the beautiful cards already in the Readers' Gallery; then link up your own scraptastic masterpiece(s) on the original Holiday Leftovers post.

Holiday Leftovers

One of the best things about a big holiday meal is the LEFTOVERS, don't you agree?! But in a cardmaking sense, when we Jingle Belles say "Holiday Leftovers" it means we're creating cards using all those leftover offcuts and scraps of patterned paper, alphabet stickers, little snips of ribbon, extra diecuts that didn't get used when cut... you know, all of those tiny things we save because they're too pretty to throw away? Well this is the fortnight let's drag them all out and see how many we can use on holiday cards! (Be sure to tell us in your post what leftovers you've used.)

Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I've never done a great job of saving leftovers, but this year I designated a container and put all of my bits and bobs in it throughout the year.  I challenged myself to make a card with only pieces from my leftover pile, and I was successful.  I only added the sentiment stickers and an enamel dot in the middle of the snowflake to finish."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "For this card, almost all my leftovers are older Wendy Vecchi items. The poinsettia is from her MAKE ART Doodle Christmas Stamp Set (it was embossed but not colored); the small flowers (from Floral Doodles) were stamped and colored on sticky-back canvas tape, I just needed to cut them out. The square panel of sheet music was attached to a 6" card base that for some reason didn't get used; and the MERRY Chippie had been white-embossed with her Perfectly Plaid Background Stamp, but the embossing wasn't very prominent... (likely why it became a "leftover" instead of an element) ...though I discovered I liked it once it had a coat of Leaf Green Archival Ink. The additional sparkly foliage is newly cut, using the Xmas Add-On from Not Your Ordinary Card Collection. The washi tape is from an older roll that I *thought* I'd be finishing up but no, there's still some... wait for it... leftover!"

Link your Leftover Masterpieces right here by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 19th. ♥

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Snow Very Lovely!

The cards this fortnight were SNOW wonderful, it was especially difficult to only choose three; so we highly recommend you take a good scroll through all the entries, so as not to miss any of the fabulous inspiration! Meanwhile, here are three cards that caught our eye:

Crystal O. Minkler of Tawny Owl Paperie

...built this charming snowy scene for her adorable penguin pals to frolic in; and of course her amazing coloring skills take the whole thing to the next level!

Pauline C of Passion for Papercrafting

...created an elegant, ethereal winter landscape so magical, it's made us start longing for a bit of cold weather!

Denise of the Crafty Den

...made snowflakes (and frosty bling!) the star of the show on this super-textural CAS card that could not possibly be any cooler!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to all who played along, we loved seeing every single card. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt so we hope you still have some LEFTOVER energy to make more cards! ;)

SNOW Place like Home for the Holidays

We're still creating with SNOW this week at Jingle Belles ... It might be snowmen, snowflakes or just a snowy landscape, but include some snow on your cards.

Here's how we got SNOW-y this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "The other night I had fun ink-blending various shades of blue Ranger Distress Oxides over several panels of white-embossed snowflake backgrounds. But then I couldn't decide which one I liked the best... so I popped a hole into one and layered it over the other... problem solved! The snowman and sentiment are from Simon Hurley's North Pole Sentiments die set by Spellbinders; the Snowflake Brads and Enamel Hearts are from Eyelet Outlet."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I started with a rainbow GelliArts print and the Lawn Fawn Snowflakes Stencil for the Lawn Fawnatics rainbows! Challenge.  I used silver glitter paste through the stencil and let it dry before diecutting with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Die Cut.  Next I cut the Lawn Fawn Giant Be Merry from Silver Glitter cardstock & black cardstock for a drop shadow.  I finished by cutting the Candy Cane from the Lawn Fawn Build-a-Drink Mug Add-on (reversing it for the second one) using a scrap of red GelliArts printed paper and white cardstock.  All dies were attached using foam tape for dimension."

Link your fabulous snow-centric masterpieces on the original post (right below this one) by next Wednesday evening, November 5th! ♥

Dashing through the SNOW

For our next Jingle Belles prompt, we are asking you create projects that celebrate the white fluffy flakes of snow … it might be snowmen, snowflakes or just snowfall, but include some snow on your cards.

Here's how we got SNOW-y this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I love the new Kristina Werner Snowflake Season Border Die that I cut from a paper sample of brushed silver.  I used the bits that were left to cut out some of the smaller snowflake dies in the set and scattered them around my distressed GelliArts print made using Paper Artsy Forget Me Not Chalk Acrylic paint.  I die cut the Kristina Werner Calm & Bright dies from vellum and a slightly darker  purple cardstock, but the busyness of the snowflakes through the vellum didn't work, so I tried a silver glitter background that was too much.  I ended-up layering both backgrounds together, which was just right.  I attached it with foam tape and finished with a scattering of AlteNew Mother of Pearl Gem Sparkles.  The entire piece was attached to a metallic silver card base."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I serendipitously discovered this blue and purple gelprint (made ages ago, using an ancient Darice snowy embossing folder to left some of the paint off the plate) and added torn sheet music, purple Core'dinations cardstock and snowy washi; before layering on ALL the flakes from my Tim Holtz/Sizzix Stacked Snowflakes die in sparkly white plus various blues and purples."

♥♥♥

JB2522: Dashing Through the Snow runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 5th. Join us by linking your snow-centric cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Pink for the Cure!

Congratulations and thank you, Jingle Belles! You guys made sixty-two (62!) gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS cards, and with a donation of $4 per card ($2 each from Stephanie and Lauren) that means we've raised $248 for The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, WOOHOO! ♥♥♥ Not only was the quantity of cards outstanding (we SEE YOU, multiple-card-linkers and we're so grateful!) but so was the quality: each and every card was gorgeous and we could not be more impressed. Traditionally, though, we just choose three for the shout outs, and we're gonna do that now; but we highly recommend your taking time to scroll through the entire readers' gallery, we're sure you'll be as inspired as we are!

Trina of Phamtastic Design

...definitely understood the assignment and rocked every phase of this gorgeous card. From the inky ombre background to the sweet paper-piece snow-woman to the gorgeous musical staff and lyrics, we could not love this more!

Michele of I Card Everyone

...created the most adorable pink bird, in a pink scarf, landing on a pink snowbank, in a field of pink Christmas trees, topped with a pink sentiment tag, sporting a pink bow. Be still our pink-loving hearts!!!!!!

Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff

...is a wonderful, long-time supporter of both Jingle Belles and Pink Christmas, whose work we always love seeing; this year she's made ELEVEN pink cards, including this one, plus three more with similar, gorgeously inky artful backgrounds... that were leftover from a previous Pink Christmas card-making extravaganza! (WOW!) 

♥♥♥

Once again, we thank everyone who participated with such enthusiasm; LOTS of you linked multiple cards and rest assured we have counted and appreciated every single one. The Pink Christmas festivities may be over for this year, but of course we'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hopw will prove there's no business like SNOW business!!! ;)

PINK Christmas (Week 2)

It's the second week of Pink Christmas; the annual event where we ask YOU to make and link up as many predominantly PINK holiday cards as you possibly can, because WE (Stephanie and Lauren) are each going to donate $2 per card to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation! So how can you participate? Just make as many new cards as you'd like, each with a winter holiday theme, which feature PINK prominently. Then link them at the original Pink Christmas Post ... directly beneath this one. Easy peasy! 

Here's how we celebrated PINK Christmas this week:

Lauren's Other PINK Card

Lauren says, "This week I'm secretly a bit proud that I haven't actually used ANY official Christmas/holiday product! In fact, all of the papers (except the background) were from my scrap box. The adorable narwhal is an older Doodlebug 3D Doodle-pops Sticker and the little fishes plus the hearts were part of the set. I made the sentiment using some older Lawn Fawn alphabet dies and my trusty Dymo Labelmaker."

Stephanie's Other PINK Card

Stephanie says, "This week I started my Pink card with the On His Way Bella-Pop sticker of Santa in his fun little decked out Pink car and built my card around it.  used a Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders die cut for my snow and attached it to a piece of pink ombre cardstock from Scrapbook.com Ombre Patterned Paper.  I attached the car & the accompanying cloud stickers and finished with a sentiment from Kristina Werner Winter Greenery."

♥♥♥♥♥

We'd love for you to join us in celebrating PINK CHRISTMAS and of course it's for a very good cause, so start making and linking those PINK holiday cards today! JB2521: I'm Dreaming of a PINK Christmas runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October22nd.

I'm Dreaming of a PINK Christmas

It's the first week of October and thus it's time for PINK CHRISTMAS at Jingle Belles; the annual event where we ask YOU to make and link up as many predominantly PINK holiday cards as you possibly can, because WE (Stephanie and Lauren) are each going to donate $2 per card to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation! 

So what qualifies as a PINK CHRISTMAS card? It's pretty simple: the cards should be newly made, with a winter holiday theme, and they should feature PINK prominently. Does your whole card have to be pink? Certainly not. Can you combine other colors with the pink? Of course! 

Should you have more pink than say two or three baubles on your green tree set against a snowy white background? Well, yes... that would be good, lol. But other than that, we'll leave it to you to decide how much pink, what shade, and how to employ it! Can you link up more than one PINK CHRISTMAS card? Yes, indeed, please do!

Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started by cutting 3/8" strips from my collection of bright pink GelliArts prints and attaching them to a thin piece of white cardstock.  Next I stamped on top of the painted strips with Gina K. Designs Merry Everything and cut out the tree.  I cut two more trees from the strips edging the triangles with pink ink and attached them to a light pink GelliArts print using the October Sketch from 52 Christmas Card Throwdown.  I finished with a sentiment from the same stamp set and added a silver star on top of the tree."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've recently remembered how much I love the technique of adding salt to a wet panel of watercolor; it makes a pattern/texture similar to Jack Frost painting our windows in the winter. This panel looked so pretty that I didn't want to cover it up very much; thus I only added some Wendy Vecchi holly leaves (from last year's Christmas Add-On to her Not Your Ordinary Card Collection) cut from two luscious shades of self-adhesive felt paper; plus a few Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and tiny Pearl Bling. A dark pink mat and a bit of machine stitching complete my A6 card design."

♥♥♥♥♥

We'd love for you to join us in celebrating PINK CHRISTMAS and of course it's for a very good cause, so start making and linking those PINK holiday cards today! JB2521: I'm Dreaming of a PINK Christmas runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October22nd.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

There's No Place Like Home

Home IS where the heart is, especially at holiday time. Thus it was hard to only choose three cards, and we recommend an inspiring scroll through all the entries, so as not to miss any of the fabulous ideas from this fortnight's crop of cards! Meanwhile, here are three that especially caught our eye:

Julene of Julene by Design

...chose woodgrain paper, an amazingly intricate snowflake, and a washi tape sentiment for a card that beautifully sums up the whole winter holiday season!

Tracey of Copics, Stamps and Inky Fingers

...cleverly combined several different sets of dies, cut from the perfect shades of cardstock, to "make a scene" in the best possible way! 

Jolanda Johnstone of The Inque Spot Studio

...brilliantly added this tiny cabin to a holiday wreath, and tied everything together with consistent ink colors and pierced circle dies for a card that says, "WOW" in all caps!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to all who played along, we loved seeing every single card. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will find you tickled pink! ;)

I'll be HOME for Christmas

We're still creating cards inspired by HOME this week - you can include a house on your card, incorporate home-like products (bricks, woodgrain, etc.) or include the word HOME.

Here's how we built our HOMEs this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Another super-scrappy creation here. It's got a couple of designer paper off-cuts, a random tag, chipboard as well as ordinary stickers, five (5!) styles of ancient washi tape and a tiny car cut from patterned paper. Fun fact: I think the "12 Days" chipboard sticker has been in my stash for AT LEAST ten years... and I cannot decide if that fact is triumph or tragedy...?"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I used a Penny Black Masterpieces Image for my Home this week.  I attached it to a natural card base with foam tape over a dotted image for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge.  I finished with a greeting from Penny Black Banner Sentiments."

♥♥♥

Remember you still have until next Wednesday evening (9/8/25) 

to join the fun for JB2520: Home for the Holidays.

Home for the Holidays

There's just something about being Home for the Holidays … so that's the theme (and feeling) we're celebrating at Jingle Belles with our next prompt. 

That means we're asking you to make a holiday card that includes a House, Housing-like materials (wood-grain paper, a brick embossing folder), or the word Home.

Here's how we "built" our Homes this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I built my house using the Concord & 9th Home for the Holidays Stacks Dies together with a sentiment and banner die from Concord & 9th Festive Blooms using the colors from the current Color Hues Challenge palette of Sage Green and Smokey Blue."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "As a cardmaker who sometimes feels silly saving all my off-cuts of patterned paper and cardstock, this design is a bit of a triumph because, apart from the 5.5" square cardbase, it's made entirely of scraps! I used both dies from Penny Black's Trees and Hills set; both curvy dies from MFT's Stitched Basic Edges 2; and the house, fence, trees and snowflakes from Spellbinders' Winter Label Motifs set. The diecut flag sentiment is also Spellbinders and was in my leftover diecuts box, glued up and ready to roll."

♥♥♥

Link your HOME-made masterpiece(s) right here!

JB2520: Home for the Holidays runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 8th.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Merry Metallics

It is ALWAYS difficult to only choose three cards, and this fortnight it was especially hard. Therefore we highly recommend you take a good scroll through all the entries, so as not to miss any of the fabulous inspiration! Meanwhile, here are three marvelously metallic cards that caught our eye:

Helen of Helen's Craft Haven

...embossed a beautiful woodmount stamp with gold powder on a dramatically dark background, then painted it with metallic watercolors to stunning effect!

Kathy K of Purple Princess Diaries

...does indeed display some gorgeous purple, as well as three other glittery metallic washi strips, cleverly framed up by the negative space of her pretty Christmas Tree die!

Susan B of Cardmaker's Garret

...painted this lovely holly stamp with a special adhesive, stamped it onto white cardstock, then applied gold gilding flakes for an effect that is pure, off-the-charts elegance!

♥♥♥

And now to find out who is the winner of that very cool cover-plate die, we've consulted the Random.org and they've selected Lucky Number 13 which means that...

Denise Bryant 

is our Lucky Winner!

Denise, please send your snail mail info to

llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com 

and we'll get that on its way to you ASAP!

♥♥♥

Many thanks to all who played along, we loved seeing every single card. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will have you feeling right at *home*! ;)

GOLD-en Years

We're still celebrating a Metallic Christmas at Jingle Belles this week. Create a GOLD (or silver or copper or bronze) card ... just make sure we see your metallics.

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Laurenb says, "This card has FOUR different styles of silver metallic cardstock: matte, sparkly, glimmery and full-on reflective metallic silver... a personal best, lol! It's also got three different metallic tapes and some deep blue shimmer paper that isn't quiiiiiite metallic but adds to the vibe of the card, I think. I've paired Penny Black's Glorious poinsettia die (cut three times, clustered together and blinged up a bit) with Altenew's splendid Perfect Poinsettias 3D Embossing Folder... that I highlighted with a bit of metallic rub-on paste in a rich blue shade."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I went with silver this week by die cutting the Memory Box Tall Pine from Silver Metallic Cardstock.  Next I attached it to Teal Metallic cardstock before adding a star and Pinkfresh Studio Teal Gems.  I finished by attaching it all to a silver glittery card base and adding a sticker sentiment.  My other color inspiration was from the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown Silver & Teal Challenge."

And remember, one lucky participant will win this new Mid-Century Ethereal Plate background die cut by Simon Says Stamp.

Baby it's GOLD Outside

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to incorporate some GOLD into your card design. Okay, we'll stretch it a bit and allow silver, bronze, copper, platinum and brass as well ... just make sure we see your metallics!

It can be ink, paint, metallic paper, embellishments, embossing powder ... just make sure it has the Midas touch.

Here's how we got golden this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie say, "I started by die cutting a gold GelliArts print with the Simon Says Stamp Mid-Century Ethereal Plate and attaching it to a metallic teal and gold GelliArts print.  Next I stamped the Circle Tree from Simon Says Festive Trees is black ink on another metallic gold GelliArts print positioning it on a Pinkfresh Studio Nested Oval Double Stitched die cut from brushed metallic gold cardstock and topped with a gold star.  I finished with a Savvy Stamps Happy Holidays Block sentiment."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I also embraced gold this week; it's in a bunch of different elements: the vintage postcard I scanned and re-sized is framed with a gold diecut and matted on part of a gold doily; the strip of music paper and the scalloped piece beneath it are both gold metallic (I have recently re-discovered my collection of ancient border punches!); it's impossible to tell from the photo, but the reindeer sticker has glittery accents, as well."

♥♥♥

One lucky participant will win a brand new Simon Says Stamp Mid-Century Ethereal Plate die that Stephanie used for her card today, so break out those metallics and come join the Jingle Belles fun.

♥♥♥

JB2519: Baby it's GOLD Outside runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, September 24th. Link up your own Metallic Masterpiece(s) right here!   

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Cardstock Creativity

It turns out that the lack of patterned paper is NO obstacle at all to your amazing creativity! Thus, this fortnight it is especially difficult to only choose three cards, and we highly recommend you take a good scroll through all the entries, so as not to miss any of the fabulous inspiration! Meanwhile, here are three cards that caught our cardstock-centric eye:

Heather Mills of Wire Wrapture

...collaborated with her daughter to make this adorably creative, beautifully composed card, with arguably the best holiday pun EVER!

 (PS: We're stealing the mistle-toad sentiment for sure!!!)

Debbie of Debbie's Dash of This and That

...added an extra level of texture and interest to her already beautifully artful card: after smooshing, dipping and blending beautiful inks, she randomly added clear embossing ink and powder!

(Minds blown; we're definitely trying this brilliant idea!)

Fiona W of Crafty Stamping

...created this amazingly elegant and artful stamped collage on top of a gel print experiment and we are a bit obsessed with every beautiful detail!

(Bonus points that this card is perfect for ANY winter holiday!)

♥♥♥

Many thanks to all who played along, we loved seeing every single card. We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will get a gold star from the readership! ♥