Joy to the Earth

We're still celebrating Earth Day at Jingle Belles this week by creating projects that incorporate recycling.

Here's our second round of recycled creations.

Lauren's Other Card
Lauren says, "One of my 'real life' projects this week was to line the inside of some cupboards in my new home with this pretty black and white toile contact paper I snagged at the dollar store. There wasn't much leftover, but i rescued the biggest scrap... along with another lovely recycled holiday card from last year... to make this card. I also incorporated this week's awesome Merry Monday sketch!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Every year our marketing team at the office gets new sample books from the various paper manufacturers ... and the old paper sample books get to come home with me.  While the sample pieces are small, they are the perfect size for card making.  This entire card including the image (which was included in one book to show the effect of color printing on gorgeous ivory shimmer paper) was recycled from these sample books (love the gorgeous linen lines in the heavy background cardstock).  The silver shimmer cardstock was perfect for punching snowflakes, and I finished with an EAD Designs Vinyl rub-on sentiment.  The layout is this week's Retro Sketch."

Remember, you have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, April 24th to link-up your recycled creations ... can't wait to see what you create.

Earth Day Special!

Welcome to the Third Annual Earth Day Celebration at Jingle Belles (which is officially April 22nd) ... we love recycling, especially when it means giving beautiful things new life, so this week's prompt is to create a card that includes a recycled element.  

Keep your eyes open to the beauty of packaging, used wrapping paper, advertisements, previously sent cards ... and even soda pop cans ... you never know where your next artful inspiration might be.

Here is how we recycled this week:

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "By far my favorite thing to recycle on Christmas cards is... CHRISTMAS CARDS! You know, the store-bought ones we all get in the mail are often just tooooooo pretty to throw away, and every year I save at least a couple I've received. In this case, the panel with the cardinal-- which is actually even prettier irl, where you can see the pressure embossing that's raised the trees and branches!-- was a card my friend Cheryl was given, and she saved it knowing that I'd want to use it for something! I've also got the white backing panel from a packet of Making Memories frames, a scrap of red paper cut for another project, the leftover bit of a chipboard sentiment banner, and a little piece of red ribbon which came on a package!"

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I too recycle Christmas cards ... and I am lucky enough that co-workers in my corner of our office save me the cards they receive as well.  Often corporate holiday cards are of particularly high quality like this piece of heavy letterpress with fabulous subtle texty texture.  In keeping with the neutral clean design of the base, I only added punched kraft snowflakes from recycled cardstock (attached with small glue dots in the center for some dimension) and some chocolate pearls before mounting on a kraft card base."

So now it's time to see what you can find to recycle to celebrate Earth Day ... and then link-up with us between now and 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, April 24th ... keyword for galleries & our Jingle Belles Flickr Group is JB:13:08.

bring on the ♥BLING♥!

has there ever been such a sparkly and inspirational fortnight as this one, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥?! we cannot imagine anything more fun than spending two weeks checking out the most beautifully blingy christmas creations around! here are a few which especially enchanted us:

rose of rose's happy place

added one perfect gem star to her gorgeous sketch card creation... and it was the icing on the cake!

 carol of cmdesign

went all out with the most elegant silver frame imaginable, for a card that shines, in every sense!

janiel of scrappy jan designs

stamped and colored, layered and glittered, glimmered and shimmered... for a card that adds up to even more than the sum of its beautiful and sparkly parts!

thank you very much indeed to every single one of you who made the gallery ♥SHINE♥! please join us once again in thanking the lovely and uber-talented lisa hausmann of recklinghausen musings for thinking up this wonderful prompt and coming along to show us how it's done! please also join us at midnight for a new idea to get you started on more holiday fun... or, more accurately, this year's version of one of our all-time FAVES! ♥