Santa Says, "WOW!"

The only thing more fun than making holiday shaker cards, or Santa-centric designs ourselves, is watching you guys do that... and we have a gallery full of awesomeness to attest to how brilliantly it was accomplished! Here are a few cards that made us smile especially broadly:

Marina of My Perfect Life

Used an image called "Disco Santa"... what else could you possibly need??!?!  (Ok, yeah, there's also perfect stamping, beautiful coloring and lots of glittery touches!) :)

Jessi Fogan of One Crafty Mama

Created a super-fun, totally dynamic design by making the circular element of a fab card sketch into an awesome snowman shaker!

Barbara of The Knackered Grouse

Combined both elements of the prompt-- and added lots of extra interest-- by placing the translucent shaker element on the front of the card with the Santa image inside! Awesome!

Please join us in thanking the lovely and talented Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff for such an awesome idea, and for coming along with two absolutely brilliant cards to inspire us all! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt that we hope will help you take stock of your holiday card supply! 

Claus and Effect

We're loving all your beautiful cards for Marianne's fun "Shake it, Santa Baby" prompt! Why not scroll down to see the reader's gallery and then link up your own card that features The Big Guy or rocks the holiday shaker card design?! Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:

Marianne's Other Card

Marianne says, "This week I just had to make a shaker card featuring this cute digital Santa babe (Winter Wryn) by Tiddly Inks. I coloured the image using coloured pencils and created my shaker using stitched dies, some patterned paper from my favourite Christmas paper pad, silver beads, sequins, a sheet of acetate and a double layer of foam tape. I applied a few tiny dots of multi-medium matte using a piercing tool and dropped some of the pierced interiors of the sequins (that were included with my Studio Calico sequins) and a few beads onto those for a little added interest."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I decided to focus on the man in the red suit this week, using a bunch of cuuuuute ready made embellishments and the rather wonderful sketch from Fusion Card Challenge."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I combined Santa with a Snowman, a Jingle Bell and some Peppermint Washi Tape using a sketch from STAMPlorations."

Remember, you have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 17th to link-up your card.

Shake It Santa Baby

We are always thrilled to have a lovely guest star join us, especially when she brings along an awesome idea with a catchy title! This week we're lucky enough to have one of our favorite holiday cardmakers, Marianne of Marianne's Cards 'n Stuff! Let's meet her now and hear how she came up with this fortnight's prompt, which is to make a shaker card OR a card that features Santa Claus (or both?!):

"Hi everyone, I'm thrilled to be making a guest appearance on the Jingle Belles blog this fortnight. I'm a Dutch native living in Crete, Greece. I love singing as much as I love making Christmas cards, so as I was humming a song in the shower (Shake it up, baby - Twist and Shout), I had a light bulb moment. How about mixing things up a little and proposing 'Shake it Santa Baby' as a prompt for the Jingle Belles challenge?! As it happened, Lauren and Steph loved the idea, and I'm hoping you like it, too. I cannot wait to see what you come up with."

Marianne's Card

Marianne says, "For this week's card, I decided to focus on Santa. I thought this might be the perfect moment to break into the pack of dimensional Santa stickers I had brought home from a trip to Sydney, Australia some 18 months ago. I wanted to give Santa centre stage, so all I did was cut a few strips of patterned paper from an old Simon Says Stamp card kit, stamp a sentiment and adhere Santa and a small embellishment sticker from the same pack. And since this card came together so quickly, I made a second card, which can be viewed on my blog."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I love the vintage Santa stamps by Tim Holtz ... this one is inked in Festive Berries and Gathered Twigs (don't those ink colors just scream Christmas) ... the layout is this week's Freshly Made Sketch."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I love shakers cards, but I don't especially love engineering. Luckily, I found a great way to cheat: I flicked through my collection of beautiful store-bought cards received over the holidays and found one with a fancy diecut window and layered it over a second card with a pretty snowscape featuring Santa and his reindeer. Then all I had to do was back the window with a piece of clear acrylic, surround the edge with foam tape, and fill the center with clear iridescent microbeads that look like snow. EASIEST. SHAKER CARD. EVER!!!" :)

Now it's time to see what you will do: Embark on a shaker card design, feature Christmas' "big guy"... or maybe a bit of both? We can't wait to see! Link your cards up right here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, June 17th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:15:12.

An InLinkz Link-up