Going POSTAL!

We're always thrilled to have our fellow ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ suggest ideas for a great holiday card prompt, so please join us in welcoming our very lovely guest star, Lela Meinke!  Lela (you may know her as Serenity_Stamper) has been stamping for a verrrry long time. Back in the day, she wrote feature articles for RubberStampMadness. She’s active on Splitcoast, and she is a Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator. You can check out her ♥AMAZING♥ gallery at SCS by clicking the link for her card, and you can also check out her Stampin' Up Demonstrator Web Site; be sure to drop by one (or both!) of those fine sites and leave her some love!

Lela wrote in with a brilliant idea that we've never done before, so of course we invited her along to make a card with us! Lela suggested we build cards around postoids or real postage or even postal images; we've added in a couple twists of our own, so this fortnight you can choose from a few different-- but all MAIL-RELATED-- options:

make a card that includes faux or real postage or postal images 

(mailboxes, postcards, stamps, cancellations, etc)

OR

create a holiday postcard

OR

make a holiday card with a matching (decorated) envelope

Lela's Card

Lela says, "This card combines so many elements that I love: I love roses. I love all things postal. I love the distress technique. I love collage. And I love the holiday season! I decorate my family room with a rose theme every December. Our holiday wreath has roses too. I’ve saved that cancelled postage-stamp for a while, and it served as the perfect inspiration and focal point for this challenge. Those two red roses holding the banner are from the goody-bag prize I won from Lauren!”

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "As the wife of a postal carrier, I naturally love to collect mail-related images to use in my creations. These bright and beautiful EAD Christmas Stamp Stickerz are so very appealing that I only needed a few strips of cardstock and an EAD Christmas Sentiment Rub-On to make one of my fastest holiday cards ever!”

 Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Amongst many other types of vintage paper, I collect postcards. I couldn't quiiiiiite bear to part with any of them, so I did the next best thing: scanned, printed and distressed both the front and back of one of my favorites (which was mailed to two young girls by their aunt, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1907!) to put on this card. I used Kimber McGray's current card challenge sketch at Two Peas for the layout of my design."

We hope you'll be inspired to try one (or all!) of our fun options and that everyone will be "Going POSTAL" with us this fortnight! To inspire you further, we thought it would be appropriate for one lucky cardmaker to get a sweet little crafty package of christmas goodies in the mail. we'll randomly select a link number from the submitted cards, so you'll get another chance with every new card you make which fits this challenge!

You have until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, September 19th to link up your mail-related creations; use keyword JB-12-19 in galleries and our flickr group, and be sure to HAVE FUN! ♥

Everybody Wins at ♥BINGO♥!

Especially us, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ when you link up as amazing array of incredibly lovely cards as you did this fortnight! Every single one is a big, biiiiiig winner in our book, and to prove it, we invite you to scroll down and check out each and every card in the links list, because we KNOW you'll be as inspired as we are. In the meantime, here are a few particularly clever takes on the BINGO challenge we'd like to show you:

Brenda B. of Brenda's Crafty Corner

We love the creative use of paper scraps for those fabulous little trees!

 Deanne of Three Trees

This beautifully non-traditional card can be summed up in two words: Simply Stunning!

Cheryl Lea of Ink Up

We're amazed by the unbelievable detail and gorgeous combination of flowers!

We've lined up a brand new challenge, a particularly lovely guest star, and there miiiiight even be a prize next fortnight, who can say??! ;) Best to stop back at midnight and find out!

BINGO Free Space

We're still playing Jingle Belles BINGO this week ... have you made a bingo yet?  If not, you still have until Wednesday, September 5th at 6pm EST to join our fun & games.

Here are our BINGO creations for this week:

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i chose the bottom row for my 'BINGO', so i pressure embossed snowflakes on my label shape, as well as my die cut tree, and added in some vintage velvet ribbon i scored on a recent thrifting expedition; it was only after i finished the card that i realized i had a double bingo via the middle vertical column, since my letters and label shape have subtle text stamped on them, i've used a large dimensional rose, and of course the tree is still there! :) i was further inspired by the 'summer cottage' theme at the shabby tea room' and by the current retrosketch (#26)."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "Yes, for anyone who's keeping score, I used the same 

BINGO combination as last week - 

vertical down the center for stamping, flowers & a tree 

(hey if it works for you, I say go for it).  

I stamped Hero Arts Daisy Reverse Pattern multiple times on a 

textured light green cardstock.  Next, I punched lots of hearts 
from the stamped cardstock and arranged them upside down 

(curling the edges around a paint brush handle & 

using glue dots to attach at the top of each heart) 

starting my tree from the bottom and layering upwards.  

I finished with tree trunk from bronze shimmer paper and a 

white glittery star with white pearl *lights* to decorate my tree.
The sentiment is from Hero Arts Joy To All."

Scroll down to the original post for full details and the linking tool!

Holiday B-I-N-G-O

Since we're full of fun & games at Jingle Belles, we decided to create our own Jingle Belles B-I-N-G-O card for this week's prompt.  All you have to do is create a card using all three of the elements from a single row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal ... so you have lots of possibilities).

Here's how we scored a BINGO this week.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went with a vertical bingo right down the center - stamping, tree & flowers.  I die cut my Memory Box Flowering Christmas Tree from shimmery aqua cardstock, adding white pearls to decorate the blooms.  The stamping is Hero Arts Grid Pattern for a tone-on-tone krafty background with a  darker brown stamped sentiment from CatsLife Press."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i chose the diagonal that starts at the top right corner, which got me bling, flowers, and  embossing; the last is difficult to see in the photo, but quite cool in real life: i used one of cuttlebug's thin strip embossing folders to add texture to my pink and white cardstock snowflake border strip! having taken inspiration from shabby tearoom week #128: "shabby patterns", and designed my layout around unscripted sketch #172 this card pretty much made itself! gotta love that, right?!"

So try your luck at Jingle Belles B-I-N-G-O this week ... whatever combination you choose, you're sure to win with a fabulous holiday design.  Remember to link-up your card by 6pm EST on Wednesday, September 5th ... and if you upload to galleries or our Flickr Group, use keyword JB-12-18.

sketch-o-licious!

it's really not fair, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, that every single one of your cards made to stephanie's beautiful sketch is sooooooo incredibly lovely, creative and amazing! if you want to see our complete list of favorites this week, you really are going to have to scroll down to the link list and visit ALL of cards your fellow belles submitted! in the meantime, here are a few we thought interpreted the sketch in particularly clever ways:

Nikki C. of Graphix and Designs

stretched the sketch to fit her fabulous long-and-narrow card design, and then dressed it up in rich hues and bold patterns!

Rocky of Rocky's Crafting Blog

saw the sketch within this beautiful and ornate over-sized rubber stamp, and used dimension, gems, and a bit of sparkle to emphasize the "main" flower!

Brenda of Butlers Abroad

stamped the sketch components simply but perfectly-- in several colorways-- then added just enough embellishment to enhance her composition!

and now i think we'd all like to know who'll be getting a crafty christmas care package in the mail, so we've consulted the fine folks at random.org and they chose number 26, which means the winner of the lovely blog candy is....

♥CARLA♥

miss carla, please email your address to jinglebellesrock @ hotmail [dot] com so we can get your prize out to you ASAP! 

we'll be back at midnight with a fun new prompt, so do come on back then, won't you?! ♥

here we come a-sketching!

we're having so much fun with stephanie's sketch that we couldn't resist sharing another round of fun cards with you:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I broke out my favorite felt snowmen stickers from Basic Grey's Jovial Collection together with some Hero Arts stamps ... those little guys certainly look like they will be sharing some joy when they arrive in the mail."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "i was inspired by the august color challenge at EAD designs to make my card red, green and yellow; and used quite a few of their small but adorable funky christmas tag stickerz in my card. i thought it might be difficult to work in that bright sunshiney shade, but found that this stripey echo park christmas paper had some, as did the fun faux polaroids from my favorite sheet of dear lizzy neapolitan... and everything else just sort of fell into place!"

be sure to scroll down and save the sketch, see your fellow JINGLE BELLES' amazing cards in the gallery, and read about this week's awesome prize, before linking up your own gorgeous creation! ♥

oh christmas sketch

for this prompt, ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we're getting sketchy again! we're pleased and proud to announce that stephanie has created her first-ever sketch for our little blog, and since it's really rather fabulous let's get right to it, shall we?!

it's quite a flexible plan, isn't it? you can take it in pretty much ANY direction, and we've done just that with our cards this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I went shopping in my own neglected studio stash and found this gorgeous floral flocked paper from Little Yellow Bicycle.  While I don't normally think of flowers for a Christmas card, I think the soft subtle grey-on-grey pattern works well as a background element.  I added one of the many dimensional gift tags I picked-up on clearance after the holiday last year & one of my favorite peace quotes to finish the design."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "i had put together the most strikingly *MINIMALIST* version of this sketch you can possible imagine-- which lasted for about five minutes-- and then i cracked! (that's nearly twice as long as my previous record, though, lol!).  ok, i know, it's a sort of compulsion, but the world (and my stash!) is just so full of lovely embellishments, it seems a pity not to use as many as possible! plus, this gorgeous sketch can stand up to it brilliantly!"  :)

For a little extra fun, we're throwing in some holiday goodies for one lucky participant (drawn at random from all sketch cards linked-up) ... goodies include a Basic Grey Jovial build your own snowman stamp set, 7Gypsies Christmas Wrap paper tape, some Making Memories Charmed Plaques and some Happy Holidays dimensional stickers.

and now it's time to see what you will do with stephanie's fabulous sketch: dress it up or down, make it classic or non-traditional, embrace "clean and simple" or go for the gold and pile on the goodies! whatever you choose, link it up here before 6pm (EST) on wednesday, august 22nd. keyword for galleries and our flickr group is JB-12-17.