Blue Christmas

We're having a Blue Christmas at Jingle Belles ... creating holiday cards that are noticeably and predominantly BLUE ... remember that hue can range from aqua to navy to cerulean ... but we want to see lots of BLUE.

Here's what we created in shades of BLUE this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with three different kinds of blue vintage trading stamps and this week's Sunday Stamps sketch.  I added multiple papers and postage stamps from BoBunny's Whiteout Collection and a sentiment from My Favorite Things Trio of Trees."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "The only time I ever really long for snow is in the middle of a HOT and humid New Jersey summer, lol. I used my Tim Holtz/Sizzix "Stacked Snowflakes" die to cut lots of layers of snowflakes from Prima's Geogia Blues collection. My suitably snowy background paper began as a piece of dark blue Core'dinations cardstock. I started with a fun and flakey embossing folder, sanded the impression to get some color variation, then added extra swirls of machine stitching. Finally, I affixed my fancy layered flakes, and finished off with some Eyelet Outlet Pearl Bling."

♥♥♥

Link your beautiful blue creations here by 6pm (EST on Wednesday, August 14th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:16.  

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Photo Finish

So many lovely cards linked up this fortnight. Many thanks to all who played along with us, we love to see what you make! Here are a few cards we thought interpreted elements of the inspiration photo especially well:

Brenda B of Brenda's Scraps of Life

...combined gorgeous wood veneer, lots of luscious gold and fabulous foliage to really sum up everything we loved in the inspo pic!

Marina of My Perfect Life

...made an amazing CAS card that manages to evoke both the color palette and also the "rustic glam" vibe of the decor in the photo!

Joanne Travis of Sleepy in Seattle

...worked in many of the wonderful shades and textures of WHITE from the inspiration photo, plus a touch of gold; and the bonus of that utterly adorable reindeer!

And of course we're all longing to know who scored that fun little prize package, too. According to the fine folks at Random.org the lucky number is #16 which means our lucky winner is:

BARB G!

please send your snailmail address to lauren (at llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com) to claim your prize!

We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope won't leave you feeling blue... ♥

Neutrals & Sparkles

We're still taking our inspiration from the rustic-but-glam Christmas scene this week:

(photo source)

Here is how we found our inspiration this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Having gone seriously Maximalist last week, I had intended to pare down this time. (I stress the word INTENDED in that sentence.) I was still very inspired by the incredible tree in the inspiration pic, and wanted to make a bauble-shaped card which was mostly white-on-white, using papers from Prima's Pretty Pale collection, but then adding in some little hits of green. That part did actually happen. The pared-down-ness... not so much, lol. It turns out that when it comes to Prima flowers, the words, "just a few" are meaningless to me. But then Christmas is a good time to go a tiny bit crazy, in a good way, right?!"

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I pulled in a little blue from the blue spruce on the fireplace mantle to complement my neutral tones.  I combined it with a vintage texty piece of designer papers as the base and then lots of ephemera and a piece of a vintage receipt book before finishing with some bronze glitter dots to bring in the sparkle ... all of those layers remind me of the decorations on that gorgeous Christmas tree."

Scroll down to the original post (directly below this one) to link up your own masterpiece and also to see the fun prize one randomly chosen cardmaker will win! ♥

A Rustic Glam Christmas Fireside

...is the vibe we are channeling this fortnight. Or at least, it's one possible interpretation of this beautiful inspiration photo we're using as a jumping off point for our holiday card designs:

photo credit

But in case you're thinking, "Well that's definitely not my style!" remember it's just an Inspiration Photo! So you can use as much or as little of ANY aspect of the pic. 

Maybe you'll go for a palette of all neutrals? Maybe you'll focus on ALL THE SPARKLE? Maybe you'll just choose one element, like the stockings hanging from the mantel? Or the frosted evergreen garland? Or even something super-specific, like the sweet vintage bike under the tree, or the amazing texture of that sisal rug? It's 100% up to you! 

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with the texture of the rug by covering my card base with DCWV Burlap paper.  Then I used the sketch from Fusion Card Challenge to incorporate my other elements like multiple shades of neutral ivories and browns with a touch of golden ribbon.  I die cut a Gina K. Designs Decorative Tag from a piece of Basic Grey Aspen Bark packaging (which I thought was close to the shape of the mirror on the mantle) and then used a few vintage embellishments that evoked the feel of the room that both include a Christmas Tree and grounded them with a cork sticker.  I attached my entire tag with a piece of vintage sheet music of The Little Drummer Boy.  I finished with an Alexandra Renke die cut clip."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "It's pretty obvious that I focused mainly on the neutral-but-never-boring color palette... specifically the many shades and many textures of WHITE which are in that gorgeous holiday room. My background paper is from Prima's "Pretty Pale" collection and has a bit of a layered, collage style. I couldn't resist adding floral elements and sparkly snowflakes, like the ones included on that amazing tree. My "natural" style tends to be a bit on the --ahem-- maximalist style (lol) so it was no trouble at all for me to add layers and layers of embellishment in the form of stenciling, rub on transfers, and of course plenty of bling!"

We've got an extra added attraction this time, in the form of some fun holiday goodies for one randomly chosen cardmaker who links up with us this time!

Link as many cards as you'd like before 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, July 31st. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:15.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Terrific Trios

The only "problem" with the amazing gallery full of Tic-Tac-Toe cards is that it made it harder than ever to only choose three to feature. Luckily... they didn't have to be in a row, lol! Here are a few we especially loved:

Jane Willis of Onions and Paper

...created a sparkly confection of a card that just makes us pretty sure we need EVERY. SINGLE. PRODUCT she used. (Especially that cool frame which is the perfect place for LOTS of bling!)

Donna Whitten posting on SCS

...made several beautifully stamped and incredibly colored creations that incorporate exactly the right amount (in our opinion) of embellishment!

Tammy A of My Craft Central

...made two beautiful versions of the same adorable snow-folk card; which illustrate REALLY well what a difference it makes just to change colors!

Many thanks to everyone who played along with us this fortnight! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope you'll think is picture perfect! ♥

Tic-Tac .. TWO?

We're in the second week of our fun holiday Tic-Tac-Toe game and we'd love for you to join us in another round of cards based on this board:

These are the trios we used this week:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I chose the top row, so I had SNOWMAN + GLITTER + STAMPING to work with. I stamped my Pretty Pink Posh Happy Snowman (for a bit of a two-fer!); then grounded him on some fun glitter-bedecked paper from Pebbles. As a bonus, I gave my handsome snowman an Eyelet Outlet Hat Brad and added some Snowflake Brads to the glittery snowflakes printed on the patterned paper."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I won the Paper Smooches prize at Junkiefest, which included this fun Snowman Card Die.  I die cut him from white glitter paper to use the Horizontal Row across the top (Snowman, Glitter, Stamping).  The scarf and sentiment piece were a leftover piece of watercolor paper sprayed with Technique Junkies Vivid Volt Shimmering Bliss."

Jingle Belles Tic-Tac-Toe

We're playing a fun game of Tic-Tac-Toe at Jingle Belles ... you just have to create a holiday card using three of the items that are in a row vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

Here is how we *scored* this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "For my Tic-Tac-Toe, I went vertical down the middle for Glitter - Red - Santa.  I love picking-up glittery tags at the after Christmas sales for super-easy holiday cards ... glittery Santa, designer paper, done."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I chose the diagonal which runs from the top right corner to the bottom left:  STAMPING + RED or GREEN + RIBBON. I was lucky enough to receive this beautiful Uniko "Block Party Christmas" stamp for my birthday from A Certain Someone, which I couldn't wait to ink up! Since the stamp is 4 x 5.25" you really don't need much to make a beautiful card, even if you like to make A7's as I have here. I added some Eyelet Outlet holiday brads, because the stamp actually included things like the triangle shaped tree, various sizes of snowflakes, an ornament, holly leaves, etc. I stuck to a traditional palette as inspired by the "red or green" box of the game board and only needed to add a few mats and a ribbon accent to complete my Tic-Tac-Toe choice."

Link your Tic-Tac-Toe masterpieces here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, July 17th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:14.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter