New Year, New Header

2020 Jingle Belles Header and Badges designed by Lauren Bergold

Digital Credits: Patterned Canvas Papers No 1 and Christmas Market Painted Layers by Katie Pertiet, Designer Digitals; Readymade Borders-Christmas No 2 by Studio DoubleD, Designer Digitals; Art Play Palette "Retro Holiday" by Anna Aspnes, aA Designs; Over the Rainbow Glitter Styles by Flergs; Raffina Free Font from DaFont.com

Taking back our NINTH (9th!!!) December

It's hard to believe that we've wrapped up yet another ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ season, but here it is December 5th. Of course, we've been working towards this all year long, so we've got a nice stash of cards. We're looking forward to spending the rest of December doing all the fun holiday stuff with our friends and family, and we hope you are, too!

Thanks very much for turning our Holiday card-making into something enjoyable and fun all year long. We'll be back again on January 1, 2020 to start this whole shindig over again, and hope to see you then. Meanwhile we wish you the loveliest of Decembers and the happiest of holidays! Remember, if you have prompt ideas, we'd love for you to join us as a Lovely Guest Star ... just send us an email jinglebellesrock@hotmail.com  ...we really do love making this a group event.

Meanwhile, here are our favorite photos of the year... the infamous "Card Sprawl" pics!

Stephanie's Christmas Card Stash for 2019

Lauren's Christmas Card Stash for 2019

Of course, we couldn't possibly rule making another card or two in the next few weeks, and just in case you need to make a few more, as well, we'll leave this linky open until Christmas Eve so you can upload your cards, get a little inspiration and spur each other on to the finish line! See you January 1st, 2020! ♥

♥HAPPY HOLIDAYS!♥

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Banner Banter!

We loved seeing all of the takes on our Jingle Belles Blog Banner for 2019.

Here are a few that were really Banner-ific:

Meghan of Made by Meghan K.

created a brilliant shaker card with reindeer flying across the sky.

Jane Willis of Onions and Paper

did a gorgeous neutral take on the blog header ... we love all of the wonderful texture and those brilliant antlers.

Barbara G. of Barb's Creative Corner

absolutely rocked the white-on-white design with a brilliant pop of red.

And Drum Roll Please ... the winner of the final prize giveaway of 2019 is ...

Laura aka Papercraft.Writer

send your address to jinglebellesrock at hotmail dot com 

Thanks again to everyone for joining us for another year of Taking Back December ... one holiday card at a time.

It's a BANNER Holiday

For our final Jingle Belles prompt of 2019, we're creating cards inspired by our 2019 Jingle Belles Blog Banner (designed by lovely Lauren).

You can take your inspiration from any part of the design (deer ... frames ... doilies ... pearl flourishes ... you get the picture) ... just make sure you let us know your inspiration in your post.

Here's how we were inspired this week.

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie say, "I love making things inspired by Lauren's designs because I seldom create with that many layers (but always love it when I do).  I started with large of a large vintage doily on a neutral kraft card base and then kept building on top.  There is a champagne bling flourish, Little Bits Mini Frame 3 Die from Taylored Expressions, punched snowflakes with champagne bling centers, a snow sentiment sticker ... and of course a lovely winter deer."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "This week I've once again used the sketch of the header and a bunch of the elements, (the framed deer, a doily shape, pearl flourish, scattered snowflakes, etc) but this time I've chosen cute and colorful versions instead of the more glamorous white-on-white of the header. Most of my patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye's "Holly Jolly" collection, which I got at Paper Anthology; the bling and brads are Eyelet Outlet of course; the rest is bits and bobs from my stash. It's a bit of a mish-mash, but I love how it turned out!"

Jingle Belles Header Inspired

For our final challenge of 2019, we're creating cards inspired by as many (or as few!) of the elements from the gorgeous blog header of our Jingle Belles Blog (created by the talented Lauren who does a new one for us each year to set the theme).

You might choose white-on-white ... or to be inspired by the other elements like the deer, pearls, lace, letters, snowflakes or a frame. Or you might just create in that wonderful shabby chic style.

Here is how we were inspired:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with Alexandra Renke elements and this week's Sunday Stamps Sketch.  I punched three circles from Alexandra's gorgeous papers and then used her Orient Mandala Stencil with Iced Spruce Distress ink in several places on the background.  I finished with pearl flourishes and a typed font sentiment.  Inspired by the header, I snuck in a couple of  Alexandra's die cut frames behind the circles."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Ok, so, this feels like a bit of a cheat on my part, because as Stephanie mentioned, I designed the header, so obviously it's a style that I like and for which I have lots of stuff that works. So I've done a very literal translation. On the other hand, something I somehow hadn't realized until I was nearly finished, is that the header actually does not have ANY flowers on it. (Srsly... HOW did that even happen?!) Luckily I have corrected that omission with my card, which means I can join the Allsorts "Christmas Flowers" Challenge! and the handsome diecut deer means I'm eligible for My Time to Craft's "Christmas Animals" Challenge, yay!" 

And one lucky randomly drawn participant will get a fun prize - 2 of my favorite sets of Gina K. Designs Dies and a Kelly Purkey Christmas Stamp Set.

Be as loose or as literal as you like with your cards inspired by our blog header! Link your creations here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, December 4th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:24.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Warm and Cosy

It's hard to notice the chilly weather with so many amazing and unique cards in the gallery for, "Baby It's Cold Outside" if you haven't scrolled through both pages yet, we highly recommend treating yourself to that eye candy! Meanwhile, here are a few creations that made us feel especially warm and fuzzy!

Babs of My Way of Crafting

...stamped the handsomest snowdude imaginable in his winter finery, but it's the gloriously blended inky tag which takes this one to the next level in our opinion!

Sonja of Na obisku pri Oldpunci

...not only dressed her adorable Shining Star in a sweet Santa hat and scarf, she actually made that cool stencil herself as well! 

Izzy Scrap of Addicted to Stamps and More

...takes "FLEECE NAVIDAD" to bold new heights with an adorable sheep in winter garments AND a fleece fiber xmas tree!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing every single card you shared with us! We'll be back at midnight with our last brand new prompt of 2019, we hope you'll consider it a banner occasion! ♥

Mittens, Scarves & Sweaters

We're still celebrating the attire of winter (and we needed lots of it this week) ... you know, mittens, scarves, boots, parkas, earmuffs and of course... sweaters!

Here's how we bundled-up this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I decided to bring Sexy back with a little Ugly Christmas Sweater fun with stamps from Simon Says Stamp.  I did an *oops* when I scored my card base, so I trimmed the front even a little shorter, so I could show off a few rows of green washi tape attached to the inside."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I built the colors and shabby chic vibe of my card around this sweet vintage-style journal card from Authentique. I added loads of distressed layers, a bit of dry embossing (and sanding), a little sheet music, some machine stitching... in fact there's a little bit of pretty much EVERYTHING I love on a Christmas card, right here!"

Baby, It's Cold Outside

This week we are making cards featuring things you wear when it's cold outside … gloves, earmuffs, mittens, scarves, coats, Christmas Sweaters, socks … you get the picture.

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I found some adorable Hello Kitty giftwrap at the discount store and knew HK would make the perfect star for this week's card. When I want to use something like a flimsy piece of giftwrap on my cards, I first run a piece of plain white cardstock through my xyron machine and gently place the delicate wrapping paper on top, avoiding any wrinkles. Once I have cardstock weight paper, I can fussy cut the individual designs as I've done here. I used this week's Sketch Saturday (#588) as a guide to placing all my elements."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I used one of my Gel Press Print tags, which was the perfect rusty orange for the Color Challenge at Sunday Stamps and combined it with Reverse Confetti's Stock Your Stash Challenge to make holiday cards ... Reverse Confetti's Happy Winter Hats are my favorite because all of the pieces are stamped and die cut separately, so you can make whatever color combination you want."

Link your cards here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, November 20th. Keyword for galleries and flickr is JB:19:23.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Rockin' Rudolph

We loved seeing all of the creative critters fill our holiday card gallery ... here are a few that especially caught our eye.

Glittertastic of Making the World Sparkle

featured this adorable decoupage reindeer on a custom card for the Grandparents ... the mitten background paper and layout are perfect.

Emma R. at Crafty Shack Cards

thrilled us with her adorable yeti duo ... 

all of the wonderful details including that fabulous bokeh sky 

make this card so much fun.

Toni at Frankie Helps Craft

shared this adorable Hamster Holiday Selfie ... 

it is just so stinkin' cute.

And the random winner of the fun Penny Black Holiday stamps is ... drum roll ...

Linda of Snail's Space!

please email stephanie at smilynstef at aol.com to claim your prize!

♥♥♥

We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt, we hope you'll dress for the occasion!

Yeti or Not

We're still celebrating the Critters of Christmas and you're still invited to join the fun by making a holiday card with an animal (or creature!) on it! Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "I can never resist a Yeti for Christmas ... and when I saw this new Yeti or Not set from Hello Bluebird, I knew it had to be mine. I love all the fun accessories like the scarf, Santa hat and coffee mug ... and likely I would be the one trying to catch the snowflakes on my tongue."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I had a completely different plan for this week's card, but then I saw my friend Elisabeth unpacking this amazing Taylored Expressions layered cardinal die set at Paper Anthology and all bets were off. Also... it allowed me to build a collage of torn vintage paper and postage stamps for the base of my card, which I was really really in the mood to do! (Sometimes my "process" is very scientific, lol!) Layered label shapes and some Eyelet Outlet poinsettia, pinecone and holly brads complete the finishing touches."

And remember, one lucky participant will get the fabulous Penny Black Christmas Sprig Stamps.

Rudolph and Friends

Description:Santa will soon be making his appearance and he has no chance of getting here if not for his trusty reindeer. However, we don't want to leave out their other cousins in the Cervidae family so you can also include deer, moose, elk OR caribou in your design … oh heck, just include any animal on your card (or even a monster if you're so inclined & want to stretch the theme ... yep, that's how we roll).

Here are our featured creatures this week:

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "HOW CUTE is this Lawn Fawn Winter Narwhal?! Even if I didn't already love narwhals, this guy would've been enough to start me on the path, lol. To paper-piece, I stamped him on several shades of white patterned paper and once on a fun blue plaid, then let him join some adorable seal, walrus and husky friends on this fun Doodlebug Design paper. A few mats, a stamped sentiment from the narwhal mini-set and a couple of Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and I was good to go."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "When I saw this week's Sunday Stamps Sketch and this adorable Rudolph ornament sticker in my stash, this card almost made itself. I added snowflake embossing, a sentiment sticker, white doily, and a gold bow to tie in the gold on my sentiment ... and ta da ... Rudolph is the star of the show."

And we have a little prize for one lucky participant ... the gorgeous Penny Black Christmas Sprig Cling stamps.

Link your Creature-centric cards here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, November 6th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:22.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

♥In the Pink♥

PINK CHRISTMAS is always our favorite Jingle Belles theme of the year and you guys definitely did not let us dowm. Not only were there LOTS of cards, each and every one was beautiful, unique and heart-warming. Counting the "extras" by which there were extra cards within a single post our grand total this year was:

64 CARDS!!!

With a donation of $2 for each card from both of us (Lauren and Stephanie) that means we are able to donate to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation a grand total of...

$256.00!

For which we thank all of you, who made it possible!!!

♥♥♥♥♥

Now let's take a look at a few of the linked up  PINK CHRISTMAS cards which made us especially happy this time:

Sharon B of Sea View Scrapping

...showed us that pink can be incorporated literally ANYWHERE on your card: the sentiment, the eyelets, the bear's scarf and even the sky are pink on her fun and festive card!

Allisa of Rocky Mountain Paper Crafts

...combined her beautifully elegant ballerina pink baubles with a sketch that resulted in an utterly dreamy CAS card! 

Shawna of The Grand Stampede

...proved that pink and black can be just as lovely and feminine as pink and white; and ever so much more dramatic!

♥♥♥♥♥

Many thanks to everyone who played along, whether you made one card or LOTS we loved seeing them all... and adding them into our total for an awesome cause! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will be deer to your heart! ;)

Think PINK!!!

We're still celebrating PINK CHRISTMAS at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and you're still invited to play along! Remember, Stephanie and Lauren each donate $2 for every newly made PINK CHRISTMAS card that gets linked up with us this fortnight, so if you're only going to join us once this year, this would be an awesome time to do so!

Here's what we made this week:

Lauren's Other PINK Card

Lauren says, "This week I raided my collection of Prima holiday papers, using lots of Santa Baby and a little bit of the Sweet Peppermint collection. But my favorite part of this card is the panel I made which is nothing but pink diecut doilies, overlapping each other. I kind of wish I had not covered it up as much I did, but I know it's there and it makes me happy. I did lots of edge-distressing and loads of machine stitching and called it a day."

Stephanie's Other PINK Card

Stephanie says, "I am always on the lookout for Pink Holiday paper, and on my travels last week, I picked up the fun Holly Jolly Collection from My Mind's Eye.  I wanted to pair it with a Santa, so I used the one from The Ink Road Stamps Happy Holla Days. I paired him with a sentiment from My Favorite Things Sassy Pants Holiday and this week's Sketch Saturday."

Scroll down to the original PINK CHRISTMAS post to see the reader's gallery and link up as many of your own PINK CHRISTMAS cards as you'd like to! ♥

♥ Pink Christmas... for the Cure! ♥

If you've played along with us in other years, you may already know that at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we always devote the first theme of each October to making pink holiday cards as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and that for each card that gets linked up, we (Stephanie and Lauren) each donate two dollars to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. 

There aren't many rules for this challenge other than the fact that each card has to be newly made, it has to have a winter holiday theme, and it has to 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!

We're pretty low key about self-promotion around here, but this cause is near and dear to our hearts and we'd love to get GREAT participation, so be sure to tell all your cardmaking friends, and feel free to share the official graphic and our link on your blog or social media.

But now let's get right to the cardmaking! Here's what we've made this week:

Stephanie's PINK Card

Stephanie says, "I started a card inspired by a gorgeous piece of Alexandra Renke designer paper ... then when I started to assemble the card ... I lost the piece of paper ... how does that happen.  I finally gave up looking and used a lovely piece of pink paper from Pinkfresh Studio with my Alexandra Renke Die Cuts and a rub-on sentiment."

Lauren's PINK Card

Lauren says, "I'm not sure I've ever made a pink + white + kraft card before, but I kinda think it might be new favorite color combo! I also really love the fonts on that cute Doodlebug journal card. I added a few stickers from the same collection, then went slightly crazy with skinny white mats to tie all my patterned papers together. Speaking of "ties" i added a double layer of ribbons... one of them is a PINK RIBBON which I especially love in the context of this challenge!"

Link as many PINK CHRISTMAS cards as you'd like by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 23rd. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:21

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel

We loved seeing the creating cards for non-Christmas recipients ... here are a few of our favorites:

Nelleke from farmerblog

made this adorable winter scene ... how cute is that tiny deer

Bonnie of Stamping in the Light

featured some fabulous tone-on-tone background stamping with wonderful

silver accents

Susan B. of Cardmaker’s Garret

perfected the ink spray with gorgeous silver glitter

♥♥♥
And now the winner of the fun Hanukkah-themed prize pack.
The fine folks at Random.org have selected #6 which means that
Bonnie of Stamping with Klass
is our lucky winner!
Congratulations, Bonnie! Please email your details to
Lauren at llaurenb@hotmail.com
to claim your prize!
♥♥♥

Come back at midnight for one of our favorite annual color prompts.

The Hanukkah Song - 2nd Verse

We're still celebrating the winter holidays apart from Christmas, and you still have time to join the fun. In other words: you can make a general winter card, you can do New Year, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Hogmanay or Hanukkah, but for this fortnight only, we're not celebrating Christmas!

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I created a Black & Gold Peace card with doves and stars for a general winter theme ... these are also nice to have for Thank You and other needs around the Holiday Season."

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Last week I used my Eyelet Outlet Tear Drop Bling as flames on a stamped menorah, but this week I realized that the eight letters of "HANUKKAH" could actually serve as the candles. It works best (imo) if your letters are all capitals, and close to the same width. I think I prefer the proportions of the larger card, because the scale of the flames and letters matches so well. On that card I used a craft punch which I thought of as being raindrops, but apparently Fiskars calls "Petal by Petal". Hoever ANY jewel, stamp or punch that is a similar shape would work. My papers are Ciao Bella's "Broccato Estense" collection (from my lss, Paper Anthology) are actually a bit spring-ish, when you see them in full, but the beautiful blues seemed perfect for the job. So basically there is not one single item that is specifically Hanukkah or even holiday related... I think I'm a bit proud of that, lol!"

Scroll down to the original post to link your Winter Holiday cards and see the fun little prize that's on offer this fortnight.

The Hanukkah Song

Description:Something that's pretty important to us here at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ is to make sure our card-making festivities include EVERYONE who is special to us, whatever occasion or holiday in which they partake!

So this fortnight we're making cards for our friends who don't necessarily celebrate Christmas. Hanukkah is perhaps the most famous of the other winter holidays, and it (plus our favorite Adam Sandler song!) inspired our title, but you could choose Kwanzaa, New Year, Hogmanay or Solstice; or you could go totally non-denominational with a general winter-themed card.

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I started with this peaceful Penny Black Starry Night Stickeroo and built my Hanukkah card around it with a few more sticker sentiments and sticker letters too.  I die cut some metallic silver into an oblong octagon and then die cut some Swirling Stars.  I finished with a wrap of ribbon and a few sprinkled gems."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I had an awesome new-to-me Hero Arts Happy Hanukkah stamp set to inspire me this week; but truly, I've made plenty of Hanukkah cards through the years which just used blue and silver patterned paper, and candles made from strips of patterned paper or washi tape! My dreamy background layer is watercolor paper, sprinkled with various blue shades of ColorBurst and spritzed; the multicolored layer further back is an alcohol ink experiment that did not come out as i intended, but was too pretty to throw away, lol. By the way, Eyelet Outlet Tear Drop Bling makes outstanding menorah flames... just sayin'..." 

We've got a fun little prize this time for one lucky, randomly selected, cardmaker who links up with us. It's some Hero Arts woodmount Hanukkah stamps and beautiful Eyelet Outlet Bling in silver, blue and white!

♥♥♥

Link up as many brand new, non-Christmas, winter holiday cards as you like by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, October 9th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:19:20.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter