jingle belles: CARD THREE

wow, did this week go by at regular speed or did i accidentally hit "fast forward"??!?! on the other hand, the sooner our snowy northeastern united states winter is *OVER* the happier i will be! :)

anyway, it's friday again and thus time for a new JINGLE BELLES prompt. one of the highest priorities stef and i have isto make the blog as collaborative as we possibly can, because more is definitely ♥MERRIER♥! we want all of our old friends to come hang out with us...and we want to make loads of new ones, too! and we plan to tap EVERYBODY for prompt ideas!!! so this week we've got our very first GUEST STAR* and if you know me at all you won't be at all surprised to find out it's my girl gina!

i know a lot of you already read gina's blog tyggereye arts and thus are aware that this year she's hosting on a medium-per-month "play along" called USE PRACTICE CREATE, about which i am very excited, so we're doing a little "cross-over" special. thus, for CARD THREE, to match up with UPC's january focus, we're getting out ACRYLIC PAINTS, brushes & dabbers so we can

USE, PRACTICE, CREATE ...and jingle!


here's my card:

(vintage: children's book illustration; patterned paper: melissa frances & american crafts (also seambinding...all leftover from the october pixie dust paperie kit...which had a "baby" theme...but it works realllllllllly well for xmas too! ;) plus mme & best creations paper scraps; "merry" rub on: mambi;acrylic paint: folk art; snowflake punch: martha stewart; edge punch: recollections; dies: nestabilities (label shape), tim holtz alterations (reindeer), sizzix (xmas tree); ribbon: making memories, michaels; inks: colorbox; adhesives: uhu gluestick, 3m foam tape, tombow monorunner; misc: recycled soda can flattened and used with the reindeer die, sewing machine)

you may or may not remember this little mini-tutorial i made in november when i used the negative space from some snowflake punches to make this card with the december pixie dust paperie kit! well, i had fully intended to play around with that technique again, but when my christmas card making process turned into "beat the clock" for the tenth consecutive year** that kind of went out the window; so i was really thrilled to have another chance to try it without the holiday pressure attached!

you'll notice that i've used my tim holtz reindeer die on another flattened-out empty soda pop can, as i showed you in december... (and YES, i am going to finally show the step-by-step process of that this week!***) ...and thus i'm going to pop this into crafty hazelnut's christmas card challenge #2: "use a freebie or recycle" since the lovely hazel has made some very cool JINGLE BELLES cards & i'd like to reciprocate!

so now it's YOUR TURN! brush or brayer it, splash it, splatter it, stamp or stencil with it, dab, drip or drizzle it; make it the centerpiece of your card or merely an accent...but get hold of some acrylic paint so you can USE, PRACTICE, CREATE...and JINGLE!!! :)

*do YOU have a great idea for a prompt, or a fabulous technique you'd like to share, or a sketch you're dying for us all to try out? we'd love to hear from you! email us at jinglebellesrock@hotmail.com !!!

**which lead directly to the JINGLE BELLES idea: 'cause i am NOT missing another december!!!

***sorry for the delay, but see, smack in the middle of getting ready for christmas, m'friend & i decided to start a NEW BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes. we are crazy. thank you for noticin'!) :) :) :)