JB17: happy earth day!

since this week's JINGLE BELLES prompt happened to fall on earth day, our lovely fellow belle kathe deck thought we should do something special to celebrate, so she wrote in* to suggest that we "re-use, re-cycle, and re-JINGLE" by incorporating into our cards something we might otherwise be tempted to throw away, whether it be a pretty picture out of a catalog, some ribbon or giftwrap from the last present we received, cool motifs cut from last year's greeting cards, or heck, these days even some of the packaging in which our favorite embellishments are sold can be fashioned into elements for our cards! plus i think we all have paper scraps a-plenty, right?! look around your desk, your stash or your trash and see if there isn't something fun you can "re-purpose"!

being a magpie of some repute, i tend to save anything pretty, shiny or cool that comes my way, so i was READY for this one. in fact, i decided to challenge myself to how many off-cuts, leftovers and even a bits of "garbage" i could work into one design... and i think i did pretty well. in fact the only brand new product on my card is the base of kraft cardstock. everything else is green as can be!

my handsome metallic reindeer is cut from a flattened-out soda can using a tim holtz die and this method; he is mounted on a circle of basic grey patterned paper adorned with snowflake stickers that i planned to use on this card, but it didn't quite work out! the base of my card is new patterned paper from tim holtz, but all of the frills, scallops, and lacy strips are fashioned from a zillion scraps that i just kept layering until i had filled the 6" square... some of the bits are even cut from prima packaging, plus there's vintage sheet music in there from a falling-apart old book which i think is a nice way to "rescue" cool old stuff that's seen better days. the fun sparkly snowflake icon is cut from an old xmas card--and YES, it already had the fab rhinestone center! my sheer white wired ribbon was wrapped around a christmas gift, and the dark blue scalloped circle mat is an off-cut of non-holiday paper i used for nephew matthew's birthday card last september. other than that i've used inks, adhesives and my (second hand 1970's era) sewing machine.

yeah. i think i've got this one covered!!! :)

i am thrilled with how many fun things i was able to pull together for this, and i have to say that it was utterly painless since i also LOVE how the finished product turned out! so what have you been saving because it was too pretty to toss away and "might be good for something"?! well, go get it out, dust it off, and see if you can't make it a bit christmassy between now and 6pm (EST) next wednesday, april 27th... then come on over and link it up at JINGLE BELLES! *do YOU have a great idea for a JINGLE BELLES prompt? would you like to come along to help us host it?? then why not write in and share your idea, sketch, fabulous color combo or whatever else is inspiring you?! our email is: jinglebellesrock @ hotmail [dot] com and we'd love to hear from you!