jingle belles are ♥BLING♥-ing!

if you've been here even once before you'll have already twigged to how much i loooooooooooooove (and love to use!) all things shiny and sparkly. so when our lovely and uber-talented fellow belle lisa hausmann wrote in to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to suggest we embark on a bling-based christmas card prompt, it did not take me long to say, "yes, please!" in the official guidelines we're requesting our fellow cardmakers to incorporate rhinestones, jewels, gems, glitter, glimmer or something sparkly on their cards. but you know me, i like to cover all the bases, so i've got a little bit of ALL of those:

(patterned paper: my mind's eye, reminisce, echo park; candy cane and ribbon: from the lovely ros; florals: prima, making memories, imaginisce, petaloo; brads: doodlebug; stick pins and velvet holly leaves: making memories; rhinestone flourish (colored red with copic marker): want2scrap; heart bling self-adhesive border: recollections; heart die: cuttlebug; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, gluedots, hot glue, sewing machine)

yeah. pretty much every county of bling has been heard from, here. rhinestone flourish? check! glitter brads? got 'em. heart shaped bling border? uh-huh. glitter-encrusted patterned paper? oh yeah! contrary to my expectation, there are no stickles used on this card; and there's no sparkly embossing powder, either, but only because i ran outta room. maybe i'll use those next week, eh?

here's a closer-up photo of  my favorite part... the collage:

my lovely friend ros sent me some of these gorgeous glass-look-alike candy canes (they are actually some sort of very shiny but lighter weight type of plastic!) last christmas, when i admired some that she had; and you can see i built the rest of the cluster around that. are you wondering how to attach something of that sort to a card? it's not difficult, just a little fiddly, so i do it in two parts: first i get everything in place and ON THERE using gluedots, i like the mini size because they're easy to hide, but i am generous with them since they are quite small. there are probably 2 or 3 under each dimensional flower, 5-6 under the candy cane, and a couple more anchoring the bow to the cane, plus i use one under each tail of the bow to keep those ends from flipping over. then, when the card is completely "finished" i plug in my trusty low-temp hot glue gun and add a little EXTRA HOLD at strategic points, particularly around and under the candy cane, but there's a bit under the bigger florals, too. how will i mail this sucker? most likely i will put it in with a gift, so the bulkiness will not even become a factor, but i've been known to use padded jiffy mailers with the card either sandwiched between corrugated cardboard, or padded with the stiffer kind of bubblewrap. yeah, they definitely cost a bit more to mail, but i like to think of them as being tiny little pieces of art, and i know people enjoy receiving them, so i just sort of count that in as part of the cost of making things i love!

speaking of love, both lisa and stephanie have made cards which take my breath away, and i think you'll enjoy them, too, so why not check out ♥JINGLE BELLES♥? then stop over and visit miss patrice's 52-card-pick up, because i'm positive she'll have something lovely to show you as well!