only 359 days left until christmas... :)

...so it's time to get moving on those holiday cards, lol! ok, yeah, i know it sounds crazy, but seriously, the thing about starting right after christmas is that we all have a very fresh memory in our head of either being done our cards early and liking that feeling; or mass-producing at the last minute, and wanting to avoid that feeling. and since new year's day is when we all love to ACT on our newly-minted resolutions, that's when we like to start up at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! the first prompt of 2015, "no time like the presents" is a nice easy one, because we're pretty sure that, just like stephanie and myself, most of our fellow card-makers loooooove to save bits of glittery gift wrap, pretty tissue paper, fancy ribbons and cool tags... so go grab one of the ones YOU held on to... or raid your leftover holiday wrapping supplies... and use something you find there on your first holiday card of the year!

glittery white and shimmery blue tissue paper from costco, apparently, who knew? patterned paper: my mind's eye, basic grey; glitter sticker: papaya art; chipboard snowflake: crate paper; snowflake sticker: stickopotamus; fabric snowflake button: michaels; adhesives: xyron, elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

i had a pretty easy time choosing what to use because my aunt wrapped all of her presents in the coolest coordinating set of tissue paper i've ever seen! the white square with the glittery trees is the "main" pattern and then the back layer of blue with snowflakes (which is beautifully shimmery irl) is the accent piece from this set. all i did was save the least wrinkly bits and stick them to a couple of panels of plain white cardstock from staples, using my xyron machine. of course you could use gluestick to get a nice all-over bond, as well. no matter what adhesive you use, the trick is to apply it TO THE CARDSTOCK, rather than the (much more fragile) tissue paper. this is the same method i use when working with vintage paper, as well. i added in a glittery papaya label sticker from last year, and accented everything with machine stitching using some of the fancy gold thread miss amy gave me (ta v much, missus)!

for the layout of my elements, i used the current (#146) retro sketch again, because it's such a great, flexible design:

so if you're lucky enough to be home on this lovely new year's day, and you're feeling a bit resolutionary, why not grab some gift wrap or a tag and join us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥? we'd love to see you and your holiday cards over there this year! ♥