JB2619: CASE-ing Christmas

Since September 7th was Labor Day here in the US, we've decided to celebrate that at Jingle Belles by giving you a bit of a head start with this fortnight's card designs. We're asking you to CASE (Copy and Selectively Edit) any of the cards that Stephanie or I have made for any of the previous Jingle Belles prompts. Which means you've got 16.5 years worth (times two!) of ideas from which to choose! You don't need to make an EXACT duplicate of the card (the acronym does contain "Selectively Edit" afterall); Just be sure to tell us which card inspired yours!

I chose quite a recent card of Stephanie's because I love it, of course; but also because I realized I had almost all the exact same "ingredients" so it seemed like too good an opportunity to waste, lol! Here's her take from the Unicorn Colors prompt in July:

And here's my version:

In retrospect, I wish I had made my card a bit smaller but... (shrugs) ...hindsight is 20/20. right? I used the same adorable Lawn fawn Yeti as Stephanie, I diecut circles from four sinimlar shades of cardstock and debossed them, albeit with a slightly different snowflake folder. I swapped in an Eyelet Outlet Santa Hat and Candy Cane Brad in place of the stamped versions; then I added red and black mats and a similar Lawn Fawn sentiment. Et voila! 

JB2619: CASE-ing Christmas runs until the evening of Wednesday, September 25th. Come join the fun at Jingle Belles!

Stuck on STICKERS

It's the second week of our Stuck on You prompt at Jingle Belles, so Stephanie and I are still making holiday cards with one of our favorite embellishments: STICKERS! Here's what I made this week:

I love the big 12x12 sticker sheets that coordinate with various holiday patterned paper collections. Shocking true confession: I don't always feel like I need the papers themselves; sometimes I just buy the sticker sheet. Case in point: Simple Stories' Snow Pine Lodge provided all of these cute stickers (that camper, tho!); the papers, which I chose by color, are all just older scraps from my stash!

JB2618: Stuck on You runs until next Wednesday evening, September 9th. Link your sticker-centric cards with us at Jingle Belles!

JB2618: Stuck on You

Stephanie and I are celebrating STICKERS this fortnight at Jingle Belles, a crafty must-have that we both still absolutely adore; and we're guessing that, like us, you have a little stash of holiday stickers you could raid for this challenge.

Probably my most hoarded stickers are the Basic Grey alphabet sheets that came with all of their holiday collection packs back in the day. It's not that I didn't use them at the time, or in the meantime; but nevertheless I've amassed a bit of a collection... though admittedly not all of them still have any vowels left. So this week I decided to mix and match several colorways to make a fun texty background for my card. Then I added some nice big ornament stickers from BG's Figgy collection, a mat of red, and some machine stitching around the edges et voila!

JB2618: Stuck on You runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, September 9th. Head on over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and start planning what you will make with STICKERS!

Yeti to Party?

 

Holiday Jumpstart: Yeti to Party is Paper Anthology's newest holiday card kit, which features a handsome yeti in a snowy wonderland. It's available exclusively in our Paper Anthology Design Etsy Shop.

Paper Anthology’s Holiday Jumpstart Card Kit is our pre-packaged kit that includes everything you need (except adhesive, optional white ink, and coloring tools) to complete FIVE copies of this new original holiday card design. This edition is called “Yeti to Party” because of the aforementioned yeti, who's ready to make your holiday even more festive!

We all love the IDEA of making holiday cards throughout the year, instead being overloaded in November and December; but sometimes it’s hard to be inspired during the “off-season”. That issue is solved by this pre-packaged kit, which features everything you need (except adhesive, optional white ink, and coloring tools) to complete five copies of this original design. Also included are complete written instructions (not pictured, but included!) and a nice big photo for reference.

Please note that the yeti images are stamped in Archival Ink, making water-based markers or colored pencils the best choice for coloring!

This kit contains:

Five Cable Knit embossed panels, with rounded corners
Five 4 x 1.5" border strips with icicle punched edge
Five deep blue squares, embossed with Snow Flurries and decorative corners
Five white square mats with decorative corners
Ten pale green patterned paper diecut trees
Five Yetis stamped with Archival Jet Black Ink, ready to color
Five "Yeti to Party?" stamped sentiments (not pictured, but included!)
Five small punched snowflakes
Five medium punched snowflakes
Five large punched snowflakes
Five white A2 cards

CLICK HERE to go to the Yeti to Party page of the Paper Anthology Design Etsy Shop and check out our other Holiday Jumpstart Kits while you're there.

Masculine Merriment (Week 2)

It's the second week of making "Guy Cards" at Jingle Belles, by which we mean holiday cards with a masculine vibe. Here's mine:

This card is 99% composed of gorgeous vintage-themed elements from Tim Holtz's Idea-ology Christmas Emporium Layers, a curated collection of elements that I snagged on the Ranger website. I've added in a few paper scraps, some twine, and woodgrain background. I distressed the edges of literally every single piece, which might arguably be considered "too much" but it was quite relaxing and soothing to do, so there's that. 

JB2617 Masculine Merriment runs until the evening of next Wednesday, August 26th. Link your newly made, holiday "guy cards" on the Masculine Merriment post at Jingle Belles.

JB2617: Masculine Merriment

It's time for a brand new prompt at Jingle Belles and this time we're making holiday cards in one of the most challenging (imo!) genres: Guy Cards; aka Masculine Merriment! I don't struggle with them as much as I used to, but... yeah... leaving off the flowers, the glitter and the tendency to use PINK does slow me down a bit. I think I did ok this time, though.

I've had Doodlebug's Winter Wonderland stamps for several years, and I really don't use them enough because just LOOK how cute that yeti is! I found two inky embossed backgrounds in my "leftovers" box and they seemed perfect for this card. The paper with the trees is Pebbles I think (and ancient!); and the tiny 1/16" Round Brads are from Eyelet Outlet. 

Speaking of Yetis, I was given a second helping of this super-cute stamp set for my birthday, it's brand new and unopened, and it's looking for a good home, so I'm putting it up as a little prize for one lucky, randomly-selected cardmaker who links up with us at Jingle Belles this fortnight. JB2617: Masculine Merriment runs until the evening of Wednesday, August 26th, and you can link as many newly-made MASCULINE cards as you'd like to!

I'm a Christmas Kickstart Guest ELF!

My fellow Jingle Belle, Stephanie Severin and I are excited to be Guest Elves for the latest Christmas Kickstart Challenge with our friend and fellow enthusiastic holiday cardmaker, Jo. The theme this time is... Friendship, which seems especially appropriate!

I had a lot of different ideas for the theme, but when I saw this super-cute Doodlebug journal card, I knew it was The One:

I matted the journal card on glossy white, added some fun patterned paper flags, and mounted the whole thing on this fun gingerbread themed patterned paper, which is also (older) Doodlebug Design. I thought it needed one more thing, so I did a bit of machine stitching which always makes things feel "finished" to me!

We'd love for you to join in this month's Christmas Kickstart Challenge #113 A Friend is for Life and Not Just Christmas, so please hop over and see Jo's card and consider linking up one of your own! 

JB2616: Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're playing Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe, which is a bit like "Beach Blanket Bingo"... but much more Christmassy... and with a lot more embellishments! We'd love for you to join us; all you have to do is pick a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and create a lovely new holiday card featuring all three elements in that row. (Please note that you can, of course, use more than one snowman, more than one diecut, etc. etc.) Sound like fun? We thought so! 

Here's how I played the game this week:

I chose the center horizonal row, which gave me: Flowers + Red or Green + Ribbon. I couldn't wait to use my new Simon Hurley Festive Holly Layering Stencil set for the "red or green" portion; I used Simon's Iced Out and Tropical Tango Stellar Inks for the holly leaves and stems, with Prom Queen for the berries. My "flowers" consist of the single white silk poinsettia I had left, stacked with two layers of Tim Holtz's Tattered Poinsettia die, which I cut from deep pink felt and held on with an ancient holly themed brad. For "ribbon" I used two different patterns from an older set of Doodlebug Design holiday ribbons. At the very end I sewed around the perimeter (those ribbons are ON THERE lol!) and added a couple of mulberry paper ivy leaves of unknown origin.

JB2616: Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe runs until 6pm (Eastern) on the evening of Wednesday, August 12th. Link your totally terrific Tic-Tac-Toe cards at Jingle Belles!

Unicorn Holiday Color Inspiration (week 2)

It's the second week of our Unicorn Holiday Color Challenge at Jingle Belles, so here's a reminder of the palette. You don't need to reference the photo... or the unicorn... as part of your inspiration; just use three (or more) of the colors placed below the graphic. You can add in neutrals, too, of course.

I couldn't decide between recreating Stephanie's amazing card from last week or using my new Simon Hurley create Tangled Lights Layering Stencil Set; so I did a bit of both! I used Simon's Inks in Piggyback, Prom Queen, Love Bomb, Over Zealous and Cry Baby for the lights; with some Black Widow for the cords and sockets.

Then I used a set of nested dies to make the four graduated circles from Stephanie's design. I considered a yeti... or a narwhal... even Hello Kitty; but in the end I chose the snow person from Simon's North Pole Sentiments set from Spellbinders, and had fun dressing him up using scraps from the same colors of cardstock that make up the circles.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's latest card over at Jingle Belles. JB2615: Unicorn Holiday runs until next Wednesday evening, July 29th, so you have plenty of time to join the fun!

JB2615: Unicorn Holiday

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to create a card that is made using at least three of the colors from this fun Unicorn Christmas color palette from Artsy Fartsy Life. Remember, your card does not have to be inspired by the image, but certainly can be as long as it includes at least three of the five colors. Additional neutrals are allowed.

Here's my card:

I was excited to find this ancient piece of SEI "Twitterpated" striped paper which had all of the colors in the palette! Then I pulled out some pale green paper to coordinate and grabbed some diecuts and stickers from the serendipitously matching Simple Stories' Snow Pine Lodge collection. Finally I added Eyelet Outlet Poinsettia and Holly Brads for a little extra texture. Et voila!

JB2615: Unicorn Holiday runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, July 29th. Link your magical cards on the Unicorn Holiday post at Jingle Belles!

Stars or Stripes (Week 2)

At Jingle Belles, it's our second week of Stars or Stripes, Forever; plus we are also the "Twisted Sister" option on the Double Trouble Challenge Blog's Christmas in July event, where there is a basic recipe: (three colors + two layers + one holiday image) required for all entries at Double Trouble. Then there's a TWIST: to add Stars and/or Stripes and also link with us at Jingle Belles. Then there's a DARE: to use one of two sketches from Try a Sketch on Tuesday.

Remember, you only need Stars or Stripes for Jingle Belles, but if you're up for a bigger challenge, consider hopping over to Double Trouble for all the details!

My card has ALL of the above:

I used one of the sketches from Try a Sketch on Tuesday (see below); I also incorporated the basic recipe from Double Trouble: three colors (red, green and blue); two layers (blue and striped papers from Basic Grey) and one or more holiday images (a cluster of MME diecuts). And of course I've got stripes and stars (admittedly just two stars lol) for our own Jingle Belles challenge. Woohoo!

Do hop over and check out Double Trouble's Christmas in July event, as well as Try a Sketch on Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, at Jingle Belles, JB2614: Stars OR Stripes, Forever (for which you need only... as the title says... stars OR stripes!) runs until next Wednesday evening, July 15th.

JB2614: Stars and/or Stripes, Forever

It's July third, which sets the stage for the new challenge at Jingle Belles, Stars and/or Stripes, Forever. So I'm pretty sure you've already guessed that we'd like to see holiday cards which feature stars and/or stipes, lol; but in case there was any doubt, now you know. They don't have to be red, white and blue of course; any color you love will do just fine. The first time we did this theme, I confess I was nervous, but as a matter of fact there are LOTS of holiday papers, stamps and stencils with stripes; and stars are quite prominent for Christmas, too. There's actually quite a lot of choice. And now, without further ado, here's my starry, stripey card:

My stars and my stripes are in the form of two different (ancient!) patterned papers, the red is DCWV and the green is Carta Bella. I found half a pack of Pebbles' diecuts and made them into a cluster that connects the four background panels. There are a few elderly chipboard stars courtesy of Echo Park and the sentiment sticker is from Doodlebug.

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and start planning what you'll link up with us this fortnight. JB2614: Stars and/or Stripes, Forever runs until 6pm (Eastern) on July, 15th.

NEW Holiday Jumpstart Kit

There's a brand new Holiday Jumpstart Kit in the Paper Anthology Etsy Shop! It's called Holiday Jumpstart: A Sequence of Deer and Doilies and it looks a bit like this:

Hop over to the PA Blog to read all about it, or visit Paper Anthology Design to get your own copy of Holiday Jumpstart: A Sequence of Deer and Doilies today! 

Sketchy (Week 2)

It's the second week of our festive sketch challenge at Jingle Belles, so here's a reminder of the beautiful sketch Stephanie has devised to inspired us. Remember you can stretch, compress, flip or rotate the sketch; just make sure we can still see the bones of it! 

Here's my card:

I only have a couple of Penny Black's pre-printed Masterpieces Made Simple journal cards left, but luckily one of them was landscape oriented, because I wanted to rotate the sketch this time. I found this stencil-printed piece of white on dark blue cardstock in my "ufo" box and loved the way the colors and branches sort of echoed the background of the deer illustration. I added a strip of glitter silver tape to serve as the strong line inside the sketch, and a small glittery snowflake is swapping in for the circle piece. The tiny white pearls get a little bit lost in the white branches at the bottom left, but the ones on the top right show up well. Finally I chose a Tim Holtz Idea-Ology wordfetti sticker as my sentiment, and placed it towards the top of the snowscape scene.

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas runs until next Wednesday evening, July 1st. Details and Linky Tool are over at Jingle Belles.

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas

One of my favorite prompts each Jingle Belles year is the Sketch Challenge because the sketch is always devised by Stephanie and it's always awesome. And guess what? This one is no exception! See?

You can stretch, smoosh, flip or rotate the sketch; just make sure we can see "the bones"! Here's what I made:

I started by embossing Hero Arts' Christmas Rose in white on kraft cardstock; then colored the blooms with Prismacolor Pencils. I trimmed the panel to slightly smaller than journal card size, and matted on a scrap of shimmery hot pink cardstock. The background of the sketch is composed of three coordinating papers: the top and border are actually giftwrap I had saved and backed with thin cardstock; the pink stripey paper is ancient Kaisercraft. I did some machine stitching, punched a circular sentiment from another journal card, added some Eyelet Outlet White Matte Enamel Dots and called it a day. I've been very nearly 100% literal in my interpretation of the sketch, though I did have to move the sentiment circle as it was covering up too much of my fancy coloring!

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas runs until the evening of Wednesday, July 1st. Link your cards at Jingle Belles.

Flatlands (Week 2)

Just a reminder that for this fortnight's Flat Feliz Navidad prompt at Jingle Belles, we're asking that you make a one layer (some call it "no layer") card; which means that everything should be directly on the card base, with no additional layers on top of that. If you're not sure, you can't go wrong by NOT taping or gluing anything on. We're looking for completely flat cards this time! Which is quite challenging for some of us, but a great skill to practice periodically.

This week, I got out my Simon Hurley Bold Holiday Blooms background stamp. It’s one of the great Ranger "Peel Apart" stamps that you can use either as a whole 6x6 background; or remove some of the flowers out and stamp them on their own; which is what I’ve done this time. I stamped the big poinsettias in Simon’s Prom Queen Stellar Ink; and stamped the smaller ones in Rosy Cheeks. I’ve got a small branch from Penny Black’s Nature’s Garlands set; and a sentiment from Taylored Expressions’ Flip the Snowflake set. When I finished stamping, I added some big and small dots with my Zig Dot Markers, et voila! Job done.

This challenge runs until next Wednesday evening, June 17th. Link up your fabulous flat cards at Jingle Belles!

Ombre (Again)

It's the second week of celebrating OMBRE at Jingle Bells and thus we're looking for holiday cards that feature blends or gradients of one or more colors.

This week I've taken the ultimate ombre short cut: I've diecut my tiny trees from paint chip color cards! My Perfect Pearls background has a bit of gradient to it... radiating outwards from the center; whether it's actually ombre is up for debate, but I thought it made a nice "sky" for my funky scene. I cut some snowy hills from sheet music and diecut my sentiment from another Perfect Pearls experiment that has a beautiful shade of blue so soft you admittedly can't actually see it in the photo. Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and Sticky Back Pearl Bling adorn the sky; a skinny blue mat and some machine stitching complete the design.

JB2611: Ombre Wonderland runs until the evening of Wednesday, June 3rd. Link up your Ombre card(s) today!

JB2611: Ombre Wonderland

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to walk in an Ombré Wonderland with us, by creating a card that features an Ombré blend. Ombré is literally French for "shaded"; a gradient effect where colors smoothly blend into each other, usually transitioning from light to dark or between different hues. 

When I found a white-embossed snowflake panel in my UFOs box, I immediately knew it'd make the perfect start to an ombre emboss/resist background. I blended four shades of Simon Hurley pink inks (Piggyback, Rosy Cheeks, Stupid Cupid and Prom Queen) over the embossing; added some Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and then loaded on lots of adorable Doodlebug Design stickers. Job done!

JB2611: Ombre Wonderland runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, June 3rd. Hop over to Jingle Belles to link your Ombre Offerings!

Snow Far, Snow Good

We're still creating cards that feature snow this week at Jingle Belles and we'd love for you to join us. In the meantime, here's what I made this week:

One of my favorite "specialty" mandalas is a Snowflake Mandala. Because to me, snowflakes are (in a kinda sorta way) basically natural mandalas; at least, they're an arrangement of crystals in a more or less concentric circular pattern; which lends itself to being doodled and played with as a format. I feel similarly about Spiderweb Mandalas, and make at least one per year, generally in pink; but that's another story. A few weeks ago, when I was at Ranger HQ drawing mandalas with Patti Behan, someone watching the Live Video asked if I had any ideas for mandalas that would work for Christmas/ Winter Holiday greetings and I mentioned both Snowflake Mandalas and also Poinsettia Mandalas, of which I've done fewer, but I also enjoy them because you can easily make them recognizable... without having to make them realistic. I stand by this belief, lol. 

So of course, when I realized we were featuring SNOW this fortnight, I knew this would be the perfect time for the first Snowflake Mandala of 2026. I made a nice inky background with some of my favorite blue Archival Ink shades, dried it thoroughly, and then drew lots of snowflakes with a Letter It Fineliner. I added details with a few blue markers and finally put additional white in there with a Posca Pen. Since the design is quite busy already, when I turned my mandala panels into cards, I only added bright blue mats, a chunky (sparkly!) sentiment and some small Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling.

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card, check out the Readers' Gallery, and get a peek at the tiny Snow-centric prize that one lucky cardmaker will score, just for linking up with us this fortnight. JB2610: Dashing Through the Snow runs until the evening of Wednesday, May 20th.

GNOME for the Holidays (New Kit!)

Holiday Jumpstart: GNOME for the Holidays is Paper Anthology's newest holiday card kit, which features an adorable gnome, a quirky diecut sentiment, and lots of circles. It's available now in the Paper Anthology Design Etsy Shop.

Paper Anthology’s Holiday Jumpstart Card Kit is our pre-packaged kit that includes everything you need (except adhesive) to complete FIVE copies of this new original holiday card design. This edition is called “GNOME for the Holidays” because of the supercute guy (or gal… it's hard to tell with gnomes!) on the lefthand side.

We all love the IDEA of making holiday cards throughout the year, instead being overloaded in November and December; but sometimes it’s hard to be inspired during the “off-season”. That issue is solved by this pre-packaged kit, which features everything you need (except adhesive) to complete five copies of this original design. Also included are complete written instructions (not pictured, but included!) and a nice big photo for reference.

This kit contains:

Five sets of gnome diecuts (base, hat, beard, tunic, nose)
Five 3" green knitty circles
Five 2" festive tree circles
Five 1.25" red dotted circles
Five small green knit printed hearts
Five sets of G-N-O-M-E diecut letters
Five printed "for the holidays" sentiments
Five panels of white textured cardstock
Five white A2 cards

Get your copy of Holiday Jumpstart: GNOME for the Holidays today, available only in the Paper Anthology Design Etsy Shop.