Jingle Belles 13:01 Look What Santa Brought Me

Jingle Belles is a challenge blog aimed at getting Christmas cards done before December. Participating in their challenges has certainly saved me come December so I'm hoping to fit in a few challenges this year as well. Their first challenge of the year is "Look What Santa Brought Me" where you use some brand new goodies. So in this card I used some brand new paper borders and my Paper Made Bakery November kit.

Jingle Belles

As some of you may know this week's challenge at Jingle Belles is mine and so I had a card done a few weeks in advance but I didn't get to play along last week. I was cleaning out my cabinet when I discovered this printed cardstock that was inserted in a bath gift set as part of the packaging and thought immediately of the Jingle Belles recycled challenge. I like the green and the classic design so I cut a simple tag with my Cricut and then layered some stickers and ribbon with the tag to create a simple card. I have enjoyed looking at the cards for this week's challenge so far and know its going to be hard to pick only a few cards to highlight. Remember because the whole idea behind this challenge is I have too many Christmas embellies, I am offering a pack of rub-ons for a random participant.

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This week I'm honored to be guest designing for Jingle Belles. I've loved playing along since the beginning (though recent weeks I've been a little late with getting there). So here's my prompt, I’ve loved playing along with Jingle Belles and each week looking through my Christmas crafting supplies I realize I have lots of random embellishments that I bought during after Christmas sales that don’t necessarily match up with patterned paper, but I still adore. So I thought why not make a card with just embellishments and no patterned paper and my challenge was born.

Looking through my Christmas embellishments I decided to play with these Maya Road rub-ons which I have a hard time using with patterned paper because of the color palette. I thought they would really stand out on the silver cardstock and added some gems from Studio 18 to accent the rub-ons. The background, sentiment and snowflakes are all separate rub-ons combined to create the design of the card. I know you all have fabulous and gorgeous embellishments that can shine without patterned paper so take this as an opportunity to use them.

I can't wait to see everyone who plays along in my no patterned paper just embellies challenge!

Jingle Belles Catching Up

As I've mentioned before I recently got a full time position working at an elementary school and on top of going to school "full time" i.e. 4 classes, I've been feeling a little stretched. However the kids have off this week for Easter so now is my chance to get ahead on some school work, relax a little with the family, and even get some crafting done. So here I am with three cards to catch up on the Jingle Belles challenges.

First up the Jingle Belles Batman Smells challenge. This was actually the last card I made and the only what that I really like from today. It was clear that my mojo needed some time to kick in.

This next card is for the current challenge, Christmas cards to DIE for. I kept it really simple using a precut die cut, a rub-on sentiment, and a touch of bling.

This last card is for the Ghost of Christmas Present challenge I tried to use up some fun stickers I had. I love how stickers look in the package but they don't always end up as cute as I hoped. But hey its a fast card that is flat for mailing.

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I whipped up this super flat easy card from scraps for the Jingle Belles challenge this week. The challenge is to use Christmas foliage. The Christmas foliage is from a Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather element and the papers are also from Mitten Weather.

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Jingle Belles has a sketch challenge this week. I admit, I was at first thrown off a little by the sketch, but I went through my stash hoping to be inspired. I found the oval sticker from the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses collection and it all came together from there.

You can see above a closeup of the little cross shapes along the side. These are from my Kreaxions Punch 913. I love that this one punch create two borders, two corners, and a little cross shape and that's before the accessories are added which open up the possibilities even more.

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So I missed the deadline for Jingle Belles this week and if I'm honest I think my blue is a little off but I'm dedicated to playing along each week. I had a bit of kraft that I used for the base and layered some rub-ons and pearls to create this look.

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I've got my card for the latest Jingle Belles challenge. The challenge is to use the song Home for the Holidays as inspiration and I started looking through my Christmas stuff when I stumbled along this sentiment sticker. I paired it up with some Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather papers. I also used my Kreaxions 913 Punch to create the border along the bottom.

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The Jingle Belles "Text Me" challenge came together quite easily for me when I remembered this great frame rub-on with the text feature. I layered on some more fun rub-ons cause I want to use them before they get old (I've lost some rub-ons to age). The sentiment is fun text too with the mix of big and little and the curve plus I added a gem to make the word element stand out.

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The new Jingle Belles challenge is a two for one challenge with Sketchy Thursdays. You make one card from the sketch and can then enter it into both challenges on each blog. Love the sketch and decided to play with my Mitten Weather papers again. The Joy sentiment is cut from an element. I layered a Cosmo Cricket chipboard snowflake over some Primas.

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The Jingle Belles challenge was to use "No Red." I knew the Mitten Weather line from Cosmo Cricket had a lot of great holiday papers without red. I used up some scraps in a block design then added snowflake rub-ons and faux stitching with a gel pen.

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When I saw the new Jingle Belles prompt to use felt or winter clothes images I thought of the few felt stickers I had. I had already used the mittens from the package which would have been perfect but this tree image still worked and I knew it would match well with BG's Figgy Pudding. The snowflake sticker is from the line as well. The sentiment is a K and Company rub-on. Not sure if the beating I took while skiing contributed, but I've come down with a nasty cough so my plan is to finish up some school work and then rest up most of the day. I have an interview for a substitute teaching position tomorrow as well so hopefully all goes well on that front. Have a great day!

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The super talented Amy is a guest sketch artist and designer at Jingle Belles this week. She create a super fab and easy sketch. I made my card is less than five minutes. The bling isn't strictly part of the sketch but I wanted a bit more of a punch and well I love bling. Paper and sticker is Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses.

Here's an LO I'm sharing for the Basic Grey Challenge blog challenge to use flowers. I have flower paper and stickers. Me and my two cousins made with Basic Grey Lemonade paper and stickers.

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The new Jingle Belles challenge was surprisingly tough for me. It was a simple challenge, use light pink, dark pink, and lime green. I may not be as big of a fan of pink as my mom but I thought for sure I had some in my Christmas stash. Well after digging through my Christmas stash I did find ribbon, bits of a paper design and some stickers in the colors. I cut and layered the paper tree bits and added some bling. I affixed the stickers most closely matching the colors and tied on some of the ribbon. Its more of a tag than a card, but at Christmas time I use tags to double as cards on smaller gifts so I thought it might still fit the challenge. Even if this one is a little tough I'm determined to keep up with the Jingle Belle challenges so I can use up this stash and be prepared for next December.

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First a brief plea... Hey Crafty Friends! If you appreciate my cards I'd appreciate it if you followed this link and left a comment saying I, Jess Moyer, would make an excellent addition to the Cosmo Cricket Design Team!

Now onto my card. I made this card using Cosmo Cricket's Mitten Weather for the Jingle Belles challenge to use acrylic paint. I painted the star and the edges of the label. I love the purple and gray in Mitten Weather. Such a fresh take on Christmas colors. The sentiment and snowflakes are a new set from Studio 18 that I picked up during the 80% Christmas clearance. I didn't need new stamp sets but I have a hard time resisting at only 20 cents. I picked up quite a bit of bling at that price as well because I love to add gems to pretty much everything. This card is also the the Sentimental Sundays to use a winter theme and have a sentiment. Lots of snowflakes on this card and of course the winter sentiment "Let it Snow."

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First up the card! This is for Jingle Belles second challenge to use inchies or twinchies. I used Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather and surrounded the adorable Santa with 6 inchies. Trying to keep some of my holiday cards super simple and as flat as possible to be better for mailing.

This weekend I was super lucky in terms of getting new scrap goodies. As some of you know I just got a Cricut and Michaels ran an excellent sale this weekend with some carts only $9.99. I knew these would be going fast and that I would be at a conference on Saturday morning so I gave my grams a list and she kindly went to her local Michael's to see what she could get. I wanted just one maybe two, she bought six! My grams is quite young and still works so she has the spending money but this is why we don't like to let her shop alone. She can't pass up a great deal. She has all these plans for what I can make for her with them. Which I will be delighted to do (love to craft for others!). Unfortunately what I didn't know was the Gypsy was $49 as part of the same deal. If you consider the 5 bonus cartridges it comes with right now it is a much better deal than even the $10 carts. Oh well live and learn. Besides now I have a much bigger library of shapes to work with so I really can't complain. My LSS had an anniversary event this weekend as well but I'll save that chatter for another time.

Bo Bunny Card Sketch

I'm a big fan of Bo Bunny's card challenges. I love that playing with a favorite manufacturer can possibly win me more goodies. I got these Winter Joy papers as part of the December card kit from my LSS. I stretched the sketch to make a square card and cut the banner pieces with my Cricut. This is also for the Jingle Belles challenge to use something old (flower, leaves, and sticker sentiment) and new (Winter Joy papers and gems).

Let It Snow- New to Me Challenges

Still trying to make enough cards for the friends I'll be meeting up with this weekend. This card is for several challenges. First up I found out from Amy's blog about Jingle Belles, a new challenge blog designed to help build up Christmas card stashes throughout the year. Since I'm still working on the cards for this past Christmas this seems perfect for me. The first challenge is to use something old and something new (old stash plus something new like a Christmas present). So I used my new Cricut and BoBunny Winter Joy papers combined with an old tag and old ribbon. Also this is for the Fantabulous Cricut challenge of Snowy Delights. The snowflake strip was cut from my Stretch Your Imagination cartridge. I figure the best way to make sure I use my new Cricut is to join challenges.

While at Micheal's looking at after Christmas bargains I was found this large recipe box for $1 and thought it would be a perfect place to collect a stash of Christmas cards especially because it even holds large 5x5 cards. The other box I have for my cards is usually pretty crowded so I figured having a second one for Christmas cards wouldn't be a bad idea. Plus it would be a personal challenge to fill up the box with cards for next year. I altered it just a touch to cover the recipes label and then labeled some dividers inside to keep Christmas and Winter cards separate.