how sketchy can you get?!

WOW! how excited are we this week to have the most cards ever on the ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ blog thus far?! of course it is all thanks to ♥AMY♥ and her awesome sketch. so thrilling to see that ALL of you were inspired to bold new christmas-card-making heights!

having spoken to miss amy via email, i should tell you that she was also delighted by our final tally of *42* cards...not to mention being overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and camaraderie of all of you lovely BELLES! if i may quote that lovely lady, "PLEASE relay in the post that I had super ginormous amounts of fun-fun-fun! It's was over the top coolio to see how peeps interpreted a sketch that I drew...I'm glad that the gals liked it and had FUN." so there! she's also agreed to make a return appearance in future, so be on the lookout for that!

in the meantime, here are a few cards that interpreted her sketch especially well:

by tip top of tip top toppers

amy says, "This is a card that uses non-traditional colors and 2 ornaments..that were on sale! Love the glitz!"

by diana of design by diana

amy says, "Love the added stitching....and the non-traditional patterns that are in traditional colors!" :)

by amanda of crafty paper girl

amy says, "Although I love non-traditional cards, this is quite the opposite and I love it...there is something about tartan plaid that screams festive!"

many thanks to *EVERYONE* who played along; and once again extra special thanks to amy tsuruta of TSURUTA DESIGNS for being our lovely guest star and sketchmaker this week! btw, you still have until midnight tomorrow (feb 4) to get in on amy's flashback friday 7.0 by re-posting your very first papercrafting project to feature *GLITTER*! (did i mention she has a very cool prize from ippity for that??!) :)

speaking of prizes, it's time to announce the winner of the big january giveaway! so without further ado, the winner of the random drawing... (for which we had so many entries it needed my BIGGEST tupperware bowl to hold all the little slips of paper!) ...is...

♥♥♥ ALLI of "scrappy bitz"! ♥♥♥

CONGRATULATIONS, alli! please email us your mailing information using the address on the sidebar, so that we can get your lovely prize pack to you ASAP! :)

the new prompt will be up at midnight...if you have a little time to kill before then and haven't yet seen your fellow ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ sketch cards, do scroll down and have a bit of a gander at those thumbnails...you'll be glad you did!!!

bring on the sketch miss ♥AMY♥!

hello, all--it's lauren here! are you ready for CARD FIVE?! this week we have an amazingly lovely guest star for you, so i am even more than usually anxious to get started!

if you're a card-making blogger, then i'm pretty sure ♥AMY TSURUTA♥ needs no introduction: this lady has pretty much single-handedly raised the art of both making cards...and friendly blurfing around to see the cards of others, to a whole new level, hasn't she?! she's been on LOTS of design teams... (currently card patterns, skipping stones, and EAD designs are lucky enough to have her talents) ...not to mention the fact that she has her own fabulous blog and now a second one for her awesome friday flashback challenge, too! stephanie and i have both been lucky enough to count her as a friend for several years now, and so of course we wanted her to be one of the very first people to join us here at JINGLE BELLES! not only was she gracious enough to do so, she brought one of her lovely SKETCHES with her. see?

so you've probably guessed that CARD FIVE is AMY'S LOVELY SKETCH, right?!

here's what we did with it:

amy's card

amy says: Okay, this is truly an easy smeasy sketch...let me tell you my theory on that: I love panels...layers of colors and funky patterns.....BUT for Christmas cards I'm all about clean & crisp {translation=easily mass produced and no extra postage}. For Jingle Bells, I thought we should start with a clean and simple design... and then my fellow cardmakers can load it up or not...

stephanie's card

stef says: My card started with some fabulous Webster's Pages paper cut with the Stampin' Up Top Note Die. I added some ink and mounted it on striped holiday cardstock. Next, I stamped the Ledger image from Artistic Outpost's new Ephemeral Backgrounds set on light blue DP and punched out my Christmas tree. I sponged some more & adorned it with a champagne pearl garland. I finished with a sentiment from Artistic Outpost's Snowy Woods.

lauren's card

lauren says: amy's gorgeous sketch and her fabulous style inspired me to attempt a (relatively...for ME, lol!) "clean and simple" design. i started with the fun jukebox graphic (which miss stef found!) and paired it with a santa cut from a holiday catalog; a few "recollections" xmas lights and some puffy alphabet stickers later and i was done!

and now it's time to see what YOU will do for

CARD FIVE: amy's lovely sketch!

make it plain or fancy; go traditional or step out on a limb; keep it minimal or load it up...just make a holiday card and link it below by 6pm on wednesday, february 2, 2011!

remember, this is the last prompt before the big giveaway closes out, and i know you want a shot at the prize!!!

it's a random draw in which you get TWO chances for every card you've made and linked during january and ONE chance for every comment you've left on a january post; we're keeping it open until this challenge ends (6pm on 2-2-11) and will announce the winner in the shout out post on thursday, february 3rd! good luck!

♥LAUREN♥