JB2502: Candy Christmas

It's a fabulous photo inspiration this fortnight at Jingle Belles, so we're asking you to create a holiday card (or cards!) inspired by this fun Candy Cane Christmas image from Turtlecreek Lane. You can use as many or as few aspects of the photo as you'd like: maybe you love the the white tree smothered in ornaments; or the red and blue stockings could be your fave; perhaps you'd just like to create a mantel with stockings and decor; or you might adore that handsome Nutcracker. Anything and everything in the pic is fair game, just make sure you let us know what part(s) of the photo inspired you.

Here's my card and then I'll tell you my inspo:

I was immediately drawn to the photo's gorgeous white tree, smothered in candy-themed, candy-colored ornaments, so luckily I remembered that I still had stickers left from Doodlebug's Candy Cane Lane collection of a few years ago. I employed one of my oldest dies (Sizzix's Christmas Tree #2) to cut a tree shape from white cardstock, then spent an enjoyable half hour adding pastel candy canes, gum drops and hearts, plus some tiny pearls, before adding lots of colorful presents under the tree. I made my background a soft blue similar to the wall in the inspo photo and added another mat of red and blue as a little salute to those bold stockings.

Visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and link up your own photo inspiration greeting. JB2502: Candy Christmas will run until 6pm (Eastern) on January 29th.

SOS537: My Precious

The new challenge at Shopping Our Stash miiiiiiight be slightly more challenging than usual. This fortnight we want you to use something on your card that you're been hoarding in your craft supplies for way too long... it might be a piece of specialty paper, some vintage lace, or a fancy embellishment. We're asking you to be strong and give it a home on a card or project.

I have had this Doodlebug Doodlepop typewriter sticker literally for YEARS... it was actually displayed in my Art Lair! But I have a friend who loves vintage typewriters as much as I do and I wanted to make her an extra-special birthday card, so I bit the bullet and actually UNWRAPPED said adorable 3D sticker and used it and I loooooove how my card came out. The only thing older than the typewriter itself is that yellow notebook paper scrap which is absolutely ancient "Love, Elsie" from American Crafts. I wasn't actually hoarding it on purpose, but not only was the color and style perfect, it was pretty much exactly the right size for my A6 card. I think the Tim Holtz "Typo" alphabet dies are out of print, but I still love my set and was happy to break them out to fashion an appropriate custom background. Those pink Eyelet Outlet Heart Brads come in a set with red and white ones in two sizes. Sadly, they're going to be going out of print, but until they sell out, they're ON SALE in the EO Store!

Check out the design team inspiration at Shopping Our Stash and then start thinking what precious item YOU can use to make a card you link up with us this time. SOS537: My Precious runs until Monday evening, December 30th.

JB2423: Christmas Feast

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we are celebrating one of my very favorite aspects of the holidays: The Christmas Feast! There are lots of iconic holiday foods, from cookies and candies to gingerbread in all its forms; sugar plums, Christmas pudding, Buche de Noel, even the Grinch carving the Roast Beast! Make a holiday card in any color, style or size you like... just make sure it features a tasty treat!

As often happens when I get out my stash of adorable Doodlebug Design holiday items, I couldn't just make ONE card. In my defense, D-bug always includes a lot of sweet (in every sense lol) treats, which are perfect for this particular theme. For these cards I raided the patterned papers and sticker from the aptly named Gingerbread Kisses and Candy Cane Lane collections. I used coordinating papers from my scrap box, and couldn't resist adding a few Eyelet Outlet Gingerbread and Candy Cane Brads.

The Christmas Feast challenge (#JB2423) will run at Jingle Belles until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, November 20th and we'd love for YOU to join the fun!

PINK Christmas: Week 2

It's the second week of our gala PINK CHRISTMAS celebration at Jingle Belles, in which we are asking YOU to make holiday cards that are predominantly pink and WE will donate to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each card that gets linked up! Visit the original PINK CHRISTMAS post at Jingle Belles for all the details as well as the Linky Tool to add your cards. Meanwhile, here's what I made this week:

I raided my happy little stash of Doodlebug Design papers, journal tags and stickers to make this sweet (in every sense, lol) little card that's mostly pink... with touches of tan gingerbread and reindeer; as well as some fun green Christmas tree cookies. I used an ancient pink background paper with a strong horizontal element to it, which made lining up the decorative strips super-easy!

Link your gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS creations (because YES, you definitely can make as many as you'd like!) on the original post at Jingle Belles. This challenge (#JB2421) runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 23rd. 

Hey, Santa Claus!*

Everybody’s waitin' for the man with the bag** this fortnight at Jingle Belles, as we celebrate Santa Claus, aka Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, Pere Noel... ok, you get the idea, lol. Here’s what I made:

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Doodlebug has really never made a collection I didn’t love; and that goes double for Christmas! I’ve combined a bunch of different Doodlebug elements: the Santa, tree and a few presents are cut from journal cards; the presents and candies are stickers; the sentiment is from a the super-useful page full of tags and sentiments that most D-bug collections come with. The red text paper is Elle's Studio... I think... it’s ancient, and was in the scrap box so I'm not positive. The blue graph paper is Photoplay. There are Eyelet Outlet Enamel Dots and an Enamel Star on the cute Christmas tree and a Matte Dot on Santa's hat.

This challenge runs until May 8th. Hop over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie’s made and start planning your own Santa-centric masterpiece. 

*Hey, Santa Claus by the Moonglows is a cool R&B holiday song that I really love. Just sayin'... ♥

**For the record The Chenille Sisters do my favorite version of The Man with the Bag in case you need a little extra mojo.

More Cookies? (Yes, Please!)

Over at Jingle Belles, we're still creating holiday cards inspired by this fabulous collection of holiday cookies from Kristen's Cookies, and you're still invited to join the fun. Remember, when you share your card, we'd like for you to let us know which cookie you chose, and how it inspired you! 

This week I went with the pink cookie (how could I not?!) with the cute Santa...

...and once again my inspiration was partially informed by the fact that I was convinced I had a very similar Santa image. As it turns out, I had a Doodlebug Santa that was in a completely different style, but... it was already on a PINK journal card, so I just went with the flow! I began with the intention of going super-minimal and using a plain pink background with rounded corners, but then I remembered I'm *ME* lol, so I threw in a few pink patterned paper layers and added in the sentiment that I had cropped off of the journal card.

Head over to Jingle Belles to see the fabulous Readers' Gallery so far and start planning your own cookie-centric card!

Hard Candy Christmas

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're celebrating the sweet treats of the season, including our favorite holiday candies and cookies. 

There are lots of awesome ways to approach this prompt, but seeing as how Doodlebug's Gingerbread Kisses line has just arrived at Paper Anthology, it seemed silly not to let those fabulous papers, journal cards and stickers do most of the work for me. I was having so much fun I made not one but two 5.5" square cards to celebrate. For extra sweetness, I added Eyelet Outlet Gingerbread, Peppermint and Candy Cane Brads.

Be sure to stop over at Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and then start planning what you'll link up with us. The Hard Candy Christmas challenge runs through Wednesday evening, November 15th.

Pink Christmas, Week 2

It's the second week of PINK CHRISTMAS festivities at Jingle Belles, so Stephanie and I are still making predominantly pink holiday cards and donating $2 a piece to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation for each pink card that you link up with us!

Here's my card:

This week I raided my stash of supercute Doodlebug Candy Cane Lane stickers and used them to make a fun little snowglobe scene. I re-used that pretty pink snowflake wrapping paper for a sky and cut into some well-hoarded Lawn Fawn Knit Picky paper to make the background. I think the sentiment sticker might be ancient Prima, but it was in the "orphaned" sticker envelope, so I'm not entirely sure.

Come on over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made this week, check out the glorious PINK CHRISTMAS Readers' Gallery and then start planning what YOU will make!

Christmas in July with Double Trouble

Christmas in July is upon us and at Jingle Belles once again we've teamed up with the gang at Double Trouble Challenge which means you'll have twice as many opportunities to link up AND to win prizes!

You can link up ANY Christmas themed project with Double Trouble. At Jingle Belles, we're excited to be celebrating the USA's Independence Day next week, so we're asking you to incorporate either stars or stripes into your card design (it needn't be red, white or blue) … just stars or stripes (or both) in any medium you choose.

Here's my Stars and/or Stripes card:

It's no secret that I love stickers, generally; Doodlebug stickers, especially; and D-bug Xmas stickers particularly! So I was pretty psyched to find a whole sheet of little houses and cars from their Candy Cane lane collection a year or two ago, which I built my card around. My stars and stripes are, as you can see, subtle... just one starry and one stripey patterned paper, plus some really fun glitter foam star stickers... but it just goes to show that the "Stars and/or Stripes" theme is pretty flexible!

Head over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and the fun little prize that one random cardmaker is going to score this time. Then visit the Double Trouble Challenge for even more Christmas in July inspiration!

SOS498: Let's Hear it for the Boys

If you've guessed that the new challenge at Shopping Our Stash is to create a card that features a man OR a masculine card for one of the the men/boys in your life, then well done you! Since we have a grand nephew with a birthday next month, I've literally made a BOY-ish card; but yours can be for a dude of any age. 

I found half a sheet of Doodlebug stickers featuring these adorable dinos, which is about as "on point" as one can get for a little boy, right? He is turning five and technically, I think these might be older than he is, which makes them quite stashy! The foliage dies are from two different (older) Lawn Fawn sets (Tropical Leaves and Happy Hibiscus); the Nestabilities ovals are some of the very first dies I ever purchased when my Cuttlebug was brand new; the papers are all older and none were full sheets, so I'm calling this a win in terms of using up older things!

Whatever age YOUR favorite "man" is, why not have a trawl through your stash of masculine goodies, then hop over to SOS and join this fun challenge, "Let's Hear it for the Boys" which runs until Monday evening, June 19th.

Thank You, Santa!

Over at Jingle Belles, we're still showing off the goodies that Santa brought us. Or... as in this case... the goodies we chose for ourselves, in order to help the big guy out! I saw Doodlebug's Candy Cane Lane collection online in December and asked my friend Elisabeth from Paper Anthology to order it for me; and like all the Doodlebug sets I've ever seen, it's actually even cuter in real life!

Nearly everything on the card is from Candy Cane Lane: the paper with the cute houses, the dimensional truck and tree stickers, the sentiment strip, and the little hearts and snowflakes. I made a shaker window using my ancient heart Nesties, filled it with a snowy sequin mix leftover from a class last year and set it all on a blue plaid background from an older D-bug set. This card is an A6 and despite the layer of foam tape to accommodate the shaker window, is flat enough to mail... woohoo!

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made and check out the cool little prize that one randomly selected cardmaker will score, just for linking up with us this fortnight!

Everybody's Waitin' For...

 ...the Man with the Bag; also known as Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, Father Christmas or Pere Noel, so this fortnight at Jingle Belles we're making cards that feature dear old Santa Claus!

My Santa is in Doodlebug sticker form and he's driving his pickup truck full of presents across a quilt-inspired background of patterned paper strips (one of my favorite ways to use up scraps!) which I found lurking in an envelope full of leftover bits. 

Visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and start planning what you'll make this week!

Ombre 'Oliday

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're making cards that feature an "Ombre" effect; that is, which move from light to dark in a single color family. You can achieve this with one of the many beautiful patterned papers out there, or with a bit of ink blending, or, (if you're ME!) by cutting and overlapping 3/4" strips of cardstock in a whole bunch of shades of red and/or green!

After I had constructed my red and green ombre backgrounds, I added clusters of punched patterned paper circles and holiday stickers. Easy, Peasy!

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made to inspire you, and then start planning your own Ombre Masterpiece!

Bordering on AWESOME!

It's time for a brand new challenge at Shopping Our Stash and this time we're celebrating border punches and dies! I went with the former, because I still have quite a few of those awesome old-school devices and I realized it had been a while since I used them... so I've incorporated three of my favorites into my card.

The sweet and sparkly animals come from a patterned paper so old, I'm not sure who made it? I suspect it was Creative Imaginations, but I won't swear to it. The plaid sky, sentiment and happy sunshine are Doodlebug and newish. The border punches are (from the top down) Fiskars (on Dare 2B Artzy paper) and two Recollections; on Echo Park and Hello Kitty, respectively. This cute critter convention will very shortly be on its way to celebrate a very happy birthday with one of our grand-nieces.

Be sure to visit SOS to see what the design team has made to inspire you; then dust off those border punches and dies and get crafty with us!

Sweets and Treats

We're Getting Fit for the New Year at Jingle Belles by allocating all of our favorite sweets and treats to our holiday cards, instead of our tummies!

I've adorned an older Doodlebug gingerbread house sticker with a couple of candy-centric Eyelet Outlet brads and a Pearl Swirl above the chimney. The cool paper-strip background is based on an absolutely ancient, totally brilliant Card Maps sketch that I discovered lurking in my inspiration file. 

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made, then start planning your own sweet treat of a card!

'Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

Here's a happy little card focusing on one of the most popular and iconic of our Thanksgiving Day pleasures: PIE! 

Obviously I couldn't resist this sweet little slice (or the gorgeous plaid pattern!) from Doodlebug's "Pumpkin Spice" collection when I saw it at Paper Anthology, especially since I knew it would pair well with my Eyelet Outlet Pumpkin and Rolling Pin Brads! To round out the design I also added a Leaf Brad, a Sunflower, a Heart and the Oven Glove from our Cooking Set.

Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Snow Far, Snow Good

We're still celebrating snow in all its forms at Jingle Belles and you're still invited to join the fun! This week I've invited a sweet little Doodlebug snowman to the party:

The background snowstorm is an older Impression Obsession Cover-a-Card stamp which I had inked imperfectly, but I still loved the colors so I saved it thinking "this could work for... something...?" and suddenly when I saw it again I knew THIS was the "something"! I layered an ancient piece of KI Memories Snowflake Lace Paper on top and it kind of blended in too well, so I outlined around it with a purpley-blue Prismacolor pencil. I don't think Core'dinations makes that woven-effect cardstock any more (which is a bit of a pity, imo) but I still have a few scraps left and this one was perfect both for framing my Lawn Fawn sentiment and the snowy panel, as well.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and link up your own Snowy masterpiece!

Cute Cookie Inspiration

It's a photo inspiration challenge this fortnight at Jingle Belles, and we've taken our cue from these sweet (in every sense, lol) snow globe cookie creations from  Missy's Sugar Shop on Etsy.*

You can use as many (or as few!) elements as you'd like from the inspiration pic. Maybe you'll just use the color palette, or perhaps you'll incorporate the cute characters, or add a snow globe. It's entirely up to you, just make sure you tell us in your post what inspired your design.

I adore the bright non-traditional color palette, as well as the adorable critters and characters. I used multiple shades of my go-to Bella Besties Dot and Graph papers (from Paper Anthology) to mimic the snowy background and some older Doodlebug stickers in the starring roles. I also love how much texture the icing gives to the cookies, which I've interpreted in the form of machine stitching and Eyelet Outlet Multi Size Pearl Bling accents.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's clever and appealing card; then start planning what you'll link up with us this time!

*Missy's Sugar Shop is packed full of adorable inspiration; I highly recommend taking a little scroll through all the colors, shapes and themes!  

Starry Stripes and Stripey Stars

We're still celebrating Stars and/or Stripes (of ANY color!) at Jingle Belles and you are still invited to join the fun and get a jump on those holiday cards! Here's what I made this week:

Three biggish scraps of striped paper do most of the work this time. One of them got itself diecut with my largest star Nestie and became home to the adorable D-bug Santa and Missus Claus. An ancient sticker sentiment and a scattering of red and white Eyelet Outlet Star Brads round things off nicely.

Head on over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and link up your own Starry and/or Striped masterpiece! ♥

Sandy Claws

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash, we're celebrating Christmas in July, which I think is pretty straightforward, so I'm going to jump right to the part where I show off my card, k?

It's no secret that I love Doodlebug generally, their holiday stuff particularly, and especially their stickers. So here's a card with lots of all of that! There are a few non-D-bug pieces: the starry background paper inside the windows (cut with my trusty Nestabilities circle dies) is MME, the ancient sentiment sticker is Crate Paper (I think?) and there's a super skinny mat of shimmery pink cardstock which came from Paper Anthology. Not the fanciest card in the world but definitely colorful, cheerful and fun.

Speaking of FUN... I hope you'll head on over to SOS to see what the other design team darlings have made to inspire you!!!