I am going to try working with the Jingle Belles challenge this year. If successful, I will have my Christmas cards for 2020 completed by the first of December!

This week’s challenge was to use wrapping paper, tags, or some recycled item from Christmas. Here is my first card for this year. I cut the Three Wisemen from some wrapping paper I have.

The Wild Christmas Reindeer for Jingle Belles

This is so cool - my idea has been used for today's Jingle Belles Christmas card challenge. As a retired elementary school librarian, I love children's stories.

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A few years ago I saw a suggestion on Pinterest to wrap up 25 holiday picture books and open one each day during Advent. I no longer have small children who would enjoy opening the "gifts" each day, but I missed reading the many holiday stories at school. SOooooo, I do this each year for me! I gather 25 (or more) books and put them in a basket by the tree. Each day or so I read one of them, taking my time with the illustrations and remembering why I bought it in the first place. Everyone of these books is special to our family and I look forward to sharing the stories with our next generation.

The Wild Christmas Reindeer, by Jan Brett, has been a favorite for many years. I love her colorful illustrations. The borders help move the story along and are not simply decorative. I have heard Jan Brett speak several times, and she said that there are so many ideas for a story that do not fit in the appropriate number of pages for a picture book. Using borders, she is able to write a longer story that still fit the picture book format.

I made this card 4" x 9", to fit a long envelope. I used my Cricut Expression and the "A Quilted Christmas" cartridge for the reindeer and Teeka. The book is a Spellbinders Nestabilities-Labels Seven.

The possibilites are amazing and I already have a card for another popular book ready.

Catcing up on Christmas cards

I was so exicited to make another Christmas card for the Jingle Belles group. Earlier this year they asked for theme suggestions and I mentioned children's Christmas stories. They liked it! This will be the theme on June 20th.

I am still behind on my Christmas cards and quilting UFOs, but we have been busy! It is great to spend weekends with family, we were able to take care of our grandchildren for three days, and activities just seem to go on and on and on!

I have always enjoyed "Christmas in July" and this year it may start in June - temperatures were in the upper 90s today. I will put on some of those snow songs, make some snowmen cards and try to keep cool.

I realized that I have made more cards than those posted here. Usually I am a few days past the deadline, so I moved on to the next theme.

Here are a few that I got completed for the various challenges:

I usually use cuts from my Cricut Expression on the cards, although some simply have decorative papers and stamping. In the last photo there are two cards made with vintage post cards for the recycling challenge.

Back to card making

(I did not realize it had been so long since I posted here. I have had two successful cataract surgeries and look forward to June when I hope to be finished with doctor checkups for them. It is amazing to see when I am lying in bed in the morning.)

I have also been able to get back making cards - I managed to make one for Mother's Day, a birthday card, and one more for the Jingle Belles challenge, shown here.

We were to follow a sketch and use "bling" - I put Stickles (glitter glue) on the white snowflakes around the  text, although it does not show in the picture.

Jingle Belles cards are caught up!

I have managed to get caught up on my Christmas card challenge before Easter! Yeah!! This is another card using recycled materials and I have had the ribbon with the tree on it for many years. I never remember to use ribbon on packages so it works very well as the center piece for cards. The actual card is left over from Christmas cards I made two years ago too.

Back to Christmas cards in April

I finally had time to work on the Jingle Belles challenge for this week. We are to use throw away items, in honor of Earth Day this month - recyle! My first card here uses an old Christmas card that was 3-D. It stood up, but I have taken the snowmen and scattered them on this stair step card. I also have more snowmen to make another card.

I also used an old decorative scissors to cut the tag. I often think about throwing those away, but they do come in handy from time to time.

Jingle Belles are ringing again!

I decided to take time to make my current Jingle Belle challenge Christmas cards today. I could not skip these cards because they are using a vintage theme. I knew right away that I could use some of the Christmas post cards I have from my dad's collection. I could not decide whether to use the actual card, or scan it for a copy. For this one  I did simply alter the card itself. I added glitter to the bell. I am too late for this challenge, but at least I added two more cards to my stash!

Catching up with the Jingle Belles

I hae had so many other things going on with my hobbies that I did not take much time to work on the Jingle Belles Christmas card challenge. I am trying to do each weekly challenge, but not always the week they are presented!
This is the current challenge, for the holly and the ivy. 

A New Challenge for 2014

I plan to continue the challenge over at 52 Quilts to complete a UFO quilt each month again. I was able to take care of 10 items last year, so I am willing to try in 2014.  More about the quilting in the next post.

THEN, I found another challenge at the Jingle Belles website. Here they challenge people to make a Christmas card each week, and provide sketches or ideas to follow. The idea is that we should have 50 or so cards ready for Christmas mailing!


Here is my first card, although it was done for the second challenge!


I am looking forward to making a variety of cards that can be used for Christmas or just winter notes.