Something Old... Something New

You've probably guessed from the title, "Something Old... Something New" that this fortnight  we'd like to see holiday cards on which you combine an item or two that you've had in your craft stash for a bit together with something new that you received for the holidays... or shopped for yourself (we all know we can be our own best Santa)! 

Here's how we mixed the OLD with the NEW this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "My new is Hero Arts Hero Arts A Little Merri-Mint stamps & coordinating dies that Santa Stephanie gifted me for Christmas (I love how she always knows exactly what I want LOL). I paired it with a snarky sentiment for the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.  The old (but embarrassingly never used) is the Nordic Frames Die from The Greetery together with white pearls that I'm guessing have been hanging around for at least 10 years."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My NEW things consist of: lots of stickers from the Tim Holtz/Idea-ology Christmas Sticker Book I treated myself to; a brand new pack of EO Angel Brads that I got last summer, promptly lost and just now found again (yay!); and snowflakes diecut from very cool sticky-back felt that a friend gifted me. The OLD stuff is... everything else, lol; including: papers from Prima's Pretty Pale collection; doily scraps; gold glitter cardstock; and chipboard letter diecuts made from well-patina-ed vintage sheet music."

JB2602: Something Old... Something New runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, January 28th. Link your cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Wrapping Up...

...the first prompt of 2026 and WOW, everyone did such an amazing job making gorgeous cards featuring giftwrap, tags. printed tissue paper and even a mulberry paper giftbag! If you haven't checked ou the Readers' Gallery, we highly recommend a little scroll through all of the fine inspiration. In the meantime, here are three cards that especially caught our eye:

Susan Culotti posting on Instagram

...made a background from gorgeous evergreen patterned tissue paper, used a charming scallop-edge die and then colored her stamped images to match PERFECTLY!

Willa Coates posting on Pinterest

...used beautiful metallic texty giftwrap, then added a simple faux bow and coordinating cardbase for an idea that is as simple as it is beautiful!

Bonnie Klass of Stamping with Klass

...rescued not one, not two, but THREE beautiful gift tags, added them to embossed backgrounds, chose a few embellies, et VOILA: her 2026 holiday card stash is off to a great start!

♥♥♥

And now it's time to see who has scored the very cool Christmas Baubles #2 Layering Dies from STAMPlorations

Would you believe the Random Number Generator chose...

Lucky #1!

Which means that @susan_culotti is our lucky winner!

♥

Please send your snailmail info to 

llaurenb (at) hotmail (dot) com'

and we'll get that on its way to you, ASAP!

Many thanks to all who participated, you're all off to a fabulous crafty start for this New Year! We'll be back at Midnight with a brand new prompt we hope will delight our friends, both Old and New! ;)

The Gift (Wrapping) of Christmas

For our No Time Like the Presents prompt, we're still making cards using bits of leftover holiday wrapping paper and tags.

Here's how we were inspired:

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "I've got TWO styles of carefully-saved giftwrap here (the pink snowflake paper and the white snowflake paper in the background); plus the white tag with the pink tree was on one of my presents. (Pink Christmas runs in my family, lol!) I added some (ancient) KI Memories lasercut snowflake paper, and lots more tags, snowflakes and stickers to make a little collage on my 5.5" square card."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Years ago (posts indicate 2019), Lauren shared a piece of this fun Hello Kitty holiday wrapping paper with me by Xyron-ing it to some cardstock.  I used the Hero Arts Arches Infinity dies to cut out two of the Kitties (they reminded me of me & Lauren) and paired them with the Simon Says Stamp CZ Design Merry word die and a sentiment from Memory Box Merry Christmas Foil Greetings.  I finished with some enamel dots ... such a fun color combination."

Remember, one lucky participant will win the STAMPlorations Christmas Baubles #2 Layering Dies.

Visit the original post to link your cards and see the Readers' Gallery so far. JB2601: No Time Like the Presents runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, January 14th.

No Time Like the Presents

Woohoo ... the Jingle Belles (Lauren and Stephanie) are back for our 16th year of holiday mayhem, and we're absolutely thrilled you are along for the ride.  We love that we get to use our large selection of holiday products all year long.

How it works is that every other Friday at 12am EST (except for today, since we always love starting on January 1st) we'll post a new prompt to inspire your next holiday card ... you can join us for one ... you can join us for all.  Then the following Friday, we'll post a second card inspired by the same prompt. 

And voila ... at the end of November, we'll each have 48 holiday cards ready to give to our friends, family and co-workers.

The first prompt of the year is No Time Like the Presents ... so before you put away your gift wrapping supplies, pull out some of your favorites (or some of that paper from a gift you unwrapped that was just too pretty to recycle) and make a card featuring wrapping paper or holiday gift tags.

Here's how the Belles were inspired this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "The snowflake colors were actually inspired by a different piece of holiday wrapping paper that I ultimately didn't end-up using (the design was too busy for all of those layers), so I did a pivot and pulled out some Birch Bark Wrapping Paper that I love so much.  I used four different snowflake die cuts and two vintage Martha Stewart punches and topped it with Clear Bumpy Jewel bling from Eyelet Outlet.  I positioned it on a vellum circle that I then framed by die cutting two circles to help it pop against the birch bark.  I finished with a banner and sentiment from Concord & 9th Festive Blooms."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "My friend Gina wrapped her gifts in paper with these adorable holiday character mugs all over it, so OF COURSE I had to unwrap verrrrrrrrrry carefully to save as many as possible. I like to back giftwrap and other thin materials with cardstock, which is what I did here, and then I could fussycut and pop them on foam tape for a little dimension. The sentiment came from a page of Lawn Fawn gift tags; I had intended to use the whole thing, but it was just too big; thus I trimmed it to fit on my 5.5" square card."

And for a bonus, one lucky (randomly chosen) participant will receive Christmas Baubles #2 Layering Dies from STAMPlorations. Shery just started her storefront up full swing again, so we love supporting her.

JB2601: No Time Like the Presents will run until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, January14th. Link your giftwrap-centric cards right here:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

It's Almost 2026...

We'll be kicking off the new Jingle Belles year at 12:01am (Eastern) on January 1, 2026, but first let's get our party clothes on... by which we mean: Here's our new blog header and badges for our sixteenth season! 

Header created by Lauren Bergold in Photoshop Elements

Digital Elements: Music paper (red): Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly paper pack; flower, lace and holly: Katie Pertiet Vintage Christmas kit; bells: Anna Aspnes Retro Holiday Art Play Palette; font: Bohemian Typewriter from Dafont.com; Over the Rainbow glitter text layer style by Flergs

Our 2025 Favorites

It's nearly time to kick-off the next Jingle Belles season, which we'll do at 12:01am EST on January 1, 2026; but first, let's take a little bit of time to look back on 2025 and choose a few favorites. Click the links underneath each photo to go to Stephanie's and Lauren's full selections, on our personal blogs.

One of Stephanie's 2025 Faves

Stephanie says, "My card was for JB2520 - Home for the Holidays.  I love how this little Concord & 9th scene came together with the perfect combination of dimension and white space ... and that smoky blue, grey, and sage green color combination was perfection ... and of course, there's also that tiny little wreath on the door."

One of Lauren's 2025 Faves

Lauren says, "This card is from JB2517: The Spirit of Christmas Past, for which we were tasked to make a card that featured actual vintage or vintage style elements. This card has a bit of both. It's less colorful than many of my faves but I loved making this AND I love how it turned out, both of which are always a big win, imo!"

♥♥♥♥♥

We hope to see you next Thursday, January 1, 2026, when we'll start our SIXTEENTH Jingle Belles season... right here! 

Wrapping Up...

...the 2025 Jingle Belles season with the traditional photos of ALL our cards from this year. 

Jingle Belles will return on January 1, 2026 for another year of inspiration, fun and getting cards DONE! We'd love for you to join us then. If you're not quite finished making, scroll down to the bottom of this post, where we've put a Linky that will run until Christmas Eve, where you can post your cards and take inspiration from others.

Stephanie's 2025 Jingle Belles Cards

Lauren's 2025 Jingle Belles Cards

♥♥♥

We wish you a fun and stress-free December, as well as a 

Very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Beautiful Winter Solstice. 

See you in 2026!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter