Jingle Belles - Banner Inspired Holiday

December is creeping up on us and there is just enough time for me to get in my card(s) for the last official Jingle Belles challenge of 2023 - using their blog banner for inspiration

Would you believe that I have been thinking about this since February?  Yes, it's true.  I was shopping in $Tree back in February and saw that they had rolls of what I call velour ribbon in two shades of pink and also in white and it immediately reminded me of the Jingle Belles banner.  I must have been working on a challenge before I went there to have it so fresh in my mind.  But the wheels started turning......I'm sure if thought bubbles were real, you might have seen them flying around my head.  How could I use those ribbons to make trees?  Could I cut them out of the ribbon?  Probably.  Could I maybe use a tree die?  More likely.  Do I have a tree die?  Seriously(!)  Surely I must.  Those ribbon rolls were so enthusiastic they jumped right into my cart.  And then were stashed away until November at which time it was necessary to start producing some more of those thought bubbles.  

I found a tree die set that I thought I could use and started playing around with it.  The first thing that I knew I had to do was to add sticky paper on the back of the ribbon because the tree limbs were very delicate and plentiful and it could become messy using bottled glue.  Then I proceded to die cut them with the die on top of the fuzzy side.  I ran it through the Big Shot several times to hopefully get through the ribbon and the paper backing but it didn't seem to get through enough for me not to have to also use a scissor to cut it.  Then a lightbulb joined the thought bubbles and illuminated the solution for me...........it's a tree.....it doesn't have a right or wrong side...........cut through the paper and see if that works.......so what if it's a little smushed.  Well, lo and behold, I should have turned that light on sooner because it sure did enlighten me.  The only thing that I regret is that I tend to be so frugal with my supplies and tried to fit as many trees as I could on a piece of the ribbon that I did not take into consideration that the ribbon had a nap to it and cut my trees out in both directions.  So you may or may not notice on the card that those of the same color look different if they were cut out in opposite directions.

I sorted through my stash of paper to try to find something suitable for the background and came up with two possibilities.  The top card has the large chenille-like snowflakes already as part of the paper pattern but I flipped the trees and sentiment.   The one below has a little darker background with some preprinted white snowflakes already there.  Both have the Jingle Bells sentiment cut from pink glitter paper and added to a white word frame.  See how the dark pink becomes even darker just because the nap is the other direction.  You can see it too with the white trees on the bottom card.  

Whilst I was working on those I had another thought bubble escape.........there's always a late comer.  I had been seeing some artists on IG using things like cookie cutters, jar lids, and TP tubes to print the shape onto watercolor paper by first dipping or painting on the edges of the shape and stamping that onto the paper.  Then they take a wet paint brush and pull in the paint to the center of the shape giving it that watercolory effect.  Hmmmmmm, could I do that with a die?  It was worth a try.  So I set myself up to paint the raised edges of the die and press it down onto the paper.  The results were eh.  There wasn't much paint that transferred but I still used the paint brush to catch what I could and make the shape look like a tree.  I recently had brought home my old heat gun from the condo and used that to dry each tree before going onto the next one so they all didn't puddle together.  Tree shapes are very forgiving because they are all different and sometimes wonky.  I chose a different background altogether for this going with the pink vibe and added a swatch of tri-colored washi tape near the bottom of the trees. 

Then I listened to some more bubbles and found some small snowflake dies and added them on top of the washi tape.  And as if that wasn't enough, I die cut "peace" from the pink glitter paper and added that on top of the snowflakes.  White gel pen and a silver marker added snowflakes and stars. It's one of those cards that is better appreciated IRL.  

Well, there you have it.  The last of the Jingle Belle challenge cards for this year.  I do so appreciate having this challenge throughout the year to keep me somewhat ahead of what I need to have prepared for the holidays.  It makes it so much more doable and a lot less frustrating.  There were a number of challenges I didn't get to this summer because of one reason or the other, but I always try to keep that goal in the spotlight and will continue to do that again next year.  Hopefully, our Jingle Belle hostesses will be back in January with some fun challenges for the new year, and it's a leap year so we'll even have an extra day!  Thank you to Lauren and Steph for all their time and effort to make our Christmas cardmaking more fun!