Jingle Jingle!

Hey everyone - hope your week is going well. I received two things yesterday - a reminder from CAS Christmas for their current challenge Bells & a package from A Jillian Vance Design containing, you guessed it, bells! So I got busy with bells! Here's my card (had to finish it this morning since we had chorus last night on ZOOM):

Supplies: Paper - Tim Holtz Metallic Jewels and Kraft Metallic

Neenah Classic Crest Solar White

Dies - AJVD Jingle Bells Die Set and

Stitched Plaid Cover Plate

Stamps - Hero Arts CL889 Holiday Pine Branches (retired) 

Other - foam tape, embroidery floss, Hero Arts Forest ink

For years I've been following my friend Rosemary's blog "Hey There .... rosigirl!" She makes amazing cards and has been a designer for many teams, including her current stint with A Jillian Vance Design. Last Wednesday Rosemary wrote their blog post with a lovely cup card she designed. She enabled me to finally buy something from AJVD, despite my resisting to add another company to my list of loves. They were offering 21% off in celebration of Jillian's birthday so I jumped right in and bought the cup set. Since CAS Christmas had a bell theme, I searched AJVD for bells and found the fun Jingle Bells Die Set and the Stitched Plaid Cover Plate which reminded me of some trellis dies I've seen on other blogs. Kudos to AJVD - I ordered Wednesday night & received my package on Monday - great service!! I'm sure I'll visit again!!

I cut the entire bells set out of three TH metallics, then decided the color combo I wanted for this card. I'll create other cards with the rest of the bells someday... Since I had my new cover plate, I decided to try the bells on it - liked it! Stamped and fussy cut a couple pines (too few?) and added to the plate. After arranging the bells, I carefully slid them out one at a time and tied embroidery floss to them (gluing the knot and trimming it so no dangles). Used the amazing Gina K. Connect Glue - love that stuff!! Added ultra thin foam. Slipped bell carefully back into its spot, then stretched the floss taut and glued the top in the center of the pines. Covered the top of the floss with the little bow. Added to a top fold A2 card - done! I also bought the Jingle All the Way sentiments set but I'll stamp the sentiment on the inside of this card - there just didn't seem to be enough room on the front!

So, thanks for the enabling, Rosemary!! I mentioned in my order comments that I love your cards and they wrote back that they love you too!! If anyone's interested, check out Rosemary's post using the jingle bells which I apparently missed back in 2018 (found it on a search after I bought the set). Darling tags on that post which could give you more inspiration for the latest Christmas Kickstart challenge!

I'll enter this to Darnell's NBUS challenge too since, not only are the bells and cover plate new, I've never used the Metallics Jewels paper (hmmm, it's been around here for over a year!). Thanks to the CAS Christmas team and to Darnell for fun challenges!! And as always, thanks to you for visiting!!