The Bells of Saint Mary's

Last night I had the pleasure of revisiting a few scenes from an old movie called "The Bells of St. Mary's". It's a story about a priest (Bing Crosby) and a nun (Ingrid Bergman) who put aside their differences to save an inner city school on the verge of being condemned . As I was watching scene after scene, my mind was flooded with wonderful memories of my mother and I enjoying this movie together. I guess you could say it was a tradition for us. We always looked forward to watching it together.  I watched scenes from the movie in order to get inspiration for the Christmas Story/Movie card challenge at Jingle Belles.  I love this prompt!!!  It was suggested by Irene from A Serendipitous Retirement. Although the movie isn't a traditional Christmas movie, I remember it being broadcast around Christmas time and enjoying the wonderful songs sung by Bing Crosby. There is a scene where the children perform a Christmas play and also one where Bing and the children sing "Adeste Fidelis", which may be one of the reasons why it was broadcast in December.  The inspiration for the card came from the scene where Bing Crosby and the nuns sing "The Bells of St Mary's". I must have listened to it a half a dozen times before I sat down to create my card. Bing's voice is just so incredible!  Anyway, I pulled out my acrylic paints and hand painted the bells onto a piece of black cardstock then fussy cut around  them and mounted them with dimensional adhesive onto black cardstock. I decided to use a black background and a white cardbase because the film was created in 1945 and was broadcast in black and white and of course the priest and nuns wore black and white. The red ribbon and green bows add the much needed color.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Believe

In my previous job at a public library, I worked in the Children's Department as a storytime reader/planner. I sooooo enjoyed reading wonderful books to children as well as planning crafts, songs and fingerplays based on the theme of the books. One of my favorite themes to plan was Christmas. There was always an infinite number of wonderful holiday books to read but I always struggled to narrow the choice down to just three or four books. Earlier today I found myself browsing through my personal collection of Christmas books.  Why am I doing this in June? It's because the challenge at Jingle Belles is to use a Christmas story or movie as a prompt for creating a Christmas card. Isn't that just an extraordinary prompt?

For once, it didn't take me long to pull a Christmas book off the shelf and once I leafed through the pages I was in craft mode! I used a die to cut the bell and used punched boughs to frame it.  This isn't the card I had intended to make....more about this later.

So have you guessed which book I used as a prompt?  I chose a book by one of my favorite children's authors.  The book is also a very popular movie. The book that prompted my card is The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg?  Chris Van Allsburg just happens to be on my list of favorite children's authors and the movie features the voice of Tom Hanks (a favorite actor...I don't think I've ever seen a movie that starred Tom Hanks that I didn't like!)  Back to the card...

As I mentioned before, the card I had in mind isn't the one I created. As I began creating my card, my initial thought was to create a card that incorporated both the jingle bell and a ticket with the word "Believe" punched from cardstock to represent the ticket Tom Hanks punches and hands to the "Hero Boy". I made the ticket, carefully punching the letters to spell out the word "believe" but in the end it was somewhat difficult to read and it was too big to use along with the bell. So I scratched that idea and just included the strip with the word "believe" printed on small circles.

It's time to head back to the bookshelf to see what other Christmas Stories will inspire a card.  A special thanks to Irene from A Serendipitous Retirement who suggested this fabulous prompt for a Jingle Belles challenge!!!!

Holly Christmas Card

Hmmmm....I seem to be in a crafting mood today. This is the third card I've created today and the night is still young! I guess I have been inspired by the RED & Green Christmas card challenge at Jingle Belles. If you've been following my blog, you know that I've already posted two other cards for the same challenge. I couldn't resist creating just one more.  To create this card, I punched holly leaves, added detail with glitter and then mounted them on a piece of white cardstock. Before adding the holly, I used my sewing machine to stitch the white cardstock to the red cardstock. I printed the red and green greeting on my computer and layered it on red and green cardstock.  I wish I had printed it directly onto the white stitched cardstock, but I didn't think of that until I had already stitched the layers together.

NOEL: RED & GREEN

This is my second Christmas card with a RED & GREEN theme. It's the current prompt at Jingle Belles.  

I kept this card pretty simple by hand cutting the word NOEL from red and green cardstock and adhering the letters to red and green squares. I also added tiny dots of red and green glitter and a silver foil snowflake to each square. (Sorry about the quality of the photo. My camera doesn't like the combo of white and metallic.)

RED & GREEN

Lauren & Steph, the clever and crafty duo over at Jingle Belles, have us thinking about the traditional colors of Christmas: RED & GREEN. It's the perfect prompt for a Christmas card challenge.  A quick search through my Christmas paper stash revealed this red, green and white patterned paper with circles. I used it as the starting point for my card and continued the circle and red and green themes by punching several white circles, adding handcut lettering,  red and green polka dots and a glittered green or red trim.

Supplies: Cardbase: Recollections, Patterned Paper: Oriental Trading(???), EK Success Circle Punches, Cardstock: Recollection, Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive.

Dragonflies for The Sketch File

When I was a child, I loved the combination of pink and black. I remember using the combo to create with construction paper and when coloring pages in coloring books.  With this in mind, I decided to use that same combo along with our June sketch at The Sketch File.  Although I love Kathy's sketch, this is one of those cards that just didn't come together for me. It seemed the more I worked with it, the less I liked it. I finally gave up. Perhaps it's the shades of pink I've used or maybe it's the dragonflies, I'm not sure, either way, it didn't turn out how I wanted it to. But, there's good news! There are two other very creative DT cards to inspire you, just stop by The Sketch File and take a peek at Kathy and Jackie's cards then share your creation by linking it up with us.

Rainbow Flower Pennant

It's June and we're excited to be starting a new month over at The Sketch File. A new month means it's time to share the new June sketch. This month Kathy's sketch has us working with panels and pennants. It's a super fun sketch to play with and once I saw it, I knew immediately what I wanted to do. I started by creating the rainbow flower in my pennant.  Using white cardstock, I punched the flower then adhered various colored bits of cardstock behind each petal. I punched a second flower in another crackle embossed pennant and layered it over the top of the first using dimensional adhesive. I like the way this added dimension to the flower. Behind the pennant I added an embossed green panel with a bow at the base and layered this onto a green mat and then the cardbase.  Since the card still needed a bit more, I pulled out a pair of decorative scissors to cut along the bottom edge of the card.

It was a super fun card to make and I really enjoyed the simplicity of Kathy's sketch.  What do you think? Are you ready to be creative with our latest sketch? If you still need a bit more inspiration, there are more cards posted by other DT members. Just hop on over to The Sketch File to take a peek. We're looking forward to seeing how you use this sketch.