Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #338 - results

The latest news about Dudley is that his sweet little harness (smallest one I could find that would also adjust as he grows) now fits him! And he now has a little walk each day - not too far (vet's advice) but he totally loves it!

Anyhow, let's get straight on with the fortnightly picks. I've picked out some ideas which you also might want to have a go at in order to use up some of those pesky small snippets. I always love every entry of course but I do like to highlight clever ways of using up snippets as much as possible and this is one of those fortnights.

For my first pick I decided these are so deserving of a 'Gold Star':

Shaz of 'Silverwolf Cards' brought a load of lovely cards, made using a variety of narrow snippet strips (inspired by Jennifer McGuire but I think Shaz has really put her very own spin on these). Do please hop over to Shaz's blog and take a peek at the rest of the cards she has in her post - they're lovely, and it's great to see Shaz here after such a long absence.

There's a badge on my right hand sidebar Shaz if you would like to take it for your blog. No offence if you don't though. Hope you came back and play again soon with more ideas for using up snippets!

Heather brought this adorable card to share and I just love it! The real icing on the cake is the way she used a strip of patterned paper down one side of the card - it adds that extra pop of interest to a CAS card without detracting from the main panel. A super idea Heather!

I think this is such a fun card, made by Linda, that cat cracks me up! The background is just super, all made up of squares of patterned paper mounted onto cardboard and each square has been individually paper pierced by hand  - such a lovely touch and perfectly done as well!

And here's yet another ways to use up various snippets - by layering them. Susan S brought this super card to share -  such a wonderful layout of the papers and image. And, how perfectly the papers are reflected in that beautifully coloured image as well.

When using snippets with an image it always works so well if you reflect the colours of the image with the colours of the paper(s) you use. All three of our picks use this idea perfectly! Another trick if you're doing actual paper piecing on your imagethen it ties things together nicely if you use at least some of the same paper(s) in the background. I really can't encourage you enough to check out Shaz's other cards she has in her post - so worthy of a 'Gold Star' this fortnight!

We had one new Playmate this time:

Nisha

Welcome to the Snippets Playground Nisha - hope you come back to play with us again really soon! I need to make a Wedding card 'toot sweet' but mine certainly won't have all this lovely detail on it - absolutely gorgeous!

Including our new Playmate we had a total of 51 entries - wahoo!

Now it's prize draw time, and our winner of the Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' set of stamps and matching dies is:

Jane (Willis)

Well done Jane! You seem to be on a bt of a winning streak - and I was delighted when your name popped out at the second run of the Random Number thingy (the first person picked was just playing for fun) as, from your comment, you say how much you love sea otters and also mentioned seeing them in Canada.

Do please send me your address, with full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste or just write straight from the email onto the envelope - for speed and ease. I don't keep addresses of previous winners, even if they might be in my private address list (I'm short on time so it's a huge help as well as a reminder to be honest!) - if that makes sense! It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course and I'll post your prize once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #339 - just check back a bit and you'll easily find it. The prize is a Stamping Bella 'Straight up' set of floral stamps plus an Impression Obsession 'Thoughts' die.

Dudley is growing so fast here and he's a very sweet little dog with some really endearing habits already. The other day I was concentrating on sorting out some of these wretched painkiller pills, sitting on the edge of our bed with my head bent forward. I think Dudley felt I was feeling sad (I wasn't as it happens - a deep sadness I've been battling with for some time left me when he scampered into our lives) as the next thing I knew he brought one of his favourite toys, carefully put it at my feet and then just sat there looking up at me. He does that when he wants to play- but this time there was no playful nudge of his nose - just a dear little face looking up at me in concern. And then of course, later on, he piddled where he shouldn't have :) Len is a real hero for whipping him outdoors whenever there are 'signs' - we are a couple - and little Dudley is the extra glue!

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead, and little Parsnip and Dudley send their love too! Woof!

Less is More - Challenge #384 - Metallics

Not much time to join in with challenges these days, but the latest LIM challenge where the theme is 'Metallics' really called to me - particularly as I had a two part set of dies I wanted to use to boost my Christmas card target - which is now up to 106.

I made four cards, switching the gold and copper around so there are two of each exactly the same in the set of four:

I used:

- 5'5" x 4.25" white card blank, tent style

- layers of gold and copper Xcut adhesive metal effect sheets for the borders. To add these it's easier to just peel off a little bit of the backing down one short side and line it up on the card blank before going the whole hog and peeling off the rest. tI helps with alignment of course and if you gently smooth as you peel off the rest it lies nice and flat

- then I die cut a white panel using a die from the Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' set of dies

- then dug out snippets of the same adhesive gold and copper sheets (I never throw even the teeniest piece of these away - just store them in the packet with the rest of the sheets) and die cut the sentiment

- for the sentiment I used the 'shadow' set of two dies which I've been itching to use, made by Pink and Main called 'Merry Christmas' - and cut one from a snippet of gold and the other from a snippet of copper

- layered the die cuts together and then popped them onto the stitched white panel

- **and before going any further, to make sure the sentiment was well 'bonded' I ran the whole white panel through the Cuttlebug using embossing plates and an unopened embossing folder

- glued the white panel onto the card front and added three sequins - one large copper one and two smaller gold ones

** I really do recommend this step with your die cutting/embossing machine if you feel there's any chance of the self adhesive sheet coming adrift at all - plus, it really does make the wording look as if it's been foiled almost into the matching shadow background!

Happy dance here at having made four more Christmas cards. And, I also have this same set of Pink and Main dies in the Playground Toybox - lined up ready for the Christmas/New Year bumper draw. More about that nearer the time, grin.

This past few days have been doing inserts for the fairly large number of Christmas cards which hadn't been totally finished off as I went - naughty me! Having said that, so long as they aren't left right until the last minute it's much easier to set up a little production line and do them in batches of all the same size. Print, trim, fold, stick insert in place, add envelope, pop in cello bag (a bit wasteful I know but much easier when sorting out which card to send to who - plus I check the thickness using a letter gauge and write on the cello bag if it's a S (small) or L(large) letter stamp that's needed. OCD strikes again!!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #339

It's 100 years ago today since The First World War ended and it seems very fitting that my snippets card for Armistice Day should be a poppy. 'Lest we forget'.

I used:

- 5.25" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- snippet of pale green card from the snippets folder

- snippet of white card onto which I stamped the poppy using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and two stamps from the Stamping Bella Straight Up' Floral stamp set. Had to do a bit of fiddling and testing using the Misti and the leaf stamp to get it positioned properly but it wasn't too much of a job (in fact, afterwards I sort of wished I hadn't used it anyhow)

- coloured the flower and leaf using Pro markers then added a little bit of grey shadow at the bottom of the stem

- cut the panel to fit onto the green panel and added them both to the card front using Collall All Purpose Glue

- then backed a couple of snippets of black card stock with Stick-It adhesive sheet before die cutting using an Impression Obsession 'Thoughts' die and layering the two together (Note: it's much easier to do this if the bottom die cut is left inside the piece of card so that it holds its shape whilst you press the two together)

- added the word to the card front and that was my main card done

I then decided to make a second card along similar lines, using the third stamp in the same set:

- I used different colours for the flower, which comes with the leaves already part of the same stamp, and toning coloured card for the border layer and a deeper shade for the sentiment, all snippets again of course

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, once the cards were finished ready for the sentiments to be added I realised that square (either 5" or 6") card would have allowed better placement of the sentiment die cuts - more to one side. I did see some wonderful samples using this stamp set at a Dies to Die For event earlier this year, made by the super-talented Faye, and she had made square cards I'm almost sure! However, as is still the case, a certain little white fluffy ball of fun does tend to curtail things and to be honest I was just glad to have made a couple of cards in the first place - never mind re-doing them! I would have liked to also add Glossy Accents to the sentiment words before adding them to the cards - but didn't have the time.

Am also finding that my mind is easily distracted right now (again, blame Dudley) so I don't always think things right through before diving in!

The prize, as usual, is very much connected to this week's snippets card:

It's a Stamping Bella 'Straight Up' Floral set of stamps plus an Impression Obsession 'Thoughts' die. I won't split this prize so if you play and want to be in the draw remember that you will receive both items - but you can always give one part away to a friend at your end if it's a duplicate or you just don't really want it for yourself!
  
As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 24th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you're wanting to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I ignore you on my little list.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Love from Parsnip who is busily making shopping lists for Christmas - thank goodness one of us is organised! Mind you, his lists look suspiciously as if he's gonna set up a cocktail bar in the Playground for the Christmas party!

And I really did try to get a decent photo of Dudley, but he just never keeps still unless he's asleep! Even then, his tail will wag, he will give out little 'woofs' and his paws will move around as if he's playing in his dreams. But, I did manage to catch this photo - he came into my craft room as I was fiddling with the camera to drop a favourite toy beside me before going down on his 'hunkers' asking me to play for a while. So it was a very quick slightly out of focus piccie taken from above - before launching into yet another game of 'throw me the monkey so I can chase it'!!

Love as well from Dudley, and of course from me. By the way, we have to wait until the hair around his eyes grows longer of its own accord, if you trim it when he's a puppy (which we've been tempted to do I admit!) then it just grows back with blunt ends and takes even more time to become long and smoothed down. I guess he looks like he's winking at you here!

 And then I washed his grubby whiskers! A G A I N ☺

Happy Birthday Livi!

Last week was Livi's 9th Birthday - where did the years go?

Livi recently started guitar lessons, and apparently loves it. So, in a mad panic I made this card for her in 40 minutes or so - which is a minor miracle for me as I'm a very slow crafter:

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of beige card from the snippets folder, with just a small amount trimmed off to make it slightly smaller than the card front, then glued in place

- then I selected the other snippets I wanted to use so I could match the colouring of the image as much as possible - the image is pre-coloured and Len found it for free on the internet (my hero!)

- printed then trimmed the image and backed it with a plain square of mid-brown card 

- die cut the sentiment from another snippet of card, this time tan coloured using the Die Versions Corner Concepts 'Happy Birthday' die and added it to the top left corner of the image panel using glue

- next I did the number 9 using The Works '10 Piece Numbered Candles' set of dies to cut out the candle number in mid-brown and also in tan, which I snipped and added on top of the flame    

- die cut LIVI from mid-brown card using dies from the First Edition 'Alphabet Sans Serif' set of upper case dies

- now I had the sizes of everything I added the image panel as well as the age die cut and LIVI to the card front

- final touch using some of the leftover snippets, a few stars here and there, die cut using MFT's 'Stars' dies

- the number, letters and stars were all cut from snippets which had been backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet

Livi is not a girl for pretty things, so although the image is a little bit on the 'punk' side I'm sure she will like it over the other options Len found. I used a few similar elements to those I used for Mia's card the other week - they do compare notes :)

Then had to dash to the Post Office with it, along with Lia's prize from the other fortnight.

We were right - Livi's Mum says she adores her card! So relieved.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #337 - results

We got through Halloween fine. Dudley met some new weirdly dressed people who called for trick or treat and wasn't fazed at all by all the activity of groups comming to the front door. A couple of fireworks went off in the distance and he was OK with that - it's Monday 5th November which will be the test, as well as the big organised display at our local community centre on Saturday 3rd! In fact the whole flipping weekend really. Obviously we'll be at home and plan to find a film or three to watch and turn the volume up - if we have 'Hanvaneed' to (see what I just did there?). In fact, I don't think we'll be out of the fireworks season now until after the New Year - fingers crossed he's OK!

Anyhow, let's get straight on with the fortnightly picks. This time I've picked out some ideas which you also might want to have a go at in order to use up some of those pesky small snippets and also some snippet strips.

First of all, we have a *Gold Star* pick:

Once again, Nicky caught my eye with this super 'tumbling numbers' card! That's three times I've chosen Nicky from our recent challenges but each one has been so worth being a pick for ingenuity and of course clever use of snippets! I just made a card using a previous idea of Nicky's and this latest one is now on my list of ones to try here.

I think you'll all agree for consistency that Nicky really does deserve a *Gold Star*! There's a badge on my right hand sidebar Nicky if you would like to take it for your blog. No offence if you don't - but it just means you won't get two of Parsnip's mince pies at the Christmas Party, snigger.

Again, no apologies for choosing Carol L again - this is a fabulous gift card holder, for more detail do hop on over to Carol's blog HERE. You can see the inside and how neatly it will hold a gift card - I first saw this gift card holder idea when Sarn made one a long time ago and it's lovely to be reminded again.

Marianne scampered into the Playground to share this really great idea for making Christmas tree cards using up little snippet strips. The papers don't even need to be specifically Christmas ones to get a lovely effect! Another idea I'll be trying out.

And last, but not least of the picks, Kathy A shared this great idea - also using up lots of little snippet strips by interweaving them - you can read exactly how over on Kathy's blog HERE. Another inspiring way to use up snippets!

We had no new Playmates joining us this time and we had a total of 50 entries once again.

Now it's prize draw time, and our winner of the Paper Smooches 'Birthday Words' die set (comprising 'celebrate', 'cheers' and 'Happy Birthday') plus The Works ' 10 Piece Numbered Candles' set of dies is:

SHARTL (Sachi)

Well done Sachi - I'm almost sure this is your first win, and you do play just about every time, along with Karen, so it was well due! And, I know you have little ones of your own so those number candles might come in handy.

Do please send me your address, with full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste or just write straight from the email onto the envelope - for speed and ease. I don't keep addresses of previous winners, even if they might be in my private address list - if that makes sense! It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course and I'll post your prize once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #337 - just check back a bit and you'll easily find it. The prize is a Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' stamp set - with the matching dies.

Dudley has a 'play date' with little Teddy (age four) who lives next door to us - by the time this publishes we'll know if they hit it off OK as it's set for 'yesterday'. I do hope so as Teddy is such a dear little dog (he's a Shih Tzu so they're going to be fairly well matched in size once Dudley is fully grown). Once again, our little tinker just wouldn't sit still long enough for a photo call. He's really growing fast, but still so very full of mischief needless to say.

Edit - Teddy and Dudley did get on really well (one minor 'putting in' place for Dudley from Teddy although not either dog's fault at all, just the situation with shared treats - god, why do I feel like a protective mama!!?) and we have big hopes for the future. Teddy sent him home with a marrow bone as he thinks Dudley with his small snout and long tongue might be able to get even more out of it! PLUS, the noises from the big firework display didn't faze him one bit - so far, so good!

Dudley is lying here right beside me totally exhausted by all the excitement - and a happy hour or two socialising .......... whilst the grown-ups compared doggy tales! I learned so much - thank you Rebecca!! x

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead, and little Parsnip and Dudley (with a sleepy woof!) send their love too!

Rudolph Days - October 2018

Dashing in at the last minute to join in with ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days challenge. I LOVE this challenge run by such a sweet lady, and have managed to join in every one this year, even with 'ahem' some distractions!

Here's my card - and I actually made eight of them in one run! Same design etc. so it was just like a little factory production line whilst Dudley was other wise occupied:

I used:

- 4" x 4" square white card blank, side opening

- a slightly smaller square of gold mirri card, glued onto the card front

- a slightly smaller again square of patterned card, from the LOTV 'Twas the Night' paper pad - I got eight squares from two sheets of 8" x 8" paper, love it when there's very little waste!

- glued the patterned paper to the gold mirri on the card front

- the image is a stamp from a little set I recently spotted called 'Santa's Helpers' made by Sunny Studio. The set comes with another dog (sweet little Westie) and three different cats plus a few sweet sentiments - but it was the little puppy that reminded me of Dudley that made me buy it of course,

- stamped the image using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' in then coloured it using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

- added a few gold dots to the neckerchief, using a Signo gold pen

- tickled the fur and pompom with clear Wink of Stella

- die cut the image using a die from the Tonic circles set of dies - my stitched dies would have been too big as I wanted the wording on the backing paper to be as visible as possible - and ran a ball-ended embossing tool around the circle of card whilst it was still in the die

- glued the image circle in place and called it a day

It felt good to make a little batch of Christmas cards as I'm woefully behind on my target of 12 card per month, although it did take the total up to 101.

And yes, Dudley does have champagne/gold coloured ears - and when he's 'thinking' his little tongue just pokes out like a little piece of pink lint! We don't know if his ears (and his back too) will stay champagne coloured or not - that's one of the delights of a Havanese, their coat can subtly change colour as they grow up, but he will remain mostly creamy white just like his Dad.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #338

And so we change the clocks at 2am on Sunday morning, shortly after this is posted on the blog, but I just bet that Dudley won't let us have a longer sleep! Weekends are always a bit of an early start for us as Len goes to archery both Saturday and Sunday mornings - but before we had Dudley I could stay snugly tucked up in bed. Now it's a case of getting him outside pronto as soon as the signs are there!

It was Len's Birthday a couple of weeks ago and making a card for him was possibly not gonna happen as Dudley was still taking up a lot of time. Thankfully I did manage to make Len a card a couple of days beforehand, which luckily also doubles up as my snippets card.

So, here is my snippets card - on which I used a snippet of card I'd been playing around with ages ago using aqua shades of Altenew inks and some home made iridescent spray, a snippet of blue backing card and snippets of white card:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of deep teal blue card from the snippets folder,  trimmed to make it slightly smaller than the card front, then glued in place

- a piece of white card which I found had already been die cut (yay!) using a die from the Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' set of dies, onto which I stamped the sentiment from the Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' set of stamps - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink. Hooray for the Misti, although these stamps really do stamp perfectly every time

- glued the white panel on top of the deep teal one on the card front

- a piece of Tim Holtz Watercolour card which had been swiped ages ago with all four ink pads from the Altenew 'Sweet Dreams set and then lightly sprayed with home made iridescent spray (more details of this are below!). I really had no idea what to do with it at the time so just popped it in with my blue snippets to wait its turn

- Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' stamp set again, from which I stamped the sweet little otter and parcel onto a white snippet of card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- coloured both images using Pro markers

- used the matching dies to die cut the otter and parcel (you could do this without the dies easily but I bought the pair as a 'deal'). As usual I die cut templates so I could place the aperture over the images, and then position the dies properly - always worth that little bit of extra time, even when really pushed!

- die cut a circle from the Altenew slightly sparkly snippet using a Spellbinders circle die - would have preferred to have a circular aperture on the card front but again, not enough time

- whilst I had the Cuttlebug in front of me I also die cut a white cloud using the smallest die from the MFT 'Cloud Trio' set of dies and a smallish balloon from the darkest spot on my Altenew snippet - using a die from the Poppy Stamps set of seven 'Celebration Balloons' dies (this is a fabulous set of dies, sadly not able to get hold of it to add into this week's prize as it's not around in the UK and overseas postage to here is silly money)

- then it was just a case of adding the elements to the card front - glued the circle in place, popped the otter on with glue as I wanted him flat, then added the cloud (to adhere it I used a snip from a thin sticky pad for dimension)

- I really would have liked to carefully cut the otter's paw before adding him to the card front so that he would be really 'holding' the parcel - but didn't want to risk ruining a card with so little time to spare, next time perhaps

- the balloon was a little tricky. I used a tiny piece of silver embroidery thread (six strands) and attached it to the back of the balloon (having realised I needed to knot either end to prevent it from splitting apart) - using a teeny piece of thin sticky pad and then popped the balloon onto the edge of the circle

- to prevent the strands of thread from springing apart down the length of the 'balloon string' I gently twisted them before attaching the other end to the otter's tummy with a little piece of thin sticky pad and then popped the Birthday parcel on top

- final touch, three little sequins to add something to the background using Glossy Accents as a glue - and we were done, hooray!

Little story - skip if you're only here for cards! I've had this stamp and matching die set for ages, always with a Birthday card for Len in mind. We used to go to Thailand each Autumn and there was a beautiful hotel we stayed at on the very south of the island of Phuket where they had a rescued sea otter called Kee. She was adorable - we visited her each day and she used to have a late afternoon stroll along the beach (complete with harness and lead) when most of the sunbathers had packed up for the day. Sadly, she wouldn't have survived had she been released back into the wild as she was just an orphaned pup when a local fisherman found her. Len and I were never ones for stretching out in the sun all day but we were taking the opportunity to have some quiet time on the shoreline as the sun was going down when Kee trotted along with her keeper late one afternoon. I was taking some video footage of the beautiful surroundings whilst Len splashed around in the warm shallows. And then, Kee's keeper (whom we'd befriended) asked if Len was scared of her - when he said 'no' the keeper unclipped her lead and she scampered straight into the sea for a few minutes play with Len! It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen and we were lucky enough that I filmed it. Of course Len was totally enchanted and it's a memory that will stay with us always - not just on film, you really had to be there to feel the magic. She was keen on catching Len's toes though and otters have such strong teeth you certainly don't want a pedicure from them! Sometimes I see little Dudley's face peeping over the side of his bed at me and he looks so much like a baby seal - or even a baby otter. So - that's why this stamp set really called to me for this year's card for Len!

And I mentioned the iridescent solution I sprayed the Altenew panel with. Way back in March, Gail of Ionabunny and I had quite an exchange of emails. She'd made her own iridescent spray and was happy to share some extra tips with me. Eventually I got it right by using a Ranger Mini Mister and the teeniest bit of Windsor and Newton 'Iridescent Medium'. It was trial and error - my first attempt totally clogged up the nozzle of one Mister - note to self, this stuff does NOT work undiluted!And my second attempt wasn't much better, but third time lucky. Thanks so much Gail - great way to make up your own clear Wink of Stella or similar and one bottle will go for miles and miles - to the moon and back probably! My advice would be to literally start off with just a cocktail stick dipped into the medium to add to the water in the Mister - Gail's tip, not mine but it certainly works! Last I heard, Gail was going to try it out in an empty Wink of Stella pen - which would be great as you would then have both spread with the spray from the Mister and precision with the WOS brush.

The prize this time is very much connected to this week's snippets card:

It's (of course!) a Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' stamp set - with the matching dies. Obviously I won't split this prize so if you play and want to be in the draw remember that you will receive both items, makes sense to me as they are a pair.
  
As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 10th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you're wanting to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I ignore you on my little list.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

No photo of Dudley today, he's been a real livewire this past week and it's almost impossible to get him to stay still for long - and there are only so many sleeping puppy photos you can take.

Love from Parsnip (always my special furry white bundle - he and Dudley are making friends, slowly! He's learned to say 'Nooooo' in a firm voice), little Dudley who truly is such a pickle and of course from me,