Pixies Snippets Playground - Challenge #393 - Picks and 2020 Grand Draw results

Further down this post you will find the results of the Christmas/New Year Grand Giveaway challenge.

First of all, let's go right ahead with the picks from the three weeks the challenge ran for and first of all we have a *Gold Star* pick:

 

Jane W made a truly stunning card using plenty of snippets and it's quite breathtaking! The urn itself is gorgeous and the flowers and greenery just amazing! Worthy of a *Gold Star* - if you would like the badge for your blog Jane then just take it from my RH side bar.

The other picks (four as I just couldn't whittle it down to three) are:

April had a great idea for using up snippets with her Stampin' Up 'Word Window' punch! Very clever and so effective as well.

Such a soft and pretty card, made by Alison C. Plenty of snippets and a real delight! The colours and design are just perfect.

I LOVE this Christmas card, made by Lynne R. It's a perfect combination of snippets of different papers and tree sizes - one to try for sure. 

And last but by no means least, is such a lovely monochrome card made by Inkami. The strips are a super way to use up snippets and of course the sentiment is just so perfect! Love it!

We had one new Playmate:

Nancy J (Inkblocks)

What an appropriate card for the Playground! Welcome Nancy - please come back and play with us again.

Over the three weeks we had had a total of 67 entries. Those of you who came to play brought some wonderful makes as usual! And, I reached the magic 500 followers on my sidebar as well! I only recently realised that a lot more people also follow by email - it's all quite humbling to be honest.

The odds were quite good to win a prize - as always, I so wish everyone could be a winner though! Some people are previous Grand Draw winners and that's purely the luck of the draw. 

Prize draw time (BIG drum roll) and once again I used little slips of paper to make life even easier so you have to trust me that it was 100% fair. It makes life much easier when doing a big draw like this. 

And so my friends, here's the list of 21 lucky winners:

Prize A - Uniko 'Rustic Wreath' stamp set - times 3

Heather Mills

Becca Yahrling

Paperpapier (Heaney)               

Prize B - Lil'Inker 'Merry & Bright' Christmas die - times 3

Karen Ladd

Lesley G

Val

Prize C - Woodware 'Peaceful Night' stamp set - times 3

April

Karen Finkle (Kampin' Karen)

Sue (Morris)

Prize D - Colarado Craft Company 'Christmas Presents' stamp set

Inkami (Franka)

Prize E - Hero Arts 'Cut Out Season' die - times 3

Pam Sebring

Lynne R

Maxine

Prize F - Bumper prize - MFT 'Stacked Merry' die plus 'MFT 'Joyous         Holidays' stamp set and matching dies

Kathy Asper

Prize G - Colarado Craft Company 'Christmas Tree Cat' stamp set

Glennis

Prize H - Uniko 'Simply Said Blocks - Christmas' stamp set - times 3

Liz (Cavill)

SaRn

Kate L

Prize I - Clearly Besotted 'Christmas Hoot' stamp set - times 3 

Kath (B)

Kathy K

Shannon (SHartl)

I hope there are a few Happy Dances going on right now! As I already said above, I really, really wish everyone could have won a prize - as I always feel after doing a big draw like this. I've added a link to each name in case winners need to pinch themselves - the names are 100% correct (and I double checked your comments so please don't change your minds!) plus I hope I got all the links right!

With us in another lock down and only essential trips being allowed, I might not get your prizes posted straight away. I'll be using Click and Drop to avoid the Post Office and that in itself takes time to populate and print out all the labels. My car was booked in for its first service on this coming Tuesday and, after much angst and worrying to myself, I've even postponed that for a while having been assured that the manufacturer is allowing leeway whilst the Pandemic is on. Having got this far I most certainly don't want to run any risks for either Len or myself.

I do need addresses for ALL winners please (with your full name as well please) so I can do some quick copy/pasting then print off the addresses easily. This still applies if you know fine well I already have your address - am trying to make this as easy for me as possible. Who knows, I may take the car for a small 'tootle' or two to my local mahoosive post box - which everyone else seems to have now found! The local cops seem to be watching the motorways for obvious distance drivers - so if I stick to local country roads, sit bolt upright and peer over the steering wheel like a dear little old lady, I might be fine!

Just add the subject 'Holiday Giveaway' in an email and send it to my addy which is on the right hand sidebar. And can you please do it as soon as possible so that I can at least begin the packaging and addressing process - rather than do it piecemeal.

Sorry if I've seemed a bit 'whiny' here. So, so many of you play absolutely perfectly and fairly - you know who you are and I love you for it. But to the others, please don't make life harder than it needs to be. I wish in future draws I could do as ScrappyMo does and limit Grand Draw entries to regular players - in fact, I may even do that if I run the whole show again this next Christmas ........... so this is a little 'heads up'!

Keep those snippets entries coming folks, you still have a week left to play HERE for Challenge #394 where we have Jane W as our lovely guest designer! The prize is a Hunkydory ''Retro Music' set of stamps. 

This has been a marathon post to write so I hope no-one fell asleep along the way ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. 

After the hot water fiasco, it's absolute bliss to be back to 'normal' here. I felt a bit like Mitzi Gaynor in 'South Pacific' ............ 'warbling' away as I washed my hair under the shower right away. Psst - Rosanno Brazzi was looking after Dudley to give me some 'me time'.

Dudley is still gently placing his toys on top of me when I'm asleep - it's now a nightly routine for him I think. 

Love from Parsnip, Dudley Dog - and of course me,

Three cheers for hot water!

We have lift off! Who knew a £3 sensor could cause so much angst. Fingers crossed it's well and truly sorted out.

Little update

First of all, we've been almost without hot water since Sunday and totally without it since yesterday. So don't sniff your screen right now!

This afternoon, feeling totally demoralised by local rising COVID numbers and also the blatancy of a girlfriend over the way - rocking up for a cosy night with her boyfriend and his family. Not in their bubble as the boyfriend's widowed Aunt is in their family bubble and girlfriend lives with a large family miles away from hereso don't get me going down that road please. Our NHS staff are keeling over and dying! Whether we watch the news or not - it IS out there and happening.

Anyhow, this afternoon I did the Grand Prize Draw and have just finished double checking that the names on the slips do want the prizes they said yes for. And they did!

Sadly, I had to eliminate some names before I even did the draw due to 'bulk yes comments'. I said I would and I did in fairness to others. I did keep in some who let me know why. Some people, who did play well within the rules for only one prize, popped out right away and it wouldn't be fair to mess around and ignore them. And some people played within the rules and limits for all of them  and didn't win a bean - so it's a real mixed pot of results :) 

Come back on Sunday and find out the results. Naturally I wish you could all have won of course - that's one of the penalties I have to cope with when doing a Grand Draw and wanting you all to be winners I guess.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #394

Those of you who've been reading my posts during the Grand Draw will know that I'm introducing a couple of extra ways of running the Snippets Challenge. One will be a Guest Designer fortnight where they will provide the prize and also make a sample using their own duplicate of the prize - much as I did each time. 

The basic Snippets Playground rules are just the same so, to you the players, the only difference will be that I will be showing a snippets item (usually a card of course) made by a GD rather than myself and also it will be a pointer to a prize very kindly donated by themselves. I won't write up how the snippets card or item was made and if you wish to know more there will be a link to the Guest Designer's blog. In fact, it would be lovely if you could make a point of hopping over to their blog post via the link as they will be very kindly spending time making the sample as well as providing the prize. Of course I will have my own fortnights interspersed which will run as they always did although the Guest Designer challenge will be a huge help to me. The numbering will still run consecutively and in time we should move seamlessly from one type of challenge to another and back again without you really noticing.

BTW I haven't forgotten that we will also have a Ruby's Memory Challenge at intervals. One coming soon!

But for now let's start off with our Guest Designer's card:  

Any guesses who our Guest Designer is? A clue, she lives not so far from me - has a quirky sense of humour and is partial to any sort of snarky sentiment to liven up her cards and make you smile.

It's our lovely Jane Willis! And to find out how she made her card (possibly) just follow THIS LINK.

Here's a photo of the stamp set on offer from Jane:

It's a 'Hunkydory For the Love of Stamps 'set called 'Retro Mix Tape'. Absolutely perfect for a card to be sent to anyone from that era. Which doesn't seem all that long ago to some of us, sigh, groan.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 23rd January. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, 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 want 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 only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

 

Please also remember that I only allow a total of nine other challenges, which makes 10 in total, when you enter a snippets make into the Playground. From now on I will deltet entries which break this 'rule'.

 

The results of the Grand Draw will be published on here on Sunday 17th January - with luck and a following breeze! 

 

Having just written the much briefer challenge part of this post, as well as not having to make a 'sample' - I can already see how much less time it takes and for that I'm hugely grateful to Jane and all of you other lovely people who have stepped forward to help out, both in the future as well as in the past. Mwah!

 

Speaking of following breezes, it's been really cold here this past week although thankfully no more snow after the sprinkling we had a couple of weeks ago. Dudley is growing a lovely long silky white coat to keep him warm ....... but it's also keeping me busy grooming him. He's still finding new hiding places when it's grooming time so we'll be varying that from now on.

 

The past couple of mornings I've woken up with Dudley very firmly ensconced with his back right against me keeping us both warm and cosy ............ and, I kid you not, his very favourite toys carefully laid in a line on top of me so they aren't far away from him! Lucky for him I generally don't move around much in my sleep once I'm snuggled up and comfortable. Otherwise I could imagine him having a right old grumble during the night and carefully doing some further organisation of his beloved toys!

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley and of course me. 

 

Stay safe and be kind.

 

Pixie's Snippets Playground #393 - Prize I

Here's the ninth  and final prize in the 'Snippets Playground Celebration' prize draw (huge little sigh of relief here):  

I used:

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

- snippet of white card for four squared frame, which I die cut using JustRite's'Set of Four in a Frame' die set - which I've had for years and this is its first outing, shame on me!

- I then cut a snippet of Whimsy's ''Blurry Flurries paper to fit behind the 'windows, which I then backed with another snippet of white card

- then stamped the owls onto another snippet of white card, using a Clearly Besotted 'Christmas Hoot' set of stamps and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- coloured the images using Faber-Castel Polychromos pencils then fussy cut them using a very small pair of Fiskars scissors 

- before going any further, I stamped the sentiment, using another stamp from the same set and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and also the 'window frame as a guide to positioning the sentiment

- then glued the 'frames panel' on place

- added the owls so they're standing on the dotted outline of the frames, using thin sticky pads, and called it done!

Phew, the final card for the challenge - made in the nick of time. I happened to have the Whimsy snippet of paper lying on my desk but just plain coloured card would have been another option as the owls do fill out the squares. I did eyeball positioning the 'frame panel' but, as suggested by Shaz in Oz when I was whining about my Uniko tree being 'on the wonk', I actually DO have a T square here bought years ago - which I'm generally in too much of a rush to use even though it's in a drawer right beside me! Believe it or not, it's the second one I purchased. The first one was out of alignment and it was a well known brand - so much for precision tools. Once I got the new one I offered the original one to Len - who rightly commented that it would be as much use as a chocolate fireguard!

I do love this set of Clearly Besotted stamps, sadly it doesn't have matching dies but the owls are really easy to cut round. I also  think it would be fabulous for making Christmas gift tags. It has a few other sentiments, including  the rather cheesy 'Owl I want for Christmas is you'.

And of course today's prize is this:

It's the Clearly Besotted 'Christmas Hoot' set of stamps, the same as I used today, and once again you have three chances to win a set!

At the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session for all the prizes (21 in total if you include the multiples with three chances) using the one Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE along with details of exactly how to join in - so you do need to have entered one snippets make over on that post during the three weeks that the challenge runs for to be in with a chance :) Maximum of one entry please - to keep things fair for those who may not have time to craft. Mr Linky closes at 11am on Saturday 9th January so you do need to have added a snippets make by then to be eligible for the draw.

Just leave a comment on this post if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

So we're at the end of the prizes now, although you will still have until 11am on Saturday to add your ONE entry to Mr Linky and also to comment on any prizes you would like to win ................ where I haven't yet turned off commenting yet. Sadly I had to do that due to a rush of consecutive comments from a few people - which is exactly what I didn't want to happen. My faith has been rocked and I don't know what will happen this coming Christmas.This final prize will show who's actually checking the Challenge out regularly I suspect ☺

On Sunday we have a Guest Designer with a snippets card featuring the prize they've donated to the challenge - and we'll be back to a new challenge every fortnight. 

The results from this Grand Draw will be published on Sunday 17th January. And, although I've been closely watching comments and keeping very meaningful notes, I admit to being woefully behind on commenting on your entries. I aim to put that right sharpish!

So far this new lock down seems no different to us - Dudley is cosy and we're staying safe. Hope you are too! Apparently panic buying has reared up again and the toilet roll bandits are out and about! 

Dudley, the little monkey, has a new trick, he finds a new hiding place as evening approaches and time for his daily groom looms up. How he knows is beyond me as the grooming basket isn't in place and life is just the same as usual until it's 'that time of day' - but he certainly knows! 

He's getting quite inventive with the hiding part and yesterday we were really worried he'd managed to get out of the back garden as he was nowhere to be found - and there was absolute silence despite us calling all around the house and garden. It would be impossible for him to 'do a runner' from the back garden, unless he managed to get a set of ladders out, but everything goes through your mind. I eventually found him, pressed absolutely flat lying along the far side of a coffee table, hidden by the lower solid wood shelf. Just a pair of dark brown eyes were peeping at me above said shelf. So hard not to laugh and a huge relief as well. The little scamp actually showed me his teeth when I bent down to pick him up - so I bared mine right back at him! Nicely of course but I do hope the message got home!

Love from Parsnip, Dudley the Dodger - and of course me,

Update on the Grand Draw

Just a quick reminder that the Grand Draw has one more prize left to come in a day or two. Been very busy here running round doing errands etc. getting ready for full lock down Version 3 at midnight, just as this publishes.

I've cut off future comments on all this Christmas's Grand Draw prizes which go back to 2020, apart from the bumper prize which published on New Year's Eve, and that only has a couple of days grace left. And I will keep turning off comments once a prize has been up on offer for a week. If I do ever do this again, something I say each year, that's how the Grand Draw will operate in future to keep things fair.

Watch out for the final prize - if I manage that for Thursday then you will only have just under two and a half days to comment.

On a really positive note, which God knows we need right now, we have a lovely flurry of Guest Designers as well as our first 'Ruby's Memory Challenge' coming up very soon. And some very generously donated prizes - but remember - it's snippets we need from you, first and foremost!! Good times ahead ☺

Stay safe and keep wearing those masks please.

Pixie's Snippets Playground #393 - Prize H

Here's the eighth prize in the 'Snippets Playground Celebration' prize draw:  

I used:

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

- snippet of white card for the background, about the same size as the card front, put to one side for now

- another snippet of white card onto which I stamped various sentiments from Uniko's 'Simply Said Blocks - Christmas' set of stamps - following the idea Bev showed for using the stamps in her shop HERE

- to stamp the sentiments I used the following Brilliance Teardrop ink pads, from the top downover:  Purple, Poppy, Sky Blue, and Thyme (this is for my own future reference when I find time to make a batch of several of these cards in one go)

- for the tree trunk I used the wrong side of one of the sentiments to stamp a solid block of 'Coffee Bean' Brilliance ink

- then cut out all the sentiments by hand (for the HAPPY I stamped the HAPPY CHRISTMAS' and then trimmed it down to the HAPPY). I trimmed that piece first so I would know how much to trim from each side of the other sentiments

- once I had the strips trimmed and also a piece snipped down for the trunk, I glued them in place onto the snippet of white card I put to one side earlier, using a Zig glue pen

- hunted around for a small star shaped punch, to no avail. So I used a peel off star with its border to top off the 'Christmas Tree' (never get rid of your peel offs!)

- then using my trimmer I just eyeballed at first then trimmed the panel down until I had even spacing all around it when it was measured up against the card front 

-  it needed 'something' else and at first I thought of adding a narrow 'frame' of gold card, then had a lightbulb moment and remembered my Sakura Callipgraphy pens so used a gold one to run along all four edges of the panel

- it still looked a bit 'flat' when placed on the card so I backed the panel with white fun foam and glued it in place using Collall All Purpose glue

- finished, and in fact a really simple card to make - perfect for batch baking!

I can see, having taken the photo in absolutely dire light, that there's a shadow down the left side of the panel where it's raised on fun foam. And also the tree is a bit a 'on the wonk' as I just eyeballed it - and am now sure I must have an eye that's also also 'on the wonk'!! Even allowing for the fact that the whole card is a bit askew in the photo, I should have at least measured when adding the green strip (built the tree from the bottom up). However, I just measured the thing and it's only 1mm out but to me it really does show. Hey though, it all adds to the hand made look - and that's my excuse 😆

I do love this set of sentiments and can see me using them a lot with Memento Tuxedo Black ink - there's even a HAPPY NEW YEAR stamp in the set. And they're a breeze to trim around - I used quite big scissors to cut the length in one clean cut and then smaller scissors for the short sides. A nice little job to (dare I even say it right now) take away on holiday. Anyone remember what a holiday is? Some sheets of stamped sentiments and a pair of sharp scissors and away you go!

And of course today's prize is this:

It's the Uniko Simply Said Blocks Christmas' set of stamps, the same as I used today, and once again you three chances to win a set!

At the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session for all the prizes using the one Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE along with details of exactly how to join in - so you do need to have entered one snippets make over on that post during the three weeks that the challenge runs for to be in with a chance :) Maximum of one entry please - to keep things fair for those who may not have time to craft. Mr Linky closes at 11am on Saturday 9th January so you do need to have added a snippets make by then to be eligible for the draw.

Do please take time to read 'the rules' on the post in the above link. No-one has found them confusing, as yet, but they really do cover a lot of ground and are worth reading. 

 
Just leave a comment on this post if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Almost at the end of the prizes now, although you will still have until 11am on Saturday to add your ONE entry to Mr Linky and also to comment on any prizes you would like to win. But remember, please don't rush in and do them all at once - I will spot that right away.

No additional news from here since two days ago - one day is much like another and we're both having difficulty at times remembering what day of the week it is! Thankfully, Dudley knows no different except that the route for his walks has changed to avoid the areas that everyone seems to head for when they go out for exercise.

Love from Parsnip, Dudley and of course me,