Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 109

Crumbs, another really busy week in the Playground with 72 entries - great to see so many of you playing along :)

My snippets card for this week is for my 'in-house critic', to be hidden away until Valentine's Day:

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card blank

- the stamped image is by Penny Black called 'hot pants', coloured with Pro Markers and Polychromos pencils blended with Sansodor. Die cut with a Nesties oval die and then pierced round the edge with my much loved Tim Holtz piercing tool (thank you Sam, I love it loads) - the piercing is made easier 'cos you just set the depth using the little ratchet mechanism for holes the same size. Then the image was mounted onto a snippet of navy card, hand cut in the usual way

- a snippet of pearlescent navy blue card for the first layer, topped with a snippet of white card which was run through the Cuttlebug using Cuttlebug's 'Swiss Dots' embossing folder. Had to do three passes, carefully moving the folder and making sure I didn't get edge lines running across the card - one row of dots did get flattened but I just gently popped those back out by using an embossing tool on the reverse

- a fish tail was cut by hand from heart patterned paper from the Forever Friends 'Best of British' paper pad, then layered onto more navy card

- the final touch was to add Glossy Accents to the balloon

No sentiment, I thought the little hedgie in his patterned 'kecks' and holding his heart shaped balloon said enough. For our non-British playmates, 'kecks' is Northern slang for trousers or underpants :) And anyhow, I'm bound to write something soppy inside the card.

I'd like to add this into into the following challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches #120, love this sketch and had such fun following it

Penny Black and More 'Love is in the air'

Penny Black Saturday Challenge 'New' - the stamp is new

And moving swiftly on, here are my picks for this week:

I love this card, made by Elizabeth, lots of lovely little bits and pieces making for a gorgeous creation.

Another beautiful snippets card, made by Viv - a baby card to treasure for sure!

And another baby card, this time made by Cathy - don't you love how the swirls make those beautiful butterflies look as if they're just about to fly right off the card :)

This card was made by Greta, using the shaving foam marbling technique for the wonderful flower. Do go and see, the post did make me giggle (you know how shaving foam will suddenly burst into life like a mini volcano) plus there's a link on how to play and have a go yourself.

More baby cards, from our Sam. Lovely use of snippets and I just love the images Sam used - how clever to use the little fairies and their washing line :) 

Tammy has been back playing with us and this gorgeous Christmas card uses lots of snippets - right down to a little piece of doily peeking out at the bottom. Lovely!

After a little absence, Jean came back to play with two amazing upcycled Christmas cards - they truly do look as if they belong on the 'best cards' shelf in a card shop! Do go and take a peek at the other one featuring a robin, it's also lovely.

And almost at the last minute, Greta came back with another card I had to show - see the red die cut sentiment (Joy) - what a clever idea to layer it onto the white one underneath!

Coo, we have a few baby and Christmas cards this week :)

And we have four new playmates this week - yay, welcome ladies! Please say hello to:

Susan(rainy) brought this absolutely fabulous Christmas card - so much lovely detail.

This fabulous brooch was made by Jenny of Jens Inky Adventures.

Patricia made this gorgeous card, loads of lovely detail right down to the little drops of dew on the roses and leaves.

This adorable stepper card was made by Teresa - love it and those huge eyes would melt a heart of stone :)

I ought to mention here that, like a few other blogging friends, I'm having problems following and also commenting on people using Google+. I'm not ignoring you girls!

Also, a couple of girls have verification turned on, which always takes more time when people are trying to comment. I've found that the safest way to stop spam is simply not to allow anonymous comments - since I did that I don't even have to moderate comments. Ha, having said that some chap did sneak through the other day offering something for sale :( But, it's the first piece of spam for months - she says, thereby unleashing a flood. Sigh.

The winner of the Woodware 'Patchwork Boat' stamp from last week is:

 Greta

Congratulations Greta - this seems to be your week! Can you please drop me an email with your address in and I'll post the stamp off to you ASAP (di_wray@hotmail.com)

And this coming week's prize, hopefully still in enough time for Valentine's Day cards is of course:

Yup, a Penny Black stamp the same as the one I used on today's card - called 'hot kecks pants' :)

Plus, a Tim Holtz 'Craft Pick' piercing tool as well - the toy box is very full here right now, to the point I can hardly get the lid on it. And that makes life fun 'cos my big expanding snippets folder, which is so full it won't close, sits on top - if that wobbles off I dread to think of having to re-sort all those snippets into colours!

The snippets challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 1st February January and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize.

Both items are one prize but can you please say if you aren't playing for either of the items in this week's prize 'cos then I could do a second draw for whatever it is the first prize winner doesn't want.

Please NEVER be afraid to say you're just playing for fun - it doesn't offend me at all, and the Playground is first and foremost for us to have fun, the prizes are just a thank you for playing :)

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, I can sort it out for you quite quickly and am always happy to do so.

Have a great week, hang onto your hats in the UK today as more gales are forecast,  and hope to see you in the Playground.

Di (and a wave from Parsnip)
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