Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 165

We've got the first signs of Spring here in the Playground at last! And so, what did I do but make a Christmas card for Merry Monday, using snippets of course, and the theme is 'Santa'. Easy you might think, but I have only a couple of Santa stamps here. So I turned to a great idea I found and bookmarked not so long ago - and this is where the fun begins.

The idea came from a really inspiring USA based Stampin' Up demo lady called Debbie Henderson, whose blog I've followed for a good while - and I was halfway through making the Santas when the penny dropped. I was only CASE-ing the very same Debbie who's on the Merry Monday Design Team! So, although I'm entering this into the challenge - after much 'shall I, shan't I' - I do hope that Debbie doesn't mind such a direct CASE of the Santa humself. It's a compliment for sure as I love the idea and I really thought you girls would love to find out more about using punches and dies to make a 'Snippety Santa'!!

I used:

- 4" x 4" white card blank

- background is a snippet of SU's 'Real Red' card stock, topped with a snippet of DP from Dovecraft's ' Back to Basics Christmas - Modern' paper pack

- snippets of more Real Red, white and peach card stock

- if you look at the Santa, he's really fairly self-explanatory but here goes. For the moustache and beard I used the SU 'Bow Builder' punch and then embossed the pieces using a Cuttlebug 'Swiss Dots' folder (Debbie used the SU bow builder dies BTW)

- for Santa's face, using a snippet of peach card stock I punched a circle using SU's  1.3/8ths circle punch, and his nose came from the same peach snippet (using a round SU 'Itty Bitty' punch)

- ha, then I hit a problem. The hat is just a triangle but my SU pennant punch isn't big enough. When I'm playing without any real instructions I just used scrap paper to see how things will fit together - and the hat looked a bit like a pea on a drum when I used the punch to be honest!! So I used a Spellbinders 'Nested Lacy Pennant' die and just trimmed it straight but you could hand cut the triangles to size of course

- the 'fur trim' on the hat is just a white snippet punched using SU's 'Word Window' punch, and then the top of Santa's hat was folded down and stuck in place with a little piece of Ultra Strong sticky tape. The 'pompom' is another white snippet punched using the round SU 'Itty Bitty' punch again

- and of course Santa has googly eyes,  the box with them in was still on my desk after making the Ninja Turtles - which you can see here if you missed them along with my step by step tutorial on how to make them :)

NB. Whilst writing this my latest Stampin' Up order arrived and I think, having quickly punched a paper template and tried it on top of the completed card, the Christmas Tree punch (with the trunk cut off) would do the trick for Santa's hat!

Also, there are many varieties of punch art Santas on the internet, some with beards made using scalloped punches or dies - as well as moustaches made using the SU 'Bird Builder' punch set wings.

I actually made three of these little cards, all the same - am managing to keep on my target of 12 Christmas cards per month, yay!

Straight onto this week's picks now:

It's our talented playmate Carol L, with such a great pop-up card. One to CASE for sure!

Viv made this beautiful card, loads of snippets and the peach tones are so gorgeous.

This is such a bright and happy heart which Kate brought to show us. What a great way to use up snippets of cotton yarns.

Sharp intake of breath when I spotted Darnell waving this card - so CAS and a wonderful design.

And last but not least, Sally set to using the set of stamps she won in the Playground the other week - so clever to use two of the stamps like that and the background for those deep shaded roses is beautiful. I should know 'cos it's here on my desk :)

And we have one new playmate this time:

Welcome scrAPpamondo  and we'd love to see you playing again! Love all the flowers and butterflies on this lovely card.

Now the draw for last week's prize - the lovely set of our Sarn's 'Sarntangle' stamps - and the winner is:

Andrea (KandA)

Oh well done Andrea! I just checked my little book here and have a feeling this might be your very first Playground win!? Yet you've been playing for ages - just shows, good things come to those who wait. Can you please let me have your address (di_wray@hotmail.com) and I'll post your set of stamps off ASAP this coming week.

I know from what Andrea said in her comments this week that she really wanted her name to be drawn, as did quite a few of you. Gosh how I wish I had a big box of the stamps to offer :(

I know I'm doing more promotional work here but the Sarntangle stamps are a limited run of 50 and a lot have already been sold. I also know that Sarn doesn't plan to have any more produced so if you love them as much as me - why not hop over to this link to see just what other people have been making using the stamps. It might just make your mind up :)

And this coming week's prize has absolutely nuffin' to do with the snippets card I made for today.

It's a set of 'Build-a-Scene dies by X-Cut called 'Nautical' - kindly donated by Viv. I think these will be huge fun to play with (loads of fabulous dies in the set, up in the teens) and perfect for sea scene cards for boys and men! If you zoom in there are some examples at the bottom of the packet and more ideas can be found on the internet.

ON THE SUBJECT OF PRIZES: our Playmate Eve currently has a lovely giveaway over at her blog HERE, it's a really nice set of SU stamps and due to internet issues she's now leaving the draw open until 25th February. I've joined in for a chance :)

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 28th February. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say 'Yes please' (or similar) in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize.

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

Di and of course, Parsnip!
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