Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 223

Hope that everyone has recovered from the 'chocolate-fest' of Easter - and that Spring is finally showing her face wherever you are. We had rotten weather over Easter but it's improved as the week's gone on - thankfully!

My snippets card today is linked to the prize for this coming week - but nothing I used on the card is part of the prize. Ha! Bet that makes a lot of sense - not! You'll find out the link if you read on - this is my snippets card, and once again the camera tells a big fat fib 'cos the green wood is very green IRL, sort of olive/leaf green:

I used:

- 5.75" x 3.75" white card blank (I made it this size to fit the snippets I wanted to use, rather than the other way round)

- the backing papers are snippets from LOTV's 'Heartfelt' paper pad - glued together then trimmed to size

- then stamped the image using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a Stampendous stamp called 'Heart Stack'

- using the same stamp and ink I then stamped another image onto a snippet of pale pink paper from the same LOTV paper pad

- fussy cut the hearts and glued them in place onto the image I'd stamped onto the green background part of the panel

- wrapped a snippet of pink ribbon round where the papers overlap and glued the front panel onto the card blank

- using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from SU's 'Good Greetings' hostess set I stamped the sentiment onto a little snippet of the pale pink LOTV paper and punched it out using SU's 'Word Window' punch

- punched a backing layer for the sentiment using another snippets of the darker pink paper and SU's 'Modern Label' punch 

- stuck the sentiment to the backing layer then stuck it onto the card front

- finished off with a small white pearl either side of the word 'celebrate'

There are clues to this coming week's prize in this card - the word 'celebrate' is one and also 'hearts' is another. Tee, hee :)

Let's move straight onto this week's peek at the picks:

The lovely Sarn has been really busy this past week - loads of lovely cards on her blog. This one has been so admired by many of you, it's a stunner isn't it. And, if you haven't already checked it out - the inside holds a great secret - a star shaped aperture pop out thingy (there must be a proper term for it!). I just spotted that Princess Judy had been wondering if a die could be used for the same effect and am sure she's on the right track - just a bit of careful measuring, placement and cutting of the aperture with a die and some scoring to create the pop out piece. Such a great idea too - love it Sarn - really pretty as well.

I know that Easter has gone but am sure you'll love this idea brought to us by Carol L. Darling little holders for choklit - and those sheep are brilliant! One to refer back to next Easter :)

Still on the subject of Easter - I have to show you this adorable photo of (KandA) Andrea's little grand daughter/Easter Bunny:

So, so cute!!

How about this for an utterly fabulous Golden Wedding card then? Great use of snippets and such a lovely design - brought to share by Viv. Love it!

Hettie (Sam) has been really busy with other things lately, so it was lovely to see her hop into the Playground waving this absolutely gorgeous Christmas card. It's a real stunner isn't it - great work Sam!

I'm very aware that a lot of you haven't signed up the Flickr and can't comment on a couple of our Playmates' entries. But, I really wanted to let you see this beautiful CAS card, made by Karen Ladd - I think it's terrific, so elegant!

Lynn of Lynn's Crafty Corner made this stunning card to share with us. I really love the layout, colours and wonderful stamping. The clincher for me was the background of birds behind the plane - really clever touch. And of course, lots of snippets used as well!

I absolutely could not leave this fantastic card out of the peek at the picks - to me it's outstanding, beautifully made and such a perfectly composed design. The sentiment is just perfect!  Diane H made this stunner and I totally love it! Another snippets buster too of course.

As always, I could include every single entry here - so I really do urge you all to try and take a peek at the entries. Even if you don't have the time to comment - although comments really do make people so happy I'm sure.

We have one new Playmate this week:

Sharon brought a lovely set of Christmas cards to share with us - featuring LOTV images of course. I still grit my teeth at the fact LOTV discontinued such a successful product - lovely work Sharon!

Time now for the prize draw for the Frantic Stamper 'Thanks Word Band' die. And our winner is:

Sue (Zoave)

Well done Sue, and it's lovely to know that Roy has improved enough to be 'released' from visits to the rehab unit for checkups. Keep on at him to continue the exercises though - threaten him with us lot if you have to :) I have your address here (your last win was almost four months ago) and will post your die off to you ASAP this coming week.

Now for this coming week's prize(s), plus a bit of an explanation first of all.

I'm sure that many if not all of you will be well aware that Jules, of 'Always with a Heart', first started this challenge off - over five years ago now.

Since then she has gone from strength to strength with her bespoke Wedding Stationery business, her gorgeous work for Quick Cards Made Easy magazine - and of course her really inspiring blog. It was such a thrill recently to hear that she won Favourite Card Designer in the 2016 British Craft Awards and, being Jules, she did a surprise giveaway on her blog a couple of weeks ago as a thank you to everyone who had left supportive comments. This was the prize, won by our very own Playmate Eve:

A fabulous selection of goodies ranging through two lots of luscious papers, die cut labels/tags, pearls, hessian die cut flowers, twine, some lovely daisies that I know Jules will have made using her daisy loom, pretty charms, stencils (hearts of course, and cogs), mini album components, a really great edge punch - in fact everything you see in the photo above.

It's a super selection of goodies - and Jules sent a duplicate to me to offer as a Playground prize!! It's open to anyone who submits an entry this coming week. How generous is that?! I pinched the photo from Jules' blog but the goodies she sent to me are identical. So this week's prize is a real bumper one!

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 9th April. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. The prize is everything you see in the photo, and won't be split in any way - the winner takes all :) Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

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 :)

Di and, of course, Parsnip! (who is restored to his usual pristine white self - phew, it took three goes through the washing machine though............just kidding!)
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