Sunday 20 May 2018

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge # 325 - results

Royal Wedding Day today! The sun is shining for the happy couple down here in the South of the UK and Windsor is such a lovely place for the wedding.

Let's get straight on with the post - I'm typing this on Saturday morning and the TV in my craft room is calling to be turned on so I can watch events - so this will be quite a quick post!

First of all, we have a new Guest Designer, but most certainly not a new crafter! It's Susan Renshaw of 'Calling All Crafters' who is our Guest Designer this fortnight. Susan has been playing along with us for a while now:
And here's what Susan wrote about her card:

Once again I went with the mosaic idea but this time paper piecing into a die from STAMPLorations. All the card pieces are from my scrap bank apart from the cream card base which is a 5 by 7 inch. I added a strip of ribbon with a tiny scrap tied around it and the wooden butterfly embellishments. More details will be on my blog…

If you remember, Susan was one of our picks last time with the brilliant mosaic pelican card!

Bless her - the GD card above was her third idea, bit of a perfectionist like so many of us. I'm stunned by the amount of paper piecing - just fabulous!

And here's Susan to say hello to you:
Isn't it wonderful how happy you Playmates are - all the more so when crafting of course!

And a little bit of information about Susan as well:

I am a retired teacher, a mother of 4 and grandmother of 3 – my grandson with be 18 this month but my granddaughters are younger. I currently live in the UK, Derbyshire, living round the corner from my elderly parents to whom I give a great deal of support. Over the last 20 years, I have been an expat, living in Australia, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and India. My three sons and their families still live in Australia but my daughter is a teacher and lives near Cambridge. My husband still works – he was in Egypt for much of last year and is now in Abu Dhabi again. Rather than living overseas, I now just take the opportunity to visit him when I can. I have been a crafter all my life, turning my hand to quilting, embroidery, crochet and more. I became more interested in papercrafting when I was living in Abu Dhabi and this is my current passion. I make cards but also enjoy making ATCs and playing with mixed media. I think I use my Big Shot every day but I also enjoy stamping. I am not a great colourer! …My style is my own ranging from conventional to more ‘off the wall’. You will see from my blog that I am on a number of DTs. I like to take part in ATC and other craft swaps and I also enjoy attending crafty retreats whenever I can. The photo is from a recent Craft retreat with UK Stampers Network.

So, a very busy lady and a very dedicated crafter - with a fair old bit of globe trotting under her belt as well.

Thanks so much for being our Guest Designer Susan - we're delighted you could take on the role for this fortnight. And Parsnip is offering his services to carry your baggage next time you visit your husband in some exotic country! You gotta admit - that little bear always has an eye on the main chance! 😀

And now for the fortnight's picks - this time I've gone for some ideas you might want to try for yourselves:

Alice whizzed in early on in the challenge with this lovely Christmas card. I love it, but what else was in the post really caught my imagination and I hope it will interest you as well:
This is only one of many photos on Alice's blog post - which you can find HERE. Basically, Alice uses snippets to maintain a stock of ready die cut shapes and stores them in pockets in binders as shown above. It's really such a great idea - if you have the time to do this I'm sure it would save loads of fiddling round when working on a project. I'm a 'cut as I go' gal - but I really can see loads of merit in Alice's idea!

Liz is always coming up with great ideas for card shapes, and this time she showed us a real corker! A great card to begin for a lovely lady named Kitty who is 103 years young and still an avid supporter of Bristol Rovers Football Club. And the extra twist is the shape itself. The basic shape is known as the 'Impossible Card Fold' - the effect is very much like an easel card but the card blank is cut (very cleverly) from a single sheet of card!

I immediately Googled it and found a very good tutorial which I followed to the letter. And blow me, some of the measurements for the layers of paper to add to the card weren't correct! By all means look at the link. but do be aware that the finished article will look a bit off balance - you can actually see that on at least one of the end results on the video, the margins on either side aren't even - and really makes my teeth itch!

And here's my half finished attempt before I decided to leave it alone and go no further so you can see what I mean - I did try to use a paint tool to draw an arrow or two to point to the offending area, with no luck:
Can you see that the right hand side upside down L shape layers of the orange and patterned paper don't have an even border around them? There's a wider margin of white card on the lower right part and also the upper left part of the card? Such a shame and also a waste of some pretty paper as well, sigh. Little Miss Picky strikes again!

So, I suggest you just look at the basic card blank cutting part of the video I linked (which is very clearly explained) and work out your own sizes if you add layers of paper - Liz had done that very successfully with her card. There are tons of tutorials to be found - but the Royal Wedding is calling to me and I'm typing as fast as I can here!

 

Trina P brought us this great card - and another idea to try out from a very talented Playmate! I've shown a couple of photos above so that you can get the overall idea. It's known as an 'in and out card' - I first spotted this die cut aperture idea over on Jennifer McGuire's blog. Trina has helpfully included the link over on her blog post so you can hop over there for more about this card at the same time.

And we had three new Playmates joining in the fun this time:
Sammi
Darshana
Fiona
A huge welcome to you all and these are really lovely cards, all featuring butterflies as well! Do please hop over to say hello to our new Playmates.

So that was three new Playmates this fortnight and 58 entries. That's really good going considering you can only play once each fortnight.

Prize draw time now and what a popular prize as well. Our winner of the MFT 'Marbled Background' stamp and also the MFT 'Wish' die is:

  Trina P
 
Well done Trina! That's a double whammy this fortnight, being one of our 'picks' as well as the prizewinner :) Bet you're doing a Happy Dance right now!

Do please send me your address, with full name at the top so I can copy and paste - for speed and ease. I'll be off to the Post Office ASAP this coming week 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 #326 HERE. The prize is a Waffle Flower 'Succulents' stamp set with matching dies.

And, as promised - here's a better photo of Spike the hedgehog at his feeding station. Bearing in mind that it was taken in the dark, with just an outdoor light for illumination, and you have to be very fast - I think Len did us proud! I did think he had taken two photos but it's only the one for now:
He's just had a drink from the little bowl of water that's out of shot (hence the wet patches from underneath his chin) - and is about to nudge the feeding dish lid up to get at his food. No doubt Len will be out there again trying to get more photos - but generally we just leave the hedgies to feed in peace and peek at them from a window in the kitchen.

I do hope you're having great weather right now - I'm just about to settle down to watch the Royal Wedding properly.

Love from the little white peril Parsnip, who is sat here with his flag ready to wave it at the TV whenever required - and of course me,






18 comments:

  1. I do so love reading your posts with their helpful hints and tips. Another 'new' card shape as well but how annoying that some of the measurements in the tutorial were incorrect. Great hedgehog picture too so well done to Len for perseverance.

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  2. Happy Sunday - what a spectacular event the Royal Wedding was. Everyone looked so happy and the bride looked so beautiful.

    Congrats to Susan for being this weeks guest designer. Lovely bright card that I wouldn't have the patience for!

    Congrats to the showcased girls and the prize winner.

    Great shot of Spike Len! Well done that man! Glad to see Parsnip didn't photobomb the shot.

    Hugs, Sarn xxx

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  3. A fantastic card from Susan and a wonderful photo of Spike. I love the picks this week especially the idea of storing die cuts in the pockets by Alice, I have mine dotted around the craft room in different containers but can see that I need to change this.

    Sue xx

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  4. Oh Di, thanks so much! :) Such a surprise having here not only my snippets card, but also my organizing system for cuts-out from snippets!! :D It's a big honour and you have been so kind! :)
    Welcome to the new GD Susan, lovely card so happy and bright! Big congrats to all the other picks, especially to my friend Liz with her stunning card! Your impossible card looks so beautiful too, I have to try this folding.
    Love the night shot of Spike, "Bravo!" to your hubby, he is a great photographer!! :D
    Hugs

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  5. Great cards by everyone!!!
    Love little Spike!!! He's precious.
    Lynn

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  6. Love your picks as always. It's a shame the measurements were not correct but your card came out. Wow, great picture of the hedge hog.

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  7. Lovely to see Susan as the Guest Designer this time Di and what a clever idea to use snippets to fill in the shapes within the die, and some great showcased cards including a new shape to me, but sad that the measurements were inaccurate. Some wonderful picks and congratulations to Trina for winning the fab prize this time. The wildlife photography by Len is sperb and great to see the closeup of Spike enjoying a night time feast. x

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  8. 😱😱😱 eeeeeeekkkkkkkk!!! Wow! I’m doing the happy dance, the happy cartwheel, and all things happpppyyyyy!!! Thank you so much, Di!!! Don’t know if you can tell, but I’m thrilled... 😁😁😁 Congrats to Susan, Alice and Liz. Welcome to the 3 new playmates. Off to e-mail you! xx

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  9. Congrats to the winner and top picks. We used to have hedgehogs but not for many years now. Hugz

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  10. Stunning cards by all and many congratulations to Trina P enjoy your win and what a talented guest designer you have this week l just love her makes and nice to see spike on your post so big too! x

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  11. Super card by Susan and some really lovely picks but just love the photo by Len aka David Bailey.
    Have a good week Di.

    Kath x

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  12. That Spike is a big hoggie! Fabulous picks too Di, congrats to everyone! I do something similar for die cutting. I have die cut sessions where I chop up any left over snippet that I have and cut sentiments, flowers, embellishments - that way they are ready to use when I want them and I don't just have to do one here and there - it's so much quicker and easier for me xx

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  13. I am following and enjoying your hedgehogs news and it's great to see the pictures!
    WE also watched the British Royal wedding over here and it was great! Great memories of the Dutch Royal wedding in 2002 which was also a big national event!!
    Lia xx

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  14. Super picks as always Di, lovely card from Susan and congratulations to Trina!
    I really enjoyed the wedding, I returned from a short break away Saturday afternoon, so watched the recording in the evening!
    Janice x

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  15. Congratulations to Susan on her GD spot, I love her beautiful card. Thank you for showcasing my card and congratulations to all the creators of the the other picks.
    Great photo of your little hedgie too.

    I was glued to the TV watching the Royal Wedding with friends... and what a beautiful wedding it was. It was a good excuse to crack open a few bottles of fizz to toast the happy couple. I even got home in time to watch the FA Cup final too. ;-) xx

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  16. Wonderful cards by everyone! Love the picture of your hedgie!

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  17. Oooh your post had me smiling on a lot of counts.First of all I was intrigued to read that Susan had even been to India!! And oooh love your story and reaction about the new card design...it does look awesome despite the crazy margin! and oooh such an adorable hedgie
    Cheers
    Dr Sonia

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This is a public blog. Those leaving a comment on any post on this blog or entering a piece of artwork into a linky do so in the knowledge that their name and blog link are visible to all who visit this blog and in so doing have published their own personal details and consented to my use of that personal information should they be selected as a winner or to accredit work.