Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #334

Well, it's September already and the kiddies are about to return to school here in our neck of the woods. Ha, next thing the shops will be stocking Halloween goodies, followed rapidly by Christmas stuff!

Here's my snippets card for this week - made in a bit of a rush during the week when something suddenly cropped up to sort of wipe out any spare time on Saturday (yesterday) which would leave little or no time for this post let alone the card I hadn't yet made! Anyhow, here goes with the card:

I used:

- 6" x 4" (A6 in the UK) white card blank, side opening

- snippets of white, green, Neenah 'Desert Storm' and slightly shimmery dark blue card which I fiddled about with trying to work out the right proportions for the card but then decided I needed the images to get it 'right' in my head

- stamped the little fox and rabbit onto white card using a Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad and stamps from the adorable Lawn Fawn 'Upon a Star' set of stamps and then coloured them in using Pro markers (love these little critters, so fast and easy to colour!)

- fussy cut around the fox and rabbit - what I love about this set is that it has nice thick lines so fussy cutting is more forgiving right up to the lines. Then, for an extra finish I ran a black Whispers pen around the edges

- now I could work out the proportions more easily so I cut the blue, green and white panels to fit onto the backing of Neenah 'Desert Storm card - one above the other with an overlap and put them to one side, after running a dark blue Whispers pen around the four sides of the blue card to hide the white core

- next stamped the sentiment onto the white panel using the Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad again and a couple of stars at the same time - all from the same 'Upon a Star' set of stamps

- then stamped the sky with constellations, the shooting star and single stars, using a Delicata 'Silvery Shimmer' ink pad and more stamps from the 'Upon a Star' set onto the blue card and allowed it time to thoroughly dry as it's a very juicy pad and also the card isn't absorbent

- time to assemble the card by gluing the 'night sky' panel to the 'Desert Storm' layer first of all

- then just used scissors to cut a bit of a wavy edge along the top of the green layer and glued that in place, followed by the white sentiment layer

- filled in the two stars on the sentiment panel using a silver Signo pen  

- time to add those little critters, which I popped in place with thin sticky pads - and called it a wrap!

Needless to say, I used the Misti throughout all the stamping, although I added the single stars to the night sky using a tiny single star from the stamp set and a clear acrylic stamp 'peg' (bit like a 3" or so long solid cylinder which you pop the little stamp onto one end of and then can see though the top of the cylinder for reasonable alignment)

Another time - given more time - I think I'd try heat embossing the night sky - but it works OK as it is. Interestingly, some Lawn Fawn samples I've seen on line also used slightly shimmery dark blue for the sky, and their straightforward stamping with silver ink was no better than mine - perhaps I'm just too hard on myself, sigh. This is such a sweet set of stamps by Lawn Fawn, I hankered after it for ages and eventually bought it the other week. The mix of sentiments is just lovely - and there's even a heart shaped constellation if you want to go really romantic!

There IS a set of matching dies but I didn't bother with them as I don't think they're at all necessary. The little critters (you get the size I used and then a smaller fox and a smaller rabbit) are so very easy to fussy cut - whether you leave a white border or cut right up against the outline as I did. And, I just didn't see the point of die cutting the constellations - that would have meant extra outlines around them which I feel would detract from the overall effect, even if they were stamped in silver ink onto scraps of the same blue card.

And of course, here's this week's Snippets Playground prize:

It's your own Lawn Fawn 'Upon a Star' set of stamps. I try to mix stamps and dies around from one challenge to another as I know some of you prefer one or the other - although many like me are happy with either I guess!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 15th September. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry and 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're wanting 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 - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I ignore you on my little list.

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 :)

Thank goodness we both seem to have shaken off the Summer colds etc. at last - and about time too I say.

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,