Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #390

EDIT: The challenge is now open for an additional week (until Saturday 21st November) and you may enter twice.

Gosh, I'm quite stunned at the number of entries into the Playground this past couple of weeks (62!) with many of you hoping to win the Lawn Fawn 'Be Hap-pea' set of stamps and matching dies. I did think that would be a popular prize - it's such fun and very versatile. The draw will be in a week's time - good luck! Also, there are a whole raft of entries worthy of being 'picks' - I'm probably going to let Dudley have the final say in the picks ☺

It's been another funny old week really, with the prospect of a possible lockdown looming in Hampshire. And right now (Saturday, as I'm finishing this post off) it seems I was well ahead of the game when I wrote this paragraph - we're now faced with a possible overall lockdown within the next few days, right across England, and possibly the rest of the UK. Numbers have soared and at this rate, even with our emergency 'Nightingale' hospitals, the NHS faces being unable to cope. Also, if you do your grocery shopping online - delivery slots are already being snatched up like the initial lockdown. I now have three supermarkets in the mix so I can flip between them when the other(s) can't deliver- which is absolutely crazy and just like being a juggler. Chin(s) up girls - onwards and upwards as they say!

Now let's look at happy stuff - this fortnight I'm sharing the Playground with my lovely friend Sarn. She made a beautiful card which is shown below (I think the picture and link are all fixed now!):

This is what Sarn wrote about making her card:

 

Hare Card details:

 

- 5" square card blank, side opening.

- White and black snippets of card.

 

- First, using a make-up brush, I applied green ink over a torn paper mask, moving the mask down and gradually getting lighter in colour. I found it easiest to do this with the piece upside down then working from the TOP of the upside down scene DOWN so that the darkest hill (at the top of the piece of card) was covered over by the mask as I moved it downwards to ink the lighter colours.

 

- Next, I punched out a circle from a Post-it Note and stuck it down, then, having turned the scene the right way up, I inked over the top with light blue ink, still using the make-up brush. 

 

- To make the purple streaks across the sky, I took an Inkylicious duster brush and pinched it between my fingers to make a line, dragged it across a purple ink pad and then across the blue sky.

 

- After that, it was just a matter of stamping on top (all are Lavinia stamps). I started with the little hare from the Whimsical Hares set, then added the Fairy Buttercup flowers, and drew the little flock of birds. Could have left it there, but decided it needed a little more stamping, so I stamped the Lavinia Vine leaves at the top to frame it. 

Please do hop over to Sarn's blog HERE - called 'Stamping for Pleasure' - which she is currently posting regularly on. It's always been one of my favourite blogs, right from my very early days of blogging - just follow the link and you will land on her post about making this lovely card. It has step by step photos which are so worth seeing. The important thing to note is that Sarn flipped her piece of card upside down to ink the hills - working from dark to light.

And what a star Sarn is, she knew I already had a 'hare' prize lined up and her card links very nicely into it - so here's the prize for this fortnight: 

It's a set of Lavinia 'Whimsical Hares' stamps - exactly the same as the one Sarn used her 'stargazing har'e from, along with an Inkylicious 'Mountain & Valley Sun/Moon' Stencil & Masks template - plus a brand new set of 10 makeup brushes for blending inks perfectly, almost the same as Sarn used for the inking of HER background. I have the same set of brushes here as the one on offer and love them, so velvety soft, really lovely to use and such a variety of sizes to enable you to ink into even the most intricate stencils with ease and as light a touch as you could wish for. I bought them from Amazon at a fraction of the cost of those sold under craft brand names, they're every bit as good ......... and they came from China needless to say. The template was already part of the prize anyhow and it's really versatile, but you can see how easily you can achieve the same effect by using torn paper for the hills and a punched circle from a Post-it note as Sarn did.

As is almost always the case, I won't be splitting the prize, but if you only want part of it for yourself then please feel free to join in the draw and when your package arrives with you, pass on whatever you might not want to a crafting friend. And please remember - it doesn't matter where you live in the World - I'm happy to post prizes, regardless of where you live.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 14th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Edit - the challenge is now open until Saturday 21st November and you may enter twice.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, 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 want 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 itself - just in case you're only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

 

A little reminder - please let me know if you try to link into the Playground and it doesn't work! Don't just run away - I'm always here to always help out. Sometimes it means me going into the 'inside workings' of Mr Linky to delete a failed attempt in order for it to work, and I always let you know the outcome - after all these years I can do it in two wags of Dudley's tail! 

Speaking of Dudley, his weight had gone back up to his start weight when we weighed him last week! We have no idea how that happened ........ unless the little monkey has worked out how to scramble up onto the top of a unit in the garage where we keep his treats, help himself and then seal up the bags again! In fairness, he'd had a couple of shorter walks due to heavy rainfall (which he hates) - but it shows how delicate a balancing act it can be. More so as we're talking about a small amount of weight. Just so long as he's not doing the balancing ....... along with some climbing. ☺

As I'm typing this we're wondering what will happen with 'Trick or Treat' this evening. It's horrendous weather here right now, plus the threat of a further lockdown. However, some parents are saying they don't see why their children should miss out as so much has already been spoiled for them this year. Some will put sweets out and not answer the door. And some, like us, will skip it altogether - a shame as Dudley thinks it's such fun - but even putting a dish of sweets out and not answering the door won't necessarily work. Someone local apparently once did that and the first callers ran of with the lot - including the dish! I did chuckle when I read that on a local Facebook forum. 

This afternoon, Saturday, I had a little baking session - for Dudley Dog! This is just half the mixture after it had been shaped and baked:

It's a batch of Dudley's very own low fat, high fibre Halloween treats, cooling down. We'd been horrified at the fat content of bought treats as well as all the additives, so I decided to make some and this is my first try. The recipe is pretty easy - namely oatmeal, pumpkin puree and grated apple with an egg to bind the mixture. The oatmeal is quite chunky, even though I blitzed it well, which still made rolling it out, then cutting the bone shapes, a bit 'tricky-woo'. The mix was too chunky for the smallest size of bone shaped cutter (yes, I truly am that sad a person - my 'boy' gets the real deal!) - so these will be snapped in half for his Lordship - if he even likes them! Half the uncooked mix has been frozen and three quarters of the baked ones you see above will also be frozen. So far Dudley hasn't tasted them (I've been tempted, as has Len, but we've resisted) but if he sniffs and walks off then we may just end up wandering around the neighbourhood giving them away! Dudley did like the leftover pumpkin puree - as recommended by Darnell. I'm baking a pumpkin pie tomorrow as today was too busy and I fully expect to have a 'dancing dog' beside me in the kitchen.

I chuckled once again when looking for chilli powder to add into our Ocado order. I always read the reviews if it's a product or brand I haven't tried before and one particular review for Ocado's own hot chilli powder carried the following warning in a review 'This will rip your face off'. 'Ah' thought I - 'bit of a subtle message there - best avoid that one then'!

Edit:The pumpkin treats got a HUGE high-five from Dudley - hooray! But - the little chap is now begging for more at every opportunity! 'Hoist by my own petard' - as the old expression says! Oh poop!

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley and of course me. Stay safe - and sane (we're struggling here, grin!)