Sunday, 28 December 2025

Sunday Snippets - Christmas Garland

My snippets card was made using a Katy Sue decoupage kit:

I used: 

- 5.75" x 5.75" white card blank - side opening

- Katy Sue's decoupage sheet called 'Christmas Flowers' which I layered using very thin sticky pads

- used Tonic's 'Inca Gold' and 'Scarlet Organza' mirror card to make a 'frame' and glued it onto the card front

- used a snippet of white card which I ran embossed lines around before gluing it to the card front

- glued the assembled Christmas wreath onto the white piece of card

- final touch, added the sentiment and popped the card into a white card box, bought ready to assemble from Amazon

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges: 

- Allsorts Challenge #839 HERE.  - 'Anything Goes'

- and  of course, this month's Rudolph Days Challenge HERE.

Dudley Pupdate: As always, Dudley loved Christmas - he has to poke his nose into each item as it's being unwrapped! I think that's most of the fun for him. Oh, and a little Christmas dinner of his own course. As usual he left the solitary Brussels sprout I'd added!

The December Draw results from Sarn's Challenge #519 are now published in the Snippets Playground HERE.

Love as always, Dudley and yours truly,



Thursday, 25 December 2025

Merry Christmas to One and All!!



Dudley ate the Christmas lights after this very special imagery session. We took him to the duty vet right away, even on quite limited Christmas Eve hours. 

After checking him over, the vet said he would actually be fine, phew! 
 
At that, Dudley's eyes lit up! 

My bad! Gotcha! 

With love, as always, from Di and Dudley Dog! (Woof - my Mum is so silly!)

xxxx




Wednesday, 24 December 2025

The Midnight Watch - Havanese Style!

Merry Christmas Eve Playmates - love from Dudley!

This popped up on the Havanese GB Facebook Group. It's the new Christmas header/banner - and I keep seeing our Dudley at the far left of the line - it's really enchanting!

AI created image used with kind and generous permission from Andrea! Crafter and designer of all things Havanese and general 'good egg'!!

Wishing you all a happy Christmas Eve - watch out for the big fat guy on his sleigh folks! One more sleep.

Love from Di and Dudley
xxx



Tuesday, 23 December 2025

The final package arrived!

Dudley can now settle down as all planned deliveries are done and the final package was delivered by Amazon yesterday. A last minute toy I spotted for Dudley (little did he know) as he was being 'Amazon snapped' ............. whilst shouting at the delivery guy from behind our front door!

Phew - peace reigns again! We're now at the point of saying, 'if it's been forgotten then we'll cope'. Just as we oldies, and our own parents did before now!

Hope you're all surviving out there - not long now until the reindeer set off! They're probably limbering up right now!

Two more sleeps - yay!

Love and hugs from Di and Dudley Dog! 




Sunday, 21 December 2025

Sunday Snippets - 'Happy Birthday'

For a change from Christmas cards, my snippets card this week is a Birthday one:

I used: 

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- snippet of the same white card, trimmed to 5.5" x 4.25" and then run through the Gemini using a pierced edge die from the Spellbinders 'Pierced Rectangles' A2  set of dies. A very kind blogging friend gifted the set to me a little while ago. It's hard to see in the photo but I left the die in place and, from the back, ran a ball-ended embossing tool around the inner edge of the die to raise the centre portion. What a difference it makes (in real life, unless you press your nose against the screen for a closer look!)

- then stamped the background using a VersaFine Clair 'Morning Mist' inkpad and a Gummiapan 'Happy Birthday text'  stamp I've had for ages, waiting to be used

- next, I stamped the flower onto the card front panel using a VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' inkpad - and at the same time stamped it onto a snippet of Strathmore Mixed Media card. The stamp is unnamed and by Crafty Roo

- the 'Strathmore' flower was coloured using a cute unbranded set of 24 metallic watercolour paints - having its first outing

- I added a little green to the lower part of the flower on the actual card front before fussy cutting the leaves and flower head and running a black Tombow pen around the edges

- then paper pieced the flower head and leaves onto the stamped flower on the card front panel using a glue pen

- glued the whole front panel to the card front

- final touch was the addition of five SU purple glossy dots in the bottom left corner - finished! 

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

- Allsorts Challenge #839 HERE - under 'Anything Goes'

- Darnell's NBUS Challenge #81 HERE - my three NBUS items are the Gummiapan and Crafty Roo stamps - plus the set of metallic watercolour paints

Remember, I've just kicked off a new challenge over in the Snippets Playground HERE.  It's our second December Prize Draw with mystery prize bundles to be won!

Dudley Pupdate: With Christmas fast approaching Dudley has found plenty to shout bark at - the postman both delivering and collecting post, umpteen delivery drivers, neighbours popping cards through the letterbox and so on. Dudley certainly knows that something's afoot!

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas! 🎅🎄🎄🎄🎄🎅

Love as always, Dudley Dog and me



Sunday, 14 December 2025

Sunday Snippets - By the sea

I bought a die not so long ago and used it the other day for my snippets card below:


I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening 

- first thing to tackle was the actual die cutting of the beach huts, which proved to be a mental agility test! 

- die cut the complete row of die cut beach huts in one single strip from a snippet of plain white card and, I confess, looked at them on and off for a whole day in between doing other Christmassy preparations such as finishing off writing Christmas cards

- eventually, given that I wanted to inlay the red and blue pieces, I decided to snip the white die cuts apart and treat each beach hut seperately. That worked for me as I could take it step by step

- drew around the complete row of beach huts dies onto a snippet of white card, backed with a snippet of  Stick-It adhesive sheet

- then very carefully trimmed the outline down to a whisker inside the actual outline cutting line - phew!

- snipped each sticky backed beach hut apart - easier than it sounds I promise, and then peeled off the adhesive side backing before sticking each one onto the reverse of its matching beach hut - sticky side showing through the holes and strips in the design!

- then took snippets of the same red and blue card that I planned to use for the background 'frame' and, one by one, die cut each beach hut all over again. Only this time I carefully placed the coloured die over its matching 'white base' and gently poked the small pieces in place. It wasn't infallible as some tiny pieces needed real encouragement so it took ages, but not one tiny piece escaped!!

- once the huts were complete I set them aside in a little plastic dish for safety - didn't want any disasters after all that work

- used a backgound snippet of Tonic pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card, trimmed to 5.25" x 4" and glued onto the card front 

- next a snippet of Tonic pearlescent 'Navy Dazzle' card trimmed very slightly to 5" x 3.75" was glued onto the red layer

- then took a piece of paper from the unbranded 'Sea Wave' pack, sold by Amazon. and  trimmed it down to 4.55" x 3.5", and glued it onto the outline 'frame' on the card front

- the next step was to stamp the sentiment, I used VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink and a NBUS stamp from the lovely Penny Black NBUS 'without limits' set of stamps'

- glued the beach huts in a row along the shoreline and suddenly the card sprang to life!

- final touch was to add three teeny white seagulls, using a Gummiapan die - the end! 

The middle beach hut has a partly cut door which I gently scored at the hinge side and opened, then popped a die cut rectangler in red behind the open door - just for fun. 

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge #838 - HERE. The theme is ' New' - or 'Anything Goes'

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #81 - HERE. The unbranded 'Beach huts' die and the Penny Black sentiment stamp set were having their first outing

Dudley Pupdate: We're ahead of ourselves for once here and the Christmas tree is now decorated plus most of the other indoors stuff is done. Len did the outside lights etc. a week or two ago. Indoors we had Christmas music playing to add to the atmosphere and I set to and opened up the tree decorations. At that point I thought Dudley was about to explode with excitement, skipping about almost squeaking in delight! He loves anything sparkly - and the mere rustle of tissue paper sends him off into paroxyms of sheer joy. The lounge is all done and only one or two hours work, if that, remain to pop up some other special decorations.

Very importantly, the results of Challenge #520 are now published HERE 

Do please come and play in Sarn's current challenge over in the Snippets Playground - just scroll down from the results post. It's our big Christmas giveaway draw and well worth playing along.

Love from myself and Dudley, xxx




Sunday, 7 December 2025

Sunday Snippets - 'Joy'

I made my snippets card for today in double quick time - about 15 minutes or so- allowing a sheet of designer paper to do most of the work:

used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank, side opening

- two sheets of designer paper from the 'A Winter Story' pack made by Stamps by Me

- the reverse of one sheet is the same green as the patterned paper - perfect!

- trimmed the plain green paper down to 4.75" square and the patterned paper down to 4.5" square and glued them to the card front

- then used a die from the little Sizzix 'Winter Wishes' set to die cut the word 'Joy' from a teeny snippet of Tonic mirror card in 'Inca Gold'. I won this lovely little set of dies over at Christmas Kickstart a while ago and absolutely love the delicate Joy sentiment - many thanks again Jo! It's extra special as it 's designed to leave imprints of tiny studs on the letters

- glued the sentiment onto the card front, at a jaunty angle for a change. Finished!

No photo of the gold snippet - I disposed of it before engaging brain! The image colours are muted but in reality they're a bit brighter than the camera shows, needless to say.

- Allsorts Challenge #838 HERE - under the 'Anything Goes' option 

- Christmas Kickstart #105 HERE - 'If it's Christmassy, link it up'

Dudley Pupdate: it's been a pretty uneventful week for Dudley. The most exciting things were the car rides when Len took me to the dentist - and surprisingly, Dudley was the quietest he's ever been - usually it's a full-on yodel but this was more like doggie gentle singing! We've popped one of his doggie beds in our bedroom for him, but he only uses it now and then. Much more fun to cuddle up between us on the bed - preferably sideways if he can get away with it!

Sarn has opened up Challenge #521 in the  Snippets Playground HERE.

Do come and play with us in the Playground - Sarn has more information for you about our prizes for the December challenges. We have more prizes per challenge therefore more chances of winning a surprise bundle of goodies! Yay!

Love as always, Dudley and yours truly,