Pixie's Snippets Playground Weeks 313 and 314 - Prize D

Today's prize is two items for stamping - one image and one set of sentiments. As I'm in a massive rush here I've copied and pasted a previous Christmas card I made using the same image ages ago (almost four years in fact!):

I used:

- 6" x 6" white scalloped edge card blank

- House Mouse 'Mistletoe Moment' stamped using SU's 'Smoky Slate' and coloured with Polychromos Pencils and Sansodor blending solution. The colours are much stronger IRL - dratted camera again! I added a couple of little self adhesive pearls to the mistletoe

- all papers are from LOTV's 'Woodland Wishes' Christmas paper pad, the green pieces are snippets

- the sentiment is an Elzybells one (no longer trading sadly), stamped using SU's 'Rich Razzleberry' then die cut using a Spellbinders banner die. I just did the green backing layer by using the die as a guide and drawing round the outside before hand cutting it - and again, used snippets to back/frame the small panels

- white Josy Rose nail heads

Such a shame that the sentiment is no longer available as it suits the image so well  - although of course you could always generate one using your PC/printer.

However, here is today's prize:

I managed to find exactly the same little House Mouse image, although it's now cling mounted rather than wood mounted like my original one is. And it's now called 'Mistletoe Mice' rather than 'Mistletoe Moment'.

And, instead of the 'Happy Kiss-mas' sentiment which is no longer available, I'm including an Inkylicious stamp set with four sentiments in called ''Seasons Greetings'. I've offered an almost identical stamp set previously - although Inkylicious have since slightly reduced the size of the stamps as well as increasing the sentiments from three to four. The extra one is 'Let it Snow' - such a useful one as well. More of the same set of sentiments will appear (singly as add-ons to make up a prize) as the coming week goes by - they're a real 'go to' item in my Christmas crafting goodies!

I was trying to keep these 'combined bundles' but have decided that if a job's worth doing then it's doing well so I'm OK with splitting prizes. The House Mouse image is just adorable and will appeal to those of you who I just know from your beautiful cards love anything that is House Mouse! :)

At the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session for all the prizes using the one Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE - so you do need to have entered one snippets make over on that post during this fortnight to be in with a chance :) Maximum of one entry please - to keep things fair for those who may not have time to craft - Mr Linky closes at 11am on Saturday 6th January.

Just leave a comment on this post if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Pixies Snippets Playground - prize decision

Having thought more about it, I've decided to give you the option of opting for all or just part(s) of prizes in the great Holiday Giveaway. Although it does make life easier for me (and reduces postage) to send prizes as one bundle - if you do want to just play for part of one of the prizes then I'll work around that if your name comes out of the hat first.

The Post Office already think I'm off my trolley so what difference would a few extra packages make if prizes are split - plus it 'spreads the love a bit further' as Parsnip has wisely said.

BTW, I did giggle when some of you got a surprise that Parsnip is a little white fluffy bear (as per his photo the other day). I do still long for a doggie companion for him and we're working on that one - in fact, before the big day Len told me he'd bought a Christmas gift that I'd never guess. My response was just a one word - a very hopeful 'Woof?!'. Not right after all but I think he's getting the message - especially when I go out for a walk holding one arm out front with an imaginary lead and a little dog leading the way!!

Pixie's Snippets Playground Weeks 313 and 314 - Prize C

Time for another Christmassy 'Snippets Playground Celebration' prize - and it's a bit of a quirky one. Either that or the elf has been at Parsnip's secret drinks store in the Playground, snigger :)

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, tent style

- spotty and striped snippets of patterned paper from a Dovecraft 'Back to Basics Christmas' paper pack - love the contemporary look of these papers and I keep every tiny left over scrap

- the little elf and reindeer image was stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a Stampingbella 'Elf with a Reindeer on Top' stamp

- coloured the image (to pick out the colours in the patterned paper) using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and Sansodor Blending Solution, then tickled the pom pom and fur on the elf's hat with clear Wink of Stella

- used the matching die to cut the image out - and as usual I die cut a card template first to be sure it all lined up properly. Just tape the template aperture lined up onto the image, slot the die back in, add a little bit of extra tape to hold it in place (optional - and always use low tack tape of course) and it works perfectly every time

- attached a strip of spotty paper along the bottom edge of the card and 'reclined' the elf on it

- finally die cut a couple of banners using dies from the Frantic Stampers 'Stitched Fishtail Banners' set of three dies and my chosen snippets then glued them in place in the top left corner

- I opted not to use a sentiment on this card - it speaks for itself really!

And so, this is today's prize:

Of course, it's the same as the elf stamp and die I used for my card, along with a set of the stitched banner dies :) I really would like to keep this as one single prize to help keep postage costs down a bit - but, if you do have a burning desire for just the elf stamp and die together or the banner dies then please say so and I'll see what I can do! EDIT: Having thought it through I've decided that it's 'in for a penny. in for a pound' and if you would like one part of the prize only then if you win I'll do a second draw(s) for the rest of the prize.

At the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session for all the prizes using the one Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE - so you do need to have entered one snippets make over on that post during this fortnight to be in with a chance :) Maximum of one entry please - to keep things fair for those who may not have time to craft - Mr Linky closes at 11am on Saturday 6th January.

Just leave a comment on this post if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

I see that yesterday's prize is especially popular - that Inkylicious Pine Trees stamp really is a corker and Sarn's card is absolute perfection.

Pixie's Snippets Playground Weeks 313 and 314 - Prize B

Time for another Christmassy 'Snippets Playground Celebration' prize - and this is NOT my snippets card:

It's the most beautiful Christmas card from our lovely Playmate Sarn! I know, she's taking a break but I asked permission to use this lovely card as an example for today's prize. The photo certainly doesn't do it justice for sure - it's really fabulous, even more so in real life.

I expect Sarn used a snippet of SU  (Marina Mist?) blue card and the rest is all down to one brilliant stamp set. But, of course it's how you use it that matters - I do know it's a mix of at least first and second generation stamping - plus some Wink of Stella - and it's just wonderful.Very clever Sarn my leetle friend!

And so, this is today's prize:

An Inkylicious 'Winter Snow Pines - Large' stamp (image take from their website due to such bad light conditions here) - the same as the one Sarn used. Ahem, and someone also residing here really has messed up some of her ordering so we actually have three of these on offer! I ordered one stamp set for me and one as a prize - then forgot I'd done so and did a second order! Duh. I love it in blue of course and am sure greens would also work really well - or shades of grey even with a red frame?

At the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session for all the prizes using the one Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE - so you do need to have entered one snippets make over on that post during this fortnight to be in with a chance :) Maximum of one entry please - to keep things fair for those who may not have time to craft - Mr Linky closes at 11am on Saturday 6th January.

Just leave a comment on this post if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Needless to say - little Parsnip made a pig of himself yesterday. Opening and trying every possible snack and piece of confectionery he could lay his paws on. All on top of a huge Christmas dinner as well. Someone was groaning and whimpering for Alkaseltzers :)

I hope you all had a lovely day and were much more restrained than our own little Hampshire piglet! :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 313 & 314 - and Prize A

Hi there and a warm welcome to the Christmas Snippets Playground. Little Parsnip is out of disgrace and happily ensconced behind the bike shed warming up a few sausage rolls as well as handing out mince pies, cookies, egg nog and mulled wine - the same as last year! Do please help yourself - and do please also let me know if you notice him having a secret swig or two!

This is my snippets card for today - it's Len's Christmas card so I hope he doesn't take a quick peek here before Christmas morning:

I wrote out all the details of making this card and then 'poof' - the blog post disappeared! With no time left to spend rewriting it all I decided that the Z fold card probably speaks for itself anyhow and there are great tutorials to be found on line. In fact, I may do this for the whole giveaway to save time, we'll see how things go once the general furore of Christmas Day itself has been and gone. Do feel free to ask about anything though - and of course the main stamped image is also the same as the stamp on offer today - coloured using Pro markers and then tickled with clear Wink of Stella here and there. The snippets are LOTV Christmas paper and also some red satin mirri card.

 
So, here we have Prize A of the Christmas/New Year annual giveaway:

On offer for the next two weeks is a Penny Black wood mounted stamp called 'chill day'. I've had mine for about a year (unused) and found one on line the other day when I was swiftly making this card. So it's winging its way here from the USA right now!

As in recent years, this is what's going to be going on with the Snippets Playground over the Christmas and New Year (aka Holidays) festivities.

As usual, the Playground Mr Linky which is below will run for two weeks and closing time will be 11am on Saturday 6th January 2018 and this post you are looking at right now is where to add any entries - with a maximum of one entry - over the fortnight. Loads of dithering here once again about whether to allow more entries but I want to keep things as level as possible plus I think you'll be busy enough with friends and family. One entry means you're in the draw - and the more prizes you say you'd like to win in the comments in each 'additional prize' post does increase your winning chances of course. You have two weeks to play (if you want to of course!) as no doubt the Christmas and New Year festivities themselves will be busy for you. Some of you will be busier than others I know and, for those of you who do find some quiet time to craft, it's a chance for you to play along for some rather nice prizes too. It also means I can clear the Playground toy box out of Christmas themed prizes.

So that I don't swamp and confuse you with a load of prizes to choose from in this post, I'll be posting at intervals (about every other day) over the coming couple of weeks like I did last year and adding more prizes of varying sizes into the pot as we progress through the holiday.

If you see a prize you'd like to be in the 'pot' for then please leave a 'Yes please' (or similar) comment in the same post where I show you the prize. So for today's prize, leave a comment below. For me, that's going to be a lot less confusing than me having lots of little lists here and there - especially as there are so many prizes coming up!  It will mean that if you would like to be in with a chance of every prize, then you need to comment on each one as it comes up - and please don't leave it right until the end and nip through all the prize posts adding 'Yes please' to each in one fell swoop. Remember, they will show up serially on my dashboard if you do that so I will notice and wouldn't feel that it's in the true spirit of the Playground. So, if you want to play then do try to pop in over the festivities plus the first week in January to see what's on offer :)

Also, just saying here on this post 'count me in for all prizes that are offered' doesn't count I'm afraid and will mean you don't go into the draw at all - other people are taking the time and trouble to check out the individual posts and prizes and leave comments so it wouldn't be fair to them. Again, this worked fine last year. 

As I already said, there will only be the one Mr Linky for all entries - which is at the end of this post of course. I'll remind you where to go to link each time I post a new prize on the blog. Also, I'll run the prize draw using this Mr Linky as a basis for the random number generator and will then look at the relevant post to find out who said yes to the particular prize I'm running the random generator for.

I hope I've explained how the coming two weeks will work in the Playground? Please just say if it's left you confused.

The Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 6th January 2018. There will be a new Mr Linky on Sunday 7st January 2018. The picks and also the results of the multiple raffle/prize draw will appear one week later on Sunday 14th January.

Maximum of one entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Remember, there's the prize today and others will appear over the next two weeks so keep your eyes peeled.

Do say in this post if you want today's prize. And please also remember to link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Now, this is important girls, you can leap in throughout the whole giveaway and say 'yes please' to as many prizes as you like .... even if you haven't already made and entered your snippets make into Mr Linky at that point in time.

Your 'yes please' will certainly be in the pot when it comes to the grand draw, so long as you've entered into Mr Linky by then. At the end of this I'll be using today's Mr Linky as the focus for the random choices so please feel free to squeal with delight at as many prizes as you wish and say some 'yes pleases' on the way through the festive season - just remember to add just one snippets make into Mr Linky below to be in with a chance.

Please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Merry Christmas from the little white peril and yours truly

She did it!!

I do NOT believe it! I was whisked off my feet/paws and firmly tucked into bed after the Playground fire - with very stern orders not to move until Christmas Eve at the earliest. (I am pure white so this photo isn't very accurate - distortion as always when 'she' is behind the camera).

Well, it's OK to stay here tucked up in my little bed for a while as I did use up all my widdle putting the Playground fire out so no urgent need to trot to the little boys room for now - but I just may be missing some fun downstairs, sigh. I think there are mutterings about cooking some ham in Coca Cola.

Snort, earlier I crept out and spread every glitter pot from the craft room I could find all over the front lawn just to guide Santa and the reindeer if the moon is out - wait until she finds out.

Love and hugs for a very Merry Christmas

Parsnip the Peril ...........oopsie, here 'she' comes, back under the covers! ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz , wink.
xx

Little reminder

Just to let you know that I'll be running the big Holiday giveaway again this year with a variety of prizes - details will appear on Sunday Snippets. You only need one snippets make to join in - and to already be a Playmate of course.

Please excuse me .............. Parsnip is yelling that he's just set fire to the tree at the end of the Playground. Whilst he was trying to set up a brazier - so he can sell little packets of roasted chestnuts! He's now widdling on the conflagration trying to put it out whilst shouting 'Fire, fire' - oh, the shame of it all. We'll have to move from here at this rate, sigh.

Anyone wanna adopt a little white bear? He's going to bed early tonight for sure :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 309 and 310 - results

We're on the final countdown to the big day now - only a week left to go folks.

Bearing that in mind, I didn't ask anyone to be a Guest Designer for this coming fortnight - am sure there are more pressing things to be getting on with!

However, instead of a GD, there's an extra giveaway which will run for the next two weeks only. Closing time for entries is exactly at midnight (Sunday 31st December) as we swing into 2018. I'll use the Random Number generator to select the winners (you'll have to trust me as no way am I doing a screen capture, edit and then adding it into the blog post - times 20!) and I'll post the winners names during the first week of 2018. In order to enter, just add your name only to Mr Linky below - no snippets card is required. And the Mr Link is only for use with the prize(s) I've written about below. I do ask that you're already an active Snippets Playmate (no new people please).

A while ago, when I was moaning about a little ink smudge on a card I published here, Pat mentioned that the very talented Jennifer McGuire (who I always think is a great source of crafting advice) had been singing the praises of a Tombow 'Sand Eraser'. Well, you know me - off I hopped and ordered some to try out. They're quite small but should last for a while and they're great for removing little ink smudges and other 'glitches' such as even a little biro streak. They won't shift the likes of Pro markers (as you know, those alcohol inks soak right into card) but for surface marks they work brilliantly! And they don't scuff the surface of your card or paper - so long as you don't go at it hammer and tongs - slowly does it! And, as Greta rightly says, be patient and wait until any ink marks/smudges are dry, otherwise you risk spreading them further.

This is what they look like:

I was so pleased with mine that I have 20 of these to give away - partly as it's Christmas of course and also to celebrate that it's coming up to six whole years since I took the Snippets Playground over from the lovely Jules.

I actually got these at a really good price (no longer available) back in September. Something tells me that they might even have advertised the price wrongly (ie. way too low) as they're going for silly money elsewhere!

Am happy to post anywhere - so if you fancy trying one of these very useful little erasers out - just add yourself into Mr Linky at the end of this post.

This giveaway is in addition to, as well as totally separate to any other Christmas snippets linked prizes I may find time to offer over the holidays (on top of the usual fortnightly prize which will appear next Sunday as usual) - so I do recommend that you take a peek here over the holidays to see just what might unexpectedly pop up on offer :)

Time for the fortnightly picks now:

How about this for one very clever Christmas wreath?! Brought to share by Lesley - and apparently they take hours to make. Not surprised, but so worth it!

Fikreta (also known as Fiki/Bad Kitty) has been making shaker tags and also has a really helpful video on her blog over HERE. Such a great idea - one for next year as time just ain't on my side right now!

And finally, I just had to pick this fabulous card - made by Elizabeth. What I love so much about it is the fact that it's the negatives of the die cuts - a stunning result with the white against that pretty blue!

We had a total of 53 entries and no new Playmates joining in the fun. So, after watching numbers slide down, they're on the up again - even when we're all so busy.

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Woodware 'Huge Santa' stamp set and the unbranded 'Ho, ho, ho' stamp set is:

Helen

 

Well done Helen! I think it's a good while since you last won a prize so this is well overdue. Can you please drop me an email with your address and I'll post your prize off to you as soon as possible. My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Keep those snippets entries coming folks, you still have a week left to play HERE for weeks 311/312 remember! The prize is a Lil'Inker Designs 'Christmas Words Tree' die .

Love from the little white peril Parsnip (who is hopping up and down making lists, fretting and also whimpering now and then as he finalises things for Christmas). Do we really need me to make four dozen of my special sausage rolls I wonder? He's a little terror and ought to be locked up for December - I think! But I do love him to pieces of course :)

Happy 60th Birthday

A great friend, from my last job before retirement, went unexpectedly quiet when I asked in an email if she was 60 this year. I was sure it was her 50th 10 years ago and there's a lesson to be learned there - don't put your year of birth onto Facebook if you don't want little Miss Marple to go searching :)

It all then fell into place why she zoomed off on holiday with her husband to The Maldives for a couple of weeks or more - about a week after we returned from Portugal. What a lovely way to celebrate!

So, this card is a bit late but it will be waiting for her return - just before the big fat man in the red suit arrives:

I used:

- white DL card, tent style

- backing paper from a 12" x 12" Studio Calico 'Snippets' paper pad - sent to me by a lovely blogging friend a while ago. So many designs to choose from, in the end I plumped for some pretty stripes (my friend isn't really a pretty, pretty flowers person)

- I cut the backing paper to just slightly smaller than the card front and kept it to one side

- next cut a strip of white card to the same width as the patterned layer, leaving space to trim it down above and below

- then, using the Misti, I stamped the fabulous Woodware 'Numbers' using Memento 'London Fog' - used the main numbers stamp plus one of the sentiments (just to let her know I'd discovered she is indeed 60 - me very bad!)

- the sentiment fit perfectly sideways but I did trim the top and bottom to suit

- coloured the numbers using two Pro markers, picking out a subtle colours for the majority of the numbers and bright red for the 60 :)

- trimmed the sentiment strip along the top and bottom then glued it onto the striped backing panel and then added the whole piece to the card front

A quick card, especially so as I skipped any paper piecing.

One tip about lining up the already cut to size (from one side to the other at least) strip of white card in the Misti. I use a home printed acetate grid for perfect placement in a straight line but was struggling to make sure it was evenly spaced at both sides of the strip of card. Then I realised another great thing about the Misti - once the stamp was adhered in a straight line in relation to the bottom of the Misti, I just needed to move the piece of white card slightly from side to side until I was happy. Then pop the magnets in place, stamp, and it worked like a charm!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 311 and 312

This time in two weeks I can bet that many of us will be fluttering around in a bit of a last minute panic. The best philosophy is to do what you can, but don't make yourself ill in the process - mind you, I'm a fine one to talk!

And goodness knows how I found time to make not one but four snippets cards! Because of the design I chose to make, I was (ahem) forced to make four at once - you'll see why below:

I used:

- 5" x 5" white card blank

- a piece of 5" x 5" white card on which to assemble the die cuts - much easier to assemble and then die cut down to a smaller stitched square afterwards

- snippets of sticky backed glitter paper from the XCuts 'Darks' pack (red, purple, lime and turquoise)

- then die cut one complete Christmas tree from each snippet of glitter paper - apart from the star. I die cut all the stars from a snippet of bronze glitter paper from the XCuts 'Metallics' pack

- that gave me four Christmas tree die cuts in each colour and four stars all the same colour

- next I carefully snipped across the top of each 'Christmas' word and stuck it onto the white card square - leaving plenty of space for even die cutting later on

- did the same with the word 'Merry' in a different colour and popped it on top of the word 'Christmas' - thereby 're-assembling' the die cut but in different colours

- worked right to the top - making the four card fronts as I went then topped them with a bronze sparkly star

- ran each panel through the Cuttlebug using embossing plates and a large unopened embossing folder for pressure - this makes sure the letters are firmly stuck in place and (IMHO) often gives a more professional finish

- die cut the panels using a stitched square die sized 4" x 4" from The Works (you can't get those die sets for love nor money right now!). As I had plenty of 'wiggle room' I was able to position the tree centrally in the stitched square - so it paid off doing the sticking first!

- glued the Christmas Tree panels in place onto the card fronts, using a slightly smaller square of fun foam between the card and the front panel to add dimension

I wish I could recall where I spotted this idea of slicing across the Christmas tree die cuts and using a mix of different colours. If it was you please let me know and I'll update the post to give credit for a super idea!

I found it easy to stack the words on top of one another as they should be, but if you're unsure then just cut a template from plain card as a guide :) 

In real life the cards look so bright, cheerful and very sparkly - I'll be making more of these for sure, when time allows.

Our lovely Scrappy Mo, who runs the monthly 'Rudolph Days Challenge' has come up with a super little surprise over HERE. She's running an additional challenge which began on 1st December and if you entered every Rudolph Days challenge from January to November, you're eligible to link in! Yay! I'm not sure if you need to make a special something to enter or not but, in any case, my snippets cards above are Christmas ones and I entered every month. Sometimes it was a struggle but I did it :)

And, after not playing there for absolutely ages, I would like to enter Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 363 (where there's an option of 'Sparkle') as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for December.

Let's move onto this fortnight's prize:

Yup, it's a Lil'Inker Designs 'Christmas Words Tree' die of course. The light was just too bad here to take a photo of the packet without glare or total darkness, so this is copied from Lil'Inkers own website. Now you can see properly how the die looks. It's a lovely size at 3.5" square and can be used in one colour or very easily split up as I did. If you check on line by Googling the name of the die, you'll see that one colour looks really good (and a lot less work) - making it a really versatile die.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 23rd December. 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 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' just in case you're playing only for fun. Thanks!

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 :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the winner of last fortnight's prize which is a Woodware 'Huge Santa' stamp set as well as an unbranded 'Ho Ho Ho' stamp set and my picks from the past two weeks. I'm aware how busy everyone is so I haven't asked anyone to be a Guest Designer - but do take a look as I might just have some little pre-Christmas surprises to give away!

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,

Sympathy card

I needed a Sympathy card straight after holiday:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- piece of baby pink backing card just slightly smaller than the card front, glued in place

- piece of white card, cut just slightly smaller than the pink layer of card - but not yet glued onto the card front

- snippet/band of SU's 'Pear Pizzazz' card stuck across the white panel (using tape runner all over the area green card for a firm stick)

- then I used a Memory Box die called 'Geneva Vine' to die cut across the green panel, reserving two of the green pieces which fall out in the process

- backed the cut out aperture with medium strength double sided sticky sheet

- die cut the same 'Geneva Vine' from a snippet of dark green card and pressed that into the sticky backed aperture, also filled in the two spaces with the light green card

- at this point I added the sentiment using the Misti, SU's 'Old Olive' ink pad and a sentiment from the Stampendous 'Happy Messages' set

- die cut the same die shape from a snippet of the baby pink card and tickled each flower with a pale pink Zig watercolour brush whilst it was still in the die itself, just to add some deeper pink to the flowers for definition

- snipped each flower from the die cut and glued them in place using a glue pen

- glued the whole front panel onto the pink backing panel (which was already on the card front)

What's different about using the die as I did is that the green single layer die cut piece sits quite embedded, as the backing is cut two layers deep. Then, adding the flowers on top, brings them level with the backing layer. A little point but in real life it certainly adds some dimension.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 307 and 308 - results

Little Parsnip has been in charge for a week whilst we had a pre-Christmas break in Portugal ☺ Home again now and it was a nice way to ward off our UK Winter for just a little bit longer ..... which seems to have arrived whilst we were away.

And here's our Guest Designer for this fortnight:

It's Shaz from Oz - yay! And this card is absolutely amazing, wonderful use of snippets and just perfect for Christmas. And, the backing started off life as a part of a cereal box! To find out more do hop over to Shaz's blog HERE and all will be revealed. Meanwhile, here's a little more about Shaz herself:

First of all, I want to thank Miss Di (and Parsnip) for the hard work in running this challenge each fortnight, my favourite challenge if truth be known! And thanks for the great honour of being your GD too!!

To my background ... I have been doing Calligraphy since early teens, and card making for many years as well, earliest card from kindergarten, age 5!

In 1990 I discovered in the joys of inky stamping and heat embossing (which will always be my first love :D). In 2009 I progressed to the brayer, 2010 the Cuttlebug, and started blogging also in Nov. 2010.

I live on the magnificent beachy coast of northern NSW, Australia. I am a Christian, I trusted in the LORD down here at the beach. It was over 50 years ago, after a Beach Mission Service, it is only five mins walk from where I now live!

I simply love using snippets and exploring new ways of using them... just with this snippetty card I made a grand discovery! A cereal box makes the most amazing water colour paper! Take a peek here! What fun!

And, instead of a photo of Shaz, we have the beautiful header from her blog which is a gorgeous example of her calligraphy work.

Thank you so much for being our GD this fortnight Shaz and for being such a loyal Playmate as well.

Time for the fortnightly picks now:

Heather nipped in with a perfect way to use up loads of snippets and end up with a brilliant, elegant and very sparkly Christmas card - love it!

And Jules of 'Always with a Heart' brought a selection of her delightful 'teeny tiny' Christmas cards to share with us. I just love this sweet little robin (am almost sure it's Penny Black) and the tartan/plaid backing paper is such a lovely match to the image.

We had a total of 43 entries and no new Playmates joining in the fun - but those of you who came to play brought some wonderful makes as usual!

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Sugar Pea 'Nativity-Scape' die and the Paper Smooches 'Christmas Sampler' set of sentiment stamps:

 Nana Connie

I was so happy to see Connie's name pop out - she normally plays just for fun but this time was hoping to be in with a chance of winning - and her name came straight out. Do hop over and check out her snippets entry too - it was on my short list as a potential pick this fortnight. Can you please drop me an email with your address Connie and then I'll post your prize off to you as soon as possible. My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Keep those snippets entries coming folks, you still have a week left to play HERE for weeks 309/310 remember! The prize is a Woodware 'Huge Santa' stamp set along with an unbranded 'Ho, ho, ho' stamp set. I will split the prize if you only want to play for part of it.

Love from the little white peril Parsnip - and of course me,

Pre-loved stamps

I recently sold quite lot of my Stampin' Up stamps on Facebook - but (sigh) along the way I did give into temptation and buy some pre-loved ones. I did give each one serious thought and a lot more left the building than arrived here.

One of the stamp sets (I think it's about four years ago it came out?) just screamed to be used for a lovely blogging friend's Birthday a couple of weeks ago:

I used:

- A6 card blank, using SU's 'Pear Pizzazz' card stock

- the white layer was made using a piece of Strathmore Mixed MediaVellum surface 300gsm paper, with a rectangular aperture mask taped over the front. I used a Lil' Inkers Stitched Rectangle die to cut the aperture piece from a snippet of white card - and kept the stitched centre for future use as I was only using the outer part for now

- once the mask was taped in place, I just swiped and gently rubbed in two Tim Holtz Distress Oxide colours (Peeled Paint and Worn Lipstick') using a rounded cone/pear shaped makeup sponge

- removed the mask and then stamped the flower in place using a stamp from the SU 'Simply Sketched' set and Ranger 'Archival Black' ink

- at the same time I used another stamp from the same set to stamp the sentiment with the same black ink

- used an Olive Green Whispers marker for the stems as it has a really fine tip at one end

- then coloured the flower and bud using Ziggies and a waterbrush

- glued the panel to the card front and ran off to the Post Office - just in time!

One point, the set was unused, but wood mounted. So my SU Stamp-a-ma-jig was a real 'must' when positioning the flower and sentiment - never get rid of things like that even when there are Misti's to be had. Certainly not if you have lots of wood mounted stamps as I do - and I ain't about to even think about removing them from the wooden blocks.

I've done similar things with die cut apertures as a mask before and really should knuckle down and get more practice as it's such fun.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 309 and 310

Oh good grief, one month today Christmas Day will have been and gone. Mind you, I love the days following Christmas when there are plenty of leftovers to nibble at, repeats galore on TV (not so exciting) and finally we can relax.

Remember, from yesterday it's 'Rudolph Days' challenge over at ScrappyMo's, so this is my entry for November. You have until the end of the month to join in - loads of us from the Playground play over there so you'll find quite a few familiar friends.

My card today was such fun to make and used up lots of little LOTV snippets:

I used:

- A6 white card blank, tent style

- a piece of plain 'Kraft' paper from the LOTV paper pad called 'Krafty Christmas' as a backing for the white layer, cut slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place. Then set the card aside whilst I worked on the image layer

- piece of white card for the image and sentiment, cut slightly smaller than the Kraft layer

- using the Misti I stamped the image using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the main stamp from Woodware's 'Huge Santa' stamp set

- I left the Santa stamp in place and stamped once again, onto plain white paper this time and I'll explain why in the next step

- now I had the stamp still sitting on the lid as well as a stamped image held in place in the base of the Misti. This meant I could position my little snippets for the individual letters easily, one at a time and making sure that each letter in turn on that piece of white paper I just stamped on was completely covered 

- at this point I stamped the sentiment 'Ho Ho Ho' using the Misti again. It's always good to do as much stamping as possible before adding a lot of work (paper piecing in this case) to a card that might be ruined if you have a 'mis-stamp'

- btw I stamped the 'Ho Ho Ho' sentiment onto the image panel using the same ink pad and an unbranded stamp bought from eBay (more about the lovely seller below folks!). The sentiment comes with twirls at either end but I masked them off so the 'Ho's' would fit

- now I had the five letters ready to fussy cut - they all came from the LOTV 'Krafty Christmas' pad (stored in the back of the pad in an envelope 'pocket'). The hat was from a little snippet of red paper tucked away in the back of LOTV's 'Merry and Bright' paper pad and the fur trim and pom pom were stamped onto white card

- fussy cut all the pieces and have two little tips. I used a small SU round punch to punch out the white pom pom and also used the same punch to cut the pom pom away from the bottom of the hat on the snippet of red paper so the curves would match up

- the other tip is something I learned a good while ago through trial and error. See the centre of those 'a's'? It's so much easier to use a small hole punch (1/8th") to punch out the centre and then cut the rest away - in fact I also did that where the letter 'a's' curled over. Much easier for access and certainly less likely to fail than using a poky tool to start it off

- then ran a black Whispers brush ended marker round all the fussy cut letters - it adds definition, hides the white edges of the paper ......... and also disguises where you may have trimmed too much off 😉

- glued all the letters in place followed by the hat and trimmings - using a Zig glue pen and (as always) putting the glue onto the stamped letters on the white card - not onto the fussy cut letters (a really handy tip I picked up from Jules)

- lastly, added a coating of clear Wink of Stella for a little bit of sparkle to the hat trimming and pom pom

One final tip about these Woodware huge letter stamps is, if you're paper piecing them (although coloured markers would be fun, as well as easier), lay the papers you want to use side by side and shuffle them round to get as best a balance as possible. And if you forget how the letters are 'stacked' then either check back here or Google for an image - they're placed in the following order on my card: S,first a, t, n and the last a - then the hat finished off with the trim and pom pom.

And here's some low-down on the 'Ho Ho Ho' set of stamps. All my 'Ho' stamps were quite small (in fact the Woodware stamp set comes with a little 'triple Ho' which I've used separately elsewhere). But - I wanted a 'triple Ho' as more of a statement and after Googling I found a lovely set of stamps on eBay. The seller (a lady called Liz who is here in the UK) is a delight to deal with, super fast service and she has a lovely selection of goodies in her eBay shop - which is HERE. 

Let's move onto this fortnight's prize:

Yup, it's a Woodware 'Huge Santa' stamp set as well as an unbranded 'Ho Ho Ho' stamp set (I was so pleased with the sentiment being bolder and bigger than others I've seen that I had to run back and buy a set for the Playground).

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 9th December. 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. As I already said, the prize is as above and I will happily split the stamps sets, in which case I'd do further draws for the other item. 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 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' just in case you're playing only for fun. Thanks!

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 :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the winner of last fortnight's prize which is a Sugar Peas 'Nativity-Scape' die and a Paper Smooches 'Christmas Sampler' set of sentiment stamps, another lovely Guest Designer and my picks from the past two weeks.

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,