Happy Birthday Len!

It's Len's Birthday tomorrow and I know he doesn't peek at the blog so it's safe to post the card I made for him on here. Just watch, he'll now decide to take a look!

Anyhow, here it is:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- piece of SU's 'Chocolate Chip' card stock, trimmed slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- an embossed panel of white card, kindly sent to me by a lovely buddy after I'd admired it on her blog - the folder is by Crafts-Too. I trimmed it down and glued it in place. My card's layout is not dissimilar to my lovely buddy's either

- added a piece of patterned paper from a LOTV paper pad called 'On A High Note' to the other side of the card front - I love the almost hidden words which say 'You're the song in my heart' :)

- stamped the sentiment using Brilliance 'Pearlescent Chocolate' ink and a pre-loved 'no name' wood mounted stamp, trimmed it and glued in place

- the guitar image was also sent to me by the same buddy - it's stamped using a Leane Creatif 'Doodle Guitar' stamp

- I coloured the image using Pro markers to tone with the patterned paper (as best I could!), fussy cut right round it and ran a black Whispers marker right round the edges

- then gave most of the guitar a coating of Glossy Accents and left it for ages to dry

- once dry I stuck the guitar onto the card front using red line tape

- then just added the little gold tuning pegs using some flat gold gems and then finished off with LEN spelled out in tiny little gold peel offs

Len  was in a group many moons ago and he personalised his guitar at the time very much the same with LEN, so I think that touch will make him smile :)

Merry Monday #217 - Retro/Vintage

The current challenge over at Merry Monday is 'Retro/Vintage'. Sorry, yet another Christmas card! Mr Mojo went for a walk so am trying to just plod on as best as possible and the one thing I never tire of is making Christmas cards.

Not being being able to sit for too long I didn't really want to make a Vintage card for Merry Monday, with all the extras that might entail as I always think of Vintage as needing 'frou frous' and such :)

So I went for a Retro look instead - I love the mix of the skyscrapers and the old fashioned street lamp - a bit like leaving Central Park in New York:

 I used:

- A6 black card blank (to pick out the black in the image I used). The black card was bought at Coventry (with loads of other packs of colours!) and is really sturdy stuff. Sadly only available at shows right now, sigh

- snippet of SU's 'More Mustard' card stock as the next layer, topped with a layer of very, very slightly patterned cream paper from the First Edition 'Gilded Winter' paper pad - again to pick out colours in the image

- the image is a Penny Black Stickeroo from their 'Serene Season' sheet. I'd already seen this image glaring at me for months and kept dismissing it - how blinkered! Mounted the image onto white card first to hand trim it as (unusually, as PB are so tiptop in their products) there was a very narrow white border at the bottom edge. Trimmed that down then mounted it onto a piece of SU's 'More Mustard card

- glued the mounted image in place on the card front, with equal borders top and both sides

- final stage, it used to be risky but not with the Misti! Hey, I just came up with a new slogan!! I just copyrighted it as well so hands off!! I stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Inkylicious 'Seasons Greetings' stamp set - LOVE this stamp set

And, another one for the box!

I keep saying this, but my advice is to never, ever try and stick a Stickeroo straight onto a card blank- always mount it first onto card and then trim it - trust me, I learned the hard way a long time ago.

I know exactly who this card will be sent to. A friend just celebrated a special Birthday and she went, plus husband and family, on a trip to New York. Just like I was on my first trip to the Big Apple, she was totally blown away by the sheer enormity, height, buzz etc. of NY and I think she'll like this card :)

 

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #302 - turquoise/aqua ... a little or a lot

First of all - am still playing catch up here and will be round to comment on Playground entries 'toot sweet'! Still not made Len's Birthday card either, sigh.

Broke open a couple of new purchases from the Coventry trip (meeting up with Kim) for today's card:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, tent style

- an image from the Hunkydory Little Book of 'Sparkling Season' toppers, ever so slightly trimmed

- mounted the image onto a piece of deep red silk/satin mirri card, cut just slightly larger than the image

- next stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from Phill Martin's 'Scribbled Christmas Sentiment Corners'

- finally, glued the image panel in place and called it done

And of course, the Christmas corner sentiments were a 'must have' as I love my Phill Martin 'Everyday' ones so much! It might be just my view but I do think these sentiments work best on very simple cards and seem to just 'lift' the card to another level. 

I'd like to enter this into Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #302 as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for October.

And I made three the same - hooray for the Misti!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 250

Hi there! Just LOOK, we're at Week 250 of the Snippets Playground!

Autumn is really setting in now here, and of course the nights are drawing in as well. Soon be time for the hedgie family to hibernate. We have between four and six of them coming to feed each night so I hope they do decide to go to sleep and give Len a break from all the work feeding them - and clearing up their mess!

I think last weekend was good for the soul but not the back! And this is a bumper post so I'd best crack straight on. You might want to get a hot drink to keep you company!

Here's my snippets card for this week - not easy to photograph so I hope you get the general idea. I used exactly the same card stock for the entire body of the card but Autumn shadows don't help - I need a light box!

I used:

- SU's 'Perfect Plum' card stock, which I die cut into three peces to make an accordian fold card, using the Elizabeth Craft Designs 'Accordion Fancy Label' die - designed by Karen Burniston

- then I attached the three parts together to make the main accordian part of the card, then trimmed off the extra tags and joining strip at the right hand end

- used snippets of lilac pearlescent card for three shaped panels, again using the same die set, and glued them in place

- stamped two horses onto snippets of white card stock using VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and stamps from an Inkadinkado set called 'Horses' (Mia is crazy about horses and horse riding!)

- die cut the images using a smaller shaped die from the same set and glued them in place

- stamped 'Happy Birthday' using VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and a LOTV stamp from their 'General Greetings - Small' set

- die cut the panel and glued it in place

- then added Mia's name (Len's eldest Grand daughter) using number and letters dies cut from teeny snippets of lilac pearlescent card

- added a white die cut panel to the back of the centre panel for our handwritten message

- and only then was it time to attach the tabs to the back of two of the panels to make the accordian mechanism work

This card is winging its way to Germany and I'm hoping that Mia's Mama doesn't peek at the blog meanwhile! I wanted to use this die set as it's Week 250 and time for a special prize :) It was great fun to make too. One really big tip is to use thicker card for the 'base' than I did though - something like 270 or 300 gsm will be more rigid.

It shook me was when I realised that Mia is almost 9! And her younger sister is soon to be 7 - how did that happen?!
 
Time for a peek at Week 248's picks, as chosen by the lovely Jane and with her comments word for word as well:

Ruth A – really love this one (and not just because I’m so bad at making shaker cards). Lots of lovely elements inside the shaker, all those portholes, the slider and the sentiment all add up to a really special card.

Sonia – just amazing, as Sonia’s work always is! Masses of lovely detail.

Barb – wonderful technique and fab choice of images and papers to set it off – and of course great use of snippets.

Liv (Swissie) – absolutely gorgeous. The music and flowers are a fab use of snippets.

Meg – gorgeous card, lovely colouring, great way to clear the white snippet mountain and I’m going to have to CASE it!

Heather – lots of different papers used beautifully together, and great paper piecing.

Lucy – a beautiful card and a clever, inventive design.

Lia – fab die cut scene and embossed background, perfect for snippets and extra brownie points for writing her post in three languages.

Jackie T – just adorable, loved the image, the leaves and the washi tape frame.

I find Jane's choices absolutely fascinating. I didn't stay away from the Playground all week and of course I think (hope) I follow all of you so I did see your makes pop up on my dashboard even though there was no time to always comment. And, I would have made exactly the same choices as Jane! I've found this with Sarn and Eve when they helped out previously - on a couple of occasions I even quickly made a list of my own along the way just to check I wasn't just being influenced by their end choices! It's marvellous just how closely we all think!

It has been easier writing up the picks that Jane gave me a week later as I could 'pace it' over the week but I do like to try to keep the Playground as 'dynamic' as possible - so here now are my own picks for Week 249, which just closed. My comments will be quite brief as I really can't sit at the desk for very long:

A perfect and very elegant white on white card, made by Alison.

Sharon brought this great Halloween card to share with us - love it!

What a fun Wedding card, made by Erika! So personal as well - the Wedding was somewhere tropical and the groom had to be wearing a kilt :)

Love this fun card, made by Eemeli - really made me chuckle!

What a little darling - and so beautifully coloured too - made by Francesca!

Pat used a wonderful magazine freebie EF and stamps kit to create this beautiful humming bird card - those embossed leaves are so perfectly coloured as well!

Something different, still using snippets, an Autumn jar - made by Janis, so beautiful!

An amazing journal, made by Jenny H. So much work and detail went into making this - fabulous!

This card, made by Mo, sums up the seashore perfectly! I really love it - gotta giggle at those birdie legs ..... like bent toothpicks :)

And last, but never least:

A stunning Autumn card, made by Chris - who inlaid all those beautifully coloured leaves. Fabulous idea and perfect for any occasion!

Please don't be in any way downhearted if you're not a 'pick' - every single entry is wonderful and deserves to be seen. That's why I really do encourage you to visit one another - even if it's in 'slow time' just when you want a browse. I never delete the closed Mr Linkys so you can always look at past weeks - and I do try hard to make sure everyone gets a turn at being in the weekly picks.

We had no new Playmates last week or the previous week! But, it's still been very busy in the Playground! 53 entries in Week 248 and 62 in Week 249.

And it's prize draw time, for the prizes from both weeks. First of all, Week 248 which was the lovely set of Poppy Stamps 'Love Never Melts' stamps and dies, kindly donated by Megan:

Val (Aquarius)

And now for Week 249 - and we have a split prize for once!

Heather (Mills)

Heather was only playing for the Joy Crafts 'Vintage Flourishes - Butterfly' die so I ran the Random number thingy again, and out popped:

Liv (Swissie)

 

And Liv wins the rest of the prize - which is the Marianne 'Doily Star' die set and the La-La Land 'Filigree Corner' die!
 

Congratulations to all three of you girlies! Can you please all drop me emails with your addresses in and I'll post your prizes off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Here's this coming week's prize(s) - three prizes, to celebrate 250 weeks since I took over the Playground from Jules:

The First prize (prize A) is of course the  Elizabeth Craft Designs 'Accordion Fancy Label' die set - exactly the same as the set I used for my card today. The overall size of each panel is just under 5" square BTW:

Then there are two runner up prizes, first of all a bumper pack of Hunkydory 'Little Dudes & Perfect Princesses' toppers (144 images in total - 6 x 24 different ones!). This is Prize B for reference and was kindly donated by Kim after our weekend of frolics.

The toppers are  6" x 4" and are a great selection for kiddies cards especially - although some are suitable for teens and cute cards as well. I personally think the whole range of Hunkydory pads will fit nicely into the niche left by LOTV when they discontinued theirs - albeit not printed on card but I always 'frame' toppers like these on a slightly larger piece of card anyhow and you get so many for your money!

And the other runner up prize, C for reference,given to me as a prize is a lovely Crafts-Too embossing folder (CTFD3108) which is almost 6" square - not a size you often find and so useful! The pattern is modern roses and really pretty, so much so that I've ordered the same one for myself now! Lovely for all sorts of occasions I told myself, sigh - as if I didn't buy enough last weekend :(

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 15th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of one of the prizes. Just say which ones you're interested in (A, B and or C) - or ALL if you want to be in with a chance for each one. I will keep the three prizes separate so will be doing three draws to spread the love a bit further! Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

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 :)

Have a lovely week!

Hugs from Parsnip (still in a strop 'cos he didn't get to go to the craft weekend!) - and of course hugs from me too (not in a strop but moving around rather carefully!).

Coventry Capers!

I know a few of you are quite curious about the escapades of Kim, ValeryAnne and myself in Coventry - as well as more about what we made. Here goes!

First of all, Kim travelled up by rail and - as usual - I drove Miss Daisy up on Thursday afternoon. We'd booked different hotels (Premier Inns) so the first evening saw ValeryAnne and I scoffing in a very nice restaurant next door to where we were staying - and Kim, wisely, opting for a nice bath and an early night in her hotel!

Friday dawned bright and sunny and off we trotted to the venue by taxi, hauling our bags of 'required tools' for the workshops. Ha, quite a few of those weren't actually even needed - but hey, ho! Met up with Kim at around 9am and did four workshops over the day, with a break in the middle for the included lunch.

First workshop was to make this double sided caddy:

Looks pretty innocuous I know, but we started out with a piece of material, scissors, book binding glue and 14 pre-cut thick cardboard shapes to cover and glue together. I don't think any of us actually finished the project before it was time to move onto the next workshop.

The next workshop was the box/easel card I showed HERE the other day - again, a real rush and I finished it off at home. Made some boo-boos in the rush of the class but those are all fixed now.

Break for lunch - and a much needed respite from the pressure.

After lunch it was covering MDF pieces to make a jigsaw 'frame' and I enjoyed that very much. It was a bit messy but the plus was that there was a good selection of products to play with - so long as you trotted round the room and found out who was playing with what! Need to do more work on that so for now it's 'under wraps'.

And the final session was using Powertex (which is best described here as thin moulding custard really!)- yay! General opinion is that it was the best of all the workshops, not too rushed, plenty of helpers and we each came away with a piece of finished work. We all made a small 4" x 4" canvas using Powertex, bit and pieces such as hessian, snippets of ric rac, slivers of shaped card, little torn pieces of corrugated cardboard - and even a wooden toothpick! After moulding the bits and bobs onto the canvas- Kim had thought ahead and brought some paper clay moulded bits so I have a butterfly as well as an almost hidden face (top left) - they were then sprayed with colour and dried with hair driers by the helpers. Final touch was to add some coppery highlights using a sort of mica powder with a drop of varnish to mix it up.

And this is the result:

Shame the coppery highlights don't show up so well in the photo. This is destined to go in the centre of the jigsaw frame instead of the small mirror we were given - hence the need for some more work on the frame just to gently tie the colours together a little bit more.

When the day finished the three of us piled into a taxi and just spent the evening having an M&S picnic with some vino in my room.

Loads of things happened that had us rolling round in near hysterics over the weekend. I managed to lose that caddy TWICE, but still ended up bringing it home, sigh.

After Saturday's adventures around the stalls we bade farewell to Kim and headed back to the car to do the whole palaver in reverse - only this time loaded down with shopping of course. Got all the way back to the hotel and realised I'd only left the caddy in a bag in left luggage (long story, Kim and I got ours mixed up the previous day and had done a swop back on Saturday morning!). So back we went yet again - but this time I shot us through the main gate so at least it was a quick round trip!

On Sunday we played safe and once again left the car at the hotel after loading it with all our stuff ready for the drive home. And guess what? Sunday is actually a much quieter day and folk were parked on the main site on hard standing!

The highlight of the day was meeting Barb from the Snippets Playground, and her lovely friend Wendy. What a delight that was and Barb is absolutely as you'd expect her to be - warm, very sweet and up for lots of excited hugs too!

So that's it in a nutshell - I've had to leave a lot out but it was a real blast from start to finish!

My big regret is forgetting to take any photos while we were with Barb! All the more reason to meet up again though.

But, I did at least remember to take a photo of my 'partners in crime' - so I'll let them have the last word!

Kim and ValeryAnne:

You'll just have to believe I was actually there :)

In fact, there are some photos of all three of us on the GBCF website now, beavering away with Powertex but am not sure about copyright. That's MY excuse anyhow.

Phew - what a saga!

Well, that was quite an exciting few days away for sure! It's Tuesday as I'm typing this and am still recovering. At some point I'll write up the saga but right now am chasing my tail trying to begin commenting on this week's Playground entries! Please bear with me.

Len's Birthday is coming up in about 10 days time so I need to make his card plus a few other special ones in good time - as well as playing catch up, things have crept up on me a bit!

Meanwhile, I'll show just one thing we made in one of the four workshops last Friday:

The workshop was a Hunkydory one where we started off with a kit called 'A House for Flowers' and it's an easel box card - which I had to finish off at home. It was the least messy of all the workshops, loads of measuring, cutting and taping though - just my kind of crafting!

Also made a craft caddy which I finished off today - had to do it else it would never have been done! That was a tale in itself and it's already a white elephant here I'm afraid, sigh.

And, if you've never played with Powertex then you really are missing a treat. Great fun, very messy and the results are fabulous! Got you wondering now?! Watch this space :)

Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - 'Thanks or Thank you'

I'm home again but spent all day yesterday sorting out the craft room and finding homes for all those new supplies that 'one cannot possibly do without'! We had a really great few days away and needless to say it wasn't without a few incidents! And a LOT of laughter.

I'll be round to see all your Playground entries as soon as possible and would like to also send another huge 'Thank You' to Jane for looking after things so well last week.

Time for another Cuttlebug Mania Challenge and the theme this time is 'Thanks or Thank you'. Very appropriate!!

You do have to use a manual die cutting/embossing machine for Cuttlebug Mania entries (it doesn't need to be a Cuttlebug but it must be manual, not electronic). And, you can't mix the two, it must be all manual please. Then make your entry, link into the challenge, link to the challenge in your own blog post and and make sure that you also say what products you used for any die cutting/embossing.

Details of our sponsor can be found over on the Cuttlebug Mania Challenge blog.

This is my DT card:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, tent style

- next I used a Frantic Stamper 'Thanks Card Band' die to cut out the word 'Thanks'. What's great about this die is that the word mostly is cut away but the card remains attached at the top and bottom of the letters - really neat

- then covered the top and bottom sections of the card blank with patterned card fromthe lovely DCWV paper stack called 'Quince Blossom' that I won a while ago I deliberately left a white border round both the pieces of DP

- then I backed the cutaway 'Thanks' with a snippet of black card - just glued at the top and bottom behind the word.

- then backed the inside of the card front with a full sized panel of white card to hide the band of black

- the top panel looked too bare but I still wanted to keep it quite fresh and simple so I stamped LOTV's Just to say....' (from their General Greetings - Small' set onto a snippet of black card using VersaMark and then embossed it using white Stamp n Stuff embossing powder 

- then die cut the sentiment panel using a Spellbinders Oval die and ran a ball tool round the inside of the die before removing the piece of card

- using a snippet of leftover white card then drew round the outside of the die with a pencil, then cut round the shape and rubbed out any pencil marks before gluing both pieces together. I use this trick loads as it does give a smaller border than going up to the next size of die

- glued the sentiment panel in place and there was just something lacking so I rescued a snippet of the patterned paper and cut out a single flower and glued that in place. Aaah, that's better :)

We'd love to see you over at Cuttlebug Mania and the challenge runs for two weeks.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 249

Right now I'm still 'missing in action' and I hope you had a great week playing along without me. I left you in Jane's capable hands - and the little white bear was under strict orders to keep his little sticky beak to himself!

This is just a short post to add a fresh Mr Linky for the coming week and also to let you know what the prize is of course!

First of all, here's my snippets card: 

I used:

- 5" x 5" white card blank

- a snippet of white Centura Pearl card stock, trimmed just slightly smaller than the card base and  glued in place

- a little snippet of really pretty card, left over from a Wedding card I made years ago, it's a slightly glossy background with lovely 'encapsulated' sparkly swirls all over. Trimmed to just slightly smaller than the Centura layer of card and glued in place

- more white Centura Pearl card snippets which I die cut using the following dies: Marianne 'Doily Star' die set, La-La Land 'Filigree Corner' die and Joy Crafts 'Vintage Flourishes - Butterfly' die

- then glued the elements in place on top of the sparkly layer of card - using Collall All Purpose glue in a Woodware fine line bottle

- final touch - white MeiFlower pearls in each corner and around the doily die plus a little strand of graduated pearls, which I snipped from a Prima flourish, down the butterfly's body

The prize draw for the Poppy Stamps 'Love Never melts' stamps and dies sets will take place once I'm settled back home and will be published next week (Week 250).

Here's this coming week's prize:

I had to 'borrow' this image as the butterfly die hadn't arrived here when I did this post, but it's safely here and waiting to be won!

 

 

 

There are three items, the Marianne 'Doily Star' die set, the La-La Land 'Filigree Corner' die and the Joy Crafts 'Vintage Flourishes - Butterfly' die - all the same as I used on my snippets card. The Marianne 'Doily Star' die would look fabulous on Christmas cards I think! in fact, you could make a card very similar to this on and add a sentiment in the centre instead of the butterfly.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 8th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize, or if you'd only like to play for one or more of the dies. I'm happy to split them and do further draws if you win and only want one or two items. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

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 :)

Have a lovely week! Big hug from Parsnip, and of course me!

And huge thanks again to Jane for looking after the Playground - I owe you chocolate next time we meet :)

Bee 'fly past'

I had under half an hour spare the other afternoon and managed another really quick card - inspired by a little stamp that is so cute. It sits on a shelf within my line of sight in the craft room.

This is the end result:

I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of yellow card - my swatch shows it as SU's 'Daffodil Delight', with just a tiny bit trimmed off to be slightly smaller than the card front, then glued in place

- piece of white card stock, trimmed to an eighth of an inch smaller all round than the yellow layer of card and each of two opposite corners then die cut using a 'honeycomb' die from the Memory Box 'Distressed Baptisia Collage' die set. Had backed the piece of card using Stick-It, knowing it would be very tricky to use glue without risking overspill into the 'honeycombs'

- stamped the sentiment first, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a discontinued Elzybells sentiment

- then stamped two (and a bit) bees using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and Penny Black's 'honey!!' stamp

- coloured the bees with a couple of yellow Pro markers and added some clear Wink of Stella to the wings - done!

Bad girl - I've had that set of 'Distressed Baptisia Collage' dies for over six months now, and this is only the second time I've used it, two still haven't even had contact with card yet.

Today is the day of the 'big craft mess' up in Coventry - wish us luck!