Allsorts Challenge - Weeks 476/477 - Flowers all over

The current challenge over at Allsorts (one of my very favourite challenges) is 'Flowers all over' - and it's running for two weeks this time round.

I had a NBUS stamp bought some while ago - and this was the perfect opportunity:

I used:

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

- very slightly smaller snippet of mid-olive green card to form a frame for the image

- piece of white card stock onto which I stamped the image using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a Taylored Expressions stamp called 'Bloomin' Background'. I used the Misti but in truth the panel stamped beautifully first time - possibly as it's red rubber mounted onto clingy foam, and I used a fresh ink pad as well

- then stamped the sentiment, using the same black ink and a stamp from the Penny Black 'Special Thoughts' set. The beauty of this image panel is that it comes with the plain oval, edged with a stitched effect - all ready for your own sentiment

- and now it was time to sit and do some colouring. I used Pro markers and followed the colours shown on the stamp packet image for this first play

- time to assemble the card - which involved a bit of careful trimming. The image panel is actually 5.75" x 4.5", so you can just trim it down on all sides to suit your needs

- then glued the green panel onto the card front, followed by the image panel (which I'd backed with fun foam for some dimension)

- final touch, three self-adhesive red pearls - which I darkened to match using the same deep red pen as I used when colouring the image

One card, all ready for the challenge. I just love this stamp! And I think the sentiment is so appropriate for the lovely Brenda who tirelessly runs more than just the Allsorts challenge - along with her talented DT of course.

I took the photo of the card lying on the desk (the card, not me!) but even so, the narrow green 'frame' layer still sort of disappears at the bottom - trust me, it's even, all the way round!

I'll be honest and say that right now crafting is a bit of a struggle for me - my heart just isn't in it like it used to be. Hopefully that will change toot sweet and I'll be firing on all cylinders again. The Playground is safe, as well as top priority, and if I manage to do more than that then it's a bonus right now.

Maybe I need to just stamp out a few images and spend time colouring them :) OR, do a bit more of something different, using my own duplicate of the next Playground prize - taps nose and winks knowingly. Come back on Sunday and all will be revealed, snigger.

.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge # 329 - results

Having struggled to do much blogging all week, now it's a rush on Saturday to write this post so please bear with me if it's a bit of a gallop!

First of all, we agreed that for now we'd skip the Guest Designer slot on the results post - but I'm already making an exception! We recently spent some time in Southern Germany visiting our little grand daughters and family. We had a great time and the weather was glorious - hot, but not as stifling as we've been having here in the UK. We had a fabulous family BBQ, a trip down to Lake Constance for a lovely evening meal, some (not me!) mowed a lot of grass and we also just relaxed, with this lovely view:

 

And we crafted! Not quite so relaxing :)

We took an extra wheelie case on the plane (thank goodness for generous allowances) - packed full of craft stuff and gifts for the little ones. So hard to think what would be best to start kiddies off on their crafting journey but they (aged 10 and 8) were desperate to have a go at card making. So I dug out loads of card blanks, plain card ready cut for stamping, stickers, rub-ons, an assortment of stamps, little pointed scissors for trimming images, some templates to draw around, my old Fiskars stamping platform with the sponge feet, ordinary perspex stamping blocks, small tape runners, DST and sticky pads etc. plus new coloured markers and pencils for both the girls. And of course a couple of black ink pads. That was one thing I got absolutely right, I wanted to take Memento 'Tuxedo Black' pads and at the last minute bought some of the small 'tear drop' shaped ones instead of the normal large sized pads. MUCH easier for little hands to cope with - as well as less chance of ink everywhere!

Anyhow, here's some shots of them working away:

Mia - colouring an image

Livi (Olivia) seeing just how many stamps she can fit onto a card front :)

This cracked me up - the girls were fascinated to hear about the Playground and to learn about using snippets. Whilst I was taking a break in the sun, Len suggested to Livi that she could use their fancy edged scissors and make a snippets card. This was the result - one brand new packet of their own coloured lightweight card, with a strip carefully cut from each differently coloured sheet - which made them snippets! Great logic there kid :)

And at the same time, Mia went for more a delicate look, being two years older. This was a gold peel off sticker which she popped onto white card and coloured using her new marker pens. Then, having seen me do it with something else, she carefully trimmed around the outline without any prompting and mounted it onto a blue background (snippet) which she made by drawing around the outer scalloped edge of a Fiskars template I'd taken for them - and even got those corners just right when the template was about 13" x 9" in size!

So never underestimate what kiddies will come up with - and both those cards were made whilst I was outside chatting to their Mama.

The question that really rocked me came from Livi. She'd stamped a cute little penguin then came to me and asked how she could stamp the penguin again, but this time the other way around so it would be two penguins facing one another. 'There must be a way' she said, 'and I bet you know'. Of course she was thinking of 'mirror image stamping' - and luckily I could show her a rough and ready way to do it using a perspex block to pick up the inked image from the stamp and then transferring it onto her card. Amazing though - it's not that long ago that I revisited the technique and did it properly on the blog! And here was a little girl just beginning to try stamping coming up with the idea, phew.

Anyhow, we do have more photos - but most importantly a lot of happy memories of precious time spent together :) I always say, it's quality and not necessarily quantity - which is just as well given they don't exactly live a stone's throw away.

Let's do a very quick scamper around my picks for this fortnight, no particular theme - just entries which caught my eye:

First of all a *Gold Star* to a lovely blogging friend who came up with this amazing exploding box:

Yup, Mrs A has been busy again! This is utterly gorgeous and so deserving of a Gold Star - make sure you hop over to Mrs A's blog and see it unfolded in all its glory - the centre piece is amazing (tons of snippets used. Our Kathleen commented that she awarded this 'make of the week' - and how right she is!

Please take your gold star from the RH side bar Mrs A - and well done!

Sharon F makes some beautiful cards, using up loads of snippets. This one really caught my eye - see the Tim Holtz 'pen nib' which forms the body of the butterfly? What a lovely finishing touch!

Oh how this card made me smile! Carol L brought it to share and I just love those reindeer - especially Rudolph with that sparkly red nose and cheesy grin! Great use of snippets and super colour combination too.

 

What a fabulous idea this is - and it was Nicky who scampered in waving this great card to show us. Anyone with a Scan and Cut machine OR a set of quite chunky alphabet dies can make this card! I have some similar dies and will certainly be trying this one - so clever to just butt up the letters at the bottom of matching coloured strips. Love it - and perfect use of snippets of course.

And here's one new Playmate:

Diny

Do please hop over to say 'Hello' to Diny!

So it was one new Playmate this time round and we had really great total of 58 entries - I think the prize was a real attraction to many, as well as the fun of the Playground.

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Sizzix 'Flowers #6' stamp and die set (thanks again Viv!), a Memory Box 'Sketchbook Imagine' die and the sweet little set of four hearts dies is:

Janice

Well done to Janice, it's a while since her last win and then it was just a sand eraser when I offered 20 or so of them, if my records are right :)

Do please send me your address Janice, with full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste - for speed and ease. I don't keep addresses of previous winners, even if they might be in my private address list - if that makes sense! I'll be off to the Post Office once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #330 - just check back a bit and you'll easily find it. The prize is an Art Impression 'Doggy Kisses' stamp set.

Hope you have a lovely week ahead, and that you come and play - if you haven't done so already!

Love from the little white peril Parsnip, who was delighted at the heavy rain we had (briefly) yesterday afternoon,

Less Is More - Challenge #375 - Olive and Tangerine

The current challenge over at Less Is More is 'Olive and Tangerine' - two colours which I love to see together.

Here's my card, hoping it's CAS enough as I strayed from white as the base of the card for a change, so the aperture would stand out more:

And this is the LIM cue card:

Of course, the current bright sunshine washed the colour out of my card quite a bit, in real life that tangerine coloured background card and the bird are both really vivid!

I used:

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

- stamped the image onto white card using Memento 'tuxedo Black' ink plus a bird and a branch from the Stampin' Up 'Bird Banter' set. Little tip - it was so worthwhile masking off the bird's tail before stamping the branch - a small detail but it does make a difference IMHO

- then coloured the image using Pro markers (using olive and also picking up the same shade of tangerine card I'd found in the snippets folder) and set the coloured image to one side

- trimmed the piece of tangerine coloured card to just slightly smaller than the card front

- used a die from the MFT 'Wonky Peek-a-boo Windows' set to cut an aperture in the tangerine card

- then used the Misti and a sheet of 'home printed acetate grid' to line up and stamp the sentiment stamp on the tangerine card - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink again

- to make sure the white image panel was properly aligned in the aperture I lightly drew a pencil line around it, using the inside of the aperture die and trimmed right round to just over quarter of an inch outside the pencil lines, before rubbing them off

- stuck quarter inch wide red line tape around the back of the aperture, right up to the edge

- took the trimmed down image panel and checked it for alignment before attaching one edge to the back of the aperture using low tack tape

- that allowed me to gently peel off the other three sides, one at a time, whilst knowing that the image hadn't moved at all, then removed the low tack tape and adhered the last side. The main reason for this is because I wanted a firmly stuck down edge without the risk of glue seepage - and it works a treat if you use the tip of taping one edge in place (leaving the red line tape unpeeled of course) so you can work on the other three sides, one at a time

- final step was to glue the whole panel to the card blank

As happens so often here, there was almost a disaster when I was making this card. At the stage where I rubbed out the pencil lines around the image I managed to slightly crumple the coloured image panel in one corner! It was only slight but still would mean a lot of time lost (I'm a slow crafter). I did kick myself for grabbing some much thinner white card stock than I usually use for stamping - it was extra smooth and I just fancied trying it again. However, all was not lost 'cos I backed the panel with more white card using some double sided adhesive sheet (medium weight) and made sure I rubbed it firmly down using my Teflon folder tool, which totally flattened it out again. Phew, saved!

I did giggle later on in the day when Len spotted the finished card on my desk and said he liked it - then he quietly asked if I realised that the aperture was wonky! ☺☺☺

It's ages since I played along with Less is More and I loved making this card. I just hope it's Less is More enough, if that makes sense! As I said earlier, the aperture really needed a contrast but of course I'm dithering about it now. 

Hedgehog update: In this heat we've been leaving the kitchen door open a lot of the time when at home, to get any through breeze that might come along. Late the other evening, Len called to me to get into the kitchen as fast as possible - but I was too late to see what he'd just seen. The hedgie's feeding stations are close to the back door and when Len went to close the door - there was little 'Miss Sweet Face', the prettiest hedgie in the group, standing halfway between the feeding station and the open door looking up very quizzically as if to say 'Dare I venture in for a look around?'. It all happened so fast that I had no chance of scampering there in time - and in fact little Miss Sweet Face ran off behind the garden shed when she heard Len call me.

Happy days! And anyone with a Summer cold has my sincere sympathy!!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #330

It's time for a new Snippets fortnight - and the theme is just the same as usual - anything goes so long as you use one or more 'snippets/scraps'. Simples!

I'm totally caught up with commenting on the challenge which just closed - phew! I lagged behind a few times I know.

And the reason was our break in Germany. Even though we had wi-fi all the time there just didn't seem to be any spare moments to catch up - which is a good thing of course! The weather was glorious - and then we returned home to more of what we left behind when we flew off to Germany. Despite five fans running at full blast - they just seem to be pushing hot air around at the moment :)

My snippets card this time isn't quite as bright as the last fortnight's was - but it's still colourful:

I used:

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

- stamps from the Art Impressions 'Doggy Kisses' set

- first of all I found the striped snippets, and the pieces of backing paper - all from the Studio Calico 'Snippets' Collection paper pads I have here (and each one was a snippet as well. I keep little snippets in the back of each paper pad, popped into a sealed envelope which has been cut in half to form a pockets then stuck onto the inside of the backing card

- next stamped the little dog and the sentiment onto a snippet of white card using a Memento 'Tuxedo Black' inkpad

- coloured the image using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and added some green 'grass' to ground the pooch

- trimmed the image to the size I wanted and backed it with a red snippet of paper

- then glued a band of striped paper to a slightly wider band of golden yellow paper before gluing it to the card front

- I deliberately left some overhang at top and bottom, which I trimmed off from the back (that gives you the line of the card itself to follow) just using sharp scissors

- then glued the image panel in place

- finishing touch, three little black paw prints using another stamp from the same stamp set - and the Misti of course!

To be honest, I was so behind after our holiday that I really wasn't sure I'd manage to make a snippets card at all - but I'm so glad I did! The stamp set is just such fun and really lovely to use - I can see it being super-useful for Get Well cards :)

Len just spotted the finished card on my desk and had a good chuckle. We spent some time on a few of the days in Germany with me showing the little grand daughters the rudiments of card making - and their Mama joined in too. I'd taken a load of stuff, including some stamps and also new colouring pencils and markers for them. So a lot of time was spent stamping and then colouring images - and Len's comment just now was 'The girls would be proud of you'! Little smile here :)

I'll write a bit more and show some of their work shortly. Kids amaze me with their ability to pick ideas up and then push themselves further and further - and it helps that their Mum is naturally artistic of course. We had a lot of fun and laughter for sure.

Without you needing to guess, here's this week's Snippets Playground prize:

Yup, it's an Art Impressions 'Doggy Kisses' set of stamps of your very own for the randomly selected winner - and I do think the sentiments are brilliant, along with the fun pooches.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 21st July. 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 :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the fortnight's picks and the winner of the Sizzix 'Flowers #6' stamp and die set, Memory Box 'Sketchbook Imagine' die and a set of four hearts die.

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,

I'm baaaaaack!

Just a quick post to say that we're back from a lovely break in Southern Germany. I did try to keep up with commenting now and then but, as you can imagine, it was a busy time.

And, in between many other things going on, this is the view I had on Sunday whilst relaxing and watching the Red Kites flying around searching for any small pickings on the ground. Two parents and two young ones - an amazing sight but I never caught them on camera, sigh.es. We get them here at home too but I've never seen them with youngsters.

No card from me this Wednesday - still recovering from long, but so worthwhile, journeys to get there and back! And we have two new little snippets playmates - I took a load of card making stuff for the little girls. Watch this space!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge # 328 - results

Hi there - time flies when you're having fun doesn't it?! Nothing much is going on in the Playground in terms of digging and creating swimming places so let's move right on in - mind the doors!

And we have another selection of picks, our prize winner and of course a lovely Guest Designer as well.

First of all, here's our Guest Designer from last fortnight, making another very rapid appearance. Donna had made more than one snippets card and this one really did make me smile so I decided we'd have Donna, of Craft Dee Donna back again to play with us straight away:

And this is what Donna wrote about her card:

When I find a super cute image like this one "Brave and Cute Knight" from The Paper Shelter, I often only use a snippet of paper to finish the card as I like the image to be the star :-) In this case I used a snippet from DCWV La Crème stack backed up with some finely corrugated black/pewter card, cut with a Spellbinders Curved Borders die.  I coloured the image with Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils and generated the sentiment using Word and a free font from DaFont.com called Storybook.  The punchline is on the inside of the card, which is finished with more snippets of the same papers.

AND ....... to see what the punchline is, then you really have to hop over to Donna's blog HERE. I'm standing by with the smelling salts! :)

Thanks so much for being our Guest Designer once again Donna - gosh your colouring is just fabulous. You're a real star and, due to other pressures. having a second card to choose from was an enormous help - plus it made me laugh ...... a lot!

Let's do a very quick scamper around my picks for this fortnight, no particular theme - just entries which caught my eye:

First of all a *Gold Star* to a lovely blogging friend who does struggle with health issues and yet comes to play with us as often as possible:

 

This card is just fabulous, so many layers and such attention to detail! Do please hop over and say Hi to Karen P. This card first of all reminded me of the old fashioned embroidery my Granny used to do - and as Mrs A rightly commented over on Karen's blog, we have our fair share of thatched cottages around here.

Please take your gold star from the RH side bar Karen - and well done!

In fact, our local pub is thatched as well - but it was only built in the 1990's or so. But it does add a certain charm to what could have just been a big barn of a building.

Megan skipped in with this adorable card, and some wonderful paper piecing as well! Love paper piecing for pulling a very cohesive design together and it's cute as can be.

 

Liz made this card with minimal supplies whilst away in their caravan - and I love it! So bright and cheerful - just like Liz always is! Certainly a good antidote to miserable weather Liz.

And finally, Bonnie came to visit with this beautiful flamingo card. As it's pink of course it smacked me right in the eye 'cos I adore pink. Bonnie made it for Darnell's 'Twofers' challenge where the theme was 'trees'. Look closely at those feathers - made using a palm tree die!! So clever.

And here are our new playmates:

Cath W (who has been a bloggy friend for ages!)

'Art Conquers'

Suzi Mac

Do please hop over to say 'Hello' to our new friends - I love every one of these cards!

So it was three new Playmates this time round and we had a very healthy total of 56 entries.That's good going for Summer!

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Uniko 'Block Party Birthday' stamp is:

April

Well done  April! I don't know, you go missing for ages, pop up again and win the prize! That's the beauty of the Random  number thingy - it treats everyone the same, just as it should be too.

Do please send me your address, with full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste - for speed and ease. I don't keep addresses of previous winners, even if they might be in my private address list - if that makes sense! I'll be off to the Post Office later this once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #328 - just check back a bit and you'll easily find it. The prize is a Sizzix 'Flowers #6' stamp and die set, a Memory Box 'Sketchbook Imagine' die and the sweet little set of four hearts dies.

Hope you have a lovely week ahead, and that you come and play - if you haven't done so already!

Love from the little white peril Parsnip who is no doubt up to some mischief or other, and of course me,

Rudolph Days - June 2018

Yay, it's 'Rudolph Days Challenge' time once again, and it runs until the end of the month over at ScrappyMo's!

Things were conspiring against me when I realised that I hadn't made a Christmas card for my entry. Lagging a bit behind on my monthly totals, I whipped up four the same in double quick time but they're embarrassingly simple so I do feel a bit of a fraud.

I used:

- tall slim deep red slightly metallic card blank

- a topper from a load made by KanBan that I found in a box (years old!) whilst looking for something else, just glued in place. In real life the turquoise is a lovely shiny metallic finish

- the sentiment was a long repetitive strip on the sheet of toppers, so I just snipped it into sections, trimmed one edge and then also glued that in place

Even with such a simple card (how I started out on the card making journey many years ago) I did forget to do one thing! It doesn't show much in real life but the camera picks up every little detail - I would normally have run a matching marker around the edge of the topper and also the sentiment strip - just so the white 'core' of the card doesn't show. If you try this, make sure you use just normal markers (I use some very old Whispers pens) - Pro markers and such tend to bleed and might well ruin your topper!