Pixies Crafty Snippets Playground - Week 71

I bet we've all done it, bought a new stamp that we absolutely LOVE  and almost been afraid to play with it for fear of not doing it justice? Well, I've had a stamp on my desk for a few weeks that falls bang into that category - but I tentatively used it on Andrew's bookmarks last week and now here it is being used to the full:

What made it even more scary was that I only had one tiny snippet for paper piecing on the fish and another little snippet for the background with no spares - so here's how I made it.

I used:

- A6 card stock with the front totally covered with a snippet of SU's 'So Saffron' card. 

My tip for covering the whole front of a card is to cut your covering paper or card slightly larger all round than the card stock you want to cover, say a quarter of an inch or even more. Fold the base card and then add your glue, tape runner or DST of choice to the front part of the card you want to cover - NOT to the paper or card you wanna stick onto it. I use a tape runner as it allows a little bit of 'play', glue would do the same - DST might be fiercer if you're just slightly 'out' in the next step. The secret is to fold your base card first so you have a 'spine' to eyeball when lining up the top piece of paper or card onto the tacky surface. Only worry about the spine, line up carefully and press onto the base card leaving a margin of overlap round the other three sides - which you then just trim off, and there's no sticky to worry about 'cos you only added it to the base card. I do this from the back then gently run a thumb nail down the cut to ensure that if there is any slight ridge it's flattened

Sigh, this really might be Granny and egg sucking stuff but sometimes really simple things take me an age to work out for myself - lost count of the number of cards I wrecked before turning to this solution

- then I worked on the image using a piece of blue kinda 'marbled' paper from the snippets folder. Bought many years ago and it did mean I didn't have to get the brayer out :)

- I stamped the green fronds using Set 3 of the Oriental Clear Stamps from The English Stamp Company and VersaMagic 'Hint of Pesto'

- then came the fish, which was real 'heart in the mouth stuff' - bearing in mind I had NO spare paper so no room for boo-boo's. I bought the stamp really cheaply online in the UK - would prefer a more detailed one but really he's perfect for paper piecing. First he was stamped onto the background and then onto the smallest snippet of Rainbow paper, which luckily had yellow transitioning into orange - then I paper pieced him

- at this point I ran away for a break 'cos the next part could be a ruined card with no extra card and paper as a fallback - sigh

- back again, I got out my fabulous stamp, inked it up with Memento 'Teal Zeal', took a deep breath and stamped on top of the image. Lots of people seem to use black for this stamp but I liked the idea of the blue

BINGO! I suspect a few of you have already guessed that the stamp I'm so in love with is called 'Water Droplets' by the uber talented Canadian designer Ryn Tanaka :) Oh my word, how realistic - and also hard to get hold of. I searched and waited for quite some time until Ryn got another run of these stamps into her online shop here. So much so that when they did appear I raced in and out so quickly with my shopping basket I totally overlooked the gorgeous sea life stamps Ryn creates. Be patient, perhaps follow Ryn's blog and her Facebook page for news of fresh stock as I did.

OK, onto this week's makes - I made a little list as the week went on and ended up with masses of makes to feature in 'show and tell'. Sigh, I'm only going to cover a few though, otherwise I'd be back to writing a full roll call :( But, they are all there in the thumbnails here for you to check out if you haven't done so already.

I absolutely had to include this stunner by Darnell - really elegant and one of my very favourites of Darnell's cards - and she makes some real beauties.

Brilliant use of snippets by Hazel - a card to sigh over and such well matched colours.

A whole herd of zebras made by Carol L - just look at how the theme of stripes is carried through the designs.

The most gorgeous easel card by Karen P - tons of snippets and so much detail.

This brilliant card, made by our new Playmate Sandee, is made from the wax paper used to line her spray box - how clever is that?

I love this all white card made by Kath - showing perfectly how to use up some of those white snippets, I seem to have shed loads of white and cream snippets here.

And I really can't leave this gorgeous card out - made by Kimbo especially for the Playground after I'd admired a previous one, it's beautiful! Plus it uses the trick of 'gutting' the centre of a piece of paper and then using the leftovers as a backing mat.

I could keep going, but can't due to my self-imposed time limit, so I do urge you strongly enough to go and check out all the fabulous makes and cards made over this past week. I think you're all going from strength to strength with innovative ways to use up those pesky snippets!

We have two new playmates this week - welcome to Sarah and Sandee, do please keep joining us!

Plus, Shaz in Oz is recovering well from her recent cataract operation - and (wahoo) Bernie has posted a really heartening update about her current battle! Way to go ladies - happy dancing here in the Playground :)) Maggie has also done a little update if you'd like to go and say Hi - sending you love from all of us!

And now for the winner of last week's prize of Wedding papers and those Whimsy Corner dies:

Lynn

Well done Lynn! I still have the email with your address in so I'll post the prize to you pronto!

And now for this week's prize - any guesses? Yup, I couldn't order just one 'Water Droplets' stamp from Ryn when they were in stock (I just spotted that they've sold out again) - we just had to have one for the Playground:

 Plus, a little fish stamp the same as I used on my snippets card for today:

I have to say straight up that there is absolutely no comparison in quality. Ryn's stamp is on deeply etched red rubber and mounted on cling cushion, absolutely top of the tree. The (rather grumpy looking) little fish came in a plain cello bag (I stamped the image onto card with my own stamp and also added some protective acetate backing in a fresh packet) - but it would get you started. I did try to also get another seahorse stamp like I used for the bookmarks here but they didn't have more than just the one :(

One thing to point out is that Eileen is a great fan of Ryn's and her blog has some brilliant makes using Ryn's stamps. Eileen's very talented and well worth checking out.

The Playground is open all of this coming week, will close on Saturday 11th May  at noon UK time and Mr Linky is below as usual. Just enter a snippets make into the Playground this week and I'll do a draw after the Playground closes next Saturday.
As usual I am asking for a snippets make please, maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be a winner of  the stamps - I suspect there will be a few fingers and toes crossed this time next week for Ryn's 'Water Droplets'. And also, even if you've won previously, if you love this stamp as much as I do then please don't be polite this week and say you've already been lucky, you could miss out on the chance.

Hope you're all having a great Bank Holiday here in the UK - it's raining in the Playground as I type this but I think sunshine is forecast.

Di
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