Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 140

And it's September tomorrow - here's hoping for an Indian Summer before the leaves start to fall.

My snippets card is sort of 'countrified simple' this week - mostly due to lack of time crafting and blogging:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square cream card stock

- cream snippets from the snippets folder

- a JustRite Cling 'Burlap Background' stamp, which I love! I stamped a whole background, which comes complete with the frayed edges, onto a snippet of cream card using Versafine 'Vintage Sepia' ink then trimmed it and just glued it onto the card blank

- the flowers were made by stamping onto more cream snippets using the burlap stamp and Memento 'Rhubarb Stalk' plus SU 'Old Olive' ink pads

- the stamped snippets were die cut (then shaped too) using  a Time Holtz 'Tattered Florals' die (which I also used to make leaves by just splitting some of the petals)

- final touch to the flower was a snippet of the green burlap stamped card, punched with SU's Itty Bitty round stamp and then shaped into a dome (also known as 'Sarn candi!)

- the SU 'Wonderful Words' sentiment was stamped using SU's 'Old Olive'

Just to point out, given more time I'd have played with different coloured background card to stamp the 'burlap' onto - I bet there are loads of other ways to play. And I'd have spent more time making sure the stamp was correctly pressed down all over - but it sort of adds to the faded charm :) The stamp is BIG, it's 4.5" x 5.75" and it's a cling stamp, therefore unmounted of course. I might have an acrylic block big enough tucked away but for speed I used the thickest plate from my Cuttlebug.

Straight into this week's picks now:

I mostly post the weekly picks in numerical order, as I make a list as the week goes by. This card, made by Lesley G, was right up there as an early pick and for me it's the top pick of the week too! Lesley gets very excited when her cards are picked so I hope she's sitting down right now :) What I absolutely love about this card is how the guitar was made using SU's owl punch for the body, sound hole and also the tuning pegs - and the design of the card is great too. This is one that a few of us might be CASE-ing for sure! Stop squealing Lesley!! :)

Anne made this great card - I love the impact plus the clever sentiment! It reminded me of when Len shaved his moustache off as it was showing some grey flecks. I'd never seen him without one and he did one half first then popped his head out of the bathroom to let me see. I shouted 'Put it back, I prefer you with a moustache!', Not very helpful was I :(

I picked this card made by Pat because of the fabulous image and colouring. Even the ribbon is a snippet from a top (you know, the narrow ribbon to hold clothes on hangers) - but it's the amazing colouring that really, really got me!

You really must check out how Elizabeth made these wonderful petals and leaves on her snippets card - such a clever idea. See if you can guess and then go and take a peek for yourself!

I love this darling set of card with matching bag - made by Jenny L! Absolutely gorgeous poinsettias and a great way to use up snippets.

This card was made by Bonnie for Merry Monday's challenge. Those of you who don't know, Bonnie is on their DT and chose the theme of Christmas wreath - would you just look at how delicate that wreath is, and beautifully coloured too. I also just realised that the 'Holly Vine' die isn't in a wreath shape when you cut it - that was some careful placement Bonnie!

Thoughts here are turning to school and the Autumn term - some countries kiddies have already returned and some will return after the UK (Germany is around 18th September where our little grand daughters live). Veerle made this lovely House Mouse card to celebrate 'Back to School'. Oh dear, I just noticed one of the book titles in the middle of the pile 'Public Squeaking' - tee, hee :)

Here's something with a difference - our Sam hopped in with a 'brush roll' she'd sewn using up snippets. Brilliant! And of course, snippets can be fabric, lace, ribbon, card, paper etc. etc.

I absolutely had to show you this lovely card, made by Mary H - what fabulous colouring!

This is a great card, made by Sandy J - somehow apple pie and red gingham are such perfect partners. Plus, here's a clever tip from Sandy, you know those peel off or domed letters that always seem to have oddments left? I've got some on my desk right now and they both have the letters U and Y left over - find an M (there's usually more of those) and you've got YUM! :)

And finally, as we're heading towards Autumn I thought this card, made by Sue J, was a perfect way to finish this week's picks! Sue has a link to the digital images website where little Scarecrow Willie' came from  - I know I've bookmarked it!

And we have two new playmates this week:

Rebecca V came to play, encouraged by our Liz (Cavill) and brought this lovely bunting card. A great way to use up snippets! Rebecca hasn't been blogging for more than a month or so and it would be lovely if some of you could hop over to say hello. I predict that we'll be seeing some beautiful cards and that Rebecca will quickly go from strength to strength - take a look at this for example:

That's a first I think for me - can't recall ever showing two cards from a playmate's very first visit but if this card above wouldn't be a winning contender for a CAS or LIM card then I'll eat my sun hat!

And here's our second new playmate's entry:

Another card perfect for 'Back to School' - and I love the paperclips! Elly is the name of our new friend, she hails from the Netherlands and if you hop over I've spotted some great idea for bags and packaging over at Elly's blog! Do remember girls, when a blog is written in other than English you can usually find a translate button either at the top of the blog or in the sidebar. Google translate isn't brilliant but it's a huge help if you're a sticky beak like me and want to find out just how things have been made!

A huge welcome to both of you - please come and play with us often - we're almost at the time for baked potatoes in the bonfire :) Parsnip is hiding this year - he hasn't forgotten attempts to tie a rocket to his back and launch him into space last Guy Fawkes night!

Time now for the draw for the winner of last week's prize, the double pack of Christmas embossing folders and the 'Leaping Deer' die. And the winner is:

Elizabeth

Congratulations Elizabeth! I have your address and will pop the package in the post this week :) It's over a year since Elizabeth won a prize, mostly due to opting out of the draw quite often I suspect. But this time I only had to run Mr Random once - Elizabeth popped out straight away and hadn't opted out, yay! :)

And this coming week's prize is, of course:

A JustRite 'Burlap Background' stamp of your very own :)

As usual, the Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 6th September and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize.

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 :)

Some of you will have noticed that recently it sometimes takes me a while to comment on your lovely snippets entries. I'm trying to balance things a bit more here (running the home versus sitting in the 'woman-cave' for too long) - but will get to you I promise! 


Have a great week! And remember, there's a sticky post at the top of my blog - a free draw for a Joanna Sheen gift voucher. You just need to comment to be in with a chance!
 
Di (and the usual happy wave from Parsnip of course)
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Blogger Reading List

Just wondering if others have lost their entire Blogger Reading List? No matter how much I refresh, I can't see any blogs that I'm following :(

Have been searching online to see if it's a known fault - anyone else got the problem? Am still shown on peeps blogs as following them - it's just the list on my own  dashboard that won't appear - keeps saying I don't follow any blogs.

Almost the same as the previous Blogger boo-boo. I bet someone is tinkering around with versions of the code - why won't they thoroughly test stuff before upgrading! Sigh.

Di
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Digging around

....amongst some old photo files here and I found this, made almost six years ago for Grand daughter Mia, before I was blogging:

And this was the little sweater I knitted to go with it (or the other way round perhaps!) - Benjamin Bunny of course :)

Instead of trying to actually knit the design into the garment, I did Swiss Darning over the top of the knitted blank front- much more fun and a lot easier too.

The bunny stamp is still on my 'For Sale' page at the top of the blog - but I plan to remove stuff and post it onto a Facebook craft de-cluttering site shortly.

Di

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A purrrrfect Birthday

Quick card from me today - using a couple of dies:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- SU 'Real Red' snippet, die cut using the Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die

- snippet of black card, die cut using Cheery Lyn's 'Kitty Kitty Meow Meow' die - which is a little family of four cats. I then separated the little row of kitties and put Mama and one of the kittens along the top of the sentiment strip and the other kitten down the bottom left of the card

That left Papa cat, and I couldn't bear to totally separate him from his family - so he's sitting inside the card now :) How sad, sitting here muttering to a die cut cat.

Di
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Rudolph Day - August 2014

I'm a day later for Rudolph Day than hoped, but the 48 hours or so bug seems to be abating, which is great news :) Plus I need to catch up with Playground commenting ASAP so my apologies for being late.

Anyhow, I managed to make not two, but three cards for Sarn's Rudolph Day challenge - mostly as the topper sheet I used had three images on and I couldn't choose which one of the cute faced critters might not be used and would end up back in the toppers box without his mates :)

I used:

- one 6" x 6" cream card blank and two DL off-white card blanks

- three toppers and two sentiments from KanBan's 'Festive Friends' - Blue' toppers sheet

- navy slightly shimmery card stock

- SU 'Crumb Cake' card stock

- shiny gold Josy Rose nail heads

Remember to comment on my 300 followers thank you candy (sticky post at top of blog) if you want a chance to win a Joanna Sheen voucher girls! :)

Di
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Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 139

And another week whooshed by - there's been a nip in the air here lately which makes me think that we might have already had our Summer, sigh.

My snippets card for this week is a Christmas card - mostly as I'm trying to offer Christmas themed prizes every other week:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- a layer of silver holographic card - found in the snippets folder

- the white layer, a snippet, was embossed using a Hero Arts/Sizzix embossing folder called 'Dots'. It's the closest I've found to the one used by Bonnie HERE, which was made for Cuttlebug by Kars called 'Snowfall' - sadly now retired. What's so similar is that the density of the flakes (dots) peters out towards the bottom of the folder plus the dots vary in size too. I love it!

- then I die cut the reindeer using the Memory Box 'Deer Trio' die and sparkly gold sticky back film which had first been stuck onto a snippet of white card. Little tip - when cutting sticky backed shapes stuck onto card it takes a good few runs back and forth through the die cutting machine to cut right through. Be patient and keep the die in place until you're sure the cut is clean - I used a couple of pieces of card as a shim for the final whizz through

- the sentiment is made using triple layered die cuts (snippets of black card) and Britannia word dies

I'd like to enter this into the current 'Merry Monday #122' challenge which is 'Black, Gold and Silver'. And a lorra white in my case :)

And I'd like to also enter this into Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for August of course - I often forget that it's always anything goes over there with Hazel so any Christmas card qualifies!

Grin, has anyone noticed the Christmas card total on my sidebar? Oh what a sad person I must seem :(

Right, now onto this week's picks - a big headache as usual as there are so many beautiful entries, every single one of you deserves to be a pick of the week but I've had to select just a handful.

 

Liz has been making some great bookmarks this past week - the type that slip over the corner of a page. I think this one is especially clever :)

This really pretty card, using loads of snippets, was made by Anne F. Such a lovely design and the mauves look gorgeous don't they. Sigh, more dies on the wish list here!

I love this CAS Christmas card, made by Caroline. such a great way to use up little snippets.

I wanted to show this card, made by Kanda (Andrea) for two reasons. I just loved how the added flowers go so beautifully with the image that Andrea coloured. Also, Andrea has been unwell lately so I wanted to send her big hugs from all of us in the Playground!

Isn't this a fun card?! Made by Lesley G - super images and those googly eyes are fantastic!

Here's a change from card making, Sandra H is getting a start on her Christmas wrapping and transformed a bag beautifully! Depending what's put inside, I suspect the bag might be the biggest hit :)

And last, but not least, Mo has been trying out different styles and techniques. I totally love this beautiful butterfly card - just fabulous!

We have one new Playmate this week.

 

A big welcome to you Sharon! Come back and play again soon :)

Time now for the draw for the winner of last week's prize, the Penny Black 'Venetian Summer' stamp. And the winner is:

AJ

Congratulation AJ! I have your address (so long as you haven't moved recently!) and will pop the package in the post this week :)

And this coming week's prize is a 'double whammy':

Of course it's the Hero Arts/ Sizzix Textured Impressions embossing folder - which in fact comes as a sealed pack of two - 'Christmas Words' and the 'Dots' folder. Plus, a lovely Memory Box die which is slightly different to mine but I think it's equally beautiful, if not even better - called ''Leaping Deer' and it was kindly donated by Carol L ages ago. Thanks again Carol!

As I've said before, sometimes donated prizes might sit for a while in the toy box waiting their turn but each one will pop out to play as time goes by.

As usual, the Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 30th August and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize. As always, if you only fancy one part of the prize (ie. the set of folders or the die) then just say and I would do a second draw if your name pops out.

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 :)

All prizes are up to date and were posted early last week - apart from today's winnings of course :)

I woke up this morning feeling several degrees under and it's got worse as the day has gone on.  So haven't been doing handstands in the Playground while it's quiet there :)

Have a great week!
 
Di (and the usual happy wave from Parsnip of course)
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On the way to a paperless society

I defy you not to laugh at this,  but put that coffee cup down  before clicking on the link!

http://youtu.be/d3AfIbojP68

Told you! Sorry this is just a link peeps, I tried to embed the video but it wasn't playing ball - unless I was doing summick wrong - which is more than likely :(

SQUEAL - at midnight we just saw TWO baby hedgehogs at the feeding station! They're healthy and very hungry - Mum and Dad were there earlier so we were right that there were previously those two adult hedgies cosying up ...............plus now they brought their new little Prickles :)) Hopefully the little ones will fatten up nicely in time for their hibernation - there's still time before late Autumn we hope.

So funny - Len just scampered out to the garden to refill the feeding bowl (and I suspect put a second bowl out 'cos I can hear chinking outside) - he's like a proud Grandad :)

Di
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Some of my favourite things

The current challenge over at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 190 is 'A few of my favourite things'. With time being at such a premium here, I opted not to go for stamping and colouring images or die cutting - which would usually be high on the list! I also avoided glitter and sparkly stuff but did incorporate the following favourite things into my card: a square card blank, Penny Black Stickeroos, Lily of the Valley papers, spotty ribbon tied with a bow, metallic cord and a charm. Not bad, six things I love to use:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- Penny Black Stickeroos from the 'Snowy Christmas' sheet

- plain green and plum snippets of paper from LOTV's 'Woodland Wishes' paper pad. As always, I stuck the snowman image and the greeting onto the paper backing/frames before trimming down to size - you can just bet it'll be 'wonky' if you try to stick directly onto anything. Doesn't matter so much with shaped Stickeroos but too risky where it's important not to have edges/lines askew 

- then I added a few peel off stars from the same Stickeroo sheet

- the ribbon came from my ribbon box, topped with a bow and then a metallic green cord bow with a snowflake charm

Thankfully this card came together in about 30 minutes from start to finish - I hate missing Hazel's Christmas Card challenge, and I did miss last week :( This is also for Hazel's monthly Christmas Card Challenge Extra - where it's always 'anything goes'.

Friday and the weekend beckons, I'm out on Saturday afternoon but hope to finish the Playground write-up for Sunday before I go - fingers crossed!

Di
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Just saying Hello

I tend to get through a fair few 'general' cards here and yesterday I found a coloured image lurking on the desk which seemed fine for one such card:

I used:

- A6 tent style white card blank, right hand bottom corner rounded using We Are Memory Keepers Corner Chomper

- backing paper from Papermania's Capsule Collection 'Aqua' paper pack, cut to size and the corner rounded to match the card blank

- the image was a pre-printed oval from Craftwork Cards which I coloured with TH Distress Markers. The image is on pearlised card which meant that the distress markers sort of 'ran' a bit but I quite like the sort of 'accidental cloisonné' effect :)

- then the image was just layered onto an oval of white card, die cut using a Spellbinders 'Floral Oval' die

- the sentiment is a discontinued Elzybells sentiment, stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and punched with SU's 'Modern Label' punch

- a couple of black Josy Rose nail heads to finish

Isn't hindsight wonderful, I discovered Elzybells not long before they had their massive closing down sale but only bought one of everything I could lay my greedy little paws on. Just think of the Playground prizes we could have had - sigh :(

Di
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Less is More - animal

The current challenge over at Less is More 185's theme is to have an animal on your card. I sorted through meerkats, dogs, cats, meeces - the lot - before returning to my old favourite. Spike the Hedgehog - who continues to grow at a rate of knots, is a nightly (very noisy) visitor and is eating us out of house and home:

I used:

- A6 tent fold white card blank

- Penny Black Stickeroos from the 'A Bunch of Love' sheet

- sentiment stamp is sadly discontinued, made by Elzybells and stamped using Memento 'Gray Flannel'. Then die cut using a Docrafts 'Speech Bubbles' die which was popped onto the card using a thin sticky pad

- bottom right hand corner was rounded using We Are Memory Keeps Corner Chomper

All Playground prizes were posted on Monday and at the time of publishing this I'm just about to play catch up with Playground commenting too, yay! Real life got in the way recently :)

Di
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Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 138

Well, there's been a decided change in the weather here - there's almost an Autumnal nip in the air at the moment. But, that hasn't deterred lots of you (65 entries!) from coming to play in the Snippets Playground :)

This is my snippets card for today - it makes me think of holidays in Europe:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- snippets of SU's 'Real Red' card stock plus snippets of paper from the MME 'Sunshine' pad - the black and light ochre band across the middle has a gap in the centre underneath the image 'cos the patterned paper wasn't wide enough

- Penny Black stamp called 'Venetian Summer', stamped using Versafine 'Vintage Sepia' ink pad and coloured with Polychromos pencils and Sansodor blending solution. My original plan was to paper piece the dress, hat and bag/purse but I switched horses mid-stream after one failed dress cutting session! Before and after after mounting the image onto Real Red card stock, I ran a Gold Calligrapher pen round the edges to link up with the gold edging on the ribbon I planned to use

- the ribbon was a little snippet tucked in the ribbon box

- the corners were die cut using a small Real Red snippet with Whimsy Corner dies and then some black gems popped into the holes in die cut shape

Quite a quick make really. Next time I'll Percy Veer with the paper piecing and perhaps keep the backing very plain - but I wanted to use a few snippets this week having cheated a bit recently :)

OK, now for this week's picks - my list built up over the week was HUGE so in the end I numbered the possibles and then drew the names out of a hat. With the exception of one very special snippets make - you'll see that at the end of the list :)

This great card, made by Cathy R really shows what a few snippets can do - an idea well worth stealing emulating :)

I love this hollyhocks card, made by Carol L. So pretty and a lot of patience went into sticking those flower centres in I should think!

Well? I defy you not to  grin right back at this clown - isn't he great - all made by Sue using die cut and punched shapes. Even better, Sue told us just how she did it too!

Loads of you really loved this Christmas card made by Bonnie. It's absolutely beautiful and that pine cone looks set to pop right out of the screen :)

I just love this card, made by Karen P. Brilliant use of leftover inks and the way the butterfly fits in with the lemon/yellow band is perfect!

Lucy W made this lovely card for her Mum. I'm a pushover for GorJuss Girls anyhow and, quite apart from this being such a pretty card, I love the idea of adding similar patterned paper to the centre of the doily.

Sam went wild with snippets this week and made not one but eight snippets cards - all using the same brilliant stamp, but subtly different :) Great work Sam - the one above is on my desk here as I type :)

Isn't this a darling card, made by Greta? Lovely paper piecing and the background just ties it all together so well!

I think this card, made by Liz C, is brilliant! Rainbows always look lovely on cards and I just love the design.

And - we have a very special final snippets make of the week:

Yay! After a blogging break - here's our playmate Victoria and her 'Princess Snippet' :) What a gorgeous photo and how nice to see you Victoria! I bet there'll be a little queue of folk wanting to come and take a peek now, play nicely girls! :)

No new playmates this week - unless you count Victoria's beautiful little baby girl of course.

Time for the draw for last week's prize - the Memory Box 'Tapered Candles' die plus the goodies to make some ribbon flowers.

Before I do the draw - just look at the lovely snippets card that Kath made, we must have been working on them at almost the same time totally unaware what the other one was planning! I love the simplicity of this, in contrast to the one I made, and plan on making a batch bake of them.

And the winner is:

 Cathy R

Well done Cathy! According to my little book here, it's  over a year since you last won a prize. I can't find your address so could you please let me have it and I'll post your prize off ASAP (di_wray@hotmail.com).

And here's this coming week's prize:

Of course, it's a Penny Black 'Venetian Summer' stamp. Although I didn't use it, the set also has the word 'Gorgeous'.

As usual, the Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 23rd August and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize.

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 :)

Tomorrow is the follow-on from my Creative Blog Hop post. First of all, thank you for your lovely comments and secondly, why not head over to Elizabeth, Sam and Mary H to see what they've written.

Sigh, I found some prizes that I'd forgotten to post still languishing here - I'll be hot footing it to the Post Office tomorrow. Have a great week!
 
Di (and the usual happy wave from Parsnip of course)
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Brushos

A couple of weeks ago I joined in with one of the latest crafting fads 'fun things to do' and bought a set of Brushos. For those who don't already know, they are little drums of highly pigmented water colour ink powder - and when they come into contact with water/moisture the results are amazing! You can use them for water colour painting, ink and wash, stencilling, wax resist - the list goes on. For my first play I just did a 'spray and sprinkle':

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank

- a piece of Crafter's Companion 300gsm water colour card (I'd forgotten I had that!), a Ranger Mini Mister and just three or four of the Brusho colours. First I liberally sprayed the water colour card with water and then very gingerly tapped a teeny bit of the colours here and there onto the damp card (safest way is to poke a hole in the top of the little pots and use them much like pepper pots). Then I misted a bit more - and that's the result above :) 

- after being left to dry naturally, I trimmed the piece of water colour card and then divided it into three, mounting each rectangle onto a mat of deep pink card stock

- those were popped onto the card blank - then I sat and gawped for a couple of days, unsure how to finish such a vibrant explosion of colours

- white won the day - die cut 'smile' from Penny Black's 'Hooray' set plus four small butterflies die cut/embossed using SU's 'Beautiful Wings' Embosslits

- final touch - a few small pink gems on each butterfly

Gosh that was a fun first try, what's amazing is that each 'colour' is actually made up of several colours so when the water hits them they spread out like a little explosion.

Care is needed when using Brushos as they will stain if you have any mishaps. I just used some newspaper to protect the desk, an apron, kitchen roll and disposable latex gloves. I don't believe you need to work outside (say in the garden) - I'm the clumsiest crafter around yet I managed fine.


Di
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