Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 177 and Merry Monday #158 {Stencils}

My snippets card today has absolutely nothing to do with the prize for this coming week :) It's for the current challenge over at Merry Monday which is 'Stencils'.

Oh help :( I really wanted to use embossing paste, rather than just ink through a stencil, but had never really recovered from my one try last Christmas time. But, I had taken advice from a few of you at the time (when I was struggling with Sweet Poppy paste and adding loose glitter) and had bought some Imagination Crafts sparkly paste - so the decks were cleared, the NBUS pastes were cracked open and off I went. This was one of the results - complete with light bouncing off the black card strip:

I used:

- A6 black card blank, tent style

- a snippet of matt gold card stock, embossed using a Crafts-Too 'Snowflake Banner' folder

- the black panel is Imagination Crafts satin card stock, which I then stencilled using a 'Christmas Holly' stencil made by Sweet Poppy and Imagination Crafts 'Metallic Sparkle' sparkle medium paste

- then I just trimmed the panel down to size and backed it with a piece of copper satin mirri card to act as a border above and below 

Couple of tips, first of all this embossing folder actually has a plain band across the middle as well as a scrolled panel in the centre. Most of the time I don't make a feature of the centre, or indeed the plain band - although I did on THIS card last Spring. So, not all embossing folders need to be used as originally designed :)

Secondly, I do like the Imagination satin card stock, and it isn't too slippery for stencil paste either. However, it's black on one side and white on the other - which means that, when trimmed, you end up with an outside line of white showing. To cover this I just ran a black Whispers marker round the edge before layering up.

And moving swiftly onto the picks for this past fortnight, which was a double headache in a way as you might guess. But, having the Playground open for a two week run did actually help me enormously, with us being away and all that. In fact, I'll need to do this again in a week or so as it's my school reunion very soon and I'm lucky if there's even time to sleep, let alone blog! I'm away for five days this time too :) But, this coming week in the Playground is just one week!

So here are the picks:

I totally love, love this card - made by Cathy R - the woodgrain background and that beautiful window with the perfect window box  of tiny flowers are just fabulous!

Such a fun filled card, made by Shaz in Oz - and plenty of snippets used too :)

This is one of the most elegant cards I've seen in a while, it was made by Ann, and it's just stunning!

You truly should hop over to Kathy T's and see the inspiration photo that Kathy used for this fabulous card. Such a clever working in of the key elements - and squeal, look at the teeny flowers!

I could go on forever with picks, but have kept this to four as I need to do a few prize draws this week! Don't forget that the thumbnails are still showing if you haven't already had a browse HERE.

Before I forget, we also have two new playmates:

How cute is this, made by Irene Mendes.

And we also have a new playmate called Vibula, over on Flickr HERE. As I've said before, I can't copy and paste images from Flickr so the best I can do is the link above.

And now onto the winners of the main prize for the last couple of weeks, the Sheena Douglass 'Simply Sweet' stamp sets.

April Cheetham

Janis in ID

Well done girls, I do hope you have fun playing with your prizes - I have your address already Janis, but could you please drop me an email with yours April - to di_wray@hotmail.com. Thanks! The prizes will be on their way this week.

And next, the four STIX2 runner up prizes. For these I didn't go through all the rigmarole of copying, cropping and then pasting each Mr Random result, although I did actually use the generator.

Our winners are: #39 Jane W, #20 Kathleen, #55 Sarn and #50 Lucy.

I have all of your addresses girls and will post the STIX2 goodies of to you ASAP.

And, it's time to reveal the prize for this coming week, which I actually used on this DT card for the current Cuttlebug Mania challenge earlier in the week:

Yay! It's a Spellbinders die cutting set called 'A-2 Fancy Ribbon Threader' - a very pretty set of dies:

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

Maximum of three entries and please say 'Yes please' (or similar) in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Do remember that you should also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - do please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Di and of course, Parsnip!
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