Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 201

Phew, that was one busy week in the Playground, what happened? 107 entries, that's what happened!! Loads of celebrations, led by the usual renegades suspects needless to say :) Parsnip was on the hunt for illicit brewing - and judging from his massive hangovers during the week he was very successful!

I think the Playground gates may have closed an hour early yesterday, if they did then I'm really sorry - I did set the time right on Mr Linky but suspect that our one hour clock change might have messed it up. If you were left hammering on the gates, remember that I'm fairly relaxed about a teensy bit of back linking and you can enter your snippets make here and now.

I'll try and keep this as brief as possible so first of all, here's my snippets card for this week. It might look like a bit of a cheat so let me explain about the snippets. I cut, folded and made a load of white DL card blanks the other week - which left me with a pile of white offcuts aka snippets measuring approx. 3.75" x 8.25". So, I used six of them up by making three Christmas cards - and of course three of the DL blanks. This is just one, they're all coloured the same, just the coloured borders are different (pink, turquoise and mauve):

I used:

- white DL card blank

- a slightly smaller white offcut/snippet which had a Pro Marker run around the outside to create a border picking up a colour in the image (thank you Sarn for reminding me of this really neat trick!)

- the image was stamped onto another smaller again white offcut/snippet using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and Woodware's 'Christmas Bells' image stamp - and the sentiment is from the same set

- then it was just a case of sitting here colouring in with Pro Markers as well as a silver gel pen for the 'dangly bits'

- layered everything up using Collall All Purpose glue and hit my target of 120 Christmas cards by the end of October, hooray!

I'm entering this into the current 'Allsorts Week 335 Challenge' where it's 'Christmas'. Love the Allsorts challenge and must make more effort in future!

And, I'd also like to enter Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #253 where this week's theme is 'It's time to sing'. OK, so it isn't 'carol singers' per se, but the sentiment is a line from that oft heard song by Wizzard 'I wish it could be Christmas every day' :) I wonder how soon they'll be playing that in supermarkets and local hostelries? I've been missing in action from Hazel's challenge lately so I hope that can be remedied over the next few weeks.

The whole time I was working on the three cards I thought about our turncoat Prefect Sarn and her wonderful Sarntangles - I need to get her stamp set out again and have a play!

Oh my giddy aunt - no wonder I was thinking about her as I made the cards on Tuesday afternoon - in fact my ears should have been on fire - this is what I found on her blog:

Last night's Snippets Playground Party 

Hi lovely Playmates . . . oh my HEAD this morning! I can't believe you're up and about already after last night's Playground Party.

The Bond theme seemed to go down really well, and the rockets went up really well . . . which is probably the right way round!

I saw Jenny L lace Miss Di's Peppermint Tea with something "special" which, luckily for Di, allowed her to sleep right through the whole thing. This was part of the plan to enable her to have "plausible deniability" which we learnt about in the Politics class the other week. 

Jenny L also bribed Parsnip with some honey, so he'll keep schtum too! 

The donkey rides proved popular although half way through the evening, the donkey started being STUBBORN and we had to lace his water with some of Lynne in NI's Irish Whiskey . . . he seemed quite amenable after that! 

Kath's toffee apples got gobbled up early, although we howled with laughter at those unfortunate enough to nab the ones she fiendishly made with COOKING apples rather than the sweet & juicy Jazz apples!

Sally H's Scrumpy was also delicious and went down well with Carol L's marshmallows and weenies, (although I may have had few too many marshmallows)!

Later this week, Darnell is coming over with some of her very bubbly fizzy drink . . . so we're looking forward to that. If she offers you some "tea" from her flask, beware of negotiating steps afterwards (did you see what happened to the Mister after she gave him some of her special tea for goodness sake?) You have been warned!

Right . . . don't expect daily reports of the bike shed parties - because some of it won't be printable. 

You know what they say: What goes on behind the bike sheds, STAYS behind the bike sheds! Any snitches will be dealt with severely! 

So funny - I laughed until I cried - totally crackers the lot of you!

And now for the headache of choosing the weekly picks:

This idea is just brilliant for using up snippets, made by Lesley G. Little rolls of paper (done round a cocktail stick then slipped off and snipped to size to create a Christmas tree) - absolutely wonderful idea!

I totally love this wonderful piano card, again it's great for using up snippets (particularly for the key board) and also very elegant with the addition of the red roses, and even some music patterned paper inside. Brought to the Playground by Valerija :)

Wow! What a great way to use up snippets - and of course you can vary the size to suit (ha, pun totally intended!). Made by Jenny H and I so want to try this idea. Jenny did use a 'Santa's Belt' die but am sure you gals could improvise if you fancy having a try. Great way to whip up some quick and really striking Christmas cards!

I wanted you to see the three cards above as I do think they're clever/different use of snippets. Certainly some inspirational ideas there girls.

We had TONS of other really eye catching snippets makes too so here's a quick canter through a few of them:

This Halloween hat is just amazing! So much carefully made detail (made by Alice), and it hides candy inside too! A wonderful make indeed.

This fabulous card was one of two similar ones, made by our very own Darnell. Great way to use snippets, and of course Darnell had the patience to insert each piece of the mirri card into the Poppystamps die cuts :) Hmm, we're out of stock at sensible prices here in the UK but I'm on a waiting list for one for me and one for the Playground toy box :)

Quite apart from this being a really gorgeous card, made by Barb, there was also such a neat trick in the making of it. See the background? Barb just reversed the clear stamp and used the back of it with Distress Ink to stamp a perfectly proportioned background. One to remember for the future.

I picked this card, made by Lynne in NI, because it's a great way to use up snippets of course - and also it made me laugh. Just look at the pelican's 'thought bubble' - snigger :)

I know that a good few of you have already seen this brilliant card, over at Bonnie's. I've included it because it made me smile of course, and also 'cos I know a few of you have at least one of these amazing Memory Box 'Grand' dies, I have this Christmas one plus Happy Birthday. What a great, and different, way to use it by adding the image panel to the lower part of the card! I've never thought to do that and it works so, so well.

I picked this beautiful card, made by Meg, because it strikes me as absolute perfection. For a start, the fabulous House Mouse image is beautifully set off with the 'puffy parts' to the hats, the little baubles and that glorious bow - and then the gorgeous backing papers are just so very right.

And speaking of perfection, I just had to include this as the last (but not least!) pick of the week. Made by Eve, it's such great use of snippets and absolutely beautiful.

So, that was a longer session than I thought it would be - and of course I could have just kept on going with so many more of your wonderful entries.

This past week we had five new Playmates joining in the fun:

Janice hopped in with a lovely Get Well card for a friend. Fabulous use of snippets and I do so love the doily background - why do we forget these great ideas?!

I've shown you all 12 of the brilliant Christmas tags made by Megan J, a wonderful way to use up little snippets and some great paper piecing going on there.

Coni scampered into the Playground with a fabulous Autumn card, and had bravely used acetate as well! I just adore the leafy wreath with shadow effect. Do hop over to Coni's blog - her wonderful header photo is a lovely little fellow called 'Beau' :)

I always have such trouble making card for fellas, this one by Beebeebabs is brilliant! Such a fun image and I do so love the whole idea - it made me smile for sure!

I do so love this card, brought to us by Birgit. Really sweet image and what a great quilted panel by MFT, with just the red heart popped up it looks so right.

Thank you so much for joining in for the first time this past week - and we'd love to see you playing along with us again!

Bit of a drum roll now as it's time to choose the winners of the stamps and die sets, a bumper draw this time to celebrate 200 weeks of the Playground since I took it over from Jules.

And, I didn't say last weekend that in fact I had two of each of prizes B and C here, bought as I thought I'd like them for myself at the time. Realistically though, there are so many of you who would love to win one of them (especially the Tim Holtz set) that, as I've never opened them and am unlikely to, I've added them into the pot as well.

Prize A - the Flamingos die set and co-ordinating 'Tickled Pink' set of sentiments:

Kath (Handmade by Kath)

Prize B - the Tim Holtz 'Holiday Joy' stamps and dies sets:

Carol L

 Kanda (Andrea)

Prize C - the Sizzix 'Ornaments #3' stamps and dies sets:

Kate P

 

Sonia

Crumbs, that was a bit of a marathon! I have addresses for all of you except for Sonia - so please can you drop me an email with your address Sonia (di_wray@hotmail.com) - thanks!

Well done to all the winners - I do hope you have fun using your prizes :)

And the prize this coming week is:

Five stamps in total, making one prize unless you choose otherwise in a comment. It's the Woodware ''Christmas Bells' stamp set along with four adorable Snag 'em Stamps from the 'Colors of Christmas' set, kindly donated by Greta - they are from top left clockwise, three little baubles, Christmas owl, large single bauble and a hedgehog tied up in Christmas tree lights :) These would be fabulous for little gift tags or as a focal point on CAS cards.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 7th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw. As always, I only include folk who say a positive 'yes' for the prize in a comment. In the past I sometimes had to do redraws after publishing winners so decided this was easier. Plus, some weeks the prize is made up of different items, some of which folk may or may not want. If you only want part of the prize then please say so and I can then do a second draw for the remainder if you do win.

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 great week and I hope you had a wonderful Halloween, no doubt we'll have been up and down like yo-yo's here as we do get a few callers - all of whom really do wear some fantastic costumes!

Bonfire night is next here in the UK of course! Oh deep joy, 'whizz bang pop' for another week!!

Di
x