Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 213

Good grief! We had 93 entries last week - how fabulous, even though there was standing room only and huge queues for the swings in the Playground :) SaRn did a roaring trade selling illicit 'hooch' in the tree house as folk waited for their turn I hear! Nuffin' gets past my little white fluffy spy (aka Parsnip).

I made my snippets card for today a whole week ago - go me! I'd been making those little 'Parsnip' bear notelets to tuck in with Playground prizes and had quite a few tons of white snippety offcuts left on my desk. Plus, recently I received a lovely package of craft goodies from two very kind playmates and one item for the toy box was almost identical to a set of stamps I already own - perfect for making 'inchie' cards!

This is what I came up with using my own set of stamps. The squares look a bit 'on the wonk' but IRL they certainly look straight to me:

I used:

- 4" x 5.5" white card blank

- a snippet of SU's 'Primrose Petals' card, trimmed to size and then topped with a slightly smaller snippet of SU's 'Island Indigo' card stock. I'd already picked the inks I wanted to use and was just lucky to find matching snippets!

- a snippet of white card stock, embossed using a Taylored Expressions 'Twirls and Swirls' embossing folder, trimmed to size and then all three layers were added to the front of the card blank. Love this embossing folder, I just bet I originally spotted it on a playmate's blog!

- next stamped six images, plus a couple of words from the set, onto the snippets of white card, using stamps from the clear Inkadinkado 'Flourishes' set (pretty sure this was in a bargain bin in Hobby Lobby when we holidayed in New Mexico!) along with Memento dye ink pads in 'Teal Zeal' and 'Rhubarb Stalk'

- used a SU 1" square punch to punch out the six images

- punched out three 'Primrose Petals' and three 'Island Indigo' squares, using an EK Success 1.25" punch and then mounted the stamped squares onto them - alternating the ink used with the colour of the card

- stuck the squares onto the card front, using thin sticky pads. It's easiest to stick the four corner squares down first and then finally add the last two squares to the middle of the card. That allows you to centralise the top/bottoms of the last two squares so that all six look positioned correctly - to a blind man on a galloping horse :)

- final touch, a few small Mei Flower pearls here and there on three of the stamped squares

I'm probably telling you something you already know, but it was news to me until recently and it cleared up a question mark about clear stamps and certain ink pads. My first try at stamping these little inchies (whilst deciding on what colours to use) was done using Stampin' Up ink pads - the results were very blotchy and ended up in the waste bin - in fact I could see the ink 'pooling' on them as I inked up the stamps. I'm a huge fan of Stampin' Up and had previously been perplexed when this happened. But, what I'd read somewhere or other recently was that, if you use clear stamps, then you'll get crisp results if you use dye ink pads. So, I hunted out the box of Memento dye inks and they worked a treat.

Let's move onto the weekly picks now:

This card really did make me giggle here - made by Anne - I just LOVE it! Adding the little 'tutu' of lace around her 'tum' is a great idea!

I just adore this card, made by Alice. So much beautiful detail!

I'm sure a few of you will have spotted that the stamped image that Alice used is Lili of the Valley (LOTV). It's so sad to see that, after having a sale of their paper and art pads, LOTV no longer stock these items as they will be concentrating on their stamps and cross stitch kits and patterns. It strikes me as such a shame as they had a really good niche in the market there :(

Now, how clever is this card then? Made by Julie C - it's an interactive robot card - and not one bit of it was stamped! Nip over to Julie's for more details - so inventive.

What a stunning scene, created by Maura! I just love how the colours in the birdies are reflected so perfectly in the background - or even the other way round I guess :)

Just had to include this fabulous 'pretty in pink' card, made by Hazel! I totally love the softness of the pink and then the contrast of the black 'enamel dots'. And those dots hold a secret - Hazel made them with her own fair hands!  If you hop over to Hazel's blog HERE, there are 'before and after' photos - plus, if you scroll down the comments you'll see that Hazel very kindly let me in on the secret of how she made them.

Sigh, needless to say I just had to go and buy some of the beads (from Amazon UK). I thought it might be a good idea though to wait until I have a free morning - and Len is also out at archery :) Watch this space!

Love this card, made by Helen - such a great way to use up little snippety squares and the faux stitching is a brilliant touch! It's the little things that can really pull a card together so well.

One of those cards with a real 'Wow' factor - made by Sandy. Wonderful embossing and such a great design too - really so elegant.

I just love this idea brought to share by Janice- such a great way to use up little snippets for the balloons. letters and sentiment - and a brilliant design which would work so well for either sex if you varied the colours. Also works wonderfully well for a wide age range too - it's certainly one I'll be trying out in the future!

Viv is just so good at making different styles of cards and this vintage card really caught my eye. I love the use of so many snippets - and also how effortlessly all the colours and patterns blend together - just stunning!

Such a cute shaker card, made by Kitty! Shaker cards are so popular right now and this is delightful. I'm almost ready to try my hand at one (did so many years ago and all the sequins stuck to the edge, sigh) and this time am ready to try a new trick - without the aid of a safety net, so watch this space folks!

Such a pretty scene and every detail on this gorgeous tag is just perfect! Donna made this and used plenty of snippets beautifully - what really strikes me is the perfect perspective in the little scene too.

Gosh, the more entries, the harder it gets to do the weekly picks. I whittled them down to 11 this week - not without a lot of angst as every single entry was worthy of being a pick! As you know, I do try to share the love around from week to week - and I so hope that each pick shown here offers ideas and inspiration.

And we have two new playmates this week:

Aussie ANNie has been promising to join in with the Playground for ages now - and I'm delighted she finally came to play - with this really lovely 'cherry blossom' card to share with us. So beautiful!

Gloria hopped, in all the way from Ottawa, with this beuatiful card - I just adore the stained glass effect! Mind you, I did almost have an attack of the vapours thinking all the amazing colours were teeny little snippets - Pro markers in fact, and a stunning result!

Welcome to the Playground girls! We do hope you'll come back to play with us again.

Now let's do the prize draw for last week - the two Joanne Sheen Signature dies - and our winner is:

 Lisa (This Sweet Madness)

Well I never - Lisa has been playing with us since February 2014 and this is, according to my little notebook, her very first Playground win! Do please send me an email with your address in Lisa and I'll pop the dies in the post to you ASAP. My email address is shown in the right hand sidebar.

And now for the next prize on offer - this coming week it's a couple of items connected to my snippets make:

They are: an Inkadinkado set of clear stamps, called 'Flower Garden', very generously donated by Mary Anne and just so perfect for 'inchies' cards. I like it better than my own set of similar stamps to be honest - the little flowers are really beautiful and so detailed! Also, from me, a Taylored Expressions 'Twirls and Swirls' embossing folder just like the one I used on my snippets card.

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

Maximum of three entries and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. If you only want to play for either the stamp set or the embossing folder then just say so in a comment - if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining part of the prize. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

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 good week - I think we may be in for a mild spell of weather. But who knows - certainly we're all thinking of anyone caught up in the dreadful USA snow storms.

And do remember that it's Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's from tomorrow until the end of the month!

Day by day am getting more ambitious, limping a LOT less and venturing further - ha, tomorrow it's a delayed routine dental appointment. After that, maybe I'll arrange to go and have my hair trimmed - am beginning to resemble 'Cousin It' in the Addams family.

Di and, of course, Parsnip! 
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