Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 233

I'm baaaaaack! And surprisingly the Playground didn't suffer any major disasters and Parsnip was very cool, calm and collected when he opened the door to the tree house for my inspection. Mind you, I did notice that his pockets were jingling with coins - so the little rascal had obviously been making some money on the side!

We had a lovely time (in Southern Germany), and of course we weren't camping! Which is just as well, given the flash flooding just shortly after we safely arrived at our destination after driving from the airport. It came much too close for comfort! We were there to spend quality time with the little grand daughters (Mia and Livi)  and Kai, their brilliant Mama - as always, we came home in need of a rest :) And the pop-up tent that some of you remember now resides in Germany - the girls have a huge play room in the cellar where Len and Kai, whilst I rolled around laughing, mastered the art of putting said tent up and also (much more challenging) folding it away again. That young woman is a whizz at fathoming things out and we feel sure she'll cope fine with perhaps a little bit of a helping hand from Mia - just at one crucial point in the process. I did eventually scamper upstairs for my camera - but was too late 'cos I returned just as they'd just finished off packing it away for the final time :(

With more of the family, we all had a gorgeous meal at Bad Waldsee, overlooking this beautiful lake one evening:

And this is a tower over one of the gates to the pretty little town. You can see the ominous rain clouds lurking, although we did manage to grab a few hours of sunshine here and there:

We took quite a few photos of the girls of course, this one is actually my favourite as they were much too preoccupied to even notice it being taken. They're growing up so fast:

Straight onto my snippets card now:

I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank

- a slightly smaller snippet of turquoise card stock as a backing

- a slightly smaller again snippet of white card stock with 'waves' die cut using a Memory Box 'Breezy Waves' die - and then the back of the 'waves' were covered with a rectangle of double sided adhesive sheet so that the apertures were backed with sticky

- glued the turquoise layer and the die cut layer onto the card front. Little tip, if you've have open sticky apertures like I had - use the layer of waxed paper you peeled off to expose the sticky to cover it up again whilst you work

- die cut three shades of turquoise card snippets for the waves and inlaid them into the die cut apertures

- stamped the boat and seagulls using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink onto white card - using stamps from the Lawn Fawn 'Float My Boat' stamp set

- coloured the sails of the boat using a yellow Pro Marker then die cut the boat and seagulls using the matching Lawn Fawn set of dies

- stamped the sentiment using SU's 'Real Red' and one of the sentiments from the stamp set

- die cut the sentiment with a Spellbinders 'Nested Pennant' die. Another tip, the sentiment was too long for the die so I just die cut one end at a time - moving the die and making sure I only partially cut the length of the sentiment

- then glued everything in place - and called it finished

The stamp set comes with various really fun sentiments plus a teeny heart, a life saver and an anchor - oh, and a stamp which would make great waves too. The life saver and anchor also have matching dies in the set I used - but it seemed a step too far to throw too much at the one card.

I know that I originally spotted a similar card on a Playmate's blog and rushed off to buy the goodies immediately - quite a while ago now. Needless to say I can't find which one of you lovely peeps inspired me and I've searched high and low in Blogland - if it was you, do please let me know and I'll add your name here.

Time for a 'peek at the picks' from the last two weeks.

Week 231:

I just cracked up at this terrific get well card, made by Megan! What great use of snippets too - following a super sketch that's just perfect for snippets.

Barb is always coming up with great ideas and I think this card is really so clever. Do hop over to Barb's for more detail on how to make those wonderful little 'apertures' on the right hand side of the card - you could be surprised, I was!

I really love this card, it's so CAS and a really great way to use up little snippets at the same time - made by Helen. Such a sweet birdie too!

I think this is such a clever card, made by Pat! Perfect for anyone interested in chess - love the chess pieces and how dramatic is that chess board?

Gosh, Meg has a flying start on her Hogmanay cards for 2017! This is such a brilliant design for a card don't you think? All from a scrap of tartan patterned paper - a great kilt and I think a few of us could be copying this idea!

Week 232:

I picked this card, made by Jane W, for the CAS design and also to show how you can get cracking on your Christmas cards! Once you pick a design like this I reckon you could set up a little production line for stamping, colouring, die cutting, fancy edge scissors (or dies/punches) and away you go. Plus some bling of course :) Super card!

Alison brought this absolutely stunning card to share with us. A perfect example of what can be done with a piece of paper left from a session when Alison was playing with ink effects. Plus, Alison also inlaid some of the die cuts - LOVE it!!

This brilliant pop up gift card holder was made by Liz - and there are really easy to follow photos of the steps on her blog post as well. Such a brilliant idea - I'd already earmarked this as an idea when our Sarn made a holder a few weeks ago - no excuse now!

I picked this card largely as the gorgeous image is just so perfectly coloured to go with that lovely selection of backing papers plus the die cut hearts and little enamel dots. Wanda really did hit the colours on the nail here, great use of snippets and I love the retro feel too :)

And last but not least, here's a card to possibly make your eyes deceive you:

Brought to us by Darnell and those letters are actually inset rather than adhered onto the top of the purple layer of card. Keep looking away and then return to the photo and I think you'll suddenly see what I mean! My eyes were popping in and out like organ stops!! Trust Darnell to come up with this :)

Which reminds me - Darnell's trip to England from mid-July is fast approaching so do go and see if she's likely to be within reach on her visit. First stop is Southampton - yay!!

So, I did better than I thought and had five picks from each of the two weeks. Having said that, I could have had many, many more as always! You really do come up with some wonderful snippets makes and it's always so hard to whittle down my list to a manageable number :(

We had one new Playmate join us during the past couple of weeks, in week 231 NanaConnie brought this lovely card to share:

Wonderful quilling Connie and such a gorgeous design too. Hope you come back often to play with us, I see you joined in again during week 232 - which means the girlies must have been kind on your first visit :) Mind you, they really are the sweetest bunch of bloggers and make the Playground a happy and supportive place to come and play each week.

Now for the two prize draws:

Week 231 - the Frantic Stamper 'Good Friends Daisy Frame' die set and adhesive eraser:

Judy (aka PJ)

 

Crumbs, it looks as if it's Judy's first ever Playground win! Many congratulations are due - and can you please let me have your address PJ, my email addy is on the right hand sidebar :)

Week 232 - the Impression Obsession 'Girl Swinging' and 'Love' die:

Kath (Handmade by Kath)

It's been a good few weeks since Kath last won so this was due :) I still have your address here Kath and will post your prize off ASAP.

This coming week's prize is made up of stamps and dies, the same as I used today - Lawn Fawn 'Float My Boat' and Memory Box 'Breezy Waves'. Plus a lovely extra set of Memory Box dies called 'School of Fish' - which I think might look such fun underneath the waves, kindly donated by Mary Anne:

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 18th June. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Just realised, it's our local village carnival on Saturday 18th June - which may have an effect on things. Certainly the Playground gates will close and open as usual as I can arrange/schedule that ahead of time - my snippets card will be here along with the new Mr Linky and details of the new week's prize. But, I may not have a chance to do the prize draw for the Sunday Snippets post - and possibly not the weekly picks. I'm loathe to alter the Playground closing and opening times so there's a chance you might have to hop back on the Monday or Tuesday to check out the winner and possibly the picks. I'll do my best but have a feeling that we'll be helping out on the Saturday morning ready for the afternoon's fun and games! Just hope we have good weather!

A maximum of ONE entry 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 of the die sets or the stamp set then just say so in your comment and if you win then I'll do a further draw for the other item(s). But, it's one whole prize if you wish. 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 :)

Wishing you all a lovely week, with more sunshine and certainly no flash floods!

I hope this post works OK, for some reason whenever the mouse floats over the post in edit mode stuff jumps here and there! I've been and tweaked some rogue HTML but am loathe to tinker further. It's jumping round like a jack in the box even as I type this closing sentence!! I'm OFF!!

Di and, of course, Parsnip
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