I'm still trying to limit time spent sitting at the desk here, which can mean some slippage in timely commenting, but I do always get to you in the end!
A little bit of excitement here, we have a Mama hedgie bringing at least two of her babies with her when she comes for a nightly feed! As yet, they haven't got the hang of the feeding dish and seem to just scoot around the garden having fun. My guess is that they're about the size of a small mango - so still pretty young. Thankfully it's a while until Autumn so they have plenty of time to reach a comfortable weight for hibernation. I can't promise any photos as yet so you'll just have to trust me for now.
Here's my snippets card for this week, it's a little busier than I tend to like/make these days but wanted to use a couple of dies, as well as a punch, the colour pink and butterflies so I could join in with Mrs A's current Butterfly Challenge #59 Butterflies + P is for punches and/or pink:
I used:
- 4" x 8" white card blank, tent style
- snippet of plain pink Core-dinations card from the snippets folder, trimmed and then each end was punched with a Martha Stewart 'Vintage Lace' punch before glueing it onto the card front
- cut a smaller oblong of white card stock and glued that on top of the pink layer
- 4" x 8" white card blank, tent style
- snippet of plain pink Core-dinations card from the snippets folder, trimmed and then each end was punched with a Martha Stewart 'Vintage Lace' punch before glueing it onto the card front
- cut a smaller oblong of white card stock and glued that on top of the pink layer
- then die cut the teacup stack and the sentiment using two Apple Blossom dies - called 'Teacups' (the stack of cups) and 'Time for Tea' (the sentiment) - using snippets of plain white card
- next die cut the sentiment using a snippet of pink gingham paper from the Craftwork Cards 'Kitsch collection pack and glued it to the matching white card die cut
- the cups were a little more fiddly as the die actually cuts the stack as one whole piece and it's up to you to chop and change papers then layer the cups up. I already had one failed attempt which is why I hit on the idea of die cutting the plain white card layer first. AND, this time I also remembered that you place the very top cup onto the card first, leaving a little bit extra underneath. Then cut across the top of the middle cup and glue that in place, also leaving a little bit extra underneath and finally cut right across the bottom cup and glue that in place. That way the cups look as if they're nestled inside one another
- glued the sentiment and cups onto the card front and then die cut three butterflies from a small snippets from the same paper pack using the SU 'Embosslits Beautiful Wings' die set and glued them in place
I've recently missed out on a couple of challenges where certainly the stacked teacups would have been just perfect and thought it better to get them while they were on a brilliant offer - and also still in 'vogue' too! Ha, the butterflies look like a little squadron about to land of the cupcake and tuck in :)
The sentiment would be clearer if cut from plain card but I wanted to pick out one of the cups with the pink gingham.
Now for this week's peek at the picks:
Vinita made this fabulous almost purely black and white card and I love all the beautiful detail. She entered it into Mrs A's previous butterfly challenge so there's a little touch of denim there - as well as loads of fabulous dimension. Needless to say it was also a pick for the top five over at the Butterfly House, and rightly so!


Now for a little drum roll, Jane J (who is often a weekly pick here) is celebrating six years of blogging with a fabulous giveaway HERE.

No new Playmates this week, although seeing as it's Summer holiday time we did have 46 of you come and play!
Kitty last won in the bumper Christmas draw, so it was good to see her name pop out as she plays each week and is often featured in the weekly picks too. Can you please drop me a quick email Kitty to confirm that your address is the still the same - I know you moved out while some work was being done but think you're back in the same house again? My email addy is on the right hand sidebar. As soon as I hear from you I'll post the die set off at our local Post Office.
First of all it's two dies, the same as I used on my snippets card. Both are by Apple Blossom and are called 'Teacups' and 'Time for Tea' respectively. They cut beautifully and come with their own magnetic backing sheet as well.
I'm very conscious that I seem to offer a lot of dies as prizes so also am also offering this lovely stamp set, kindly donated by Mrs A (she gave it to me when we met Darnell a couple of weeks ago):
I don't have this stamp set myself so can't make a 'snippets sample' to show it in use, but, it comes with the flower stamp plus two sentiments. I did giggle though, when Mrs A gave the stamp to me I squealed 'Oooh, how lovely, a hibiscus stamp!'. And she didn't correct me either. My excuse is that I wasn't wearing my specs at the time - of course it's a lovely clump of pansies! :) Duh. I've seen coloured examples on the internet and it's a really pretty set.
So, the dies and the stamp are two separate prizes. I'll draw the dies first and then follow with the stamp set - and there will be two different winners even if the same number pops out twice 'cos I'll do a re-run to make it more fair. All you have to do, if you want to be 'in it to win it' is to say in a comment if you'd like to play for both the prizes, depending which one is available if and when your number is chosen by the Random Number thingy - or for both the dies or the stamps. I won't be splitting the dies BTW, both make up one prize.
A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of a 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 :)
Di and, of course, Parsnip
x