Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 240

It's been a tad cooler here this week, but pleasant weather generally though.
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

 
- 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!

I gasped when this amazing tea light holder popped up in the Playground! It was made by Sonia and is just breathtaking. So, so much work and love has gone into making this - you really do need to hop over to her blog HERE and see all the close-ups! The leaves were made from snippets of paper by the way - the flowers were made using Thai clay, which is a new one on me. I did think it might be much like Martha Stewart's paper clay but from the little bit of Googling I've done it seems quite different.

Now, isn't this just super-cute?! Maura brought this gorgeous card to share with us, I love the marching band as well as the fact that it's s really clever shaker card too. The red, white and blue is so striking as well.

Lesley comes up with some really great ideas - and this is a stunner! Totally made from scratch, and the 'sunburst' was designed and cut by hand, it's just perfect for a chap who's interested in or plays darts. Lots of photos to see over at Lesley's blog showing each step - what a clever sausage she is, love it!

We don't see as much of Eve since the arrival of 'Posy the Puppy', so it was a real treat when she nipped into the Playground to share this gorgeous card with us. More Stampin' Up goodies on my wish list! Sigh.

I must show you this, partly because of the amazing Brushos background - and also because the young lady (Aurora) holding the card was having a very first play with them! She's Alice's niece and has appeared on here previously - obviously talent runs in the family!

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.

What a wonderful gesture, you can win all of the above items (a beautiful bracelet, bag charm and earrings) all  handmade by Jane, just by hopping over and leaving a comment. Of course it would be lovely if you become a follower and there are also a couple of ways you can have additional chances in the draw.

No new Playmates this week, although seeing as it's Summer holiday time we did have 46 of you come and play!

Now it's prize draw time, for the Sue Wilson Creative Expressions 'Dove of Peace' two piece die set. And the winner is:

Kitty

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.

Here's this coming week's prize - and in fact we have two prize draws this week - explained below:

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.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 6th August. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

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
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Less is More - Weeks 286 & 287 - Use something Tactile

The current Less is More challenge (Use something Tactile) is running for two weeks this time as Chrissie and a lot of the team are going to be at the Happy Little Stampers Retreat in Swindon - along with Darnell of course. Oh to be a fly on the wall eh?

This is my entry:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, tent style

- a slightly smaller backing layer of beige coloured Core'dinations card

- piece of white card, trimmed to slightly smaller than the beige layer and then (using the Misti) stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Toffee Crunch' ink and a sentiment from the Winnie & Walter's 'The Big, the Bold and the Happy' stamp set

- wrapped beige twine twice around the card front and stuck it in place at the back

- glued the panel to the card front using Collall All Purpose glue

- then, using the glue gun, added a Papermania 'Burlap Bloom' and topped it with a beige twine daisy flower

The beige twine, burlap flower and also the twine daisy were gifts from Jules a little while ago. And she made that lovely daisy using an 'almost antique' brass 'Daisy Loom'. A lovely little piece of equipment, very cleverly designed with retractable 'pins' so you can slip the daisy off when it's been sewn together in the centre.

Who knows, I may even hop back with a second entry next week as LIM is one of my favourite challenges :)

Next I need to catch up on my Christmas card making - beginning to slip again!

Di
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Rudolph Days Challenge - July 2016

Crumbs, where did time go since the last time we played over at ScrappyMo's Rudolph Day Challenge? Almost got caught out so had to do some swift card making yesterday. Whilst at it I also made my card suitable for some other challenges, listed at the end of this post. Here's the card I made, one of four exactly the same - to also catch up a bit on my slipping Christmas card target:

I used:

- 6" x 4" white card blank

- piece of slightly smaller white card, embossed using SU's 'Softly Falling' embossing folder. The idea from this came from THIS card, made by Carol L which I had as a pick on my Sunday Snippets post 10 days ago

- then I used Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Paper Smooches sentiments set called 'Christmas Sampler' to stamp 'Merry Chrismas' in the bottom right corner, where the falling snow leaves a very convenient flat patch. Glued it to the card front

- wanting to make four cards quickly I very wisely (not) chose to stamp and colour four images all the same, when will I learn!? Used a darling snowman stamp that Andrea (KandA) sent me recently. I have no idea of the make or name except that he's unmounted red rubber, stamps like a dream and is just so cute! Any ideas folks? Elzybells? LOTV?

- stamped the little chap using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and then coloured him in using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and Sansodor blending fluid before trimming right round his outline

- added some clear Wink of Stella to the fur trimmings on his Santa hat and jacket and some gold to the buckle and the 'nail heads' on his placard using a Signo 'Sparkling Gold' pen

- die cut a white panel using a die from the 'Rounded Banner' set of dies made by MFT, then cut a larger panel using a die one size up and red pearlescent card - sent to me just this week by the lovely Donna. Of course, I'd chosen the reds in the image to tone with the pearlescent card - I'm not totally daft!

- then assembled the topper panel using Collall All Purpose glue and popped the snowman on top before adding the whole thing to the card front using thin sticky pads

Shame it's so hard to catch the lovely gold sparkle on his buckle and the placard - it just looks a bit grubby and patchy in the photo, sigh. And, another time I'd leave his hand white maybe - I just thought 'mitten' when I was colouring :)

As I said above, I'd also like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 291 'Use a sentiment'

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for July 'Always anything goes'

Merry Monday 'Christmas in Summer Link-Up' 'Use a snowman'

'Merry Monday' is actually taking a Summer break, as they do each year, but, this time they're inviting us to make our entries over the next five or so weeks using any previous theme. What a great idea and also, at the end there's a draw to win a Starbucks Gift Card. It's in dollars so I'm wondering if the air fare is included? Sigh, I thought not! I chose a previous Merry Monday theme of 'Use a Snowman' - April 2014, challenge #103.

Di
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Butterfly Challenge #58 - Butterflies + D is for Dimension and/or Denim

Ooops, screeching into Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge at the last minute - as is often the case! Here's my 'Denim' plus (what I hope is enough) 'Dimension' butterfly card:

I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank, tent style

- piece of pale blue denim print paper from the Joanna Sheen 'Haberdashery' paper pack, trimmed slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- white card for the two front layers, die cut using the Spellbinders 'Resplendent Rectangles' set then glued the bigger layer in place

- the smaller layer needed a sentiment stamping onto it and I did some fiddling with the Misti. Basically, I was using an Elzybells sentiment stamp, which is solid red rubber and also wanted to be sure that it stamped fully. I was using Memento 'Paris Dusk' ink so knew I had a good start there. Here's how I adapted the Misti. I placed the Stampin' Up thin clear plastic sheet from the SU stamp positioner onto the Misti and popped the two magnets on it to hold it in place. Having swiped the back of the stamp with removeable tape runner, I then placed the sentiment stamp face down onto the clear plastic sheet, where it would be picked up by the lid

- firmly closed and then opened the Misti lid and at that point I had the stamp secured to the lid and the plastic held in place by magnets. Inked up the stamp and closed the lid - which left the image on the acetate. Hope you're still with me - if not just shout and I'll do a further post with some photos

- next took the already die cut top white layer of card and lifted just one of the magnets to slip it underneath the plastic sheet so I could line the sentiment up where I wanted it (could see this as the sentiment was already stamped onto the clear plastic sheet of course)

- it's really important to keep the plastic sheet in the same position whilst you slip the piece of card underneath as the stamp is going to come down in the very same place as it was picked up from. Once happy, and it took seconds, I held the piece of card in place with the magnet I'd removed earlier, removed the plastic sheet altogether and for extra 'belt, braces and double knicker elastic' also added the second magnet

- re-inked the sentiment with the same ink pad and then stamped it onto the top layer of white card. Sure enough, it took more than one go to get a clear, even image - phew, that fiddling on was so worth it!

- then die cut one white butterfly and one pale blue denim butterfly, using Memory Box dies called 'Darla' and 'Vivienne', layered them so that the denim blue lace wings were flicked up and then stuck the butterfly in place onto the card front

Hindsight being what it is, I could have saved all the fiddling round with the Misti and the clear plastic if I'd thought to stamp the sentiment onto a piece of white card first in roughly the right position and then do the die cutting afterwards - duh :(

Di
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Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 239

Well, we wanted Summer to finally arrive here in the UK! And it sure did last week, phew!  What an exciting week for so many of us, Darnell arrived in the UK and is currently on her 'Grand Tour'. I wrote about it HERE.

Having been away for almost three days in Southampton with Mrs A and Darnell, there's been very little time for crafting so today's snippets card today is a repeat showing of one I made back in the middle of June - but it does lead us nicely into this week's prize. It's a Christmas card .......... in sweltering July:

 

I used:

- 5" x 5" white card blank

- square of silver mirri card, slightly smaller than the card front, glued in place

- square of white card, slightly smaller than the silver layer, glued in place

- more of the silver mirri card, backed with Stick It adhesive sheet then the dove and sentiment were die cut using Sue Wilson's Creative Expressions 'Dove of Peace' set

- adhered the dove and sentiment in place on the card front - clean, crisp and simple

All the silver card came from the snippets folder BTW. I always have loads of little pieces of leftover gold and silver mirri card - always handy for sentiments as well as smallish die cuts such as corners.

Now for this week's peek at the picks:

A great way to use up snippets, shared with us by Val. I love this quite abstract SU die set that Val used. It can be used for male cards, pretty girlie cards in say pinks and mauves, gold/silver for Anniversaries and Weddings, the long wavy die could be used for snowdrift backgrounds - the list goes on! There now, I've fully justified adding the set to my 'wish list' :)

I know that loads and loads of you are playing with alcohol inks and Yupo paper right now - producing some wonderful work. This card, using the technique, brought to share by Cornelia, really made me sit up - what a stunner! I think it's just breathtaking - absolutely beautiful background and the vellum panel sentiment is perfect!

And here's another brilliant Yupo paper/alcohol ink creation! This time Aileen created lots of backgrounds to play with and the LOVE die cut came from one of them. So striking and I'm all fired up to take the plunge!! Sometimes, in fact a lot of the time, I fear for my pocket money when I see all the wonderful ideas in the Playground!

I picked this card, made by Sam ( Whisper) because I think it's really pretty, lots of snippets, it's pink, a lovely design ........... and it sums up the weather right now down in the Playground :) So, so sweet and made with such care - the adorable hedgie really made me smile here.

Here's a card to bring you up with a start - made by the very talented Donna. Again using vellum so effectively and a fabulous new Poppy Stamps die called 'Sticks Frame'. I absolutely love this card and, quite rightly, Donna has entered it into the brilliant challenge run by Loll and Bonnie (both of them are Playmates here).

I especially like Loll and Bonnie's really friendly monthly challenge, called 'CAS Mix Up' - link is HERE - as it's two elements for each challenge, then you choose the third element from a standard permanent list. For example, Donna used Stamping + Markers and then added in heat embossing, die cutting and punching. So, it's great fun to pick the third element (or more if you wish, I've entered using a card with two additional elements this past week) ) to go with the weekly theme. And you get to make a CAS card, along with mixing  elements/techniques - so cool!

So, here's a snippets card made by Loll - co-owner of the challenge I just wrote about. You really ought to hop over to see her method of making the background, very clever and I think her craft room might resemble a Chinese laundry at times :) Love the peachy toned background, topped with the black die cuts and then the black and white sentiment. Just so pleasing to the eye.

And, to keep us a bit focused on the 'CAS Mix Up' challenge I'm writing about, this is one of Bonnie's DT cards - which uses snippets of course plus stamping, markers, dry embossing and vellum. One neat trick to share is that Bonnie wrapped the layer of patterned vellum over the top of the card blank and then added some sticky underneath the pretty butterfly panel to further adhere it to the card front. I really love this sentiment and am sure I have a stamp with a very similar one on .......... somewhere in here!

Well, I set out to show just three picks of the week and ended up with seven - and could have kept going as well!

Anyone spot a couple of trends going on? Yup, this week it's Yupo with alcohol inks and also vellum. Len will often say to me that surely there comes a point when there won't be any new products/techniques to try. I just quietly smile and shake my head knowingly :)

We had one new Playmate this week:

I know - squeeal - isn't this just adorable, and a style I wish I could master! Trina P brought this wonderful Christmas card to share with us. She's only been blogging since April this year so it would be lovely if a few of you could hop over to say 'Hello'. I just love the glossy sentiment too, you need to see it for yourselves :) Trina doesn't appear to have a followers gadget on her blog so it's hard to tell how many folk do follow her :(

Welcome Trina, please come back again to play - your work is so lovely.

Now it's prize draw time, for the MFT Die-namics 'Hello There' sets of dies ('hello', 'hi' and 'there'), I had three of these waiting to be won - and the winners are:

Janice

 

Glennis 

 Karen P

 

Well done girls! As luck would have it, I have each of your snail mail addresses and will post the dies off to you ASAP this week :)

Here's this coming week's prize:

It's a Sue Wilson Creative Expressions 'Dove of Peace' two piece die set, the same as the set I used on my snippets card.

I know, it possibly seems mad to be offering Christmas prizes in July! It's partly as I didn't have time to make another snippets card so had to cheat and republish a card from June where I'd used my own die set the same as this one which was in the toy box as a future prize. Plus, sometimes it's nice to have new stuff well in advance as an incentive to get cracking on with making those Christmas cards!

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

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner 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 :) 

Di and, of course, Parsnip
x

Meeting Darnell - Southampton July 2016

I bet loads of you will already have seen Darnell's post HERE about her 'England Grand Tour - Leg 1'. Here's a little bit more to fill in some gaps.

First of all, Darnell is absolutely everything she is on her blog - funny, dry, bubbly, caring, thoughtful and at times just plain crazy! Mrs A and I arrived on Monday at the Grand Harbour Hotel, Southampton - by which time our little visitor was settled in and ready to play. We had a lovely afternoon and evening just chilling out in the heatwave (bit of a contradiction there!) on the hotel decking area - and no-one got thrown out for misbehaving. Knew it was a good idea to leave Parsnip at home!

Tuesday dawned hot and sunny once again so we went out for a stroll after breakfast before the heat became too much. The intention was to show Darnell the Mayflower Monument, which commemorates the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower to the New World in 1620.

On the way we passed three of these fellas:

A bit like Bristol did with the sheep, Southampton has loads of differently painted zebras dotted about the town. The building on the right in the background is the hotel where we were based BTW.

I did smile as I remember Julia of WOYWW posting on FB a photo of a truck load of these, white all over and still unpainted, zebras zooming along the motorway - months ago. Obviously getting ready to be prettied up - although at the time no-one had a clue what was going on!

Anyhow, could we heck as like find the monument in Mayflower Park, despite asking the guy in the ice cream kiosk - who just looked blankly at us. We sort of moseyed around with no sighting at all so gave up, and crossed back over the road to walk back to the hotel in the shade. BINGO!! There it was, standing quite shyly back from the road with little in the way of anything to really point you to it!

 Needless to say, that's Darnell clowning around :)

This is a closer look at the top of the monument, with a replica of the Mayflower - very much like a weathervane.

I think we three were almost melting by the time we got back to the hotel, which was really no distance at all!

Then it was time for the 'main event' - lunch for 10 of us. I truly don't think there was ever a lull in the conversations going on - and it was fabulous to meet so many blogging friends actually 'in the flesh'! Most of whom are Snippets Playmates too. I'd already met the lovely Debs a couple of times and of course my buddy and partner in crime Mrs A (usually when we travel to craft shows and wreck display stands! Her best ever was ripping a soap dispenser off the wall in a ladies loo, sigh).

Back Row: Debs Willis, Christine Smith, Anne Ray, Kim Dear, me, Mrs. A.

Front Row: Sue Steed, Darnell, Jane Willis, Chrissie Stokes

We had a brilliant time and it was such fun learning more about one another and sharing stories - but all too soon we were at late afternoon and it was time for folk to make their homeward journeys. A few eyes filled up - certainly mine did, more than once!

Whilst waiting for Chrissie to pick Darnell up the following morning to take her over to Salisbury - I managed to snatch this photo of Mrs A and Darnell (she's the one wearing the 30lb back pack!). I just love it!

It truly was a wonderful few days but all good things come to an end.

Those of you who have yet to meet Darnell are in for a treat. Those of you who already met her will no doubt know exactly what I mean when I described her earlier. And those of you who for one reason or another haven't been or won't be able to meet her - I hope that sharing this has made you feel a little bit as if you joined in with us in Southampton.

Di
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