Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 236

Hi there! I hope your week was good and that you had better weather then we did down in Hampshire. Our central heating kicked in during the night on Friday, which shows how low temperatures can drop - despite it now being July!

Here's my snippets card for this week:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- 6" x 6" square piece of white card stock on which to assemble the front

- then I made a set of four flowers so that I could juggle them round with papers etc. to work out the final design and spacings on the card

- the flowers were great fun to make, I used snippets of lilac and pink felt that were tucked away in a sewing box and die cut them using a Joy! 6002/0024 set of three daisy dies. Two lots in pink felt and two lots in lilac felt

- then, alternating the layers I made up four 'daisies', held together with little brads, made by Diamante Crafts

- I chose to use diagonally striped paper from Wild Rose Studio's 'Wintry Christmas' paper pack - which I so rarely use for Christmas as it's great for other cards. Added a piece of the paper, cut on the diagonal, across the lower part of the card

- next I stamped the sentiment diagonally, using Brilliance 'Pearlescent Orchid' ink and a stamp from SU's 'Wonderful Words' set. I Googled the set just now and discovered that it dates back to 2005 and is long retired - I bought mine 'pre-loved' a while ago. Isn't it amazing how trends return, scrolled sentiments with 'tails' at either end are very popular at the moment

- at this point I dithered a bit, there was too much white space above the sentiment and the choice was to emboss some lines or add another triangle of the patterned paper - the paper won in the end

- finally, I could glue the felt 'daises' in place across the card - using my hot glue gun

I'd been wanting to use felt for die cutting since seeing all the fun things folk have been using it for ranging from flowers through to sentiments - and it was Tara who kicked me into action by sending some fabulous felt as part of this week's prize. I wouldn't open the pack she sent of course but, as already said, was lucky enough to find some snippets of felt in a box of sewing stuff here.

Here's the thing though, my felt isn't very good quality, whereas I know that Tara sources excellent quality felt. So, I did have problems initially as my own cheap and cheerful quality felt just wouldn't die cut cleanly. Then I did a quick Google search and what d'you know, the clue is to pop a piece of card between the felt and the cutting plate before adding your die to do the cutting! It works fantastically well, even cutting out the tiny centres in the daisies ready to poke the brads through. One of the best tips I've found on line for quite a while - and I now also have a handful of white card die cut daisies to play with too!

Let's move swiftly onto this week's peek at the picks:

I love the CAS design of this card, made by Brenda in IN. The MB 'Pietra Tile' is a die I have but have possibly only used once - it looks really great with the pretty butterfly doesn't it!

Valerija made this amazing exploding box, her very first one too, and brought it along to share with us. Every single detail is perfection - and I just can't get over the adorable little piano!

I love this card, made by Kath - it's so fresh and crisp. Of course, it's a wonderful Woodware stamp and such a clever idea to not only use card candi (which is what quite a few Woodware stamps are designed to feature) but also the nail heads too.

Maura always produces beautiful cards and this one really caught my eye this week. Wonderful colours, snippets and such pretty flowers too. That's a fabulous embossing folder Maura used, thankfully she didn't give the name of it on her post though :)

I'm a huge fan of paper piecing and really love how Sandy used it on the umbrella and tablecloth on this fun card. It totally pulls everything together - IMHO :)

This card, made by Alison, is a stunner - and such a clever idea as well. I have some sets of Christmas 'peg' stamps and always use them to create round wreaths. But this is a step out of the box (or should that be sand pit?) - the open semi-circular design is lovely and leaves some nice white space as well as room for a variety of sentiments. Love it!

I picked this 'last but not least' card, made by Margaret, partly as it's so pretty, it's pink (I do try not to favour pink too much, but sometimes ... ) - and it's also made totally from snippets. A lovely design and a card I'd be delighted to receive!

My back seized up on Friday afternoon, 24 hours after I felt it sort of 'twang' as I overstretched in the supermarket - so I'll move on swiftly to our new Playmates now. But, I do wanna know why supermarkets think we're all either seven foot tall and can reach right to the back of top shelves - or are limbo dancers and can lie flat on the floor to reach that elusive box of teabags that's hiding at the very back of the bottom shelf! I should learn to just walk away when that happens but hate to admit I'm beaten!

We had two new Playmates this week:

Zoe skipped in with this beautifully decorated coat hanger. It's not only very pretty but also practical as Zoe will be using it to suspend necklaces from :)

How cute is this then? Nina joined in the fun with this super card - what a lovely scene, and some very clever die cutting too. I can't see for sure but I think the palm trees are inlaid, which adds to the dimension.

Hope you both come back to play again soon!

Now for the prize draw, for the Crafts-Too 'Lattice' embossing folder, Inkylicious sentiment stamp called 'Wonderful Day' and Joanna Sheen 'Fuchsia' dies set.

The winner is:

Megan

Yay! Megan first came to play with us last November and I'm almost sure this is her first win - well done Megan and I hope it was worth the wait. I know you've been on my 'peek at the picks' a few times so Mr Random must have decided it was time you won. Can you please drop me an email with your address and I'll post your prize off to you ASAP. My email addy is on the RHS of the blog page.

Here's this coming week's prize:

As I already hinted, it consists of a fabulous selection of felt samples, kindly donated by Tara of Seven Hills Crafts, containing 40 x 10cm square  pieces of felt in every colour of the rainbow and more. That's one of every colour she stocks and wow, they really are luscious too.

To that I've added a set of the Joy! daisy dies plus a packet of small brads in assorted colours. Exactly the same as I used when making my snippets card for today.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 9th 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. If you only want to play for one or two of the items making up this week's prize, just say so in your comment and if you win then I'll do a further draw for the other item(s). 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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