Christmas cards and Darnell's NBUS Challenge #7

This is my second entry into Darnell's NBUS #7 Challenge - and there's a third one coming up in the Snippets Playground on Sunday. I could almost make a NBUS card each week for a whole year and possibly not have used all the bought and unused goodies here, sigh.

This card is also for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge (Use a sentiment) as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for August (Always anything goes):

I used:

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

- SU's 'Real Red' card stock, cut slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- piece of white card stock, die cut using a die from the Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' set of dies

- my NBUS Stampin' Up 'Joyful Nativity' set of stamps. I used the Misti (was making a batch of them at the same time) and first stamped the word JOY in SU's 'Real Red', then the sentiment in Memento 'Tuxedo Black' and finally the angel and the star using Delicata 'Silvery Shimmer'. And how it shimmers in real life too

- glued the panel in place and added a single clear self adhesive gem to the centre of the star

I set out to make six cards but ended up with five (isn't a last minute smear of ink from a finger on a card annoying - especially when it just can't be disguised, sigh).

Psst, I posted off all the 'That Folder' prizes yesterday afternoon (Tuesday) by 1st Class and Airmail. Our local Post Office knows me now - 'Hi there, more craft stuff?'.

Less is More - Week #291 - Recipe

It's recipe week over at Less is More and the theme is 'Sticker, sticky label or peel-off'. The DT have made some wonderful cards and already there are some extremely clever entries as well. Who would have thought that using a peel-off as a mask could be so effective?!

I didn't have much time to play but did need to make some cards in a hurry, to enclose with last week's snippets prizes. So I turned to some stickers and a sentiment stamp and came up with six of these little cards:

I used:

- 3.75" x 3.75" square white card blank

- sentiment stamp that came with the All-Occasion 'That Folder' set and Memento 'London Fog' ink (softer than jet black) - stamped using the Misti, which of course made doing six cards the same a real breeze

- the triple flower 'Hydrangea' sticker is by Martha Stewart and even came with the little pearls on, so it was just a matter of popping it in place

As I said, very quick and easy and I feel I cheated!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 244

Wow, we've had some pretty hot weather here in the Playground this past week. The duck pond has been in great demand for the purposes of cooling down too.

Our little family (or it might be families!) of hedgehogs are eating us out of house and home. We now have two feeding stations set up for them and reckon there could be as many as six of them visiting, in all shapes and sizes. It's almost as if there's a big neon sign flashing on the side gate, which we deliberately had cut high enough for them to come and go, saying 'Hedgie Diner, this way'! :)

My snippets card today is a shaker card, not something I tackle very often to be honest but I've had a 'Never Before Used Schtuff' die here for ages, just waiting to be used. It cries out to be a shaker card (although the die would work well without the shaker element too).

And this card is for Darnell's latest NBUS challenge #7 as well - make sure you join in, I bet every single one of you has something unused to play with for the first time:

I used:

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

- snippet of gold mirri card, trimmed to an eighth of an inch smaller all round and glued onto the card front

- snippet of black card, die cut using a die from the Lil'Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' set

- then die cut the circular HOORAY aperture, using a NBUS Clearly Besotted Shaker Shapes 'Circle Hooray' die

- two layers of black fun foam, die cut using a die from the Lil'Inkers 'Stitched
Rectangles' set with a circular aperture die cut to line up behind the black card layer - using a slightly larger plain circle die than the HOORAY die

- glued and red line taped the two layers of black fun foam together and backed them with a circle of white card

- using the piece of black card with the die cut word I worked out where to glue three sequins and stuck them in place onto the white backing card

- die cut a circle of acetate, again using the slightly larger plain circle die, swiped it with an anti-static bag and glued it behind the HOORAY aperture in the piece of black card

- then it was just a case of popping some Lucy's Cards 'Little Things' shaker card gold selection called 'Champagne' into the 'well' of the white card backed fun foam and then gluing the card front on top

- then glued the whole thing to the card itself before adding some little pieces of shaker selection to the front, just to break up the starkness

Ha, despite using the anti-static bag, the shaker stuff does cling a bit to the acetate - but I rather like that. It looks more spread out and still has movement when it's shaken.

Here's the weekly 'peek at the picks' - as always it's a tough choice, I try not to favour the same Playmates too much and also look for ideas that might inspire you:

I love this sweet card, made by Megan. It's a cute little dog, waiting and watching for its owner - and when you open the card up you get a view of the little chap stretched up to peek out :)

I really love the impact of this card, made by KathyK! Wonderful colours and just the one black snippet for the 'frame' - it's fabulous.

I picked this card, made by Pen as the hand drawn water colour pencil flower is just amazing! It was drawn onto a snippet of water colour paper and the frame is also a snippet. Isn't it beautiful?!

What a stunning CAS card, made by Bonnie! A snippet of a Brusho background and then a gold snippet for that beautiful butterfly. It's absolutely fabulous Bonnie, and lots of impact.

Isn't this a beautiful card, made by Shaz in Oz. I just love how well the two main dies (the Piestra panel and the Snowflake Ornament) work together - yet they were released years apart. I have both of them here and would never have thought to combine them! Well done Shaz - and welcome back to the Playground. So pleased that you're recovering.

And last, but not least, Brenda of Floral Fantasies hopped into the Playground with this amazing canvas. It's fabulous and just so much what I would choose in a shop of course, I love pink :) And, Brenda also gives good instructions as to how she made the canvas into such a work of art - yet more inspiration in the Playground!

We have one new Playmate this week:

Helen C from Oz hopped into the Playground with this really fun elephant tag. I love how the darling little hat matches the dotty paper and washi tape - clever touch!

Welcome Helen, I do hope you come back to play with us again.

Now it's prize draw time, for the three embossing folder sets from last week. Only, there are in fact six sets to be won! I saw just how many people loved the set and ran off and bought three more so I could double the number of winners. This week, because it's a bit time consuming, I'll still use the Random number generator but you'll have to trust me on the results. It takes a while to fiddle around copying, editing and then inserting the screen shots into a post.

And the winners are:

#9 - Helen

#54 Sandy J 

#8 Jenny L

#61 April

#44 Sue T

#19 Pen

Can I please remind winners that they now have to drop me an email to claim their prize - as well as including their current address. My email addy is on the right hand sidebar as usual!  

This coming week's prize is:

A Clearly Besotted Shaker Shapes 'Circle Hooray' die - along with a packet of 'Champagne' shaker card mix to get you going! Just like I used on my snippets card of course. Both items make up the prize and won't be split. I've just checked out the Clearly Besotted website and it looks to me as if this die is discontinued already, it's only been around since last year - sigh.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 3rd September. 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 :) 

A couple of challenges to watch out for in the coming week:

Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's, which is running right now, to the end of the month.

Darnell's NBUS challenge, in which you use something Never Before Used - hangs head in shame here as I could enter this umpteen times over and still have loads of unused goodies! It began yesterday and runs until 5th September.

Have a great week! Big hug from Parsnip, and of course me.

Rudolph Days - August 2016

It's Rudolph Days again over at ScrappyMo's - as always it runs from the 25th to the end of the month.

Some of you might recall the heartache I had over a Poppy Stamps die back in April, HERE. With the help of Donna I did get in touch with Poppy Stamps/Memory Box but my details kept going into a black hole in their email system, so eventually I just bought a new die (which I haven't dared use yet!).

However, Donna didn't give up and, thanks to her, Memory Box were very good, once I emerged from the black hole and they realised I'd given up and just replaced the die myself. They asked me to choose a different die, it arrived here the other week - and I'm delighted to report I used it on this card:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- Memory Box 'Clairmont Ornaments' die to cut an aperture from the front of the card - carefully keeping the cut out pieces to one side and also within the outline of the die cut so I could see where they went!

- backed the aperture on the card front with double sided adhesive sheet leaving the aperture nice and sticky for assembling/inlaying the next die cuts

- die cut the outline shape from silver holographic card and carefully popped that in place inside the aperture

- then added the infill pieces from the white die cut I'd put to one side. Used the same trick of placing the die cut on top of the aperture to gently push out some of the tiny pieces

- die cut the baubles using the same die and deep red satin mirri card then popped them in place to finish off the inlaying

- using the Misti, stamped a greeting using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Paper Smooches 'Christmas Sampler' sentiment set

- to finish off I cut a slightly smaller panel than the card front from white card, ran a line of glue right round the edge of the panel and removed the backing from the adhesive paper inside the card front before sticking the white panel in place

I made six cards all the same to catch up on my target a bit and was almost losing the will to live by the end. Fun to make but very time consuming!

BIG thanks again to Donna for all the help and chasing up you did about the die. xx

Remember, it's NBUS over at Darnell's, starting tomorrow until 5th September!

'I scream, you scream, we all scream' - part 2

Whilst making the 'ice cream cone' card last week, I also made this one - using the same free gift set from Die Cutting Essentials magazine, Issue 13 (July 2016):

I used:

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

- covered the front of the card blank with a panel of SU's 'Pool Party' card which had been trimmed to just slightly smaller than the card front

- next used a piece of SU's 'Soft Suede' to emboss a wafer pattern, using the embossing folder from the same set that the dies came with and trimmed it to just slightly smaller than the 'Pool Party' layer before gluing it in place

- I already had snippets of chocolate brown, cream and pink card for the ice cream whirls out on the desk so I added snippets of SU's 'Pool Party' and 'Soft Suede', plus a tiny snippet of red silk mirri card for the cherry and die cut all the elements I needed using that same little set of dies

- stamped the sentiment (again from the free set)  onto a piece of white card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink, die cut it using a Spellbinders Labels 2 die and embossed round the edge using a ball ended embossing tool (for speed and ease)

- glued the white panel in place on top of the embossed 'wafer' layer

- then assembled the ice cream sundae dish and contents using a mixture of Collall All Purpose glue in a Woodware Fine Liner bottle and little slivers of thin sticky pads - on the bottom part of the dish to lift it a bit and make the layers sit level

I have to be honest and say that the quality of the sentiment stamps isn't brilliant, even using the Misti. But, the rest of the set (dies and embossing folder) more than makes up for that.

Penny Black Stickeroos

This is my card for today:

I used:

- 6" x 6" vanilla card blank. I actually checked the colour against a tub of Vanilla ice cream in the freezer, mad or what?!

- as the image panel I wanted to use was an oblong, to add balance I punched one edge of a strip of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' card (from the snippets folder) using Fiskars 'Wavy Leaf Edger' punch (had to remind it who I was as it's so long since it saw the light of day!)

- adhered the edge strip down the right hand side of the card front and then trimmed off the top and bottom overlap once it was in place

- another snippet of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' card stock onto which I stuck a Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'Painted Vase' sheet of stickers before trimming it down to a 'frame'

- glued the image and frame onto the card front and then added a little butterfly from the Penny Black 'April in Paris' Stickeroo sheet of stickers - thought it matched pretty well :)

- finally I stamped the corner sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from Phill Martin's Scribbled Corner Sentiments 'Everyday' set

I think Mr Mojo might just be peeking round the door of the craft room :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 243

Hello, and welcome to the Snippets Playground! And, if you didn't call by here since Friday 19th August, you ARE in the right place as Loll has kindly given my blog a face lift. And I LOVE it!

Here's my snippets cards for this week - really quick and easy, as well as great for using up decent sized snippets. Once I've cut into a sheet of card or paper, the remainder is usually popped into the snippets folder - which probably explains why it's about to burst at the seams, ha, ha:

 I used:

- 7" x 7" square white card blank

- a piece of orange card stock from the snippets folder (SU's 'Tangelo Twist'), cut to 6" square and glued onto the card front 

- a piece of SU's 'Hello Honey' card stock, also from the snippets folder, embossed using the folder from the All-occasion 'That Folder' embossing folder and stamp set (more about this set below)

- cut a half inch wide strip of the 'Tangelo Twist' card and stuck it across the lower part of the embossed panel. I used red line tape rather than glue just to be sure I didn't get any ridges from the embossing underneath and as always I left an overlap at either end and just trimmed it flush to the edges from behind with scissors

- glued the two panels to the card front using Collall All Purpose Glue

- using the Misti I stamped the sentiment (it's one of the two in the set) onto a snippet of white card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and punched it out using SU's Extra-Large Oval punch

- glued the sentiment oval onto the orange strip and called it done 

I was tempted to add some pretty flowers across the wavy dotted area but, for speed, decided to leave well alone. I first saw a card using this folder 'in real life' when Janice sent me a lovely card where she added flowers and diamantes across the wavy area and it's so pretty. I know I'd also spotted it being used elsewhere around blogland as well (turns out it was one of those craft items that took the craft world by storm - while I was probably sleeping). Of course, you can trim the embossed area down to fit smaller cards as well :)

Here's the weekly 'peek at the picks':

Jenny L was straight into the Playground with this amazing mini book. So much love and work has gone into it - do hop over and be inspired! It's a tiny and perfect work of art - and the cover measures just 3.25" x 3.25". A LOT of patience an eye for detail there Jenny!

I picked this card, made by Helen as it's got a snippet of watercolour paper for the stamped tulips image - and we all have loads of white snippets I bet. But, apart from it being such a beautiful card, I wanted you to see the technique that Helen used - which was to stamp the image using Versamark, then heat emboss using white powder - and then water colour the background flowers and vase. I think it gives such a light modern feel. Gonna try that one for sure!

Jane J posted about her Journal of their recent holiday in Tuscany - and if you haven't already been to take a look I truly recommend that you take time to do so. Her darling grand daughter Daisy features a lot in the post of course, the journal is divine and it's one of the happiest and most loving posts I've read in a long while. You'll come away with the 'fuzzy happy/warms' I promise!

I adore this card, made by Brenda in IN! It's so reminiscent of a William Morris design, but this is cleaner and 'less busy' - in my eyes anyhow! Really pretty and such lovely colouring too.

Isn't this utterly adorable? A sweet card to welcome some friends' new puppy, made by Barb. I love the layers and snippets used - so pretty - and that wee pup is just too cute! The new puppy's name is Myrtle - isn't that a darling name too :)

I just love this fun card, made by Nina! So cute, did you ever see a little frog wearing swim shorts - well now you have! :) One of those cards that makes you smile, however you might be feeling at the time!

I encouraged Lynn to link this fabulous card into the Playground. It's based on Meena's Z fold card which I featured here last week. This is most certainly a fold to have a play with - see how the vase nestled between the front and back Z folds? Just beautiful Lynn - and thanks again to Meena for her great tutorial! Go and see!!

Well, for wanting to scamper through with three or so picks, I still ended up with seven - and could have kept on going! So many wonderful makes and inspiration from everyone who came to play - do try to visit one another as there's a lot of very clever stuff to be found.

We had one new Playmate this week:

I had a sweet comment left during the week asking if folk from the USA could play along - of course I rushed over and almost scooped Robin up to join us! If anyone, from anywhere, is looking in and wondering about playing along - just take the plunge. LOVE this card - what fabulous colouring as well! Hope to see you back with us regularly Robin!

Now it's prize draw time, for the sentiments stamps sets from last week:

And the winners (yes, at last, a split prize!!) are:

Swissie (Liv)

Liv was actually the only person playing purely for stamp C, and her number popped straight out! Liv has been playing since January and this is her first win, yay!

I then ran the Random Number Generator again, and out popped someone who was just playing for stamps A and B:

Jane (Willis)

Well done Jane, first win for six months so it was due! You'll have some fun with these stamps I'm sure.

Can I please remind winners that now they have to drop me an email to claim their prize - as well as including their current address. My email addy is on the right hand sidebar as usual!  

This coming week's prize is, of course, the All-occasion 'That Folder'. Thought it was time for a change from stamps and dies - and yes, there are three there to be won!:

It's a funny one really as I tracked it down immediately after Janice sent me her beautiful card. I found it in an online shop that I use quite a bit and apparently the set was originally free with a craft magazine well over a year ago and folk went crackers over it. It turns out that the supplier selling it is linked to the magazine and someone probably recognised that demand was sky high for this set.

Anyhow, there was a limit of four per person - so I ordered four - one for me and three for the Playground. It went out of stock for a while but is now available again - drop me an email if you want to know where.

I just Googled it and there are tons of Pinterest boards dedicated totally to cards using the set! It looks gorgeous with flowers in the top or bottom panel as well. And both the sentiments are wonderful to use with or without the embossing folder of course. So, there are three chances to win one of the sets if you feel so inclined :)

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 27th 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 :) 

A couple of challenges to watch out for in the coming week:

Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's, which runs from 25th August to the end of the month.

Darnell's NBUS challenge, in which you use something Never Been USed before - hangs head in shame here as I could enter this umpteen times over and still have loads of unused goodies! It runs from 27th August to 5th September.

Have a great week! Big hug from Parsnip, and of course me.

I had a face lift!

Just in case you think you came to the wrong place - I (or rather the blog) just had a face lift - courtesy of the super-talented Loll of 'Stamping with Loll'.

What a total star she is, so kind and generous with her time and skills. I'd just recently been thinking that the blog looked a bit tired and the timing was just so right for this fabulous change.

Loll - you really are an absolute star! I totally adore the new look - still a bit of pink there of course as ever with me around, but it's all so much more subtle and and am sure it's a lot more pleasing to your eyes. I know it's a total delight to me!

Big hugs and many, many thanks Loll.
xxx

Len takes up card making!

A few weeks ago I got into a right pickle. Struggling with my back and with tons of other things to do as well, I just could not come up with a decent card for our little next door neighbour's 5th Birthday. He's crazy about all things to do with building and digger dumper trucks - and I hit a blank! One morning, at 5:30, Len crept out of bed and when I woke up he had saved my bacon!

This is what we ended up with:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, tent style

- Len's image, which he produced using Office Draw - bless him. There are loads of layers and little extras added onto the image itself and I only had to print it off onto a piece of white card

- then I trimmed it down to size, mounted it onto a frame of golden yellow card and glued it to the card front

- my only other contribution was to pop the little googly eyes over the ones on the little 'digger dumper' then print and and add an insert inside the card

The definition in the photo isn't too grand but I was stunned by the thought and detail from Len. He started just with the little digger dumper and then added bits like the cardboard box, the gift (he even embellished the bow!), the little boy, the word 'foreman' on his shirt, 'Max' on his hat, the hammer in his hand - even the eyes and mouth! There's a 5 on the front scoop of the digger dumper, the name of Max's 'company' added to the brick wall, the 'Happy Birthday' and even the little sun in the top right hand corner.

I know that a lot of you gals play with digital images really well - but this blew me away. Without any prompting, Len added so many lovely little details - whilst I slept blissfully unaware of him working away!

I'm so proud of his hard work - and little Max loved his card!

Di
x

'I scream, you scream................

.......we all scream for ice cream'!

I just couldn't get that flipping line of a very old song (1920's, so well before my time!) out of my head whilst making this card:

I used:

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

- covered the front of the card blank with a panel of white card which had been embossed using Cuttlebug's 'Pinking Stitch' embossing folder and trimmed to the exact size of the card

- then out came the snippets folder, snippets of biscuit, chocolate brown, cream and pink card were lined up and then die cut using a lovely little set of dies which came free with Die Cutting Essentials magazine, issue 13. Put the die cuts to one side whilst the sentiment was stamped (having checked how the end result of the dies would look to ensure the sentiment would look OK too)

- the same free gift came with some little stamps and using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink I stamped one of them near the bottom left corner of the card front

- then it was just a case of assembling the ice cream cone and the whirls of ice cream to look like a Neapolitan. I used a mixture of Collall All Purpose glue in a Woodware Fine Liner bottle and little slivers of thin sticky pads to make the layers sit level

A great free gift indeed! It also includes a glass sundae dish shaped die, a little cherry die and a wafer patterned embossing folder. You just turn the ice cream cone upside down and it becomes a wafer :) Such a fun set to use. Watch this space to see what I made with the other bits and pieces!

And with our current glorious weather it seems very appropriate too.

Di
x

Less is More Week #289 - Something French

This week's challenge over at Less is More is 'Something French' - and also one layer to boot.

For once, a NBUS stamp set came straight to mind - but could I find it?! I'd seen it recently but there was a good half hour of rummaging before I remembered one last place where it might be hiding. Sure enough, there it was! I bought the stamp set in New Mexico back in 2012 from Hobby Lobby and this is its first outing - shame on me!

So this is what I made:

I used:

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

- Penny Black's 'Mimi in Paris' stamp set. First I stamped 'Mimi' using 'Tuxedo Black' ink then stamped her again onto a scrap of paper and cut around the right hand side to the outline of the image to make a mask

- stuck the mask onto the card front and then stamped the Eiffel Tower before next stamping the 'le cafe' sign

- coloured the images using Pro markers and also 'grounded the table, chair and tower with a light touch of Ice Grey Pro marker

- rounded off the bottom left hand corner

- as we know, Pro markers bleed through card stock so I just cut a slightly smaller sized panel and stuck it in place inside the card (phew - still counts as one layer, we did have this discussion a while ago I remember)

And that was it - one CAS card for Less is More.

This card is also for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge for August where the current theme is 'Favourite Technique'. In truth I have a few favourites but stamping is right up there - always!

And wow, it also qualifies for Penny Black and More for August where it's 'Anything goes with a stamp right now'. One of my favourite challenges and I don't play there often enough - I hope using more than one stamp is OK Brenda?

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 242

Hi there! Well, once again the forecast is for more hot weather - at least until mid-week. Bring it on!

Been a bit 'out of sorts' here this past week - nothing specific, just not firing on all cylinders and finding it hard to get enthusiastic about crafting - which is almost a first for me! So, my snippets card is a really basic one and this is my feeble effort:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- a square of blue card from the snippets folder which I checked against my SU card swatch and it's, aptly enough, called 'Marina Mist'. Trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- then I trimmed down a sheet of paper from Bu Bunny's 'Barefoot and Bliss' collection ready for the sentiment

- using the Misti I stamped a two part sentiment from SU's 'Botanicals for You' set, using a Rangers Archival 'Jet Black' ink pad

- glued the patterned sheet onto the card front and called it done

So quick and easy, as well as suitable for a chap. One thing in my defence is that I did manage to use one of those patterned sheets of paper from the pack that tend to be left until last 'cos you don't really know just what to do with them!

Now for our weekly 'peek at the picks' - and what stunners I had to choose from - as always. I could include loads more as ever - so do please go back and check out last week's Mr Linky if you have time. I've tried to show you some really clever ways to use up snippets as well as some different techniques this week. There's so much talent and inspiration there!

Meena brought us a couple of brilliant Z fold cards to share - such a super way to use up snippets as well. If you hop over to Meena's blog HERE she's kindly left us a really clear tutorial on how to make one of these fancy folded cards.

I totally love this Christmas card, made by Carol L. Just look at all the work in making that fabulous door wreath! Carol punched loads of little snippets into ferns and then adhered them onto a round ring of card stock with Glossy Accents. I'm thinking that this is a perfect task to carry out when inspiration isn't forthcoming and you have time to spare - possibly working on a lap tray in front of the TV? Mind you, perhaps best to do all the punching beforehand :)

TrinaP only recently joined us but if you haven't been visiting/following her blog then you're missing some fabulous cards. This card is just so clever I think. Love the monochrome strips across the main part of the card with the cute little piggy holding the heart - but what totally pushed the card up several notches for me was the great idea of replicating the monochrome strips within a smaller white frame, topped by the 'hugs' die cut, and added to the card at an angle.

I know, it's 'Easter in August' - and what a card Greta made here! Love the leaping bunnies die cut around the sentiment and backed with different colours of spotted paper. Such a clever idea - and see those darling little bobtails as well? Squeal :) I love it!

I absolutely had to include this amazingly detailed card - made by Kitty. So much to look at here, tons of snippets used to create such a fabulous underwater scene - and the main image cracks me up! Look closely at the puddy tat's tail - there's a fish hook dangling from the tip! :) Super fun card Kitty!

And last, but not least, how about this utterly fabulous card - made by Sonia?! It's so pretty and delicate looking. I've previously featured cards made using the same fold here by other crafters (Janice and Liz) and to be honest this is a perfect example of how we enable one another in the Playground - some might use the word 'tempt' rather than 'enable' though :) And of course I also have the set (bought when I saw them over at Liz's) - but can't show my make just yet. Watch this space as it's a Sunday Snippets card in three weeks time - and you can guess what that usually means :)

Wow, I have more picks than I'd intended so best to bash on with the rest of this post.

We had one new Playmate join us this week:

We have another Sue (Sue T) playing along - and isn't this a gorgeous scene she created on her first entry? I can never get the elements of a scene to work together anything like as well as this one by Sue - so tranquil too. Beautiful!

A big welcome Sue, from all of us. Hope you come back to play again soon. Right now the Playground is pretty much calm as folk are on their holidays or having a little break from blogging - but we do have some crazy times when things are in full swing! At least the place isn't full of empty bottles hidden in the bushes behind the bike sheds - no names mentioned!

Having said that, 54 entries during what's usually a quieter time for challenges is pretty good going I think! 

Now it's prize draw time, for the Inkadinkadoo 'Humming Bird' stamp and the Inkylicious ''Learn to Fly' sentiment stamp as shown last week.

And the winner is:

 ScrappyMo (Maureen)

Congratulations Mo!! This really was well due I think - just checked my little book here and I think your previous win was in July 2015! Please see the paragraph below about claiming your prize.

Sadly I've got to introduce something else for folk to do - from now on (even if I might well have your address already) I'm going to need you to drop me an email to claim the prize and also include your current address so I'm absolutely sure your address is up to date. Yup, I recently got caught out! Also, sometimes I've needed to hold packages back if folk are away on holiday and don't want them to arrive before they return home. My email address is on the right hand sidebar.

And here's this coming week's prize, which is in fact three BOLD stamp sets for you to play with. They will potentially all go to one winner - if the person drawn has said they would like to win ALL of them.

First of all is a Stampin' Up 'Botanicals for You' set, which is A if you want it. Kindly donated by Sarn, and I used my own set on today's snippet card:

Next is a Paper Smooches 'Kudos Two' sentiments set which is B if you want it, kindly donated by Tara of Seven Hills Crafts:

And also another Paper Smooches sentiments set called 'Have Faith', which is C if you want it, again kindly donated by Tara of Seven Hills Crafts:

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 all three, two or just one of the stamp sets. I've labelled them A, B and C to make it easier - or, just say ALL if that's your choice. If you win and only want part of the prize then I'll do a second/possible third draw for whatever it is you don't want. But, you can win them all together if that's your preference.

I would normally bundle all the stamps sets and say it's 'winner takes all regardless' - but I'm giving options as am pretty sure some of you will at least already have the Stampin' Up set :)

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 20th 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 :) 

I do still have one last sentiments stamp set which Tara donated (it's the really popular 'Sentiment Sampler' set, but will be offering that another week - along with something else from me :) I am trying to whittle the toy box down, it's overflowing despite me trying to put the brakes on always purchasing duplicates of stuff - one for me and one for the Playground. So coming weeks may have some bumper prizes, and I'm sure there's lots that you'll like as well!

Have a great week!

Di and, of course, Parsnip
x