Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 245

Hi there! There's a bit of a nip in the air early morning and late evening, we put a duvet back on the bed on Friday (slept so well, it's like a cosy nest again) and the leaves are changing colour - sure signs that Autumn is on the way.

Our surrogate daughter, the wonderful Mama of Len's two beautiful grand daughters over in Germany, had a milestone Birthday this past week and my snippets card was made for her big day.

I already had the die set waiting to be used, I first spotted it over at Liz's blog and then over at Sonia's blog. It gets even better, 'cos Liz bought the die set after seeing it over at Janice's blog HERE back in March this year (I saw it too in fact but hadn't realised it was a die set at that point!). All three girls made fabulous cards for the Playground using the die set (and all three were weekly picks as well!) - this is my first attempt (pinched some ideas about the edging from Sonia - mwah!). I took the photos a couple of weeks ago in really bright Summer sunshine so some of the colours do look slightly washed out/in soft focus:

I used:

- 300gsm white card stock, die cut using the main card die from the Spellbinders 'Pop-Ups' 'Happy Days' die set, making sure the fold lines were well embossed before folding them. You can do this by hand or using a 'tan/rubber' embossing mat to run the die cut through your machine a second time

- a sheet of paper from LOTV's 'Timeless Victorian' paper pad was used to die cut the patterned fronts and also the steps on the card base - glued in place using Collall All Purpose glue

- snippets of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' to die cut the double loop edging scallops - which were then glued in place (this is where the Woodware Ultra Fine Nozzle containers are brilliant)

- next die cut the birdcage from a snippet of 'Wisteria Wonder' plus the three little birds(from a snippet of white card) - using the Joy! Lin and Lene 'Birdcage and 3 birds' set of dies

- glued the cage and birdies in place and then punched three teensy little black eyes from a snippet of black card using my smallest hole punch and glued them in place as well

- the sentiment gave me some issues as space was a bit tight and loads of my sentiment stamps and dies are either too large or too long to fit. Found an old Hobbycraft stamp called 'Special Day' in the end - phew! Stamped it using Brilliance 'Pearlescent Lavender' onto a snippet of white card

- then found a circular Spellbinders scalloped edge die to suit and chose the best fit for the plain inner from the Tonic Studios 'Circle Layering' set of dies. This really is such an invaluable set of dies with 14 circles in total - I love it!

- die cut the sentiment, then die cut the scalloped circle from a little snippet of 'Wisteria Wonder' and embossed both edges of the dies using a ball ended tool

- glued the two sentiment circles together and added them to the card - final touch was to use little scraps of 'Wisteria Wonder' to die cut Kai's name and also her age (using First Editions 'Alphabet Sans Serif' and Memory Box 'Classic Numbers' dies). Glued those to the steps and we were done!

My 'in-house critic' gave it the stamp of approval - apart from his usual observation about any patterned paper being like wallpaper of course!

And this is my third and final entry for Darnell's NBUS (never-before-used-schtuff) challenge #7, which finishes at the end of tomorrow (Monday 5th September). It's standing room only over there but you still have time to play!

Time for a peek at this week's picks:

Cathy nipped in with this really gorgeous mixed media panel - I absolutely adore it. Lots of dimension and the touches of gold are absolutely perfect.

I always look for entries which show us great ways to use up snippets. Sue T did just that with her really lovely patchwork card - and isn't the sentiment just perfect?!

Then Helen hopped in with another simple but so eye catching way of using up snippets - this time it's snippety strips of paper (thought it might be washi tape at first). 

I just had to show you this card, made by Trina! Each one of those lilies was individually stamped then masked before the next lily was stamped, right around a masked heart shape. The monochrome shading is just stunning and the pops of red in the sentiment are so perfect. What a card!

I know I feature Sonia's work pretty regularly here - this amazing Neolithic Doirama was actually made by her daughter Prisha as a project for school! I can't even begin to describe it here - you'll have to go and see all the amazing detail for yourselves. Artistic talent certainly runs in the family!

And, after a little absence, Jean returned to play with us - bringing this delightful First Birthday card. The background paper is a patchwork design and I love how Jean has pulled all the colours from that piece of paper into the other layers, the ribbon and buttons - and the image. So cute!

Kim has been playing with little strips of paper, making the most wonderful paper quilled butterfly! Isn't it absolutely beautiful? I really love it and wish I could have as much patience and dexterity!

So those are my picks for this week girls. As ever, not an easy job and I've limited it to seven as am not supposed to be sitting still at the laptop/desk for too long! Should have been three really but sometimes it's impossible to whittle down!

We had two new Playmates last week:

First was Neva with this fabulous 'Oval Pull' card. What a lovely design and such pretty colours too! Neva should fit into the Playground perfectly - her blog name is 'Finding Snippets of Time to Craft'!

And then Sue B skipped in, with this brilliant card. It was also for the Less is More Challenge (use stickers, peel offs etc) and is so perfectly designed and executed!

Welcome to both of you - hope to see you playing along again really soon :)

And it's prize draw time, for the Clearly Besotted Shaker Circle Hooray die and the packet of shaker mix.

Here's our winner:

 Greta

Congratulations Greta, the early bird did catch the worm this week for sure! Can you please drop me an email with your address in and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Here's this coming week's prize:

Yes indeedy, it's a Spellbinders 'Pop-Up' 'Happy Days' set of dies - just like the one I used on my card today. And it does work with a machine as small as a Cuttlebug - so long as you tape the card 'base' die to the main card stock you're using for the steps card and turn it by 180 degrees before running it through again as there is a little bit of overhang.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 10th 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 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 :)

And here's a heads up for you, our Playmate Liz (of Crafty Sunflower) is celebrating reaching 100 followers with these lovely dies as a give away:

 

To help Liz celebrate, and also be in with a chance to win, hop on over to her blog and see what you have to do to play along. Please note, these are Liz's prize over on her blog - the Playground prize this week is the Spellbinders set of dies!

Have a lovely week!

and, of course, Parsnip
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