Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 246

It's tipping it down with rain here as I type this on Saturday morning. In fact Len just arrived back home early from archery - where rain most definitely stopped play! We're certainly on the cusp of Autumn, with a few hot days thrown in here and there just to confuse things. I guess a few of you have noticed how HUGE the spiders are in the UK this year? One shot across the craft room the other evening and I truly didn't know whether to saddle it up and go for a ride or just run and hide. I did neither in fact, but am sure it's still lurking under the desk somewhere watching with its big beady eyes - shudder.

Earlier in the week I finally found a little bit of time to do some colouring for today's snippets card, and I bet if I hunted round in the Playground enough I just might find a little mouse doing exactly this:

I used:

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

- a snippet of white card stock onto which I stamped the little House Mouse image using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a House Mouse cling stamp called 'Rain Flower'

- coloured the image using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils and set it aside 

- used a snippet of yellow card to die cut the stitch lines and then trimmed the piece of card to the same size as the card front

- then selected two circular dies from the Tonic Studio's 'Circle Layering' set and used the smaller one of the two to die cut an aperture into the piece of yellow card

- then die cut the image using the larger of the two circle dies

- next, die cut the green ring to go around the aperture using both of the circle dies, one inside the other 

- glued the green circular band onto the aperture and then glued the image in place behind the aperture

- glued the whole piece of yellow card, now backed with the image, onto the card front

- stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Kaisercraft 'True Friendship' set of stamps 

- punched out the sentiment using SU's 'Decorative Label' punch and glued it below the image- final touch, added touches of Glossy Accents to the raindrops 

The set of sentiments stamps is advertised as having four sentiments - it took me a couple of minutes to realise that, during production, two of them hadn't been separated. A quick chop with the scissors soon sorted that one out though :)

The yellow card is a beautiful daffodil yellow, but it looks a bit washed out due to the bright sunlight when I took the photo, sigh. And it's too dull today to try for a better photo.

I'd like to enter this into the September/current Penny Black and More challenge, where the theme is 'Use a sentiment' - and your image must be stamped (unless it's a PB Stickeroo) - although you can use stamps other than Penny Black. Happy dance here as Mr Random picked my number from the August entries as one of the winners! Thanks Brenda and Co. - it's tickled me to win a prize all for me :)

I'd also like to enter this into the current challenge over at House Mouse and Friends #225 'Make a Splash' - anything with water is fine BTW!

Time for a peek at this week's picks:

As soon as I read Jules' post I knew we had our first pick of the week. First of all, as always, it's a fabulous snippets card - and secondly, and very importantly, Jules has shared her paper piecing secrets with a step by step tutorial! Over time I've picked up Jules' paper piecing tricks, often in a very kind response to one of my comments, and I really do encourage you to pop over and be enlightened!

I always emphasise that snippets really can be leftovers of anything crafty - and Lynn (Linby) took us to new heights this week with some amazing fused glass snippets on this beautiful necklace! You really should nip over for a read of her post - there's other fabulous work there too.

We have crafters on here who do hide their lights under a bushel. This gorgeous card was brought to share with us by Pat and her colouring is amazing! The background was 'smooshed' and those glorious poppies were coloured using Lyra Aqua Markers. Absolutely lovely Pat!

And here's another example of really perfect colouring, this was made by Wanda using a digi stamp. And loads of snippets too - I love it! I usually just plonk a single charm onto a card, perhaps dangling from a bow or such. I do like the lovely little selection of embellishments Wanda used here to add such interest.

And this beauty is Meena's very first try at colouring using Polychromos pencils. I think she's a natural for sure! Love the colours and the shading is just perfection! I love my Polychromos pencils, used them on today's snippets card in fact, but shading like this totally eludes me!

I chose this card, made by Heather, as a great example of another way to use up a real variety of snippets in a very clever way. Heather has given us the measurements for those scraps, based on an American A2 sized card (4.25" x 5.5"). The squares of pretty paper had their opposite corners rounded to add that extra interest - neat trick!

And for my final 'peek at the picks' - here's a really lovely card using a clever technique, brought to us by April. It's a fun way to produce stunning cards - as April says it's great for snippet zapping as you just need a double sided piece of patterned paper measuring 10" x 5". April has kindly added the link back to where she found a card made using this technique - and there's a link in that linked post to a great video tutorial! I certainly want to try this idea ASAP :)

So those are my six seven picks for this week girls. I was thrilled this week to find a couple of entries using 'That Folder' which was a recent Playground prize and I do encourage you to have a little hop about if you find the time. As ever, not an easy job choosing the picks - I tried to point you to some inspiring talent, some techniques and tips - and of course some great ways to use up snippets! 

We had one new Playmate last week:

Lavina arrived with a fabulous card to share - just look at those exploding flowers! I've made a couple of cards using a Hunkydory kit to create this same effect and have to admit I almost lost the will to live. These are lovely and I suspect have been created right from scratch as well, sheesh!

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

And it's prize draw time, for the Spellbinders 'Pop-Up' 'Happy Days' set of dies. Sadly, there could only be one winner and it's:

Meg

 

Well done Meg, I think you'll be really pleased with the set and look forward to seeing what you make with it! It was actually third try lucky here as the first two numbers that came up belonged to Playmates who were just playing for fun this week. 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:

It's stamps this time, the same as the ones I used on my snippets card - House Mouse cling 'Rain Flower' and the Kaisercraft 'True Friendship' set of four sentiments.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 17th 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. You can opt for either the House Mouse stamp or the sentiments stamps if you wish, just say so in a comment and if you win then I'll do a further draw for the other part of the prize. But, both are up as one prize if that's what you would like! 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 another celebration heads up for you, our Playmate Carole, of Craftylicious Creations is celebrating her 100th post with a super giveaway:

To help Carole 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 Carole's prize over on her blog - the Playground prize this week are the stamps, like I used on my snippets card today.

Have a lovely week - big hug from Parsnip and of course me!