Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 250

Hi there! Just LOOK, we're at Week 250 of the Snippets Playground!

Autumn is really setting in now here, and of course the nights are drawing in as well. Soon be time for the hedgie family to hibernate. We have between four and six of them coming to feed each night so I hope they do decide to go to sleep and give Len a break from all the work feeding them - and clearing up their mess!

I think last weekend was good for the soul but not the back! And this is a bumper post so I'd best crack straight on. You might want to get a hot drink to keep you company!

Here's my snippets card for this week - not easy to photograph so I hope you get the general idea. I used exactly the same card stock for the entire body of the card but Autumn shadows don't help - I need a light box!

I used:

- SU's 'Perfect Plum' card stock, which I die cut into three peces to make an accordian fold card, using the Elizabeth Craft Designs 'Accordion Fancy Label' die - designed by Karen Burniston

- then I attached the three parts together to make the main accordian part of the card, then trimmed off the extra tags and joining strip at the right hand end

- used snippets of lilac pearlescent card for three shaped panels, again using the same die set, and glued them in place

- stamped two horses onto snippets of white card stock using VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and stamps from an Inkadinkado set called 'Horses' (Mia is crazy about horses and horse riding!)

- die cut the images using a smaller shaped die from the same set and glued them in place

- stamped 'Happy Birthday' using VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and a LOTV stamp from their 'General Greetings - Small' set

- die cut the panel and glued it in place

- then added Mia's name (Len's eldest Grand daughter) using number and letters dies cut from teeny snippets of lilac pearlescent card

- added a white die cut panel to the back of the centre panel for our handwritten message

- and only then was it time to attach the tabs to the back of two of the panels to make the accordian mechanism work

This card is winging its way to Germany and I'm hoping that Mia's Mama doesn't peek at the blog meanwhile! I wanted to use this die set as it's Week 250 and time for a special prize :) It was great fun to make too. One really big tip is to use thicker card for the 'base' than I did though - something like 270 or 300 gsm will be more rigid.

It shook me was when I realised that Mia is almost 9! And her younger sister is soon to be 7 - how did that happen?!
 
Time for a peek at Week 248's picks, as chosen by the lovely Jane and with her comments word for word as well:

Ruth A – really love this one (and not just because I’m so bad at making shaker cards). Lots of lovely elements inside the shaker, all those portholes, the slider and the sentiment all add up to a really special card.

Sonia – just amazing, as Sonia’s work always is! Masses of lovely detail.

Barb – wonderful technique and fab choice of images and papers to set it off – and of course great use of snippets.

Liv (Swissie) – absolutely gorgeous. The music and flowers are a fab use of snippets.

Meg – gorgeous card, lovely colouring, great way to clear the white snippet mountain and I’m going to have to CASE it!

Heather – lots of different papers used beautifully together, and great paper piecing.

Lucy – a beautiful card and a clever, inventive design.

Lia – fab die cut scene and embossed background, perfect for snippets and extra brownie points for writing her post in three languages.

Jackie T – just adorable, loved the image, the leaves and the washi tape frame.

I find Jane's choices absolutely fascinating. I didn't stay away from the Playground all week and of course I think (hope) I follow all of you so I did see your makes pop up on my dashboard even though there was no time to always comment. And, I would have made exactly the same choices as Jane! I've found this with Sarn and Eve when they helped out previously - on a couple of occasions I even quickly made a list of my own along the way just to check I wasn't just being influenced by their end choices! It's marvellous just how closely we all think!

It has been easier writing up the picks that Jane gave me a week later as I could 'pace it' over the week but I do like to try to keep the Playground as 'dynamic' as possible - so here now are my own picks for Week 249, which just closed. My comments will be quite brief as I really can't sit at the desk for very long:

A perfect and very elegant white on white card, made by Alison.

Sharon brought this great Halloween card to share with us - love it!

What a fun Wedding card, made by Erika! So personal as well - the Wedding was somewhere tropical and the groom had to be wearing a kilt :)

Love this fun card, made by Eemeli - really made me chuckle!

What a little darling - and so beautifully coloured too - made by Francesca!

Pat used a wonderful magazine freebie EF and stamps kit to create this beautiful humming bird card - those embossed leaves are so perfectly coloured as well!

Something different, still using snippets, an Autumn jar - made by Janis, so beautiful!

An amazing journal, made by Jenny H. So much work and detail went into making this - fabulous!

This card, made by Mo, sums up the seashore perfectly! I really love it - gotta giggle at those birdie legs ..... like bent toothpicks :)

And last, but never least:

A stunning Autumn card, made by Chris - who inlaid all those beautifully coloured leaves. Fabulous idea and perfect for any occasion!

Please don't be in any way downhearted if you're not a 'pick' - every single entry is wonderful and deserves to be seen. That's why I really do encourage you to visit one another - even if it's in 'slow time' just when you want a browse. I never delete the closed Mr Linkys so you can always look at past weeks - and I do try hard to make sure everyone gets a turn at being in the weekly picks.

We had no new Playmates last week or the previous week! But, it's still been very busy in the Playground! 53 entries in Week 248 and 62 in Week 249.

And it's prize draw time, for the prizes from both weeks. First of all, Week 248 which was the lovely set of Poppy Stamps 'Love Never Melts' stamps and dies, kindly donated by Megan:

Val (Aquarius)

And now for Week 249 - and we have a split prize for once!

Heather (Mills)

Heather was only playing for the Joy Crafts 'Vintage Flourishes - Butterfly' die so I ran the Random number thingy again, and out popped:

Liv (Swissie)

 

And Liv wins the rest of the prize - which is the Marianne 'Doily Star' die set and the La-La Land 'Filigree Corner' die!
 

Congratulations to all three of you girlies! Can you please all drop me emails with your addresses in and I'll post your prizes off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Here's this coming week's prize(s) - three prizes, to celebrate 250 weeks since I took over the Playground from Jules:

The First prize (prize A) is of course the  Elizabeth Craft Designs 'Accordion Fancy Label' die set - exactly the same as the set I used for my card today. The overall size of each panel is just under 5" square BTW:

Then there are two runner up prizes, first of all a bumper pack of Hunkydory 'Little Dudes & Perfect Princesses' toppers (144 images in total - 6 x 24 different ones!). This is Prize B for reference and was kindly donated by Kim after our weekend of frolics.

The toppers are  6" x 4" and are a great selection for kiddies cards especially - although some are suitable for teens and cute cards as well. I personally think the whole range of Hunkydory pads will fit nicely into the niche left by LOTV when they discontinued theirs - albeit not printed on card but I always 'frame' toppers like these on a slightly larger piece of card anyhow and you get so many for your money!

And the other runner up prize, C for reference,given to me as a prize is a lovely Crafts-Too embossing folder (CTFD3108) which is almost 6" square - not a size you often find and so useful! The pattern is modern roses and really pretty, so much so that I've ordered the same one for myself now! Lovely for all sorts of occasions I told myself, sigh - as if I didn't buy enough last weekend :(

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 15th October. 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 one of the prizes. Just say which ones you're interested in (A, B and or C) - or ALL if you want to be in with a chance for each one. I will keep the three prizes separate so will be doing three draws to spread the love a bit further! 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 :)

Have a lovely week!

Hugs from Parsnip (still in a strop 'cos he didn't get to go to the craft weekend!) - and of course hugs from me too (not in a strop but moving around rather carefully!).