Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 260 & 261 - and Prize A

Hi there and a warm welcome to the Snippets Playground. Little Parsnip is behind the bike shed dishing out mince pies, cookies, egg nog and mulled wine - the same as last year! Do please help yourself - and do please also let me know if you notice Parsnip having a secret swig or two! And, despite some of you believing otherwise, I am well aware of the chinking of glasses and muffled giggles! :)

This is actually Len's Christmas card, I made it whilst he was out at archery the other day as it really needed to be done - and I wanted it for the prize 'hint'. Thankfully he doesn't look at the blog:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- plain white card stock for all the layers - I love white pearlescent card but wasn't sure how well the sentiment would stamp - didn't want to risk it smudging!

- first of all I took a piece of white card stock and die cut the 'slider aperture' using a die from the MFT 'Surf & Turf' die set - at that point I hadn't cut the piece of card down to size as this was a first play and various things needed to be checked before I did any trimming

- at the same time I die cut four discs, using the circles die which comes with the 'Surf and Turf' set

- then I stamped Lawn Fawn's 'Winter Bunny' onto a snippet of white card, coloured it with Pro markers and die cut the image using the matching die

- now I could fathom out spacing for the elements on the card I was ready to roll!

- embossed a snippet of white card using SU's 'Softly Falling' embossing folder

- die cut another snippet of white card using Cheery Lynn's 'Winter's Neighbourhood Border' die, twice

- the reason for the second cut of the die was so that I could carefully trim the houses and trees off and use it as a template to lightly pencil in a cutting line at the top of the slider panel so that the houses would sit properly along a curved line

- trimmed the curved part at the top of the slider panel and glued the house and trees die cut in place

- then cut the 'Softly Falling' snow panel so that it would sit above and behind the houses and trees and still leave a gap for the slider to run freely

- at that point the panel was ready to be trimmed to the same size as the card front

- next thing was to use the Misti to stamp the sentiment, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a sentiment from the Inkylicious 'Seasons Greetings' stamp set

- before adhering the panel to the card front I added the 'Winter Bunny' die cut into the slider aperture, using the little card circles and a couple of MFT 'Spin and Slide Discs'. along with Collall All Purpose Glue. You have to add two sliders side by side so that the little chap doesn't spin round :) The 'slider' goes from one edge to the other with about half an inch spare on either side when the little bunny is either up or down his little ride - wheeee :)

- I used foam tape to add the panel to the card front, and in fact used a double layer of it (it's quite thin) to make sure the slider would move really freely

- added some clear Wink of Stella to the rooftops, the trees and along the curvy line of the row of houses

- then die cut some Christmas trees using Impressions Obsession's 'Evergreen Trees' dies and covered those with clear Wink of Stella as well

 - finally glued the trees in place in a cluster in front of the houses and one above the sentiment
 
I really loved making this card and was so pleased with a working result! The MFT die cuts and the little 'Spin and Slide Discs' are absolutely brilliant - work so well!

Now, I'd spotted the Neighbourhood and the Trees dies being used together by one of you lovely Playmates a good while back - needless to say I can't recall where but thank you for the inspiration! AND, I picked this card, made by Trina, the other week - and that's what really kicked off me buying the slider stuff to go with the other dies. If you go to Trina's blog you'll see some really useful links too! I loved how Trina added a streak of blue to her slider aperture - I was so worried about spoiling mine after all the hard work, I held back!

I'm entering this card into the Merry Monday #226 Challenge - 'Winter Fun'.

And also into Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #312 where the theme is 'Cute or Anything Goes' - I think this surely qualifies as cute :). Plus, Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for December, always 'Anything Goes'.

And now let's move straight onto the weekly picks etc. As there are a few different things happening in the Playground over the coming two weeks, and I need to explain what'll be going on, I've kept the number of picks down this week:

I love this card, made by Carol L. What a great way to use up lots of snippets and the cherry on that sparkly cupcake looks good enough to eat :)

This little robin is one of my very favourite little Penny Black stamps, beautifully added to a branch by Pat. Isn't it sweet? Such a lovely card altogether.

Love the green plaid on this terrific tag, made by Greta! And how perfectly the greens match too - tags are such a lovely way to use up snippets.

Wowser, what a fabulous and huge Christmas tree Sonia and her daughter Prisha made! To see the scale you really need to hop over to Sonia's blog here - it's origami on a massive scale, with all the decorative elements made using snippets!

Sorry, I had to call a halt at four, sigh - as always so hard to choose and so many wonderful ideas. My advice (as always) is to try and find time to visit as many playmates as possible and see for yourself just how clever they all are!

And, we have one new playmate this week:

Heaney came to play, with this adorable Tilda Christmas card - of course I LOVE all the pink :)

Welcome to the Playground Heaney and we hope you come back to play again!

Let's do the prize draw(s) now for the Couture Creations 'Compassionate' and 'Early Songbird' embossing folders. And of course I had three sets of these to give away:

Jacky (Paddington Fan)

Pat

 

Chris (Smith)

Had to laugh when Chris was chosen, she raced in at the very last minute and almost got her fingers trapped as the gates were about to close :)

Can you please all drop me an email with your address in (this is so that I don't make any mistakes!) and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! The sooner the better so they don't get too caught up in the Christmas post - and I don't find myself fighting to get at a post box :) My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Right, so this is what's going to be going on with the Snippets Playground over the festivities. Not only is it Christmas and New Year (aka Holidays) - it's also a whole five years on 1st January since I took over the Playground from the lovely Jules, so time to celebrate big time!

Firstly, the Playground Mr Linky which is below will run for two weeks and closing time will be 11am on Saturday 31st December and this post you are looking at right now is where to add any entries - with a maximum of one entry - over the fortnight. Loads of dithering here about whether to allow more entries but I want to keep things as level as possible. One entry means you're in the draw - and the  more prizes you say you'd like to win in the comments in each 'additional prize' post does up the chances quite a bit as I keep a really tight check on those! You have two weeks to play (if you want to of course!) as no doubt the run up to Christmas plus the Christmas and pre-New Year festivities themselves will be busy for you. Some of you will be busier than others I know and, for those of you who do find some quiet time to craft, it's a chance for you to play along for some rather nice prizes too. It also means I can clear the Playground toy box out of Christmas themed prizes.

So that I don't swamp and confuse you with a load of prizes to choose from in this post, I'll be posting at intervals over the coming couple of weeks and adding more prizes of varying sizes into the pot as we progress through the holiday. To be honest, I'm still planning how to fit them all in as well, same as last year - but it worked out then so am sure it will work this time as well :)

If you see a prize you'd like to be in the 'pot' for then please leave a 'Yes please' (or similar) comment in the same post where I show you the prize. For me, that's going to be a lot less confusing than me having lots of little lists here and there - especially as there are so many prizes coming up!  It will mean that if you would like to be in with a chance of every prize, then you need to comment on each one as it comes up - and please don't leave it right until the end and nip through all the prize posts adding 'Yes please' to each in one fell swoop. Remember, they will show up serially on my dashboard if you do that so I will notice and wouldn't feel that it's in the true spirit of the Playground. So, if you want to play then do try to pop in over the festivities to see what's on offer :)

Also, just saying here 'count me in for all prizes that are offered' doesn't count I'm afraid and will mean you don't go into the draw at all - other people are taking the time and trouble to check out the individual posts and prizes and leave comments so it wouldn't be fair to them. Again, this worked fine last year. 

As I already said, there will only be the one Mr Linky for all entries - which is at the end of this post of course. I'll remind you where to go to link each time I post a new prize on the blog. Also, I'll run the prize draw using this Mr Linky as a basis for the random number generator and will then look at the relevant post to find out who said yes to the particular prize I'm running the random generator for.

As there will be a good few prizes (for example, I again have six of one particular prize which will appear in one post - got a bit carried away there!) - I think the odds of winning something could be in your favour! Plus, the prizes aren't 'First, Second, Third' etc - some are higher in value than others for sure though - so if your name pops out again you could very well end up winning more than one prize.

I hope this is clear girls? Remember, I'm pacing things as best I can over the holidays so I might not manage to comment immediately - ha, probably will be beavering away here making sample cards for the prizes!

Let's start with today's prize:

Cheery Lynn 'Winters Neighbourhood Border' die, Impressions Obsession 'Evergreen Tree' dies, Lawn Fawn 'Winter Bunny' stamp and matching die. Plus, a MFT 'Surf and Turf' slider die set as well as two packets of the super little 'Spin and Slide Discs'.

To be honest, it really is the best of the bunch of the prizes in terms of the number of components, although there are some really interesting and varied prizes to follow - IMHO of course. This time it's four lots of dies as well as a stamp and some twiddly bits. Have I lost the plot here? Do not answer that perlease :)

I hope I've explained how the coming two weeks will work in the Playground? Please just say if it's left you confused.

The Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 31st December. As we'll be right on top of New Year there will be a new Mr Linky on Sunday 1st January 2017 and probably the picks but the results of the huge raffle/prize draw may have to wait until during that first week of January 2017.

Maximum of one entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prizes. Remember, there's the prize today and others will appear fairly frequently over the next two weeks so keep your eyes peeled.

Do say in this post if you only want one or other parts of the prize today but it's all up for grabs as one prize of course and will only be split if the first name out only wants one or other of the items, in which case I'll do a second or further draws for the other part(s) of the prize. And please also remember to link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Now, this is important girls, you can leap in throughout the whole giveaway and say 'yes please' to as many prizes as you like .... even if you haven't already made and entered your snippets make into Mr Linky at that point in time.

Your 'yes please' will certainly be in the pot when it comes to the grand draw, so long as you've entered into Mr Linky by then. At the end of this I'll be using today's Mr Linky as the focus for the random choices so please feel free to squeal with delight at as many prizes as you wish and say some 'yes pleases' on the way through the festive season - just remember to add just one snippets make into Mr Linky below to be in with a chance.

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 :)