Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 305 and 306 - results

Well folks, we're galloping towards Christmas now - at  rate of knots! I managed to hit my Christmas card target and now any cards I do make will be much less pressured. Of course, the task of writing them all is no mean feat either, but if a hand made card makes someone happy then it has to be a good thing.

Let's get straight on with our Guest Designer for this fortnight who has some lovely tags to share - perfect for using up little snippets:

 

I just love these adorable tags! You can use the die cuts  left from negative dies to get more value from your snippets - brown or plain red wrapping paper, string and away you go! Parcel wrapping all sorted out :)

And it was Alison of Cranberry and Eggplant who made these and is our 'dancing in the spotlight' guest for this fortnight:

Another happy smiling face too!
This is what Alison said about the super tags and herself:

'Like many of you I have been crafting in one way or another for as long as I can remember. I'm also a bit of a hoarder, I have to hide my scraps from myself and keep them under my bed so no-one knows how much I have, not even me.

I'm always looking for ways to use up plain snippets and tags are a great way to use those thin strips which are always left after cutting a card base from A4.
I confess this idea is not original but it's from an online retailer rather than a blogger so I don't feel any guilt in copying. I saw the tags with the snowflake shaped hole, which I though were very pretty. Then I was left with the cut out snowflakes so I made another set with those. These are my design but not as clever!

Thanks to Di for having me as a GD, running The Playground and showcasing all the wonderful creations which get more amazing each week.' 

Thank you so much Alison for your lovely words and also for sharing a great idea. I have a loads of strips left over from cutting card bases so this is an idea I'll be pinching :)

Time now for the fortnightly picks and, as always, so difficult to choose:

And my first pick absolutely jumped out as a Gold Star card, made by Val of 'Aquarius Blog' it's just gorgeous!

To find out how Val made this wonderful card and the glorious satin-looking bird - do hop over to her blog where she explains it all. Well done Val and please feel free to take the Gold Star badge from my sidebar.

I had a lot of difficulty whittling down the rest of the picks and I chose the final three because I wanted you to see what can be achieved with minimal snippets on generally very CAS cards:

Charlotte (Lady Joyful) has given a perfect explanation of how she made this camouflage  technique card, giving the word 'thanks' much more definition by layering it onto multiple layers of pink die cut words. There's also a little tip as well on how to build up the word layers that's a really neat idea. Shaz in Oz has done a layered sentiment in the current challenge and used a similar technique. Always learning from you girls!

Steffi shared this brilliant Christmas card with us - what impact from the clever placement of three circular snippets and a sentiment! Those of you who might be in a panic trying to made a few Christmas cards in a limited amount of time might like to try this one? Granted you need a good eye for design to place those circles just right but I'm sure that Steffi would be happy for you to use her idea.

Right at the very end of the fortnight, Alison nipped into the Playground waving this really great card and it's another very clever idea. The Christmas tree is brilliant, and would stand on it's own if you're really pressed for time - although I do love how Alison matched the backing paper to the tree, pulling it all together. And, there are instructions to be found via a link in Alison's blog HERE. I made a few of these Christmas trees some years ago - they are such fun and certainly pack a lot of impact!

We had a total of 45 entries and no new Playmates. Numbers of entries seem to be falling - even compared to March, when we had this new format, we were up in the 70's. It could be that with Christmas approaching folk are extra busy I guess. Having said that, it does seem that many challenges are also finding a drop in entries. Who knows, perhaps those who predict that blogging will eventually run out of steam have a point?

Anyhow, let's stay positive and move onto the prize draw. Our winners of the 6" x 6" Studio Calico 'Snippets' paper pads and Woodware 'Numbers' stamp sets are as follows:

Karen P

Jane (Jane's Journal)

Both of you were playing for a complete prize of paper pad and stamp set - well done (and how weird to have two consecutive numbers popping straight out, but that's the whole thing about random numbers I guess)!

Can you please drop me an email with your addresses girls (it's also double confirmation that you were playing for the prize) and then I'll post your prizes off to you as soon as possible. My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Keep those snippets entries coming, you still have a week left to play HERE for weeks 307/308 remember! The prize is a Sugar Pea 'Nativity-Scape' die and a Paper Smooches set of sentiments called 'Christmas Sampler'. I will split the prize if you only want to play for part of it.

Love from the little white peril Parsnip - and of course me,