Rudolph Days - October 2018

Dashing in at the last minute to join in with ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days challenge. I LOVE this challenge run by such a sweet lady, and have managed to join in every one this year, even with 'ahem' some distractions!

Here's my card - and I actually made eight of them in one run! Same design etc. so it was just like a little factory production line whilst Dudley was other wise occupied:

I used:

- 4" x 4" square white card blank, side opening

- a slightly smaller square of gold mirri card, glued onto the card front

- a slightly smaller again square of patterned card, from the LOTV 'Twas the Night' paper pad - I got eight squares from two sheets of 8" x 8" paper, love it when there's very little waste!

- glued the patterned paper to the gold mirri on the card front

- the image is a stamp from a little set I recently spotted called 'Santa's Helpers' made by Sunny Studio. The set comes with another dog (sweet little Westie) and three different cats plus a few sweet sentiments - but it was the little puppy that reminded me of Dudley that made me buy it of course,

- stamped the image using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' in then coloured it using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

- added a few gold dots to the neckerchief, using a Signo gold pen

- tickled the fur and pompom with clear Wink of Stella

- die cut the image using a die from the Tonic circles set of dies - my stitched dies would have been too big as I wanted the wording on the backing paper to be as visible as possible - and ran a ball-ended embossing tool around the circle of card whilst it was still in the die

- glued the image circle in place and called it a day

It felt good to make a little batch of Christmas cards as I'm woefully behind on my target of 12 card per month, although it did take the total up to 101.

And yes, Dudley does have champagne/gold coloured ears - and when he's 'thinking' his little tongue just pokes out like a little piece of pink lint! We don't know if his ears (and his back too) will stay champagne coloured or not - that's one of the delights of a Havanese, their coat can subtly change colour as they grow up, but he will remain mostly creamy white just like his Dad.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #338

And so we change the clocks at 2am on Sunday morning, shortly after this is posted on the blog, but I just bet that Dudley won't let us have a longer sleep! Weekends are always a bit of an early start for us as Len goes to archery both Saturday and Sunday mornings - but before we had Dudley I could stay snugly tucked up in bed. Now it's a case of getting him outside pronto as soon as the signs are there!

It was Len's Birthday a couple of weeks ago and making a card for him was possibly not gonna happen as Dudley was still taking up a lot of time. Thankfully I did manage to make Len a card a couple of days beforehand, which luckily also doubles up as my snippets card.

So, here is my snippets card - on which I used a snippet of card I'd been playing around with ages ago using aqua shades of Altenew inks and some home made iridescent spray, a snippet of blue backing card and snippets of white card:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of deep teal blue card from the snippets folder,  trimmed to make it slightly smaller than the card front, then glued in place

- a piece of white card which I found had already been die cut (yay!) using a die from the Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangles' set of dies, onto which I stamped the sentiment from the Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' set of stamps - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink. Hooray for the Misti, although these stamps really do stamp perfectly every time

- glued the white panel on top of the deep teal one on the card front

- a piece of Tim Holtz Watercolour card which had been swiped ages ago with all four ink pads from the Altenew 'Sweet Dreams set and then lightly sprayed with home made iridescent spray (more details of this are below!). I really had no idea what to do with it at the time so just popped it in with my blue snippets to wait its turn

- Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' stamp set again, from which I stamped the sweet little otter and parcel onto a white snippet of card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- coloured both images using Pro markers

- used the matching dies to die cut the otter and parcel (you could do this without the dies easily but I bought the pair as a 'deal'). As usual I die cut templates so I could place the aperture over the images, and then position the dies properly - always worth that little bit of extra time, even when really pushed!

- die cut a circle from the Altenew slightly sparkly snippet using a Spellbinders circle die - would have preferred to have a circular aperture on the card front but again, not enough time

- whilst I had the Cuttlebug in front of me I also die cut a white cloud using the smallest die from the MFT 'Cloud Trio' set of dies and a smallish balloon from the darkest spot on my Altenew snippet - using a die from the Poppy Stamps set of seven 'Celebration Balloons' dies (this is a fabulous set of dies, sadly not able to get hold of it to add into this week's prize as it's not around in the UK and overseas postage to here is silly money)

- then it was just a case of adding the elements to the card front - glued the circle in place, popped the otter on with glue as I wanted him flat, then added the cloud (to adhere it I used a snip from a thin sticky pad for dimension)

- I really would have liked to carefully cut the otter's paw before adding him to the card front so that he would be really 'holding' the parcel - but didn't want to risk ruining a card with so little time to spare, next time perhaps

- the balloon was a little tricky. I used a tiny piece of silver embroidery thread (six strands) and attached it to the back of the balloon (having realised I needed to knot either end to prevent it from splitting apart) - using a teeny piece of thin sticky pad and then popped the balloon onto the edge of the circle

- to prevent the strands of thread from springing apart down the length of the 'balloon string' I gently twisted them before attaching the other end to the otter's tummy with a little piece of thin sticky pad and then popped the Birthday parcel on top

- final touch, three little sequins to add something to the background using Glossy Accents as a glue - and we were done, hooray!

Little story - skip if you're only here for cards! I've had this stamp and matching die set for ages, always with a Birthday card for Len in mind. We used to go to Thailand each Autumn and there was a beautiful hotel we stayed at on the very south of the island of Phuket where they had a rescued sea otter called Kee. She was adorable - we visited her each day and she used to have a late afternoon stroll along the beach (complete with harness and lead) when most of the sunbathers had packed up for the day. Sadly, she wouldn't have survived had she been released back into the wild as she was just an orphaned pup when a local fisherman found her. Len and I were never ones for stretching out in the sun all day but we were taking the opportunity to have some quiet time on the shoreline as the sun was going down when Kee trotted along with her keeper late one afternoon. I was taking some video footage of the beautiful surroundings whilst Len splashed around in the warm shallows. And then, Kee's keeper (whom we'd befriended) asked if Len was scared of her - when he said 'no' the keeper unclipped her lead and she scampered straight into the sea for a few minutes play with Len! It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen and we were lucky enough that I filmed it. Of course Len was totally enchanted and it's a memory that will stay with us always - not just on film, you really had to be there to feel the magic. She was keen on catching Len's toes though and otters have such strong teeth you certainly don't want a pedicure from them! Sometimes I see little Dudley's face peeping over the side of his bed at me and he looks so much like a baby seal - or even a baby otter. So - that's why this stamp set really called to me for this year's card for Len!

And I mentioned the iridescent solution I sprayed the Altenew panel with. Way back in March, Gail of Ionabunny and I had quite an exchange of emails. She'd made her own iridescent spray and was happy to share some extra tips with me. Eventually I got it right by using a Ranger Mini Mister and the teeniest bit of Windsor and Newton 'Iridescent Medium'. It was trial and error - my first attempt totally clogged up the nozzle of one Mister - note to self, this stuff does NOT work undiluted!And my second attempt wasn't much better, but third time lucky. Thanks so much Gail - great way to make up your own clear Wink of Stella or similar and one bottle will go for miles and miles - to the moon and back probably! My advice would be to literally start off with just a cocktail stick dipped into the medium to add to the water in the Mister - Gail's tip, not mine but it certainly works! Last I heard, Gail was going to try it out in an empty Wink of Stella pen - which would be great as you would then have both spread with the spray from the Mister and precision with the WOS brush.

The prize this time is very much connected to this week's snippets card:

It's (of course!) a Lawn Fawn 'Year Five - Otterly Birthday' stamp set - with the matching dies. Obviously I won't split this prize so if you play and want to be in the draw remember that you will receive both items, makes sense to me as they are a pair.
  
As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 10th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's 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.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you're wanting to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I ignore you on my little list.

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 :)

No photo of Dudley today, he's been a real livewire this past week and it's almost impossible to get him to stay still for long - and there are only so many sleeping puppy photos you can take.

Love from Parsnip (always my special furry white bundle - he and Dudley are making friends, slowly! He's learned to say 'Nooooo' in a firm voice), little Dudley who truly is such a pickle and of course from me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #336 - results

Autumn is well on the way here - the leaves are changing and also dropping - plus weather-wise it's not been very pleasant with wind and rain. Isn't it funny how much fun puppies get from chasing leaves around :)

Having said that, today as I finish off this post (am learning to do what I can whenever there's a little bit of time in the intervening week!) - the sun is shining and it's beautiful outside. Dudley is fast asleep on my glass craft mat - it's been quite a 24 hours!

Yesterday was the day of his final puppy innoculation - which went really well. Emily, his chosen regular vet, met him for the first time and it was love at first sight - she's so good with him and also the practice nurses wanted to each have a cuddle with him as well - apparently they were waiting for him to arrive as Claire the locum vet we saw previously had been squealing with excitement about him! He weighs 2.85 kg now, which is an increase of half a kilogram in the two weeks since he was last weighed.

So we thought it was all going really well - then when we got back home he was promptly very sick, bless him he'd held it until he could be out in the penned in patio area. He was pretty sleepy all evening but oh boy - did he make up for it during the night. I don't think Len managed to get any sleep apart from possibly a couple of hours and I wasn't much better either. Basically, I think the little monkey was making up for the lost play time during the afternoon/evening when he was so sleepy. So now, he's crashed out on my desk and Len and I are almost on our knees!

Before we went to the vet I gave him a lovely brush out - which he promptly totally ruffled up, and this is the best photo I managed to get as he just wouldn't sit still:

Anyhow, let's get straight on with the fortnightly picks:

I picked this card, made by Jane W, because it's such a great example of paper piecing and bringing the images and the backing papers together by using the same papers on both. Plus, it makes me smile as well of course! Paper piecing is a brilliant way to use up snippets so do try it if you haven't done so already.

This entry was made by Alice, who always comes up with beautifully detailed work. I chose this card because it's just a perfect summing up of Autumn with the wonderful colours and multiple die cuts etc. - plus it uses lots of snippets of course!

And this is another very detailed piece of work - a beautiful wedding card made by Jackie T. It was for a couple who love the Caribbean and I think, as well as using loads of snippets, Jackie captured the whole flavour of the Caribbean in the design and those wonderful colours!

We had one new Playmate joining us this time:

Emma

A huge welcome to the Snippets Playground Emma - hope to see you again soon!

I absolutely adore this set of reindeer dies and needless to say scurried off to buy a set - two in fact, one for me and one for the Playground toy box. I'm planning to run the Christmas/New Year holiday giveaway once again - IF I get time to make my own samples and do the posts of course. It's a few weeks away still so with luck I'll manage it.

So that was one new Playmate this time round - and we had a total of 50 entries. We seem to be hovering around the 50 mark which isn't bad going at all. We're approaching the seven year mark since I took the Snippets Playground over from Jules - I had to treble check that as it's really flown by!

Now it's prize draw time, and our winner of the two lots of dies, kindly donated by Viv is:

Lia

Well done Lia! One of our really loyal playmates who always arrives with such lovely work - and it's also a while since Lia won anything so that's a good choice for the Random number generator.

Do please send me your address, with full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste or just write straight from the email onto the envelope - for speed and ease. I don't keep addresses of previous winners, even if they might be in my private address list - if that makes sense! It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course and I'll post your prize once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #337 - just check back a bit and you'll easily find it. The prize is a Paper Smooches 'Birthday Words' die set (comprising 'celebrate', 'cheers' and 'Happy Birthday') plus The Works ' 10 Piece Numbered Candles' set of dies .

It's an early night for us here for sure! I was hoping this was the weekend the clocks change but have just checked and it's not until next weekend, sigh - I could have done with that extra hour!

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead, and little Parsnip and Dudley (woof!) send their love too! Parsnip is safely tucked up away from Dudley's reach - and busily working on his Christmas wish list for Santa in between flicking through one of my cocktail recipe books! I suspect plans are afoot for one of his money-making ventures during the festive season in the Playground!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #337

Phew, what a struggle it is to do any crafting at all with one manic Dudley puppy, however, I really HAD to make a card for Mia's Birthday to send to Germany so I used the opportunity to combine this week's snippets make at the same time - hooray!

Mia is now into elves and such, but the elves and fairies she likes are more quirky and fantasy styled rather than too pretty-pretty. So, my LOTV Art Pad ready coloured images weren't gonna fit the bill ........ sadly, as they are such a time saver. However, I found a stamp I bought absolutely ages ago and only ever used once (almost six years ago for her sister Livi's 3rd Birthday in fact!) - which would take some stronger colours to give it some 'oomph'.

So, here is my snippets card, made in 'fits and starts' with one eye on the little monster even though Len was at home (he had things to catch up on so we shared the puppy sitting):

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card blank, tent style

- a snippet of SU blue spotted card from the snippets folder, with just a small amount trimmed off to make it slightly smaller than the card front, then glued in place

- then I selected the other snippets I wanted to use so I could match the colouring in of the image as much as possible

- stamped the image using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a Joanna Sheen 'Enchanted' grey rubber stamp

- then coloured the image with Pro markers before adding some clear 'Wink of Stella' to the wings and the little 'beads' in her hair

- trimmed the image and backed it with a plain square of primrose pink card on top of a square which had been die cut from a snippet of blue card using a die from The Works 'stitched square' set of dies

- backed snippets of the pink and blue card with Stick-It ready for some die cutting

- the sentiment was die cut using a die from the Paper Smooches 'Birthday Words' set of dies. I bought this little die set plus one for the toy box absolutely ages ago and this was its first outing. I remembered a tip that am sure Jules put on her blog a good while ago about using this die - and I think Jennifer McGuire used it as a technique recently as well. Basically, the letters all fall out of the 'Happy Birthday' die separately so you're faced with aligning them onto your piece of work. I die cut a small rectangle of vellum using the same die, taped that onto the top right hand corner of the card and then stuck each letter down in place inside the apertures - perfectly aligned and of course I could see through the vellum to position it

- next I did the age square using The Works '10 Piece Numbered Candles' set of dies to cut out the candle numbers in blue and also in pink, which I snipped and added on top of the flames    

- popped the numbers onto a snippet of white card which had been die cut into a circle and then layered it onto a square of pink card (it looked too stark otherwise)

- die cut MIA from pink card using dies from the First Edition 'Alphabet Sans Serif' set of upper case dies

- added the age panel with MIA in between and then the image panel to the left - finished!

Then had to dash to the Post Office with it, along with the WISH die prizes from the other fortnight.

The prize this time is a couple of items the same as I used on my snippets card today - excuse poor photo:

It's a Paper Smooches 'Birthday Words' die set (comprising 'celebrate', 'cheers' and 'Happy Birthday') plus The Works ' 10 Piece Numbered Candles' set of dies. Only one of the Paper Smooches sentiments isn't all joined up letters btw - and of course it was the one I wanted to use! Please note that I won't split this prize so if you play and want to be in the draw remember that you will receive both items, but of course you can then give one to a friend if you don't want both items! It keeps things easier for me - and also keeps the postage down as well.
 
As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 27th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's 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.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you're wanting to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' comment on my blog post itself - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

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 to finish off - you can see Dudley in action last Sunday afternoon, over on YouTube. We've had to lay cardboard down to protect some new carpet (bad planning there but we had been searching for a fairly locally bred Havanese puppy for almost three years!) and I cleared away the covering of puppy pads to give him a free run :) Some of you will have seen the movie clip on my Facebook page, but if not then just click on the link below - and do turn your sound on, I still have a chuckle when I see it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtrWAHAULpo

And immediately after that?

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzonk

Love from Parsnip (always my special furry white bundle), little Dudley and of course from me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #335 - results

What a week! Hard to believe that Dudley has been here for 11 days or so. It's been tiring (little sleep for about three nights but he's settling down beautifully and sleeps right through the night now). It's also been utterly amazing! He is the most delightful, happy and funny little pup. On Friday it was his first outing since we brought him home - to see our vet for a second innoculation, some first outing! He hopped happily into his pet carry bag for the journey and never even murmured when the lovely lady vet checked him over, gave him a jab and also clipped a teensy bit off the ends of his claws. And, apart from being a bit sleepier than usual, it didn't seem to affect him later on. One more visit in two weeks time - and of course he has utterly enchanted everyone who meets him

Anyhow, let's get straight on with the fortnightly 'picks' and first of all we have a *Gold Star* - this is absolutely stunning with SO much careful detail:

I can't begin to think how many hours of planning and work Donna put into making this amazing card. The personalisation is so perfect, you really must go and read about it on Donna's blog post!

Do please take your Gold Star from the RH side bar Donna - and thank you for such a fun entry!

And here's the rest of our fortnightly picks:

Nicky hopped in waving this glass, and another one, decorated using leftover snippets of vinyl! She was slightly hesitant as to whether they counted as snippets - they most certainly do and such a clever idea as well!

 
Heidi had been making Christmas cards, using square and circular snippets to create backgrounds - so colourful and such fun - as well as great use of snippets!

And just look at this for a fabulous way to use up snippets! Kathy A made this great card using loads of snippet strips! There's a link over on Kathy's blog but to be honest I think her own photos in the blog post provide a good guide - a lovely way to spend a rainy afternoon playing with strips of paper I think.

These all used snippets in ingenious ways that might inspire you girls to try for yourself - which is one of the aims of the Playground of course.

We had one new Playmate joining us this time:

Marg

A huge welcome to the Snippets Playground Marg - hope to see you again soon!

So that was one new Playmate this time round - and we had a total of 49 entries. Bit of a drop but totally fine by me, given the lack of time I've had to comment. In fact, as I type this I haven't even managed to comment on any entries for the current challenge - but Len is home (rain stopped play at archery) so I hope to get some peace to play catch up after I finish this post.

Now it's prize draw time, and our two winners of an MFT 'WISH' die are:

Pippa

Karen P

Two lovely winners - I'm sure it's a first win for Pippa and also that Karen hasn't won in the normal draw for about a year. Well done ladies!

Do please send me your addresses, with full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste or just write straight from the email onto the envelope - for speed and ease. I don't keep addresses of previous winners, even if they might be in my private address list - if that makes sense! It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course, not that I doubt it really! I'll post your prize once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #336 - just check back a bit and you'll easily find it. The prize is a set of dies as well as a single die, two lovely items making up one prize, kindly donated by Viv.

And, here's a photo of Dudley to finish off with:

Lying on my glass cutting mat on the desk is one of his favourite places - which certainly puts paid to crafting. He woke up just before I took this photo, hence the 'bad hair day' look! We're working on the tear staining as well during his brushing/grooming sessions with me - which he generally loves ........... until you take a pad to wipe near his eyes of course! He was also weighed at the vets and has put on half a kilogram in weight since he arrived here, so he now weighs 2.35kg which is just right apparently. Hooray!

And my shoulder is almost back to normal again - double hooray!

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead, and little Parsnip and Dudley (woof!) send their love too!