Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #349

Today is 'Mothering Sunday' here in the UK - dating back to when young girls and boys in service were given the day off to go home and visit their Mothers, most likely taking a bunch of Spring flowers with them, picked from the hedgerows nearby. In fact, the term Mothering Sunday dates back to centuries ago when people returned to their 'Mother Church' for a service on that day. Of course, it's now more commonly referred to as Mother's Day, but I still like the term 'Mothering Sunday'..

And, the clocks here also changed - at 2am on Sunday they 'Spring forward' by an hour meaning we lose an hour's sleep but that the evenings will suddenly be lighter of course.

Lets get right on with my snippets card - it's a fairly plain one but took longer to make than I expected. One of those ideas you have in the early hours of the morning when you can't sleep - so it was made early this week! The main thing driving me was the idea of how to match up the die cut sentiment with the background paper:

I used:

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

- a slightly smaller snippet of SU's 'Certainly Celery' green card

- a snippet of 200gsm white card (the 200 gsm is important I think) and MFT's 'Stitched Diagonal' Cover-up die to cut the main white panel piece

- next die cut the same panel piece from a sheet of  Dove Craft's 'Back to Basics II' paper

- and this was the step that had been keeping me awake thinking as I wanted the 'Thanks' sentiment word to exactly match the stripes in what would be the infill to the white panel

- so, I put the patterned paper die cut on top of the white card die cut, lined them up, held them in place on the cutting mat with low tack tape, put the Impression Obsession 'Thanks' die on top and ran them through the Cuttlebug - and that was why I'd used just 200gsm card, in case I was asking too much of the Cuttlebug in terms of thickness 

- it worked just fine - no cogs and springs taking flight!

- then I die cut the sentiment twice more from a couple of little snippets of SU's 'Certainly Celery' card 

- by now I had four little sentiments so I popped the white one back into the place on the card where it had come from, holding it in place with normal sellotape at the back, then layered two green sentiments and finally the striped sentiment on top for dimension using a fine glue pen. Note, it's important to make sure you have the inner parts of the letters on the white layer

- next, glued the green background layer to the card front and glued the white panel (complete with sentiment) on top

- finally popped the striped pieces of patterned paper in place  - a perfect match to the sentiment, even if I say so myself!

And of course, the prize this fortnight is this:

I have offered the same MFT 'Stitched Diagonal' Cover-up dies previously, but I just think they're such a useful die to have that I added a further one to the Toy Box a few months ago, really with the Grand Draw over last Christmas in mind. It didn't get offered but it goes so well with this sentiment - which of course is the Impression Obsession 'Thanks' die ............... on offer as well!

The prize is both items, but this time I would split them as I know that a few of you already have the Diagonal cover up die. This is very much an exception of course! Just say if you want to be in the draw for both dies, or state which one of the two you would like to win - and we'll take it from there.But, as I always say, you can play for both and give one item to a friend if it's a duplicate or you really don't fancy it.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 13th April. 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 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 ☺

Before we get into the latest frivolities here, I have to tell you some sad news - our very much loved, and talented Jenny Lawrence's husband passed away on Friday morning. They were such a very happy couple, finding love 'second time around'. Our thoughts are with Jenny and also her family right now. So very sad and also sudden - we send our love and sympathy Jenny. x 

Dudley continues to keep us on our toes here! The latest thing we've had to contend with is that the hedgehogs spook him if he happens to go out for the toilet when they're around. And a little dog with a big woof in the early hours of the morning isn't gonna win him many fans. Havanese dogs have quite a deep bark, which always sounds as if he should be a much bigger dog - until you see him. 

Clever Len found a hedgehog garden ornament in an attempt to get Dudley used to seeing at least the shape and colour of a hedgie - but without the smell or any moving around sadly. Over time, he's getting more used to Art (the ARTificial hedgie!) and the other day went so far as to give one of his favourite doggie chews to Art - who of course didn't move a muscle. ☺

Then, later on that day Len managed to take three photos of Dudley cosying up to Art - and this is the one I like the best:

The look on Dudley's face almost says -' You really must think I'm stupid, of course I know he isn't the real thing!' 

Dudley was looking a bit grubby after we finally let him out into the main part of the garden once various borders were 'Dudley-proofed' (he loves to dig, even just at grass). So on Friday we felt he really needed a bath so it was all hands on deck here. Cleared one end of the bathroom - and Len brought up a spare garden chair for me to sit on beside the bath, plastic so it didn't matter if there was a deluge.

The following photos are on Facebook so you might already have seen them!

First of all, Len filled the bath, quite shallowly as we mainly used the spray attachment - and this photo makes me really smile - the little innocent, with no idea of what's to come. 

'Hey Daddy - I love you so much - whatcha doin' there?'

Ha, Dudley soon found out what was going on:

WHAT?!?! You mean I have to sit IN HERE where it's wet and be rubbed with shampoo all over - this IS a joke, right? Let me out - right now - or I begin to do my Havanese yodel performance!

I did giggle when Darnell remarked on Facebook that he had 'a bed head' - that's because I took his topknot out and gave him a thorough brushing right through before the wet stuff started! Len wouldn't let me take his photo when he was soaking wet as it seems undignified somehow - but there's a very small dog underneath all that hair!

We were drenched, although the bathroom wasn't flooded at least. Then came the drying and more brushing, plus a new topknot - and he was good as new, smelling lovely and looking as gorgeous as ever! And all three of us were totally whacked!

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip (quiet these days, but  has a business on the side selling photos of Dudley!), Dudley and of course me -
 

Rudolph Days - March 2019

Despite Mr Mojo taking a hike here, I was determined to join in with ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days challenge which runs until the end of this month.

Whilst laid up in bed, I did manage to find time to keep a little eye on a couple of Facebook 'de-cluttering' groups and snapped up some bargains. To be honest, this place is bursting at the seams but I did only buy items I'd use a lot and/or had wanted for some time. And all items were unused as well! The SU set of stamps and really complementary dies I used for this Christmas card were on my wish list:

I used:

- 5.5 x 4.25" white card blanks, I made four cards the same and three are tent style and somehow I managed to make one with a side opening, which I do quite like as a format. I buy 6" x 6" white cards from Hobbycraft and trim them down to size - and also trim the envelopes to use as notepaper in the craft room so not as wasteful as it may sound

- 5.25" x 4" red satin card (from Joanna Sheen) - which always looks so rich and is top of my list for Christmas card stock

- 5" x 3.75" white card for the front panel

- used the SU set of dies called 'Hometown Greetings' to die cut the house and tree and that gave me the size I needed for the aperture I was going to die cut next

- used two circle dies, one inside the other, to cut out the circle from the white card. The inner die was a Tonic Studios plain one and the outer one was from the 'Stitched Circles' set by The Works. That left a circular aperture as well as giving me a stitched white ring to use later on in the making of this card

- at that point I could stamp the sentiment, so I used SU 'Smoky Slate' and a sentiment stamp from the SU 'Hearts Come Home' set of stamps

- then ran the white panel through the Cuttlebug with SU's 'Softly Falling' embossing folder - I love this folder and made sure I used it so that the wider spaced 'dots' were at the bottom of the panel so they didn't interfere with the sentiment too much

- the next thing was to assemble the little 'photo frame' by using a tape runner to add the die cut as I wanted it to the back of the frame and then carefully snip away any excess from just under the frame

- rummaged round in my ribbon boxes and found a snippet of narrow silver lurex ribbon and wrapped a piece around the top of the aperture

- glued the red layer onto the card, topped by the white layer

- added the circle frame (which I guess is really rather like a bauble/tree ornament) using teeny snippets of thin sticky pads

- then tied a teensy weensy bow using the same silver lurex ribbon and stuck that in place using Glossy Accents as a strong glue

- final touch was to use the SU 'Owl Builder' punch to punch out a tiny little heart  - from a snippet of the red satin card and glued it in place, again using Glossy Accents purely as it was already open on my desk

I got this idea from another blog and am so grateful to Dawn Griffith who is a Stampin' Up Demo lady, she made it all so easy - easy enough for me to make four the same as I was at it! Her blog post is HERE as well as a link to a video Dawn made. Dawn did use a length of narrow ribbon along the lower part of her card but to be honest, not only was I short of the silver ribbon, but I thought the card was fine without it.

She also changed the coloured layer for dark blue and also soft baby blue on other cards using the same design - all of which look lovely! Thanks Dawn!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #347 - results

Finally walking fine and coming down and back up the stairs with ease. Phew!

Let's get straight on with the fortnight's picks as I'm late - writing this on Saturday. Would you believe I had a list of 10 possible picks - some wonderful makes this past fortnight. Sadly, I'm sticking to three though, as follows:

These are such a sweet idea and a great way to use up snippets as well. Alice shared these altered/decorated paper clips (wouldn't they make great bookmarks?) and also, on her blog post HERE there's a link to Kitty's blog where she got the idea from - with more details on how to make them. Ha, and I think that cute little doggie looks a bit like young Dudley right now!

Liz sent a good few of us into squeals of delight with her amazing slider card! Do hop over and you'll see the card actually slid open, and also Liz's previous blog post shows another slider card plus a link to Jennifer McGuire's blog where you can see the secret of how it's made. I think it's very clever and hope to make the girls in Germany their Birthday cards using the same idea - later this year. It's a bit like the 'unending card' which always tickles children as they can't work out how it's done!

And here's another new idea I hadn't come across before. Using the Gina K template (or your own homemade one of course) to create a wreath of die cuts! Jeanne H skipped in with this clever idea - so pretty as well. And of course, Jennifer McGuire has a great tutorial on YouTube HERE if you want to know more! 

I'm sure most of you know that I made my own wreath template a good while back, before we could get hold of the real thing in the UK. The link to that post is HERE if you're interested. I used a big square die to do the cutting, but on YouTube there are tutorials on making your own template using a ruler and a craft knife.

We had no two new playmates this time and a total of 57 entries. It's lovely to see such healthy numbers - thank you so much for joining in!

Now it's prize draw time, and our winner of the bumper bundle of goodies, kindly donated by Lynn (Linby) is:

Joanne (2Craft Everyday) 

It's a first win for Joanne - so well done! Please send me your address, with your 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. 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 and I'll post the prize off to you ASAP this coming week.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #347 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a Clearly Besotted stamp and die set called 'Hoppy Easter'.

Afraid there's no new photo of Dudley this time, in fact right now he looks such a mess. I brushed his coat thoroughly and redid his top knot yesterday and within about ten minutes he'd undone all my hard work. So, that's a job for this afternoon. Thankfully he's fighting less and less when I'm doing it - and sometimes even just flops down on the table with a resigned sigh so I can work more easily! The only thing is that he loves to roll his eyes right down so it's a bit like looking at at alien only showing the whites of his eyes! Shudder - and I'm sure he knows it makes my knees feel wobbly and does it on purpose!

The hedgies are visiting each night, at least two of them, possibly more. Luckily they're fed outside the big penned in area on the patio at the back of the house as Dudley is inclined to woof at them still. Len strikes again though - he bought a garden ornament which is a very good likeness of a hedgie and moves it around outside the penned in area. Sometimes it's even at the feeding station which always makes me jump! The idea is to get Dudley used to seeing a 'hedgie' - only time will tell! 

And lastly, I'm hoping that ScrappyMo will be running the Rudolph Days challenge this month - from 25th to the end of the month. Comments aren't being published on her blog, there's no recent post and I know that she's also due for Surgery on her knee on 29th March. Hopefully all is fine and she's just busy right now. For once I actually have my RD card all made! Which is a bit of a miracle as my mojo has taken a long hike lately!

As always, Parsnip and Dudley send their love, and so do I of course! 

Recent prize winners

Just to let you know I finally managed to get to the Post Office yesterday with prizes from Challenges #344, #345 and #346. UK ones were posted First Class so may be with you today and the Overseas one went by Airmail of course.

Enjoy!

PS My baby pink laptop is packed away again even though I'm still resting at each end of the day - so I'm only likely to comment on the Playground when on this/my main laptop. It's fast, easy and there's just something about using a keyboard!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #348

Whoop, whoop! Over the past few days, I'm almost there! Practically ready to venture out wearing shoes and without a walking stick! So, taking Dudley to the groomers possibly extended thing by two weeks in the end. But, a lesson learned and I won't be doing that one again!

Lets get right on with my snippets card - it took me two days, day one to stamp and colour the images and then the following day I did the rest of the work. Partly as I seem to get tired quite easily right now - need to get out and about, that'll be a good tonic. Anyhow, here's the card:

I used:

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

- a slightly smaller snippet of white card on which to build the little scene layer

- snippets of white card, onto which I stamped the images using the Misti, Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a sweet little set of stamps by Clearly Besotted called 'Hoppy Easter'

- then coloured the images trying wherever possible to match the colours with a snippet of striped paper I found tucked in the back of Echo Park's 'Hello Summer' paper pad. The pad is almost finished and I'm really sorry about that as it's so bright and cheerful

- next I die cut the images out, having made six carrots, using the matching set of dies

- only then did I spot that there's even a teeny die included to cut out some little clumps of grass - I'd missed that when stamping and colouring! So, I just found a titchy snippet of toning green card and die cut some grass  clumps as the Misti etc had been put away after the previous spell of stamping and colouring the images

- and then it was just a matter of assembling the card really, topping the front panel with the striped paper on a backing of red card just to define the edges

- the little die cut pieces were just added using a Zig glue pen

- then, with heart in mouth I remembered I needed to stamp the sentiment! So out came the Misti, Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad and the 'Hoppy Easter' sentiment from the set of stamps - phew, success as well!

- to give the card more dimension, I backed the front panel with some thin white foam sheet before gluing it to the card front - job done!

And of course, the prize this fortnight is this:

A set of Clearly Besotted 'Hoppy Easter' stamps, along with matching dies. The carrot and grass dies are very small so I was really careful when making my own card!

Naturally the prize is both items, not to be split. I've have these for ages and really wanted to offer them a couple of weeks ago, well in time for the winner to use them for this Easter. Still, it's such a sweet prize and you can always get a head start on next Easter's cards :)

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 30th March. 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 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 ☺

With luck and a following wind (and we have plenty of that in the UK right now) I plan to post off prizes this coming week! It might be too much information but originally I had a slight flare up in my left foot about a week or so before the massive one in the right foot. So it seems like I get a warning but thought I'd knocked it on the head by taking some emergency Colchicine (as much use to me as a chocolate fireguard it seems). One thing I should have done was to cut my toenails as soon as that first one kicked off. However, my lovely Len very carefully and gently trimmed them for me yesterday - and not one squeal from me either!

No photo of Dudley this week, he's just as mischievous as ever needless to say. But, he's slowly getting more used to being brushed and groomed by yours truly - and Len sometimes brushes him over if he's lying on the table beside him. And, I'm getting better at putting Dudley's little topknot in as well. Len still has to hold him but sometimes he'll just lie his head down as if to say 'Get on with it Mama!'. The doggie latex bands we use are really tiny, smaller than loom bands if you remember that craze. On my second go at doing the topknot I was struggling and dropped a band onto the table beside Dudley. That boy really is a Hoover - he was onto it right away in a split second, sort of grinned at us when Len was trying to open his mouth, gave one gulp and there it was gone. Looking back. it's funny but of course we were worried - in fact Len was almost dangling the little chap by his back legs! Needless to say, nature took its course and he's just fine - little tinker!

And lastly, recent events around the World, NZ in particular, have totally shaken us here. Senseless and such a waste of precious life - I really have no words to express how very sad it is. 

Lots of love from Parsnip, Dudley - and of course me,

Dudley puppy cards!

Although I'm so much more mobile, still no shoes here for now so not able to go out as yet. As you lovely winners are being so patient I decided to sit and have a play in my craft room, making some cards to enclose with the next few prizes.

And the stamp set I used was such a lucky find, and it was't me that found it either! It was spotted by a lovely friend on a Facebook 'craft decluttering page' who thought it looked just like Dudley as a puppy and thanks to her I managed to buy it! Thanks for the heads up Donna :) x

I made eight cards using two of the little dog images and also two different papers so I mixed and matched them ending up with two cards of each design being identical - and here's two of them:

I used:

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

- backing papers from Dovecraft's 'Back to Basics Bright Spark' paper pad, trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front and then a contrasting band added using a tape runner

- then glued the backing paper layer to the card front

- stamped the adorable little dogs and sentiments using the pre-loved Stampin' Up 'Bella and Friends' set, the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- only minimal colouring was needed to make the little pups look like Dudley, I left his body white but added a little touch of peach along his spine and of course he still has his lovely peach coloured ears. Also coloured the collar, little heart and bone - all using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

- die cut the images using a die from The Works 'Stitched Circles' set of dies

- then just popped them in place using thin sticky pads

- final touch, a little tickle with a grey Pro marker as a light shadow and to help ground 'Dudley'

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #346 - results

Yippee, I'm back to where I was before taking that trip out with Dudley a week past Thursday, which really set me back. The past couple of days have been so much easier so in fact I'm quite a lot better than I was before that ill-fated trip. Loads less pain and walking indoors without the stick most of the time. Phew, thank goodness for progress.

Let's get straight on with the fortnight's picks and first of all, we have a *Gold Star' for this amazing 'altered' bottle' - made by Sindhu:

Sindhu - this is just fabulous! So much work and what a lovely result! Please help yourself to the Gold Star badge (it's on my right hand side bar) to display on your blog, if you wish of course.

And our three picks are:

Wow, I just love this 'baking themed' card, made by Jenny L! So much detail in such pretty colours (just like icing on the fairy cakes I recall as a child) - and the inside is lovely as well, so do hop over for a look HERE.

Pam made this great card, using snippets of course - and what really caught my eye is the clever use of the red button for the letter O - really clever touch!

I think this is such a clever card, made by Glennis. The cupcake case is made of four layers of snippet strips and the candle is brilliant - it's a real Birthday cake candle, sliced down the middle!

We had two new playmates this time:

Keti

Sonja

Welcome to the Snippets Playground girls - hope you all come back and play really soon.

Including our two new Playmates, we had a total of 67 entries - so pleased to see so many of you striving to use up those snippets!

Now it's prize draw time, and our winners of the three MFT  'Christmas Tree Window' dies are as follows:

Heather

Jules

Greta

Please send me your addresses girls, with your 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. 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.

I'll post the prizes off to you as soon as I'm out and about - until I can get a shoe on am not going far. I still have Andrea's prize as well as Lynne in NI's to post from the other week as well - after the last setback I truly don't want to take any chances though. 

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #347 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a lovely bumper bundle of dies and stamps, kindly donated by Linby. 

Other news on the 'home front' is that the hedgies are out of hibernation and coming to feed each night! Len says they look well and the only glitch right now is that Dudley woofs at them! Unfortunately the timing of his late night 'wee' toilet trip is around the time they first appear - happily they're separated by the fact that the patio area is penned in but it's close enough for him to think they're interlopers. Naturally we know he'll need to be allowed out and will have to get used to them but we're not sure that the neighbours would agree with 10pm woofing sessions! He was fine with them before they hibernated but of course he's grown a lot since then and probably is more territorial - little scamp! Also, I never knew this previously, puppies go through a 'fear' phase at around six months old - they also do at around three months but the six month old one is more telling. So he's probably a bit shy of them too!

As I said last week, we kept Dudley's bangs/fringe when he was groomed last week and the girls did him a cute little top knot - which probably lasted less than 24 hours before the band slipped loose. So, he was still walking into things and we both got quite worried. Finally the styling lotion for doggies (I kid you not!) plus a bag of tiny latex bands arrived on Thursday and I set to right away with the usual good 'brushing Dudley' session and then bit the bullet. Len had to hold him still - needless to say but I managed to tie a little top knot! Finally we can see his dear little face properly - and he looks a lot more grown up in some ways as well. And of course, he can see where he's going!

The band is still holding well as I type this (Saturday) with just a few of the shorter wisps escaped - the secret seems to be to wrap the band around the top knot and then almost make a little bobble of the clump of hair with the final turn so it sort of holds against itself.

And - at last - here's a photo of Dudley, taken yesterday by Len, with his top knot 'wot I did'! Excuse the background cables etc! At last you can see his lovely eyes properly - although he'd just been asleep on a table beside Len's desk:

And you want me to smile as WELL as look regal? No chance, I only perform for treats.

I bet you're surprised at how much more grown up he looks, we are! He now is looking much more like a proper Havanese but I promise you, he's still every bit as mischievous as ever - right now he's having a mad 10 minutes with Len and a squeaky ball. He (Dudley of course!) certainly can move at quite a rate - it's like having an animated white fluffy rug running riot!And, underneath all that lovely coat, there's actually quite a small dog hiding. Next time he's wet I'll try and take a photo!

Hope you all have a lovely week ahead. Thank you for all the kind wishes about this foot - they seem to be working, mwah! x

Parsnip and Dudley send their love, as usual - and of course me too,