Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #364

First of all, hope you remembered to switch from British Summer Time to GMT! Or any other clock changes that take place this weekend where you live - an extra hour in bed, whoop, whoop! Darker evenings though, sigh. And Dudley won't know the difference so we could be up at the usual time anyhow, until he gets to know the routine.

Talk about weather for ducks here! Thursday was the worst rain I've seen or been out in for a very long time but we had to take Dudley to try out the new grooming place so no option but to head out with waterproofs and umbrellas at the ready. We dropped Dudley off and as it wasn't worth coming back home we whiled away the time in a nearby Sainsbury's - picking up some shopping then finished off in the supermarket's cafeteria, watching the torrential downpour with coffee and a snack, before almost swimming across the car park back to Len's car to return and collect Dudley. Certainly a day we'd have preferred to have spent at home!

My snippets card today features two dies, which are this fortnight's prize. The sentiment came from another set - one which I hardly ever use and (to me) apart from this sentiment it's very focused on the word 'pink' and works well with flamingos - but I didn't waste money by buying another set to offer when you might only use one of the sentiments. Anyhow, the sentiments set was a Playground prize ages ago.

So, here you go - and yes, I did almost need to lie down in a darkened room to recover after making this - although it really was huge fun, if I'm really honest:

I used:

- DL (4" x 8.25") white card blank

- a tree, die cut from a snippet of brown card using a Memory Box 'Budding Tree' die and kept to one side

- at that point I decided to stamp the sentiment, using the die cut tree to see how it would balance out - I used an MFT stamp from the 'Tickled Pink' set of stamps

- then glued the tree die cut in place using a glue pen

- next, the fun began! I take daily medication as you know, although some of it is now twice daily. Bear with me - this is an idea I promise! Always have problems with tiny die cuts and losing them or messing them about too much - so I dug out a 'once a day' pill organiser box with flip up lids that I no longer use

- and blow me down, there are seven colours in the rainbow so that box stepped in beautifully with seven days to a week

- a lot of weeks ago, I had the idea for this card but to be honest, making it always slightly scared me. I may have seen the idea elsewhere but to me it was just such a great way to use up snippets

- I had tootled into our local DIY store for some paint chips (aka colour samples in the UK) and at the same time picked out the colours of the rainbow - which have been on my desk literally for months whilst I procrastinated. I count them as snippets!

- so, I then die cut the butterflies using a Memory Box die called 'Mini Butterflies' - which I've also had for ages. The die is no more than an inch square and has six little butterflies on it

- that's when lunacy set in ............as it often does here. I cut each colour - six times, they were popped into their own little 'compartment in the pill box! Six times six is 36, times seven - which made 252 butterflies in total. Not that I used that many in the end so there's enough left for at least one, possibly two further cards

- and then, using a glue pen and a pair of tweezers I stuck a load of butterflies onto and slightly around the tree and finished off by adding a stream of them (coming into land on the tree) across the rest of the card, tapering off as I went. I found it easiest to only glue three at a time of each colour to get a more even 'spread' and overall, once I got into a rhythm, it didn't take as long as anticipated

- almost finished until I added a swipe of warm grey Pro marker to 'ground' the tree/cast a shadow and of course it bled through to the inside of the card front - just added a panel across the whole of the inside of the card front to hide it. Job done!

I do love the significance of the sentiment with the host of happy butterflies looking as if they getting ready for a little party in that tree, saying 'Life is better with friends'.

And, the 'Budding Tree' die will be used for lots of other cards here I hope. I had tried to get a Memory Box Arboscello tree die but couldn't track one down. In both cases, by snipping the buds or leaves off, you have a totally bare tree which would look lovely in white against a deep blue background. The tree could then dotted with sparkle for a Christmas card.

I also like that, with one pass through the Cuttlebug, I could cut six teeny butterflies in one go using the 'Mini Butterflies' die. And of course they can be just added individually to cards or perhaps arranged in a circle or similar - lots of possibilities and a great way to use up little snippets. Did find having a glue eraser/rubber was very handy by the way!

A few of us have issues with losing tiny die cuts as we're working. I usually use the upturned plastic top from a finished big tub of cotton buds - but did like the pill organiser to keep those tiny butterflies not only segregated into colours but also with flip up lids in case I accidentally knocked it over or, worse still, onto the floor.

And you already know what the prize is for this fortnight:

A Memory Box 'Budding Tree' die and a Memory Box 'Mini Butterflies' die. I'd prefer not to split the prize - you can always give part of it to another crafting friend of course.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 9th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, 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 want 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 only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

So, Dudley had a really close cut on Thursday. His ears had been too long and straggly so they've been cleverly trimmed, teensy bit trimmed off his tail - and a lot off the rest of him! To be honest, he's almost too short for the moment but we know it'll only be a week or two until his hair begins to show the benefit of his trim as it grows back. The new groomer is a lovely lady who absolutely loves Dudley. He even came home with a dear little flower (in blue for a boy) on his collar - and not a hint of a razer burn!!

The plan is to take Dudley to her for the full blown trims - and in between those to take him to our local grooming place for a bath, blow dry, nail trim and his paws and pads scissored so he doesn't look as if he's wearing Ugg boots.

He's slept quite a lot since the grooming session, he always does. So, for now, I don't didn't have any new photos of him. He's currently in his favourite position at the stop of the stairs, on his side, fast asleep - with his beloved toy 'Stinky Monkey' within reach of course! NB. Written on Friday - the little tinker is now full of beans on Saturday, eating like a horse and wants to play chase all the time. I think his dignity was just a bit injured to be honest :)

I had a further appointment with my GP during the week and hooray, the uric acid readings are now well below the danger line so, for now, no more blood tests and no more tinkering with the dosage of Allopurinol. 300mg all the way, unless (heaven forbid) it flares up again.

And I haven't mentioned our dear little garden hedgies for ages on here. They're doing great, still coming to feed each night although before long we think they'll hibernate of course. They all look to be a good weight to get them through Winter, which is a relief.

Edit: We just had a 'before and after collage' of Dudley emailed to us by his new groomer, how sweet is that for an idea. He wasn't quite finished in the second photo, his chest still needed more work and some straggly ends to be clipped but the groomer likes to allow the dogs little breaks. I did giggle, he almost looks in a state of shock in the 'after' photo - but in fact he was very relaxed, as well as very white and smelling of baby powder scented shampoo/conditioner, when we arrived to pick him up. He looks as if he's baring his bottom teeth like 'You truly mean you need to do MORE?'. Here he is - and perhaps you can see why I feel he needs a couple of weeks to regain some of his fluffiness and look more like our Dudley again! :)

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

Rudolph Days - October 2019

And it's another Rudolph Days challenge over at ScrappyMo's - where did the past month disappear to then? Time certainly flies these days.

Here's my offering:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square black card blank, ordered from Amazon UK and made by Craft UK Limited

- then cut an aperture in the front of the card using Clarity's 'Christmas Santa Aperture' die

- then backed the aperture with a piece of white card which was covered on one side with medium weight double sided adhesive sticky film (made by Woodware) which I place facing the front - once I removed that second layer of protective film and also protected it with the peeled of piece of waxed paper whilst I was working

- then cut the die once again, from SU's 'Real Red' card stock this time

- popped seven of the red pieces in place, as shown on the above card

- then sprinkled iridescent glitter (cheap and from a local shop but Glamour Dust would work well) over the aperture, whisking away the excess with an Avon blusher brush (bought solely for the purpose of crafting)

- next I backed the inside front panel of the card with a very slightly smaller piece of black card to neaten up the inside - using red line tape for a secure fix

- finally, added the sentiment strips using another Clarity product - wonderful stickers from the 'Clarity Christmas & Celebrations' set

- finished - or was I?

Nope, I'll never learn - I made 12 all the same and almost lost the will to live.
One of the trickiest cards to 'batch bake' for sure!

Wish you could see the sparkle, but when I turned the card to catch the light I lost the sentiment printing, sigh.

A little tip, once you add the red insert die cuts, try to 'nudge' the black outlines against the red insert to avoid a bit of white showing. A little point but worth trying to remember - she says, too late! And anyhow, who uses a magnifying glass to check out their Christmas cards?!

Edit: Thanks to Kath for a great idea - when adding inset die cut pieces to a white background with the image outline part in black - just run a black pen around the inside of the aperture you're going to fill! 

By the way, this is a direct result of seeing a blog post very recently (literally a couple of days after our Cornwall holiday) on Barbara Gray's Clarity Stamps blog - she has lots of photos of the process, which will probably make more sense than all my words.

I have to say though, I did have some issues with the die itself - Santa's face has a lot of little pieces that should drop out as waste - they did but only after I added extra shims to that part of the die and even poked a bit with a craft knife, in addition to the metal shim I was already using anyhow.

It didn't matter on the red die cuts, as the outer part of the die cut fine and the pieces I wanted to use were also bigger of course - although I still needed the metal shim for my Cuttlebug.

Just a little warning if you do decide to dive in - but not enough to put you off as it's such a fun and rather funky die.I suspect that my Cuttlebug might be a tad out in the calibration to be honest.

I got the die and the sentiments stickers on a special Clarity Stamps offer BTW. 8 A5 sheets four are black on white and four are white on black. And, half of them are for Christmas and the others are for general use - bargain!

I think they might well last me for the rest of my days :).

Merry Christmas - it's looming whether we like it or not!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #362 - results

Crumbs, that week went fast! It's been very damp here and we're so glad we weren't away this past week.

Aiming to do a pretty quick post today (Saturday) as chores seem to have built up a bit - I think the dull weather and a few appointments during the week had something to do with it.

Let's get going with this fortnight's picks and first of all, we have another *Gold Star* pick this fortnight, and it's another stunning make:

I think this is utterly fabulous! It's a mini album and only 3" x 3". The only way to see it properly is to hop over to Jenny's blog, it's truly worth a visit! There's so much wonderful work, detail and love been put into making this album - well done Jenny and do feel free to take the *Gold Star* button from my RH side bar!

As always, it was so hard to select just three picks from all your lovely entries - but here they are:

This is such a brilliant way to use up snippety strips of patterned paper as a Bargello background - brought to share with us by Carol L. I love how well it's all been co-ordinated and the smiley pumpkin is so cute.

Each year we're inundated with Halloween callers. Last year, Dudley was so small that he didn't react much but this year I suspect he'll be more territorial - with a good few 'woofs' thrown in for luck.

Lia made this adorable Christmas card, using loads of white and sparkly snippets. Such a cute scene and a Christmas card that anyone would be delighted to receive. Wonderful depth too, you feel like you could just walk into the scene!

Sorry to remind you again that Christmas is looming, but most of us are beginning to thinking ahead and make Christmas cards, bags and tags. Heather shared these lovely tags with us - with backgrounds made from snippet strips - and I love them! Even cleverer is the fact that many of the strips have been saved from paper pads which have a perforated line along the top, which means you're left with a strip of the same paper you just tore off, but with a hole in the middle. Heather saves those then used them to make little things like these cute tags - clever idea!

So, that's my picks for this time around and I do hope they've given you some inspiration for ways in which you can use up some of those snippets.. 

We had 53 entries and two new Playmates this time round. 

Time now for the prize draw which is for a Lawn Fawn 'Sea-Horsin' Around' set of stamps with matching dies - plus a Sugar Pea 'Waves' stencil , and the winner is:

Alice (ScrAPamondo)

 

Well done Alice! 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.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #363 - you can find it HERE. The bumper prize is a Lawn Fawn 'Manatee-rific' set of stamps with matching dies - plus a Lawn Fawn 'Bayou Backdrop' set of dies'.

And yes, Len did love the snippets card I made for his Birthday using both sets - and he also sends big thanks for all your Birthday wishes as well. x

I do have a quick photo of Dudley to share - although it's quite similar to one I posted that was taken whilst we were at the cottage. I've said before that his 'look out point' is at the top of the stairs here - sometimes one step down and sometimes on the landing itself - right where I have to step over him as I go in and out of my craft room needless to say. We refer to him being 'on guard duty', but judging by his pose when Len took a quick photo on Friday, Dudley's definition of 'guard duty' is somewhat different to ours:

Perhaps we ought to refer to him as 'The Hampshire Flasher'!

Dudley is in for a surprise this coming Thursday when we take him to a new groomer who, we hope, will scissor cut him into his puppy cut (aka a Teddy Bear cut) in between trips to our more local grooming salon. It's really difficult to find groomers who even know what a Havanese dog is, something I know another friend has struggled with. We do trim his face, top of his head and around his eyes but neither of us is competent enough the do 'The Full Monty' - let alone touch his nails! Thankfully, this new lady we're trying is based about 20 minutes away from us and already has some Havanese 'on her books'. What I like is that she only takes in one dog at a time whereas bigger salons will have several dogs being groomed at once and in between times they're kept in cages. Hopefully it'll be less stressful all round - although I have to say he's loads better than he used to be. Watch this space folks!

Love from Parsnip, a sleepy wave from Dudley - and of course hugs as always from me,

Mia is 12 years old

It only seems yesterday that Mia was a baby and now she's heading into her 13th year, so is on the verge of being a teenager!

When we came home from Cornwall I had to really get cracking and make her card in time for it to reach Germany. Luckily, I already had a new die waiting to be used - so I kept the card fairly simple:

I used:

- a tall white card blank - approx. 4" x 8"

- piece of shimmery plummy purple thin card stock as the 'frame', which I glued onto the card front

- piece of patterned paper from a LOTV pad called 'Timeless Victorian', trimmed and then glued onto the purple layer

- then adhered two layers of the purple card together using Woodware double sided adhesive sticky paper just to make the die cuts more robust

- die cut the (new to me) Poppystamps 'Large Sugar Plum Faerie' and put it to one side

- then die cut the word WISH using MFT's 'Wish' die

- because I hadn't used really intricate dies they cut well, despite the sticky layer in between the thin pieces of card

- then added the word WISH using a glue pen, followed by the faerie (fairy) minus the wings which are cut separately anyhow

The reason I chose to make the fairy into a ballerina was partly as I'd seen it  elsewhere on a blog, probably one of yours so thank you if it was you! And, Mia is also a very good little ballet dancer.

Edit: I spotted the die on Gail's blog - here's a link to the post that inspired me!

Phew, I hate making cards in a rush but for once nothing went wrong! I deliberately didn't add Mia's name and age, the girls are both growing up and from the age of 10 onwards I try not to add those extra details unless it's a special birthday or occasion.

Happy Birthday Mia, hope you're having a lovely day!

And, we finally have Dudley booked into a new grooming place for next week. His Auntie Stephanie has had to go back to Kent to care for her Mum, and our local branch still doesn't do scissoring. We just might have hit lucky, and his new groomer, called Debbie, already knows and grooms/trims Havanese! I attached photos and she says 'He's a stunning little chap'. Bless him. Way to go Dudley ... my most loved and so sweet little man! After Len of course :) x

Happy Birthday Len!

Today it's Len's Birthday, not 'a milestone one' but he's clocking up the mileage as they say - albeit just two years ahead of me anyhow :)

Again, the day after we came home from Cornwall, I locked myself in the craft room in a flat panic when I should have been 'doing wash loads'. I made a card for Len from me (see Sunday's Snippets post), a card for Mia in Germany and also this card - from little Dudley to his 'Dad' for his Birthday:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, side opening

- then stamped the image and words onto a piece of white card using a really cute Woodware set of stamps called 'Puppy Boots', the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- thankfully, with Dudley being mostly white, I just needed to colour his boots/wellies with blue Pro markers to match the blue card I'd chosen to use for the 'frame' layer - along with a little touch of champagne/peach colour for his ears

- next followed a fair old bit of careful trimming down of the image to keep it as centred as possible

- a piece of blue card for the 'frame' cut to size and glued in place onto the card front

- topped the frame with the image panel and there we were - all done!

You might think the pooch is a bit skinny looking compared to Dudley - but when he's wet he doesn't look all that different to the image - apart from the wellies!

I did add an insert, along the lines of 'Next time remember to get me some wellies too'. A reference to the image, which turned out to be SO apt, and the fact that Len was fine trotting around our little Cornish garden in front of the cottage in his wellies - but poor ole Dudley had to be toweled, rubbed and wiped dry most of the time. The morning dew, and what spasmodic rain we had, meant that 'rarely' did he escape a 'good ole toweling down'! Often it was before he was even allowed to poke his nose inside the cottage, poor little scrap. He's so funny, at one point he truly did look like the 'ET image in the bicycle', with his head wrapped in a towel.

But, as I said already, he totally loved the different outlook and the sheep, the sheep! We did laugh one evening when we knew he was indoors with us but we couldn't find him - and there wasn't that far to search either. So we left him and were on the sofa, idly chatting with the TV on after dinner. Eventually the floor length curtains began to move as this little lump shuffled along. He was behind the curtains, against the huge floor length window/doors - looking longingly at the field where the small flock of sheep were. Either that or he was stargazing?

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #363

I did post on Thursday, apologising for not being on top of commenting, due to the fact we've been down to Cornwall for a relaxing week in a cottage right on the edge of Bodmin Moor, very close to the Cheesewring for those of you who might know the area. I'll add more further down this post, including a video of Dudley - if I can get it to upload!

Another bit of an apology, a bit of bad planning on my part means we have another (albeit different)  'underwater' scene for my snippets card and prize again. It's Len's Birthday this coming Tuesday and the day after we got home I shut myself in the craft room to make a card from me, as well as one from Dudley (which will appear later). And my card is this fortnight's snippets offering:

I used:

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

- I had a snippet of Tim Holtz 'Sparkle' card inked with shades of turquoise, handily lying on my desk so I trimmed it to size as the background and stuck it onto the card front using Collall All Purpose Glue

- next used a snippet of white card onto which I stamped the manatees, bubbles, a few other little elements and also the sentiment words I chose - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and of course the Misti. They all came from the Lawn Fawn 'Manatee-rific' set of stamps, which I've had for ages with Len's Birthday in mind

- coloured them using Pro markers, then die cut them using the matching set of dies and just cut the sentiment strips freehand - popped them into a little plastic dish for safekeeping as I'm a dab hand at losing small dies and die cuts these days

- then die cut the main frame with the 'sea grass' using the biggest die from Lawn Fawn's 'Bayou Backdrop' set of dies and a snippet of green card. In reality, the 'sea grass' is supposed to hang down from the top of the frame like overhanging trees over water, as in a bayou - I've written a little bit below about how this idea came about as I did have some inspiration with the idea of adding an extra touch of green shading to the 'sea grass' using a sponge dauber and an 'Old Olive' SU ink pad before removing the die cut from the piece of green card 

- then, using the same source of inspiration, I die cut the same frame again from a snippet of white card and carefully snipped the 'sea grass' away from the frame leaving just a white, rectangular, stitched frame, which I glued onto the green frame

- glued the whole frame onto the card front

- then added the manatees and other elements using a glue pen

- finally, added the sentiment strips using red line tape

And that was Len's card all done, in the nick of time. And here's why I chose to make this card. A good few years ago we went to Sentosa island, just off Singapore, to visit Underwater World and were totally entranced by a 'dugong', which is a close relative of the manatee - not the same but still a close relative. She was one of the gentlest creatures I've ever seen, called Gracie, and we both fell in love with her - Len especially. I've written here about him swimming with a sea otter in Thailand. She had been rescued as a baby when her mother was sadly drowned after being tangled in fishing nets off Singapore and lived for a good few years in Underwater World where she was so loved and well cared for. Much as it's not usually right to keep any wild creature in captivity, IMHO, Gracie wouldn't have survived if she'd been released back into the wild without her Mum to guide her.

I used both the boy and the girl manatees on Len's card - the girl is supposed to be offering some 'greens' to her chap, and it'll probably make him smile.

As I said, I'd had the Manatee stamps and dies for ages and whilst half asleep in the early hours one morning, suddenly remembered I'd seen a Lawn Fawn die (the 'Bayou Backdrop'), which I then thought could be flipped and used as sea grass. Imagine my surprise when a bit of Googling turned up a card almost identical to what I had in mind - someone had beaten me to the idea, and even used the manatees stamps and dies! That blogger turned out to be a lady in the UK called Laura and she has a great blog! She's full of ideas and also has tons of useful videos as well - you can reach her blog HERE. And also see how similar my card is to hers HERE. Huge thanks Laura for the inspiration for the little extra touches I hadn't thought of. I did end up with a fairly close CASE of Laura's card, but have already been in touch - and of course this won't go into a challenge. And Laura was lucky enough to swim with manatees in the wild - what an experience that must have been.

The prize this fortnight is a bit of a bumper one:

A Lawn Fawn 'Manatee-rific' set of stamps with matching dies - plus a Lawn Fawn 'Bayou Backdrop' set of dies - on this occasion I will split the prize - the 'Manatee-rific' stamps and dies as one part and the 'Bayou Backdrop' as the other part. However, the whole bundle can be won as one prize if you prefer that. Just say so in a comment - and please feel free to play for the whole bundle as they do compliment one another so well. Love that the manatee set can be used for so many occasions by switching the sentiments around.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 26th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, 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 want 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 only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

And a little more about our week in Cornwall. The cottage was (as we already knew) quite 'compact', solid granite and also warm and cosy - it was a converted piggery and we'd seen the conversion being started about 14 years ago when we stayed in a different cottage at the same farm.  We were high up on the edge of Bodmin Moor (abut 300 metres high) and could usually see for miles across the valley. The cottage was very privately situated with a fenced in garden so we could let Dudley have a good old romp around. Len still kept a very close eye on him, the drop at the far end of the garden was around 20 feet, had Dudley managed to wriggle his way out. We were also very conscious that he had to be kept away from any long grass as, during our Advantix scare, we'd shampooed the area along his back where it had been applied - leaving him potentially vulnerable.

So, there's a little video clip below which I really hope you can see. I took the video using my Canon camera, standing just outside the panoramic sliding doors at the front of the cottage. You can hear the radio playing in the background if you turn the sound up - also some noise being made by Len and Dudley :)  Len was keeping Dudley on the move and away from any long grass at the edges. AND, for his grand finale, Dudley decided to sign off by crouching to have a wee - before trotting a little bit further and doing a little encore! He's never, ever lifted his leg when going to the toilet - and it's very endearing. He always turns around and looks a bit surprised to see what's going on as well, silly dog! He was fascinated by the sheep in the field below needless to say.

I'm so glad you finally get to see Dudley in 'play zoomies' mode!

If you have any problem viewing then here's the URL which will take you to YouTube - had to upload it there before being able to embed it into the blog. What a palaver, I take my hat off to folk who add videos to their blogs on a regular basis! If it works then I do have more footage, perhaps for next week, which pans around showing the distant tin mine shafts etc as well as more 'zoomies'.

And finally, we were fast asleep but I have permission from Lyn and John (the owners) to add their photo of the sunrise we would have seen from the cottage garden. It was taken one morning from their farmhouse .............. whilst we three were still giving it the big Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz's!!

 

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

Home again!

Just a quick post to say we're back home after a week in Cornwall and I promise to catch up commenting on your Snippets Challenge entries ASAP. The internet was slow and to be honest we were both just loving the chance to relax and let Dudley be the centre of things.

This is him relaxing after running around the garden of the cottage we rented down there - grubby and no modesty at all!

He had his annual shots and MOT today at home (bad planning really as we're both shattered) - but he passed with flying colours. Seems to be doing OK with no reactions to shots either so that's good news.

He adored his time away, yet was so happy to cosy up once we were back home again. He also cosied up whilst away - perhaps he's just a cosy kinda dog?! And yes, we did take his full (squishy) toy box with us and almost every single toy he owns .... in case he missed them, sigh.

More will follow on Sunday's post but I wanted to let you know that we're not neglecting you - just that little 'Dudley' break got in the way! :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #361 - results

For various reasons, of a happy nature, this week's 'picks and prizewinner post' is potentially briefer than usual. Let's see how I go.

Dudley is fully recovered and full of beans these days - wonderful to see, and he's such a happy boy!

Let's get going with this fortnight's picks:

First of all, we have a *Gold Star* pick, which absolutely blew me away:

This brilliant card was made by Becca, who uses Flickr. It's very fiddly for me to get Flickr images across to my blog but I managed and, also, some of you won't be able to view or perhaps comment on how Becca made this terrific sneaker card over on Flickr. I'm making a real exception this time around and copying what Becca wrote underneath this as I think some of you will be very interested to 'have a go' - so much work and so, so cleverly made!

I just bought this fabulous sneaker die set from MFT and I just love it! I have 6 nephews and I really need more masculine items in my stash; this is perfect! This will be Timmy's 15th birthday card next month. I started by making the sneaker into a shaker; die cut it from watercolor paper and then using an exacto knife, cut out the space shown. I then used twisted citron (TH distress) to w/c the sneaker. I then die cut the bottom piece for the sneaker from w/c paper as well as the three strips (one from black cs and two from dp). I adhered them all together with liquid glue. I die cut the teeny tiny holes from lime cs and adhered them w/liquid glue. I threaded some lime green/white twine into the holes and secured them to the back. I added acetate to the shaker window back and then very thin foam strips to close in the window and all over the back of the sneaker. I added a strip of B&W dp (BoBunny) to the bottom of the card and then figured out my placement of the sneaker and 2 part sentiment. I stamped the sentiments (MFT 'Big Birthday Wishes') in Versafine onyx black & clear embossed. I then put together a mixture of bits for the shaker in lime green and white and gathered it onto the card where the shaker would be (rearranging a few times to get it right) and then carefully laid down the sneaker atop; perfect! I stamped the circular sentiment (MFT 'Be Original') on vellum with black & clear embossed and then die cut it with it's coordinating die and adhered it to the shaker window with vellum tape. To finish the card, I stamped the stars (MFT 'Be Original') with the twisted citron ink. I really love how it turned out and think Timmy will love it.

Well done Becca! I know you don't have a blog but when you do set one up, feel free to take the Gold Star button from my RH side bar! x

And onto my three picks now:

First of all, I picked a really clever idea for a card, made by Maxine. We're often stumped for ideas of ways in which to make cards more personal to people's hobbies/likes etc. And this card, for a Sudoku fan is perfect! And, it still uses some snippets of course.

I love this Christmas card, made by Janice. It's CAS and also a great reminder of just how effective paper piecing can be. I wouldn't mind a £1 coin for every sheet of patterned paper I still have lurking in the craft room.

Darnell always comes up with brilliant designs and her snippets entry this time is no exception. Yet another great use of snippets, all working together so beautifully. Needless to say, Dudley has fallen in love with Nellie - Darnell's adorable new dog - they look very alike in many ways (Nellie and Dudley I mean!!). Not sure if Nellie's into 'cradle snatching' though as she's just a little bit older than Dudley :)

We had 49 entries and no new Playmates this time round.

Time now for the prize draw which is for an Avery Elle 'Mimosas' set of stamps with matching dies, and the winner is:

Shartl (Shannon/Sachi)

Well done Shannon! 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.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #362 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a Lawn Fawn 'Sea-Horsin' Around' set of stamps with matching dies - plus a Sugar Pea 'Waves' stencil.

I do have what might turn out to be some fun video footage of Dudley doing 'zoomies' outdoors - once I have time I'll upload it, probably be next Sunday now though.

Love from Parsnip, a very enthusiastic wag from Dudley - and of course hugs as always from me,