Rudolph Days - February 2020

Crumbs, the short month almost caught me out, even though I pointed that fact out when mentioning one of my favourite challenges in Sunday's snippets post! It's February's Rudolph Days Challenge over at Scrappy Mo's and I'm racing in with this card before it closes today:

I used:

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

- panel of green spotted paper from Hot Off The Press's 'Forever Christmas' paper stack - trimmed slightly smaller than the card front

- die cut the gnome using green and red spotted papers from the same stack, plus some white snippets, and the two dies in the Simon Says Stamp 'Lil Gnome' set

- coloured the nose using pale pink Pro markers and then added some flicks of warm grey to the beard, also with a Pro marker

- using a glue pen added the die cut hat, nose, beard and body to the white die cut background (the body has little 'teardrop' shaped pieces cut out of it during the die cutting process - so sweet)

- mounted the assembled gnome onto a rectangle of white card, die cut using a Lil' inker's 'Stitched Rectangle' die

- glued the rectangle with the gnome on top onto the card fron

- added a hand cut sentiment below it from the same paper stack, the little 'gold studs' are just printed, very realistic as well

I actually made 12 of these cards, switching the green hat to red and the red body to green. And also, on four cards, used some similar freebie papers as backgrounds and toning sentiments - which I'd squirrelled away ages ago. Needless to say, the cards were made over three crafting sessions, but I do so love the dear little gnome and wanted to make several similar cards whilst everything was out on the desk. Sometimes I certainly do get my ambitions mixed up with my capabilities!

I'd seen the gnome die around Blogland and our lovely Darnell used it, and his big brother, here - used as Mr and Mrs, so clever - which clinched it for me. I only ordered the Lil Gnome, my favourite, for fear of HM Customs here in the UK. He, or she, sailed past them, no problem!

Edit: Gail (Ionabunny) pointed me in the direction of the Christmas Kickstart Challenge, so I'm linking my little gnome into the party where the theme is 'red'.

And, I used the Altenew Mini Blossom die cutting machine for all the die cutting - love that little machine, a great help when cutting lots of small die cuts!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #372

Really quick post this time - running late here.

This is my snippets card for this fortnight - it's an Easter card, although I send very few of those out:

I used:

- 5" x 4" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' card stock, trimmed to an eighth of an inch all round smaller than the card front and adhered it on top

- snippet of plain white card and leftover snippet strips of paper from Pink Petticoat's 'Wild Blossoms' collection paper pad

- then adhered the strips diagonally across the snippet of white card using a small tape runner for speed, trimmed it to an eighth of an inch all round smaller than the 'Wisteria Wonder' layer and adhered it on top

- then stamped the chicks and little Easter eggs onto snippets of white card stock using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and stamps from the Clearly Besotted 'Chirpy Chicks' set of stamps

- coloured all the images using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and then die cut them using the matching set of 'Chirpy Chicks' dies

- trimmed a snippet of white card and added the sentiment to the background panel using a dear little sentiment by 'Stamping All Day' - more about them below - and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink 

- used a couple of green Polychromos pencils to flick in some grass along the bottom of the image panel then layered it onto a trimmed snippet of 'Wild Wisteria' card stock and adhered that to the card front

- added the little chicks and Easter eggs, using very thin sticky pad snippets

- not perfect but at least finished, and just in time as well! 1:30 pm on Saturday afternoon - phew

I've written here before about 'Stamping All Day' and the lovely clear polymer sentiment stamps they produce. They're very varied and really good quality - also a UK based online store and it's always good to support smaller businesses. They come just with a backing of acetate per stamp - I always stamp the sentiment onto a snippet of white card or paper, write the name on and then pop them into individual little poly bags. It saves buying a full set of sentiments just for one stamp you might use and of course they're really cost effective. Go check them out! And I have no affiliation with them - I just like to see small businesses prosper. Lots of their sentiments are absolutely perfect to use with Clearly Besotted stamps if they don't happen to include exactly what you want. For example, the Clearly Besotted 'Chirpy Chicks' set is so perfect for Easter yet, although it does have some lovely sentiment stamps included, no specific Easter sentiment.

And here's the prize for this fortnight:

It's a set of Clearly Besotted 'Chirpy Chicks' stamps with matching dies. Plus, a little Happy Easter stamp by 'Stamping All Day' the same as the one I used. For once, a prize is timed far enough in advance of the event! The Happy Easter sentiment stamp isn't included in the photo but it's on its way here, I've had mine for ages and only thought to order one for the prize at the last minute!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 7th March. 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.

I was so pleased to see that you agreed a bit of tightening up the rules and I only had to gently remind a couple of people to make sure they said what snippets they'd used as well as including the link to the Playground Challenge in their own blog post. And one sweet player 'fessed up right away upon realising they had entered well over the number of challenges I allow with their snippets make. It will take just a little time until it all becomes second nature to everyone and, numbers are still very healthy so it doesn't seem to have scared anyone away.

Our news here:

Everything survived the storms, thankfully. The eye has settled back down, also thankfully. And my shoulder is still on the mend but slowly getting better all the time. I must have given it a jolly good wrench!

Dudley is doing well, possibly still a little more anxious about some things than we'd like, but time will tell.

The big news is that Spike the Hedgehog is back in town! Our CCTV picked him up at least two nights this past week - so the Hedgie Feeding Station is all primed ready for the family to descend.

And this coming week (Tuesday 25th) sees the start of February's Rudolph Days challenge over at Scrappy Mo's. It runs until the end of the month - which is the 29th this year so be sure to make your entry early. Ha, I have a batch of 12 Christmas cards all cut out etc. and lined up ready to assemble at some point soon so I can enter during this coming week.

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley (as near as can be to being back on form and bouncing around like a Spring lamb) and of course me,

Valentine's Day card for Len

I made this card last week, whilst my mind was whirling around over Dudley and his 'grooming experience'. It did help to have something relaxing to focus on - and using new toys is also such fun:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" card blank, side opening, made using Neenah 'Desert Storm' card stock

- then die cut a panel of Neenah 'Desert Storm' using a NBUS Lil' Inkers 'Perfect Palette Heart' die

- used the same die to die cut more hearts from the 'Desert Storm' card and also from white card

- glued the die cut panel onto the card front - then it was time to play

- first of all I stacked up 'Desert Storm' hearts, three high, to insert into some of the apertures - making sure the top layer was a stitched edge one

- glued those four stitched edge layered hearts in place on the card front

- then made up five dear little white hearts by using just two stamps from the NBUS matching Lil' Inkers set of stamps called 'Heartthrob' by first stamping the solid colours (blue, plum and red) and then the scribble stamp using Memento 'Tuxedo Black'

- glued the now stamped white hearts in place onto the card front

- I had a band of empty hearts apertures across the upper part of the card so I in-filled those with plain 'Desert Storm' hearts to level the card front off

- die cut the word 'Love' using Impression Obsession's 'Love' die from a couple of snippets of SU's 'Real Red' card, glued on on top of the other and then glued the word to a strip of Desert Storm card before using it to cover the width of the front panel

- at this point I could have stopped but felt something was missing - so I die cut another two little red hearts using the 'Love' word die (I already had two one from the fall-out waste) and popped one on each of the four 'Desert Storm' coloured stitched hearts - at the same angle as the heart cut-out in the 'Love' sentiment

The die and stamps are lovely together - loads of ways to use them and plenty of little sentiments in the set of stamps as well.

It's very clever how the overlapping 'make a heart' stamps themselves work, and there are a good few patterns in the set to choose from - but to be truthful it's also a bit tricky to get them totally placed where you want them onto the die cut little heart shapes. I used small clear plastic stamping blocks, having unsuccessfully tried to work out if I could use the Misti.

Sorry to see Lil'Inkers go, as I've said recently. I could only get hold of one set of stamps otherwise this would have made a nice Playground prize to go with a matching die like I used. Oooer, sorry I dangled that one - folk in the USA might have less of a problem finding the last Lil' Inkers stock than we do over here.
 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #370 - results

 

This week's post is likely to be a quick one for the Playground results - Storm Dennis is here. And 'Storm Dudley' is in full flow, racing around upstairs - and  also leaping on and off our bed, using it as a trampoline and generally having a whale of a time. It's taken a week but it's so lovely to have him causing chaos again!

Let's move straight into this fortnight's picks:

Brenda L brought these two fabulous cards to share!  So clever, and made without any templates. Most certainly one to CASE - just perfect for a chap!

What a stunning Christmas card, using tons of snippets (aka scraps), made by Jenny L I love all the different detail.

I do so love this adorable cat card, made by Glennis. Loads of snippets used and such a clever idea to ink in the balloon strings and attach them to the 'puddy tat's tail'! 

We had four new Playmates this time:

Raga - girls,  DO please go and check the link, this is such a fabulous card and there's a video as well!

Linda (of Snail's Pace) - someone we've probably seen around Blogland, now playing with us! Adorable card!

Lucy E - CAS at its best!

Nicole G. Unfortunately all that's linked is this photo of her card, no words, no nothing. I'm letting it go this time but under our rules it wouldn't count in future as there's nothing else there to support the photo as a snippets entry - but it's very cute! I can see from the URL that it's using a Germany based photo facility, the word Wilkommen is of course Welcome, it's for a baby, and it uses some snippets by the looks of it. Do please email me Nicole if you want any advice about joining in with the Playground - we'd love to have you play!

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

We had 55 entries this time round - and of course we had four new Playmates.

Time now for the prize draw, which is for a Clearly Besotted 'Simply Succulent' set of stamps with matching dies. And the winner is:

Emma T

Well done Emma. I think your last fortnightly win was in November 2018 - so this is well overdue! 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 #371 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a Lil Inker 'Boxed Up Thanks' die.

Parcels and packages are still arriving at Mary's - she's having to buy new roller carts to store all the goodies :) Thank you so much girls for pitching in to help.

Love from Parsnip, a happy wave from Dudley (in between his leaps and bounds) - and of course hugs as always from me,

Boy's Birthday card - out of this world

I made this card for Luke, a neighbour son who will be eight years old next week. Am posting it on here, mostly for my own records as it's just made from a kit:

I used:

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

- backing card and toppers by Hunkydory, in a 'free' kit given out at a show up in Coventry a few years ago

- selected the piece of the backing card I wanted to use, trimmed it and glued it in place

- popped out the pre-cut 'toppers', snipped of the little white bits at the edges and then glued them in place 

Has to be the fastest card ever!

It wasn't until Tuesday evening that we saw signs of Dudley's old spirit returning - five whole days after his experience at the so-called 'groomer's' - he played a game of 'zoomies' around the lounge and it was a delight to see his eyes sparkling once again. He's still very wary about having his collar put on, which he needs as well as his harness when he goes out so it can't be avoided. Time and patience with a load of love should help - we hope. Our next step is for me to take him out for a car ride in his doggie booster box for a little excursion - the last time he was in that, he returned home curled up into a very sad and shaking little ball. Perhaps I'll take his beloved 'Stinky Monkey' Mark 4 along for the ride to keep him company :)

Thank you all for your support - the Playground Pup sends woofs!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #371

What a week and a half this has been! More of that later.

But, wisely, I grabbed some time on Wednesday to make my snippets card for this fortnight:

I used:

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

- a snippet of daisy patterned paper from the back pocket in an 11 year old Daisy and Dandelion 'Picnic Patch' paper pad, backed with a snippet of SU's 'Perfect Plum' card stock, not even enough to make a full frame so I opted to just have borders at the top and bottom. Adhered them together

-  then a different snippet from the same paper pad, backed with slightly wider 'Perfect Plum' and adhered to the panel - got the pattern centred across the card as well! Trimmed both ends from the back, as usual

- glued the front panel to the card blank

- backed another snippet of 'Perfect Plum' with Stick-it adhesive sheet and die cut the message panel - using a Lil-Inkers die called 'Boxed Up Thanks' and the Altenew Mini Blossom die cutting machine. LOVE that little machine, it's so quick and easy for smaller dies - and so far is working perfectly

- used a lemon coloured lightly patterned snippet of paper from the same 'Picnic Patch' paper pad, backed it with plain white card and trimmed it to a tiny whisker smaller than the die cut message before popping it onto the back of the message square using a small tape runner

- adhered the message square to the card front on top of the band using thin sticky pads - it's very slightly skewed, my trademark these days!

- final touch, a couple of sequins, added to the message square, using Glossy Accents

Once again, the camera picked up a weird thing - both sequins are the same mauve, albeit iridescent.

I mentioned on my Rudolph Days post the other day that Lil'Inkers is closing down. Naturally I had a tootle over to see if I could find any goodies for the Playground Toy Box. Almost fainted when the postage for a handful of very lightweight and heavily discounted items was going to be $29.99 so I left it.

However, Seven Hills Crafts here in the UK (run by Tara and Rick) have a fair amount of Lil'Inkers stuff in stock - not reduced (yet) though. I did buy a few small items for the Toy Box and the die I used today is one of those. I really love it, and it has the Lil'Inkers signature stitched effect on that outer border, just not showing up well in the photo.

And here's the prize for this fortnight:

A Lil'inkers die called 'Boxed Up Thanks' die. My card was made pretty quickly, I bet you can come up with much better designs though. I especially like that it's ideal for making card for chaps as well as the ladies. Unfortunately, even Seven Hills are out of a lot of designs - as a Birthday Wishes one in this style would be really so useful! I've just done another search of Seven Hills and the items I did manage to buy are now out of stock - word has gotten around that Lil'Inkers are closing it seems.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 22nd February. 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.

This is quite long but very important - changes to the rules. Please read. 

Up until now I've been very relaxed about our 'rules in the Snippets Challenge. However, some boundaries are being pushed too far by a small minority so I'm clarifying and tightening up a few things.

In future I will delete all 'back linked' entries from Mr Linky, regardless, and they are very easy to spot. You make a card, you post it and you link before posting anything else on your blog and preferably on the day your post goes live - otherwise it's a 'back link' and will be deleted.

From now on you may only enter this challenge plus another nine challenges with your entry - making a total of 10 challenges. That's pretty generous, any more than 10 and your entry will be deleted from Mr Linky.

I also will be looking to see that you have said in your blog post what you've used, as one or more snippets, to qualify you to join in with the Playground. I don't need reams of detail but in the past I often had to give the benefit of the doubt but from now onwards, if it isn't written there for me to see easily, your entry will be deleted from Mr Linky.

Also, I won't take up more of my own time to leave you a comment to explain why an entry has been deleted, I do this on my own and the 'rools' are still few, as well as very clear, so that's the way forward.

So very many of you always play really fairly - and lot of it was down to my relaxed attitude as I wanted the Playground to be as easy going as possible until it suddenly hit me that I needed to rein things in.

Naturally I still love the Playground but I don't want it to be abused, and we were heading that way. If we lose some players then so be it. It's not a huge change - really just making sure that people play nicely as well as fairly!

Our news here:

I didn't manage to finish off my sorting out of my own parcel for Mary as planned. Spent Tuesday afternoon in our local hospital's eye clinic with an emergency appointment, which meant I was at the tail end of a very long list of appointments. The old HSV Keratitis flared up in my left eye after a four year respite - and it's one of those things you can't ignore, much less treat without having to trot off to hospital. Ha, ha - I did say I wanted to get out and about in the car more but didn't bank on that being one of the first destinations. Much less as the car park was overflowing and folk were literally driving round for 20 or more minutes looking for parking spaces. I finally tottered back into the house at almost 6pm.

Thursday afternoon was a bit of a nightmare too. Long story cut short - we discovered that the groomer we had trusted on Dudley's previous visit is more interested in rattling through as many dogs as possible and it seems had given Dudley a very hard time. He'd been caged as well as tethered with a neck loop and was traumatised when we collected him. Basically, she was trying to juggle three dogs at once - on her own. We heard his anguished squeals and also spotted the noose when we arrived back before she expected us. Poor little chap was up in the early hours of Friday morning being sick - purely due to being so stressed. Thankfully he's slowly coming round to being his old self again but isn't venturing too far from one or other of us.

Sadly UK dog groomers aren't regulated, otherwise we'd certainly take it further. All we have been able to do is give her a stinking review (and as a result she set her local coven of groomers on us like a pack of rabid wolves), and we'll find a better groomer, without purely £ signs in their eyes. My firm view now is never to trust a one person 'business' - in future we'll go back to the big boys who may not act as if they know it all but who have more than one person handling things and are not afraid to work in an area where they can be viewed by customers outside a glass walled salon - or even on CCTV, which I found today when looking for other dog groomers. Who knew? It's obviously a known problem if some groomers are making their actions open and clear to owners.

Edit: And just to add to the fun - one of the self appointed 'Head Honchos' of the 'groomers coven', found this blog and had a dig around - in our Playground. So I've had to turn on comment moderation - sorry girls, it's actually very quick and easy for me to check and publish so it matters not here.
 
For now, Dudley is still clearly affected by the experience, very clingy and sleeping in a tightly coiled ball as if trying to protect himself. Poor little scrap. We do joke that in an emergency we'd both make a grab for Dudley and leave the other one to get out!

Have a lovely week - we have high winds forecast for today, Sunday, so we don't plan on venturing further than Dudley's toilet trips!

I hope that the vast majority of you agree with me spelling out the 'rools' above - I'm trying to keep this place so fair for everyone. It isn't meant to be draconian - in fact it's just the way many challenges already run. And of course, not many challenges have such a free theme as ours, which is 'just use one or more snippets'. I've written it in red text, not to shout but purely as I expect many of you skim through a lot of what I chunter on about :) Story of my life really, sigh.

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley (a quiet woof, woof!) and of course me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #369 - results

 

I realised a couple of weeks ago that today's date is quite special. It's a Palindrome Date - ie. 02-02-2020 reads the same both forwards and backwards. There are just 38 such dates this century, and only 12 of them are eight digits (I confess to looking that bit up).

And on the subject of all things special - huge thanks to so many of you who have sent, and are in the process of sending, goodies to Mary in Illinois to help to build up her craft supplies, lost in the fire that consumed her home in California. She's quite overwhelmed by it all and will be getting in touch with you lovely girls individually. But meanwhile this is just to let you know that packages, parcels and cards are flowing in - to the extent that some super organising of it all will be keeping Mary occupied - along with making thank you cards - for a little while!

Let's move straight into this fortnight's picks:

 

This is only a tiny part of what Adry made - lots of exploding boxes with these adorable little prams in for a Christening - absolute works of art! i can't urge you strongly enough to hop over to her blog HERE - and see it all for yourselves. Well worthy of being my *Gold Star* pick! Please take the little 'Gold Star Award' button from my right hand side bar Adry - your blog name of 'Scrapbooking Engineer' is so very apt! Wonderful work.

April brought this brilliant card to share, using up lots of little paper and card snippets. Love the colours and it's such a pretty card! I'm beginning to like shades of mauve and purple just as much as pink these days!

What a great card this is. I just love the wry expression on the penguin's face - really so cute! Carol G made it - and how cleverly she used the plaid snippets for the balloon and bow tie. The balloon almost look like a clear bubble, magnifying the plaid background!

I picked this  wonderful card, made by Janice, as a reminder that you can create great effects by mixing and matching several papers to make a Sunburst card. I love the additional touch of drawing a line using a black Pro marker where the papers join - a very neat finish!

We had no new Playmates this time.

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

We had 57 entries this time round - still going strong!

Time now for the prize draw, which is for a Crafters Companion 'Three Baubles' set of dies plus a Tonic Studios 'Large Merry Christmas' die.  And the winner is:

Janis in ID

Well done Janis. 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 #370 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a Clearly Besotted 'Simply Succulent' set of stamps with matching dies.

I collected my car on Wednesday and am delighted with it - although there's as many controls as you get in the cockpit of an aeroplane (gulp) and it's a lot to get to know/take in! Our first 'family' run out in it will be to take Dudley to the Groomer's on Thursday. He's really ready for a trim now that his operation scar has totally healed up. He's gonna just love that outing, not. Here comes the yodeling Havanese :)

He now knows how to get onto to our (rather high) bed for a cuddle. We've placed a low footstool at the bottom of the bed and it didn't take him long (aided with treats until we sussed he really knew what to do and was milking the situation for the treats!) to pick up what to do, two hops and he's up. The idea is to stop him from waking Len up, asking to be lifted up. We're not quite there yet, he now pads round to Len, gets on his hind legs and politely pats him until he wakes up - basically asking permission to hop up onto the bed!

Psst, after scheduling this I decided to change the inks in my printer. Ooopsie, not a good look at all here. They fought back at me, three of them - one after the other, the little perishers! So I now have one ruined top (it owes me nothing but am still quite cross) Plus fingers which are an interesting mixture of black, magenta - and a LOT of cyan blue! Thank goodness Dudley was tucked right under my desk at the time else he would have had his very own 'Technicolour Dreamcoat'. Luckily none of the ink went much further than me, but in future I'll be opening up those twisty clip things - with the ink refill tucked inside a big poly bag and latex gloves on my hands! 

Love from Parsnip, a happy wave from Dudley (ha, don't mention this coming Thursday to him!) - and of course hugs as always from me,