Rudolph Days Challenge - March 2020

There's one challenge I always join in with - of course it's the Rudolph Days challenge over at ScrappyMo's.

This is what I made - two Christmas cards, both exactly the same:

I used:

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

- piece of 7" x 5" white card onto which I stamped Penny Black's 'dancing & prancing' image,  using Memento Tuxedo Black in and the Misti - the Misti was essential to get a nice solid black stamp for the penguins

- then stamped the sentiment - really easy to centre and align, again using the same black ink and the Misti

- coloured the image with Feber-Castell Polychromos pencls

- only then, after stamping and colouring, did I trim the white image panel down - making sure I left equal amounts to the sides and top and bottom - as well as ensuring it would also leave an equal border around when placed on the card front

- then backed it with a slightly larger piece of SU's 'Real Red' card stock

- glued the red backing and the image panel onto the card front

- tickled the 'falling snow' with clear Wink of Stella

Ta-da - finished!

I'm almost sure I saw one of my lovely followers using the same stamp set around Christmas time - I bought it soon after and this is its first outing. Won't be the last as, apart from having the re-ink and stamp the main image a few times (thank goodness for the Misti), there's little colouring to do and it's such a fun image and sentiment. 

Stay safe - I'll be round to comment on the current challenge entries in the Snippets Playground as soon as possible.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #373 - results

 

First of all - did those of you who are affected remember that the clocks go forward at 2am Sunday 29th March? Ha, after writing this I only hope we remember to do the change - not that it matters much right now, we're not exactly 'clock watching' these days. We're hunkered down, with Dudley doing his best to keep us entertained - and he's doing a great job of it as well. He has one walk a day, as usual. But, many other people are doing the same within the vicinity of where we live - there's a pleasant green park and woodland walk nearby - and I think they might be borrowing dogs or helping neighbours with dogs needing up to three walkies per day. It's certainly quite crowded at times and Len isn't overly keen to rub shoulders. So the past couple of days it's been down to 'zoomies' round the garden - with Dudley doing the zooming :) And to prove me a liar - as I'm typing this Len is taking Dudley out for a quick walk!

It seems as if the supermarket stripped shelves and panic buying might have eased off a little from reports I've read about our local situation on Facebook, very likely as people have no more room to store all their booty!

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

And first of all here's a *Gold Star* pick from someone who is an outstanding crafter - our very own Jenny L:

This pop-up box card is absolutely beautiful Jenny - and what a way to use lots of pretty snippets. Well worth of a Playground Gold Star and I think it's your third one - a hat trick! Breathtaking indeed.

This really cute kitty card was made by Inkami - a great way to use up snippets and such a lovely make! The layout is so pleasing to the eye - and that's one cute kitty! And see how the polka dot paper doesn't overwhelm due to Inkami using colours picked from it for all the other elements.Ooh, I just remembered I never did finish my email to you - I'll be on the case ASAP chick! Hope you're keeping well.

 

I picked this card as it's so CAS and very striking - made by Linby. It's a perfect example of what one snippet with a curved edge already there can be used for (the skyline) to really pack a punch. Love it!  

I adore this card and learned a new technique along the way - to find out exactly how Janice made this card (especially those adorable little stampings on the HAPPY letters) - do hop over to her blog HERE. I think my peg stamps will be enjoying an outing very soon - see, it takes inspiration from you girls to get me under way!

And, ignoring my own 'three picks' rule, I just had to include this fourth card for your inspiration - made by Kath - it's so CAS and elegant. Another card showing you don't need loads of snippets for a lot of impact - and also so inspiring!

Wow, that was tough this time round - so many wonderful makes from all of you.

We had 48 entries for the challenge, which isn't bad at all considering many of us were almost in a state of shock and trying to cope with quite a lot of other things, before settling in for what may be a long haul. My apologies once again for tardiness in commenting - I'll catch up ASAP on the current challenge. We're quite upbeat here but somehow I'm finding it hard to settle for very long (in between the endless task of trying to find supermarket delivery slots) so both card making and commenting have slipped quite badly. Bad me.

Now for the prize draw, which is for five Paper Artsy 'Squiggly Mini 25' kitty stamps. I wrote the names on slips of paper rather than running the Random Number generator umpteen times as not everyone was playing for the stamps, plus the paper method means I don't get the same number popping up more than once - and capturing and editing the screen shot is all time consuming - so you'll have to trust me folks! 

And the winners are:

# 38 Kathy K

# 46 - April

# 1 - Chris

# 48 - Janis

# 37 - Kitty  

Well done everyone who won and commiserations to those who didn't. Please send me your address(es), with your full name at the top as well for speed, ease and also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course, and I'll package up 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.

Message to Charlotte (Lady Joyful) - can you please let me have your address so I can at least package up your prize from two weeks ago (it's the Easter stamps and dies). 

I will post prizes as soon as I can legally take a trip to a post box. I do have both UK and some overseas stamps here plus a postal thickness gauge and some dinky little postal scales but it all hinges on 'essential travel' as our nearest post box is a car drive away from us. And I'm not venturing near the Post Office needless to say. My feeling is that we may well find the self-isolation measures becoming even stricter in the next couple of weeks. And our postal service is also beginning to look quite flaky so even snail mail might be limited to absolute essentials. But, you will all receive your prizes eventually - I promise!

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #374 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a set very decent one as well - a set of  MFT 'Happy Hippos' stamps and matching dies.

I'm still trying to finish off my Rudolph Days entry - almost there but, as I already said earlier in this post, somehow I can't summon up much enthusiasm for crafting. And yet now, with the current lock down, it should be the perfect time!

Little Dudley is in for a surprise shock shortly. He is due for a trim and guess who is going to have a go? Gulp. Our dreadful experience with his last grooming is one big reason, and all dog groomers have had to close in any case. So, it's a good time to begin and I now have a trimmer to add to the big basket of assorted sprays, brushes, clippers, scissors and combs we've gathering over time in the 18 months since he joined our family. Our lovely Karen L sent me a long email full of advice as she home trims her dear little dog, who is remarkably similar to Dudley, and I've been watching videos avidly. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Who knows, some dog groomers could find they have less customers once this is all over.

I did smile when Karen ended her email with the reassurance of 'Don't expect him to look as if he's been to a grooming salon'. It was reassuring as this is a new venture - although I have cut hair in the past as you know from my little blurb on the RS side bar! To be honest, after his experience and the incompetent not even completed trim he had last time, I do wonder how much worse I could inflict on Dudley - and at least it will be done hygienically as well as with care and love.

However, there's no guarantee he mightn't end up looking like this if I go into full 'topiary mode' of course, snigger:

Stay safe girls - and here's hoping the dire predictions of where this is heading in terms of numbers are somewhat mitigated by the protective measures being taken by the majority of people.

Love from Parsnip and Dudley - plus a couple of 'fist bumps' from me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #374

I just looked back at my post for the challenge which closed on Saturday - so hard to believe what has happened in the space of just two weeks. It's like a war zone in all the shops around here apparently and people are racing round in a 'red mist of stock-piling madness'.

We can only hope that eventually they have no more space to store stuff. To date Morrisons supermarkets have  decided against specified early morning opening hours for those over 70 and NHS and care workers - because their staff are terrified of the rabid shoppers who will undoubtedly try to cheat their way in, still grab more than their allocation and then proceed to fight with the check out operator. Whatever next - this World has gone crazy.

True example that my friend witnessed on Friday - one guy with five huge pizzas was told he could only have three (still too many IMHO). His belligerent reply? 'They're all different flavours'. The mentality is from one extreme to the other - either people are helping where they can - or they're almost shouting from the lifeboats 'Haul the ladder up, I'm all right Jack'.

Rant over!
 
Here's my snippets card for this fortnight, a nice cheerful one to brighten things up a bit:

I used:

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

- piece of diagonally striped paper from Lawn Fawn's 'Really Rainbow' paper pack, trimmed to teeny bit smaller all around than the card front and glued on top

- snippets of plain white card and a selection of stamps from MFT's 'Happy Hippos', stamped with Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink using a Misti

- coloured the images with Pro markers, picking out colours from the striped paper background

- die cut the images and then worked out what size white back panel I could use and still have a good sized border of stripes 

- trimmed the white panel to size, leaving half an inch all round which would show the striped border

- worked out where to stamp the sentiment and did just that, using one of the many sentiments from the same set of stamps, the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- added the trimmed white card rectangle to the card front, using Collall All Purpose glue as I'd done with the striped background

- added the little die cut elements using a Zig glue pen

-  drew some fine black lines on either side of the 'tweety pie' bird to give him some movement

- finished off by adding three turquoise sequins, using Glossy Accents

My snippets this week are all white card (the main panel and also the stamped and die cut images) - but that still counts of course. I've had this stamp and die set for absolutely ages, since November 2017, unused. It's been waiting for a special occasion and on Wednesday (25th March) it will be exactly 10 years since I did my very first post on this blog. What a fun time it's been and I never realised how many wonderful friends I would make on my 10 year journey. Friendships that I treasure so much. In the current climate I don't expect to be venturing anywhere near a Post Office but wanted to still celebrate. When I bought my own 'Happy Hippos' I also bought a duplicate set for the toy box - cost me almost £35 at the time (gulp) and worthy of being a celebrations prize!

And here it is - the prize for this fortnight:

The MFT 'Happy Hippos' stamps and matching dies sets. There are so many stamps and dies to play with in so many ways - it's such a fun set and that's possibly why I've hoarded it for so long! Very likely not easily available now in shops. Given more time I'd have used some DI and a cloud template to make the white background into a pale blue cloudy sky - and perhaps had the big hippo floating aloft on his own with his balloons and just a little bird, with the same sentiment. Tons (no pun intended) of ways to use them!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 4th April. 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.

No photo of Dudley this time but a slightly amusing tale, now that I know it ended well. Len came back from walking Dudley on Saturday (today as I was typing this) looking quite shaken - my first thought was that perhaps someone hadn't kept their prescribed 'social distance'. But nope - the palms of his hands were scraped - he didn't show me until he'd given them a good scrub and put some healing gel on. Other than that, and the loss of his dignity, everything else seems to be fine.

Apparently, just as he was picking up a Dudley 'calling card' he tripped and the inside out bag he was holding to collect the poop in meant that his hand inside that bag, and the other hand one, slid along the gravel where he (Dudley) had decided to leave his calling card. So, the 'icky still hot off the press poop' spread a bit like icing and poor Len was mortified. Thankfully, Dudley was the only witness and he didn't have his camera with him.

Once I knew Len was OK I then totally cracked up just thinking what a vision it must have been. Then my tears started and it was a full five minutes before I could gasp out what was tickling my 'amuse core' so much. Thank goodness you didn't do a 'face plant' was all I could gasp - before going back to holding my sides and wailing with laughter. Me evil, me very evil! But also very relieved I hasten to add as the outcome could have been a lot worse. The laughter was actually quite well received and Len joined in - because right now we need whatever laughter we can find. Dudley didn't get the joke needless to say :)

Hope you all manage to steer clear of Coronavirus/Covid-19, it's ramping up here in the South of England and we're in one of the country's hot spots in Hampshire.

Do remember that Wednesday 25th (all things being equal) will be the beginning of ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days Challenge for March!

I'm badly behind with commenting at the moment, it's taking hours to find a delivery slot for groceries and even then, you wait for up to two hours in a virtual queue - and can be unexpectedly thrown out. Thank goodness for windows on PCs etc. so you can flip from one to another!  I'll catch up ASAP with comments and just leave you with this rather sad thought, although it did prompt a wry smile from us both:

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

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #372 - results

 

Crumbs, that week went fast! Possibly as I've been out and about a bit, making sure prescriptions and meds are up to date, a planned hair chop - and even ventured to our local Sainsbury's. Talk about pillaged shelves and panic buying. Much of it is pure greed with people then selling stuff on eBay at outrageous prices - apparently now including baby formula and nappies. It astounds me just how low people will stoop to make a profit at the expense of others in times like these.

Apparently many supermarkets look as if they've been ransacked. What really cut me up earlier today was reading that that some selfish p*g with a trolley filled with packets of dried pasta in a supermarket actually refused to allow an elderly lady to have just ONE of his precious packets. I hope he chokes on it. And a couple  were apparently observed in a local supermarket to us with one trolley apiece, grabbing what they could and yelling at customers to 'grab what you can, the Government won't help at all'. I despair.

Our local care homes are also descending on our supermarkets and stripping the place of what they can find, mostly toilet rolls - without much sharing either. Their commercial providers aren't delivering apparently. I care about the elderly, we're probably classed as almost there, not that anyone has actually bothered to check if we're OK, nor will they even if we keel over - but I do hate folk possibly cheating the elderly out of what we all owe our older generation. We never wanted our kids to feel beholden to us - but a bit of decency and kindness would be very acceptable. Our latest, via text, news this afternoon is that our local surgeries group will only be doing telephone consultations from now until this blows over, apart from real emergencies. Lord help us if we truly are an emergency is all I say, sigh.

Rant over!

Oh, and also posted off the prizes from the past two challenges (370 and 371) at last. Plus, we have better weather forecast for this coming week - with luck Spring is on the way!

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

This is a well deserved *Gold Star* entry from Carol G. Plenty of snippets, a wonderful fold, House Mouse and brilliant colouring - top marks Carol. Do feel free to take your Gold Star badge from the side bar to display on your own blog.

 

I love this idea on the card Janis brought to share with us. Loads of lovely snippets used - a really cute kitty, and just look at what you can do with a small piece from a large heart shaped doily. Great idea!  

Interactive cards are really popular right now - and Marianne shared this really clever card with us - to see the 'interaction' do hop over to her blog. A great way to use up some lovely bright snippets as well!  

Heather wowed us with this really great snippets card, using snippets all from the same paper pack. I love how they co-ordinate so well - and paper piecing the mugs to tie the whole design together is a great idea! 

Every little scrap has a part to play eventually if you save them in your paper pad. I save mine like this: 

And here's the link to my post, way back in 2014 which explains why, and how I ended up with this solution. Six years later and it still works absolutely fine for me.

I just couldn't reduce my short list any further so we have an extra pick this week. Em made this absolutely beautiful card (the embroidered butterfly is snipped from a snippet) - and I adore the gold and white on black. The 'spirograph' twine pattern reminded me so much of some big 'pin art' pictures I made back in the 70's. A really lovely card Em!

One new Playmate this time:

Kelly of 'Sandcastle Stamper'

We had 48 entries in total, including Kelly's lovely card above.

Now for the prize draw, which is for a set of Clearly Besotted 'Chirpy Chicks' stamps with matching dies. Plus, a little Happy Easter stamp by 'Stamping All Day':

 Charlotte (Lady Joyful)

Well done Charlotte - someone else who doesn't seem to have had a win for ages (January 2019 I think) - wahoo! Please send me your address, with your full name at the top as well for speed, ease and, 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 #373 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a Paper Artsy ' Squiggly Mini 25' kitty stamp - and I have five of these to give away.

Dudley is doing great, if anything he's actually better than he ever was with his daily brush and combing sessions. He looks a bit resigned at first but is standing so much more patiently and is much less skittish about having his feet, tail and ears groomed. It's taken me weeks but it's so good to see him not only back to how he used to be but even better and much more accepting. A bit like 'Whatever you do Mama, it can't be as bad as the experience that nasty lady put me through'.

Sometimes he's still a bit 'off' about having his lovely plumed tail played with, but it still needs a daily brush and comb so there's no escaping. He tries to chase his tail to put me off and I've had to resort to sometimes tucking him under my left arm like a set of bagpipes - with his head to the back of me and his tail and rear end at the front. His rendition of 'Scotland the Brave' is coming along really well 😁

I hope you're all keeping well in the current situation - we're living in strange times for sure.

At least the hedgehogs are properly stirring - we had two of them at the feeding station earlier this week. One waiting patiently behind the other one for his turn to 'dig into dinner'. And they're both like little footballs as well - very healthy to say they're just woken from hibernating over the Winter months.

Love from Parsnip and Dudley - plus a couple of 'fist bumps' from me,

Butterfly Birthday

Had to make a card in a bit of a rush for a friend's Birthday so decided to dig out a NBUS stamp set, then whipped this card up:

I used:

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

- piece of Core-dinations purple card, cut to 4.75" square and glued onto the card front

- piece of white card stock, cut to 4.5" square

- used stamps from Woodware's NBUS 'Mosaic Butterfly Round' set of stamps, the Misti and a Ranger 'Black Archival' ink pad to stamp the large butterfly mosaic stamp and a sentiment (the set comes with a choice of five sentiments) first of all

- then positioned a corner stamp from the same set of stamps and stamped all four corners, turning the square piece of card by 90 degrees each time - hooray for the Misti!

- coloured the image panel using my long-neglected Zig brush pens - straight onto the card so the colours are rather bright ☺

- glued the panel onto the layer of purple card - finished!

Another time using the Zigs, I really must have a play at diluting the colours and try to use them more 'artistically' with some blending. Need to watch some You Tube videos first - as well as allow more time! 

This stamp set would be great to use on acetate as a clear window, coloured with Pro markers and set into a big circular aperture.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #373

We've actually had sunshine here with no rain, for at least two days this past fortnight. Happy dancing here - especially from Dudley who hates going out in the rain and getting his paws wet!

Here's my snippets card for this fortnight:

I used:

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

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

- snippet of plain white card and a couple of floral snippets from a Me To You, Tatty Teddy (ancient!) 'Spring Chic' set of papers, probably one of the first paper pads I ever bought

- trimmed the white card to a little bit bigger than the card front so I could work with it more easily then stuck the couple of floral snippets on, with a diagonal line separating the two from one corner to another. They're the same design with the background colours different (one cream and one pink) so the difference is quite subtle

- trimmed the floral panel to an eighth of an inch all round smaller than the 'Dapper Denim' frame, and glued it on top

- the image was good fun to do. First I stamped the cat and sentiment onto a snippet of white card stock, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a PaperArtsy 'Squiggly Mini 25' stamp 

- then coloured the cat using pink and turquoise Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and Sansodor blending solution, matching as best I could to the floral paper background  

- trimmed the image down and popped it onto a slightly larger rectangle of 'Dapper Denim' before gluing it onto the card front - finished!

The stamp actually had a sweet little paw print just above the cat's head but I snipped that off as it looked a bit weird to me, even if it was meant to be a kitty thought bubble - and the little paw would be so cute stamped a few times onto the card's envelope or even elsewhere on the card front. The cat is a purrfect size for an ATC of course, and doesn't even need to be coloured - I just fancied using colours that aren't your usual kitty colours as the image is quite funky!

BTW, how I always know exactly what colour any plain SU snippets I'm using are 'cos I made up a swatch of all the SU card I have, many moons ago, and have added to it whenever I've bought new colours (albeit not bought any for ages now) 😀

And here's the prize for this fortnight:

It's not one but FIVE chances to win a Paper Artsy ' Squiggly Mini 25' stamp. I've got five of these brand new (not chopped apart as I did with mine, I leave that decision to the winners) cuties on offer as they aren't expensive, we have lots of cat lovers in the Playground and I'm quite conscious that I don't often have kitty themed snippets prizes. Plus it's a little celebration that Dudley is so much better. Ha - I raided his piggy bank 😀

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 21st 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.

Our news here:

I had to go to the hospital eye clinic during the week (long story) and for now am all in the clear on all fronts with eye issues, even a cataract alert isn't causing concern. Whoopee! Mind you, whilst I was waiting for the pupil dilation drops to work in the hospital waiting room, a man gave one single cough and it was like a bunch of meerkats on high Coronavirus alert!

Earlier in the week some eedjit strolled into one of the practices in - despite what seems to be daily text reminders from them not to do that. The waiting room cleared and the reception area was closed down and then sanitised - as well as the fleeing patients being tracked down and contacted.

We had our usual Sainsbury's delivery on Thursday and apparently they are already geared up to delivering to homes with Coronavirus/Covid-19, or those in self-isolation and potentially undiagnosed. Basically, 'unload groceries on the doorstep, ring the bell and then run ..................fast'. It's not really funny I know but we do seem to be whipping up a real storm of fear, as well as panic buying, here in the UK.

Dudley is doing really well - his rash patches have cleared up and he's been so good when we needed (morning and evening) to swab the patches with saline solution, dab it dry and then apply and rub in the gel on several places - mostly on his tummy. He's such a happy little soul and just lies on his back on our bed to be administered to when we say the magic 'roly poly' words!

His latest thing is that the other evening Len was talking to me and purely said the name 'Arnie'. Arnie is his little doggie friend from over the way and Dudley began hopping about with anticipation, giving it a few woofs of excitement! Its obviously lodged somewhere in his memory that Arnie is his friend who has a go at 'hare boxing' when they meet and lots of waggy tails. 

And to finish with:

Len often relaxes on a sofa with his feet up in the evening to watch TV, and Dudley seems to know he's the most comfy spot to lie on and have a snooze! I took this really quickly the other evening, up until then he'd been totally asleep with his paw holding his favourite toy - but he did briefly open his sleepy eyes when I sneaked up with the camera. His dear little nose goes a bit brown in Winter, Bichons are the same I found years ago. And, there's a tale to his toy. 

He is known as 'Stinky Monkey the Fourth' and he's fairly new, since this infection flared up and we ditched or washed everything we could. But 'Stinky Monkey', and this is the fourth one we've sneakily substituted since he arrived with us, is very special - he's Dudley's most, most loved toy in the whole wide world. He is his comfort blanket and he sucks his face until it's deformed and quite gross to be honest, and has even chewed an ear off a couple of his predecessors.

It always chokes me up a bit to think that, when he came to us in September 2018, his 'luggage' was a starter pack of puppy food, a few favourite treats, a little tennis ball, his cuddly fleece puppy blanket - and 'Stinky Monkey the First'. He had lots of other stuff here to welcome him, including goodies from his Auntie SaRn - but it was the little bag he brought when he left his doggie parents with all his worldly possessions in that was so sad. He's made up for it since though!

Hope you all manage to steer clear of Coronavirus/Covid-19 and that you find time to come and play this week. I'm a little behind on commenting at the moment but will catch up ASAP.

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

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #371 - results

 

And it's March already! With rain, rain and yet more rain! It's actually sunny as I'm typing this on Saturday afternoon - but it's gonna be short lived according to the weather radar map.

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

I totally adore this gorgeous bird house, made by our lovely Jules. What a delight it is, a 'Jules special' - and a super way to use up lots of pretty snippets too! See if you can spot the heart :)

Here's a really delightful Birthday baby card, made by Liz. The grey and yellow go together so beautifully and the dear little elephant die that Liz used, with the flower cut-out on his his 'rear end' is so cute!

And we're back to birds with this adorable card, brought to share with us by Vicky. I especially love the softness of the colours and design  - as well as having a peep at some of Vicky's snippets hoard!
 
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 your own snippets. I could have added more picks quite easily, but we're waiting for a Sainsbury's delivery anytime now so I'd better finish off!

We had 51 entries and no new Playmates this time.

Now for the prize draw, which is for a Lil'inkers die called 'Boxed Up Thanks'. And the winner is:

Shaz in Oz

Well done dear and very loyal Shaz! First win for a while I think - over a year if I'm right. I know I already have your address but can you please send it to remind me to package and post your prize. 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, here's another shout out to Emma who won the Clearly Besotted 'Simply Succulent' set of stamps and dies in Challenge #370. Can you please claim your prize and send me your address. I know that a few of you follow Emma - if any of you are in touch with her can you please give her a little nudge - her blog has been quiet for a couple of weeks or more now so I do hope she's OK. It might be internet issues as I do know she'd been having problems recently.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #372 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a set of Clearly Besotted 'Chirpy Chicks' stamps with matching dies. Plus, a little Happy Easter stamp by 'Stamping All Day'.

On the Dudley front, he's been to see his favourite vet again, sigh. Rash like areas, some looking very angry and sore, from his grooming session appeared - most likely from teeny little nicks (one is on the scar from his operation which really proves the point) and very probably from the use of improperly cleaned clippers. Also, as we thought, his nails hadn't been trimmed (well, there had been an attempt to do two of them, probably abandoned when we unexpectedly arrived back to find him trussed up and howling) so the vet did those for him at the same time. I do so wish we had legislation in this country to prevent any Tom, Dick or Harry from setting themselves up as a groomer with no controls in place. That's our vet's opinion as well, also totally horrified at Dudley's experience needless to say.

I managed to take a very blurred photo of him just before I hoofed it into the kitchen to begin our evening meal on Saturday. I had 'Stinky Monkey the 4th' in one hand and the camera in the other and of course Dudley wouldn't keep still. He's all head in this shot and moving about, but it's ages since I posted one of him on here - the serious look is him working out how to get at his latest Stinky Monkey toy! :

Love from Parsnip our sweet little bear mascot, a happy wave from Dudley (the gel is already beginning to clear the patches up thank goodness, two small ones on an ear have totally gone in just two days) - and of course hugs as always from me,