Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #396 Ruby's Memory - results

We have glorious sunshine here - Happy Dance around the garden! Long may it last as it's such a lovely sign of what's to come when seeing new shoots sprouting in the garden ....... and no doubt the rhubarb patch will spring into life any time now. Hooray for more rhubarb than we can eat, although this year I plan to pull it often and bake pies, cakes - as well as gently stewed rhubarb instead of apple sauce whenever we have roast pork. We still have a way to go yet with the weather though, so don't be packing those woolly vests away just yet.☺

First of all, the picks:

Alice used absolutely loads of snippets for this beautiful card - I love it and there's so much detail, each time I look I spot something else! 

Here's a really clever way to use snippets - make a woven background!  Kathy A brought this lovely card to share - I can't get over the wonderful co-ordination of the papers as well as the colouring.

And another way to use up snippets and at the same time 'pull together' the papers and the image itself. Lynne shared this card with us and it's absolutely delightful - what a splash of Spring.

 

And a fourth pick this week as I just couldn't whittle my short list down to three:

 

Lia shared this delightful card - so perfect for Spring/Easter! Again. wonderful use of lots of snippets and such a cheerful card. Told you Spring is on the way! 

And we had one new Playmate who came and joined in:

Dotty Jo

Jo is a friend of Ruby's Mum Lynne in NI and it was a lovely surprise when she linked this lovely card in! In return, can I point you in the direction of a great Challenge run by Jo and Gail (Ionabunny) who also plays here. It's fairly new and is called Let's Squash It. It runs monthly from 10th to the end of each month and the idea is to use an embossing folder (hands up who neglects theirs!) along with another theme(s) which vary each time. For example, February's Challenge was a Love themed embossing folder and the colour Red/Pink. Note to self to make more effort to join in this fun challenge.

That's my picks from Challenge 396 in the Playground, we had 49 entries and one new Playmate.

Now for the prize draw, which is a Poppystamps 'Mushrooms and Toadstools' set of dies - kindly donated by Connie - plus a set of LOTV Easter Bunny toppers as well as some silver Easter/Spring sentiment peel offs, kindly donated by Kath B And the winner is: 

Marjeta

Congratulations Marjeta! I'm super-delighted that your name popped straight out when I ran the Random Number gizmo - as far as I can tell, you first played in January 2017 and although you've had a Gold Star and also been a Playground Pick at least once, in four plus years this is your very first Playground prize win! 

Please send me your address, even if you know that I know it already, with your full name at the top as well so it can be can be copied and pasted for speed and ease. It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course.  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 one more week to run on the current Challenge 397 HERE. The prize is an Indigo Blu 'Flower Heads - A5' set of stamps.

A little more time during this past week has been spent by Len, doing more trimming of Dudley - right now his little legs look a bit like matchsticks giving him the look of a little barrel-shaped cartoon dog on skinny legs (think of Gnasher in the Beano comic, but without the bared teeth and evil look!). So now his torso needs taking down to a lower level of cut as basically he still has too much fluffiness around his body. I have rolled my eyes and asked why Len doesn't just shave him bald and then he can begin growing again from scratch! This is going to be a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge if we're not careful. He's so patient and will play nicely at being good for about an hour at a time, then he lets you know he's had enough by just flopping down flat and resting his head on his front paws. Almost there - and nope, I doubt if I'll be posting any photos of him just yet. Still, at least no-one has fallen about laughing and pointing at him when he's out for 'walkies'! And, he looks a darned sight better than he did when that dreadful groomer couldn't cope with him properly a year ago.

Dudley is such an inquisitive little chap - and it's not just when I'm cooking either. He can hear the rustle of a cheese wrapper from the other end of the house or garden and comes running into the kitchen on the offchance of a little nibble. And he's so comical when post or parcels are being opened - he always has to be shown the contents and then he gives it one single dab of his nose - which presumably means it's been stamped as 'approved'! 

His latest trick (Dudley not Len) is the discovery of a small gap in next door's fence - low down where the boards meet the bottom cross piece. He will crouch for ages peeking through into next door's garden in the hope of seeing their dogs. They have Teddy the Shih Tzu and now a little girl puppy Shih Tzu called Tinkerbelle. Talk about a peeping tom! His very best friend is a dear little dog called Arnie - they live over the way from us and we just need to say 'Where's Arnie' and he's rushes around the house looking for him! Never a dull moment.

This challenge #396 was our first one in memory of dear Ruby, beloved Westie of our lovely playmate Lynne in NI. Ruby, who was originally rescued from a life of misery and 'puppy farming' by USPCA in Northern Ireland, was then adopted by Lynne and Greg and what a wonderful time they had together until just before Christmas 2020.

So that some good can come out of the sadness, I pledged to send USPCA a donation in lieu of what I would have spent on a prize for each Ruby's challenge we run (hopefully every six weeks until we run out of prizes - we actually have loads which is so heart warming, what a lovely lot you are!).

As I type this, late on Saturday afternoon, their website is kicking me out - I'm trying to donate but it isn't playing ball, right at the point of final verification. I've raised a query with them and will keep you up to date. Sigh. Otherwise it will be The Dogs Trust or similar - but I really want us to help the charity actually which rescued Ruby. Watch this space.

Love from Parsnip, myself and the usual happy 'high-five' and woof from Dudley.

Rudolph Days Challenge - February 2021

As I always say, I love the Rudolph Days Challenge, started by our SaRn and now run (for a few years now!) by Maureen aka ScrappyMo.

Right now any die cutting is limited to using my baby Altenew die cutting machine - and I had just the NBUS die set, waiting for its first outing. This is what I made, which is a very close copy of a card on MFT's website using the same set of dies:

I used:

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

- a sheet of patterned paper from Whimsy's absolutely gorgeous 'Blurry Flurries' paper pack, trimmed to just smaller than the card front and set to one side

- snippets of olive green and lighter green card, which I die cut using the mistletoe branch from MFT's 'Mistletoe Kisses' set of dies - two of each shade of green

- having the branches die cut I could work out just where I wanted to position the sentiment. It's a red rubber stamp by Elzybells (sadly no longer trading) and took a bit of positioning but with the aid of the Misti, a ruler, an aacetate sheet with grid lines printed on (home produced by printing onto printer friendly acetate ages ago) and a test piece of the background paper (to check for any 'ink bleed' it worked really well! I used VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink to stamp with - just be sure not to press too hard as the pad is very juicy

- at that point I glued the four branches onto the patterned panel using a Zig glue pen, the fourth one was placed quite high up directly over the stem of the centre one below - and all the main stems were sticking up at the top of the branches

- then used small scissors to snip the excess from the tops of the main stems, always do this from the back of the panel of paper or card for a true cut 

- from the same set of dies I die cut the mistletoe berries and the little red bow, again from snippets of pearlised white card and deep red satin mirri card

- glued them in place using the Zig glue pen again

- final step was to glue the decorated panel to the card front, using Collall All Purpose glue

I knew when I set out that the Whimsy 'Blurry Flurries' paper pack has two of each design - so I made two cards of course! And immediately ordered another paper pack the same from Dies to Die For as I can see it being a favourite for 2021's Christmas cards. I might even make another two exactly the same, who knows? Some really pretty colours in the paper pack and all very gentle designs - just perfect for Christmas cards! As if I really need any more patterned paper, sigh. Perhaps it's time to be a bit ruthless and throw out some of the older ones which do look somewhat dated now.

I'd like to enter this card into ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days Challenge HERE, as well as Darnell's NBUS Challenge #23 HERE. 

To maintain fairness, I'm only playing for fun in both challenges as I followed MFT's design so closely. The one thing I did change was that the example I followed used white for the bow and red for the mistletoe berries. I've seen both waxy white and pale pink mistletoe berries here in England - but never red ones. Which apparently do exist - I suppose a bit like a holly bush we once had years ago with creamy white berries! Isn't nature wonderful - always full of surprises.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #397

Huge thanks for all the wonderful donations for Ruby's Challenge, as well as more Guest Designers popping their heads above the parapets shyly waving 'Me please'.

As you know, we're a friendly lot in the Playground and being brave enough to be a Guest Designer is a bit different to many challenges. I try hard to fit round your availability, absolutely no-one stands in judgement and it's fun as well! You would gain even more friends and followers I'm sure.

 

It's my turn to be my own Guest Designer ☺ and here's my snippets card for this fortnight, it uses a fairly recent purchase as well:

 

I used:

- A6 off-white/almost cream card blank, side opening

 

- piece of paper from Prima's 'Fairy Rhymes' paper pad with butterflies on, onto which I stamped the three blooms (which are on one stamp) and the words 'Blossom, Flourish and Grow', using the Misti, VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' inkpad and stamps from Indigo Blu's lovely set of stamps called 'Flower Heads - A5'

- then stamped the flower heads only onto a snippet of plain-ish deeper peachy pink paper found in the back of the same set of papers (result!). The flower heads in this 'blooms' set are just perfect for paper piecing!

- fussy cut the flower heads and ran a black Whispers pen around the cut edges

- trimmed the 'blooms' panel down and glued it onto a snippet of black card which had been trimmed to a bit smaller than the card front

- then glued the whole front panel onto the card front

The hardest part of this card was scouting through my paper pads trying to find a soft looking paper and a co-ordinating deeper one for the flower heads themselves. From then it was a pretty quick and easy card to make.

 

As usual, I might well have spotted this lovely set of stamps on one of your blogs fairly recently - memo to self, make a note of where you spot stuff!

 

I did pull myself up when contemplating my original idea of cutting each individual 'petal' rather than the whole flower heads separately and then glueing all the tiny pieces in place. Am supposed to be making life easier here, not harder!

 

Here's a photo of the prize from me for this fortnight:

It's an Indigo Blu 'Flower Heads - A5' set of stamps with some other great stamps in besides the ones I used - love the funky frames and also the single blossom, as well as the additional smaller font sentiment. Loads of possibilities for sure!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 6th 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.

 

Please also remember that I only allow a total of nine other challenges, which makes 10 in total, when you enter a snippets make into the Playground.

Len is finally well again, we aren't sure what it's been apart from the fact it hit him five days after his 1st COVID jab - and exactly the same thing happened to me - my 1st COVID jab was a week after his and six days after my jab that I was pole-axed for 48-72 hours. Nothing like Len though, his dragged on and it's a bit of a mystery.

 

Dudley continues to be Florence Nightingale. On Tuesday night Len was still unwell and our self-appointed in house 'medic' decided he would climb on top of Len as he lay in bed trying to rest. 'Don't worry Daddy'- I'll keep you warm'. Loveable as he, is you don't really need a Havanese lying prone on top of you peering anxiously into your face when you feel pretty rough and your back is playing up 'big-time'. On the other hand, he's so funny and loveable we both had to suppress the giggles! 

We finally returned to Dudley's trimming sessions on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and he is such a little trouper. We just do around an hour or so at a time and he's so much more relaxed than when he even gets a just a sniff of the grooming salon - which is currently closed, apart from when a dog would suffer without being groomed. We're also relaxing more as we do more sessions - having finally got the hang of the clippers it's a big leap forward.

 

On Thursday evening, after his session, he truly looked as if we'd been at him with a knife and fork again. Friday's session saw huge steps forward as Len got to grips with using the clippers properly and he looked so much better. And then Saturday's session was done by Len on his own whilst I as trying to sort out an online grocery order.  And wow, Dudley really does look very smart - plus he behaved beautifully without me cradling his head and soothing him. It's almost as if he's beginning to actually enjoy the experience ............. so far. Now all that's left is to do a final trim of his pads and around his paws - plus the thing he plays up most over, claw clipping! It's been a real challenge and quite a steep learning curve, with a lot more practice to come in future, and I'm massively indebted to our lovely Karen Ladd for taking the time to send me lots of tips from when she trims their Toby! Mwah!

 

I'd like to enter this card into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #23 HERE. 

 

And do remember that ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days Challenge for February runs from Thursday 25th February to Sunday 28th - it's a short month remember!

 

Another little 'heads up' - on 4th April we'll see the beginning of Challenge #400 in the Snippets Playground (400, how did that happen?), which is a bit of a milestone and I'll be making a snippets sample or two as well as donating the prize. There is only one prize but I think it's a fun bundle that many of you will hopefully really like - just to keep you wondering!☺

Stay safe and be kind.

 

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

 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #395 - results

Happy Valentine's Day! It's been a cold week here with llttle flurries of snow rather than rain - thankfully the snow hasn't been more than a thin dusting, unlike many others are having.

 

I went on Tuesday to a local hotel for my COVID vaccination and it was very well organised. Get the second one in just over 10 weeks time.  Apart from a bit of a sore arm - I was absolutely fine afterwards although it was very strange being out with other people. Yay for the internet so we can at least keep in touch that way but I realise how much I do miss being amongst people in real life as well!

First of all, the picks:

Vicky always make really gorgeous cards and this one is up there with her best one. I just love the CAS design, us of snippets of course - and perfect composition! 

I love all the detailing on this really pretty floral snippets tag, made by Jackie T. So many little snippets used and such a stunning result as well! Psst, I tried hard but this image won't budge from the size Jackie posted it at - the joys of blogging!

And for my third pick, I chose this CAS card, made by Katrina. Great use of snippets and such a lovely design - so elegant. I love how three snippets strips can form such a stylish background! 

I think all three picks this fortnight are absolute perfection! It took me a while to whittle the list down to just three picks as all your work is so good. I do hope these picks will perhaps inspire you when your mojo goes 'walkabout'!

That's my picks from Challenge 395 in the Playground, we had 48 entries and no new Playmates.

Now for the prize draw, which is a Stamping Bella stamp and matching die called 'Oddball with Martini' - from me. And the winner is:

Gail (Ionabunny)

Congratulations Gail! You didn't pop out in the Grand Draw so I'm really pleased you got a win after all. I suspect it will suit your sense of humour ☺

Please send me your address, even if you know that I know it already, with your full name at the top as well so it can be can be copied and pasted for speed and ease. It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course.  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 one more week to run on the current 'Ruby's Memory' challenge #396 HERE. The prize is a Poppystamps 'Mushrooms and Toadstools' set of dies - kindly donated by Connie - plus a set of LOTV Easter Bunny toppers as well as some silver Easter/Spring sentiment peel offs, kindly donated by Kath B.

Some of this past week has been spent properly grooming Dudley. I use the word 'properly' rather loosely - at one point he looked as if we'd had a go at him with a knife and fork! Then, just before we stopped the first session, I got the scissors to just quickly snip his head a bit. Ooopsie, he ended up looking like he had a Mohican! Once we stopped laughing, Len confiscated the scissors and had a go himself. He was like Edward Scissorhands snipping away very professionally, almost at the speed of light, and repaired the damage in no time!

Unfortunately having his first COVID jab, Len has been unwell - we don't think it's linked to his jab almost two weeks ago now (it didn't start until five days after his jab which doesn't seem to be the usual pattern if you are going to have any after effects) but somehow he seems to have picked up a form of flu-like bug. It's now moved onto his chest although the aches have almost gone. As a result, further sessions for Dudley (we're keeping them short for all our sakes) are on hold right now. Bless Dudley's little heart, he behaved much better than we expected and it certainly brought it home to me just how fiercely he must have been treated by that rogue groomer a year ago. 

Don't let that put you off please. I still urge everyone to go for their jabs, it seems as if it's the only way we can stop this tidal wave of illness and deaths as reports are already beginning to show.

The very sad news that many of you will know already is that Shaz Silverwolf, a loyal WOYWW participant and a talented crafter, as well as being a lovely lady in real life, lost a very hard fought battle, since 2014 against cancer, in the early hours of yesterday morning.

She will be so very sadly missed and left this world with the prayers, love and thoughts of so many people both near and far wishing her a peaceful journey. Our thoughts also are with her husband and soulmate Doug and their families.

Quite a lot of depressing news I'm afraid so perhaps we should end on a brighter note, here's Dudley's latest escapade. 

Despite feeling unwell,  Len woke up at 5 am on Saturday to hear Dudley scratching around beside the bed and shaking himself as he does when he wakes up. His ears (Dudley's you silly girls!) are so long they seem to almost take off and the flapping noise is pretty loud. Len lay very quietly but then Dudley decided to put his paws up on the bed to say hello. Thinking this was a call for a 5 am wee, Len got up and pulled some warm clothes on to take him into the garden. When he came back into the bedroom to see why Dudley hadn't followed him, there was Dudley lying on the warm side of the bed Len had vacated, on his back, snoring gently! We think the hello was because he was bored and thought a little play time might be fun! When Len subsequently moved the little rascal so he could get back into bed, he did have the grace to look a little bit embarrassed, before curling up between us and immediately falling asleep again. Leaving Len wide awake and staring at the ceiling for an hour or so needless to say! Yours truly slept through the whole performance 😊

Love from Parsnip, myself and the usual happy 'high-five' and woof from a 'half trimmed' Dudley. BTW, when I say 'half trimmed' we didn't just do one side - that would be plain weird. His body, rear end and tummy were done - more to follow!

For my Valentine

I wanted to make a Valentine's Day card for Len that wasn't too mushy and also avoided the usual black, red and white I seem to have favoured for his previous V Day cards.

I found a pre-loved stamp set in my NBUS box and followed the example on the back of the packet - bingo! This was the result:

I used: 

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

- snippet of white card, bigger than I needed, with the bottom masked off with a Post it

- used SU 'Certainly Celery' mini ink pad and a soft cosmetic brush to blend innk in the green 'grass', then a  very light blue pad for the blended sky

- next stamped the tree using Versafine 'Vintage Sepia, in, the Misti and a stamp from the pre-loved Penny Black ''Love in bloom' stamp set

- removed the Post it note and stamped the word 'Love' onto the white panel at the bottom of the tree, using a stamp from SU's 'Weather Together' stamp set, the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink 

- used my Ziggies (neat/straight from the brush) to colour the leaves - very therapeutic stuff although the brush end itself is very flexible if you're trying to colour small areas

-decided to skip die cutting the rectangle and just trimmed the piece of card with the image and sentiment on to suit then mounted it onto another slightly bigger rectangle of SU's 'Certainly Celery' card

- stuck the front panel onto the card front - all using Collall All Purpose glue - and called it done!

The Penny Black plus the SU 'Weather Together' stamp sets are both NBUS, so I can enter this into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #23 - hooray!

I think Len will like it as it's a bit different and also quite cheerful. We could all do with some cheerful right now!

BTW, he never looks at my blog so am safe posting this beforehand.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #396 - Ruby's Memory

This is the first of what I hope will be several Challenges (every third one for as long as possible) - devoted to the memory of Ruby, Lynne in NI's adorable little Westie, who went to Doggie Heaven just before Christmas.

Ruby's start in life was very sad. The USPCA (a prevention of cruelty to animals charity in Northern Ireland) had rescued a load of dogs from an illegal puppy farm and she was one of the lucky escapees. When Lynne's husband Greg read about the rescue he went along 'just for a look'. Ruby 'fixed her wee sad eyes on him and it was love at first sight'!  She was in an awful state when Lynne and Greg got her (several baths and a visit to the groomer to get rid of the pong) and she had a weeping sore on her nose that took weeks to heal. She was so lucky to have been rescued from the most awful conditions that made me cry when I read a newspaper article about the court case. She went to her forever home with Greg and Lynne and lived a good and full life filled with love and joy.

Wee Ruby was one of the drivers behind Len and I finally deciding to get our much longed for Dudley and i will be always so grateful for that. Each time I went to Lynne's blog - there was this dear little face looking out at me. Different breed but no less adorable than Dudley.

I know that Lynne and her husband are heartbroken, and I wanted us to do something to remember Ruby, and at the same time to do some good for the USPCA. That's why I've been asking for donations of any new and unused craft goodies you might have so that I can offer them as prizes. Normally Ruby's challenge won't have a snippets sample showing off the prize as of course they will be 'one off items' so we'll have Ruby's photo instead and then details of the prize contents. Sometimes it will be one item, sometimes more depending on how I feel a prize will balance out.

This means that there is less pressure on me to make a snippets sample every other week, which was eating into my time to play and try out my bucket list of things to make here - and of course I won't need to buy duplicates of much of the stuff I buy. However, I'm also really conscious of wanting to do something positive for USPCA. You are doing that whenever you donate a prize for Ruby's Challenge because I will in turn be donating the money I would average on spending on each prize to USPCA (plus they can claim tax on top in Gift Aid making 25% more, yay!) each time we run a Ruby's Memory Challenge. That's something the Playground will be doing as a group of friends and crafters if you follow my logic. You all have big hearts so I do hope we can run this in Ruby's memory until you finally throw your hands up and declare you've no more unused items left! Sorry Darnell - I just realised I might be crossing over your NBUS challenge here. Basically I'm sure many of us buy stuff on a whim and never use it - or we win something and, again, will never use it. What is it they say - one man's food is another man's poison? Donate your poison and I'll turn it into food! I DO know that our next Ruby's Challenge has an adorable prize which her 'Mum' Lynne bought online and had sent directly to me. I cried when I saw it and am sure you will absolutely love it. But that comes later on in March - three challenges from now. Before that you have me, then another Guest Designer.

This will run just like my usual challenges and the rules are exactly the same. The Guest Designers will be making their own sample card as well as offering a duplicate of somethings(s) they used as a prize - taking even more pressure away. Yours truly will be doing all the in between challenges in the way I always have. And if we run out of donated prizes and Guest Designers I can pick up any slack and do more of the challenges.

Just to slightly complicate this first Ruby's Memory Challenge - it's actually combined with a lovely Guest Designer! Long story involving me getting my dates mixed up so we have both options in one challenge. And this is the snippets card that Nana Connie, our Guest Designer, made:

I really love this card made by Connie. It's so sweet - and of course I do believe in fairies as well as Pixies!

Do hop over to Connie's blog HERE to leave her some love and also to find out more about her, as well as more detail about the card she made. I've seen images online of them made using red and white spotted paper for the tops - I reckon these will be good fun to use and perfect for Snippets, more so with the current trend for gnomes still very popular!

So, here's an image of the prize:

It's a really cute Poppystamps 'Mushrooms and Toadstools' set of dies - kindly donated by Connie.

I'm adding in a second item as well because it's Easter/Spring themed and if I leave it any longer, with the postal service being what it is, you might not get it in time to use for Easter 2021:

It's a lovely set of LOTV Easter Bunny toppers (three sheets, two of the design shown and one of another  - same Bunny but with Easter eggs) as well as some silver Easter/Spring sentiment peel offs, kindly donated by Kath B for Ruby's Challenge.

Massive thanks to Connie for getting Ruby's Memory Challenge going for the first time with her Guest Designer card and the lovely set of dies as a prize - and to Kath for the sweet Easter/Spring themed part of the prize.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 20th 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. And I won't be splitting the prize of course.

 

Please also remember that I only allow a total of nine other challenges, which makes 10 in total, when you enter a snippets make into the Playground.

I'm booked to have my first COVID vaccination on Tuesday - hooray! Len had his on Tuesday and the whole place (a local hotel) was running smooth as clockwork. 

I posted off what I thought was all of the Grand Draw 2020 prizes on Tuesday. A couple of days later Len found all the UK ones, thankfully stamped with ordinary stamps, still sitting all forlorn in a spare bedroom. Len and Dudley popped them in the post when out for a walk on Saturday lunchtime.We have a possibility of snow so they did a special detour just in case it does show up and causes any further delays! 

I baked more treats for Dudley yesterday afternoon, 'peanut crunchies'. Basically biscuits made from mostly wholemeal flour, small amounts of polenta and porridge oats, an egg, water and doggie peanut butter (never use human peaut butter!). Got 30 biscuits from the recipe and to be honest they're a bit like Armed Forces 'hard tack' biscuits (we three all tried them). Dudley went crazy for them and I do wish I'd had the camera handy when he was up on his hind legs trying to see if there were any left hanging around - after I'd packed enough for the week in the fridge and popped the rest in the freezer. He really worked for those, by helping to deliver the forgotten post to the post box :)

 

He only has one home made biscuit treat per day, at breakfast time along with some doggie 'Baker's' food, as well as what he can scrounge from us ( a teeny, tiny piece of egg yolk and he's in absolute heaven!) and of course we know exactly what's in the biscuit ingredients.Next time - Vegemite I think! The amount of flavouring is hardly there but of course doggie's have much more heightened senses of smell and taste than we humans do. It's quite interesting to learn how blandly flavoured stuff will really appeal to him. I might even start to take orders. Joke! But I will happily share recipes of course.

Stay safe and be kind.

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

Oooopsie!

Len just asked what the pile of stamped brown envelopes was sitting in a spare room for.

Gulp, it's only ALL of the UK Grand Draw prizes that I used normal 1st Class postage stamps for! They will be posted ASAP but might have to wait until Tuesday.

Big apologies. Thankfully they weren't the Click and Drop ones as the posting dates would have expired on those by now.

Talk about Dumbo!

Grand Draw 2020 - news

Hi to all winners! Just to let you know that I've posted all prizes in one go today. UK and Overseas. UK are First Class and Overseas are Air Mail. 

As I had to package 21 prizes I didn't include a handmade card - just a little bought notelet with a printed message glued inside. Bit lazy of me, I ought to have planned ahead better. The upside is that they do have a pretty floral pattern on the front - which you could probably use as a background. ☺