Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #402 - Ruby's Memory

So, it's a holiday tomorrow here in the UK - and many other places as well - to celebrate May Day, which is the return of Spring. Ha, after some lovely weather recently it's forecast to be not so good - typical! According to folklore, the dew on 1 May has magical properties and anyone who washes their face in it will have a flawless complexion for the entire year. Nice thought but highly unlikely here.

It's time for another Ruby's Memory Challenge challenge and this time we have a two part prize kindly donated by Vicky. I've known Vicky (via blogging and Stamping Up for a good while now) and was delighted when she sent me two sets of stamps for Ruby's Challenge. Over the years I've had at least four Stamping Up Demos, including April, Vicky and Lesley all of whom play here. Some of you will have had more - and I do think they're all innoculated with kindness and generous hearts.

This runs very much like my usual challenges and the rules are exactly the same. The main difference you will notice is that I won't make sample card as the prize has been donated and I don't have a duplicate. Instead, I'm donating what I would have spent  to the rescue charity who saved little Ruby as a wee puppy. 

BTW, the Toy Box is full to overflowing right now after another lovely package of goodies arrived, so unless you feel a burning need to send any unused goodies in order to clear your own craft space, for now I do have enough prizes to last for some considerable time. Your generosity is amazing - thank you all so much as by donating those prizes you have effectively donated to the rescue charity as well. Please read the end of this post for some more information about donated goodies.

So, here's an image of a gorgeous card that Vicky made using a sentiment from her own duplicate of one of the stamp sets:

And here's the prize itself - slight difference in quality between Vicky's photography and mine though. I do envy crafters who stage their work so beautifully, I just never seem to have the time, let alone the skill:

 

See what I mean?! Anyhow - first of all there's a lovely set of Clearly Besotted stamps called 'Dog Years' with lots of adorable pooches (a couple of the upside down ones remind me of Dudley), plenty of sentiments for different occasions as well as some sweet little 'accessories' such as a Santa hat. There's also a set of great sentiments by W plus 9 called 'Strictly Sentiments 2', one was used on Vickys card above.'.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 15th May. 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 typing this on Friday as we have a bath scheduled for Dudley on Saturday after his midday walk - sssh, don't tell him. I might add a little 'pupdate' here afterwards, we shall see.

 

Edit: So funny, Dudley escaped from the big 'burrito' bath towel I'd rolled him in and went right for a bedroom where we'd forgotten to close the door. The clip of him drying himself on the bed is massive and I can't seem to be able to embed it on this post but it can be found on my Facebook account as well as YouTube - under 'Dudley the Havanese' - HERE.

 

Here's the final still from the video after his mad frenzy - what a pickle he is! Then, he was beautifully fluffy and white with those beautiful peach ears after a good brush and blow dry, within less than half an hour.

 

The 2nd COVID jabs went well for both of us, Len sailed through it and I just had a short reaction that evening (very cold and shivering for a while) but thankfully was right as rain after an early night and a long sleep. 

Back to the subject of donated goodies and prizes. Most of you will recall our lovely Playmate Mary McMillan in the USA, who lost her home and all of her craft goodies in a terrible California fire some while ago. When I finally found out about what had happened I put out an appeal on here and many of you responded so generously. If you didn't, then no need to wade though what follows.

Most of you opted to send items directly to Mary but some of you sent them to me to add into my own parcel, as I was going to be sending my own stuff as well ........................ and then along came COVID! Any thoughts of posting that parcel went out of the window and in fact it was likely to need a courier service rather than Royal Mail.

 

So, I still have a box of goodies from myself, and a few of you, waiting to be sent to Mary. A while ago I picked up vibes that she really had been quite overwhelmed by people's generosity, potentially had more stamps than she would ever get round to using (I know that feeling well!) and was almost struggling with storage etc. So, I emailed Mary the other day for a 'catch up chat' and also to ask about the donated goodies. I heard back from her today and whilst she's so very grateful for your kindness she really isn't managing to do much card making. Richard, her husband, is virtually blind and Mary is having to care for him and also the house - with very little time for card making or blogging. She would prefer that the items go to people who have more time on their hands to play and I do understand this. I also understand that some of you might be disappointed that your donated items never went to Mary, but we really had no idea of the impact COVID would have and life has moved on for so many of us.

I have a solution though. How about I make up bigger bundles of items for Ruby's challenge every so often? Some of them will be pre-loved but they're either new or in excellent condition. And of course I would still send a donation to the rescue centre as always. Or we could have a bumper draw on one/some of my own snippets weeks with several prize bundles and you saying what you're playing for. Trickier to administer but 'doable' nonetheless. Thoughts or any other ideas please.

I haven't dug right through the box but each item sent to me for onward posting to Mary is identifiable by sender - so if you feel 'Hey, this isn't on and it's not why I sent my stuff' - then I would happily package up and return your donated items to you of course. And that would remain purely between us - just email me if you want me to do that.

 

And apologies once again for a wordy post and also the fact that I haven't caught up on commenting as well as I should.

 

Stay safe and be kind.

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