Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #411 - results

As I said last week, Autumn is certainly on the way here and temperatures are dropping slowly, but steadily. And more Christmas cards are appearing in the Playground as well. I'm just so pleased I resolved not to kill myself by making dozens of them this year. However, I will still be sending hand made cards to my crafting friends, close family and a few other close friends.

We had some really beautiful floral entries into Challenge #411 and Sarn (my brilliant Head Prefect and also Head Mischief Maker) and I picked several mutual favourites which happened to have a floral theme, I've stayed with that for all of our picks. Several of your cards were also entered into the Allsorts Challenge blog in memory of our much missed friend Kath - so it seems extra fitting for some of them to feature here. I know that Brenda of Allsorts was delighted at the love and care people put into their entries. Kath certainly was, and always will be, a much loved lady.

Sarn and I both absolutely agreed that one entry in particular was worthy of a 'Gold Star':

We both think that Vinita's card is absolutely glorious! Such vibrant colours, all individually water coloured so perfectly - using lots of scraps of white card, and then colouring them. Just stunning. Do feel free to collect a *Gold Star* badge from the RH sidebar Vinita for your own blog, if you so wish of course.

 

 

This card really is so lovely, made by Lynne and beautifully paper pieced. Such wonderful colours and really a stunning card. The gorgeous 'frame' uses a set of dies by Clearly Besotted - such a clever idea. Hint, watch this space girls!

 

Vicky always makes her wonderful cards look almost effortlessly elegant, but it's a real skill - and this card is a perfect illustration of that. Just a little detail such as adding a blue centre to the flower to pull the card together is a perfect finishing touch. 

 

Now, this image might look like a flower - but just peek a bit closer. It's a 'lion flower'! The sweet little guy has the face of a teddy with the tail and the mane of a lion.☺ The mane reminds me so much of a multi-coloured flower and I was fooled at first - what an adorable card!  Made by Lynne in NI (Ruby's Mum) - who always produces such gorgeous cards.

And here's one I kept up my sleeve when SaRn and I were discussing our mutual picks:

Yay! It's a snippets card, made for Kath's Allsorts Challenge, by our own Head Prefect - SaRn of Stamping for Pleasure! It's absolutely gorgeous and Kath would have loved it so, so much Sarn. Perfection!

 

I've already thanked Sarn last week on here, but you have no idea how much she helped out after my 'tumbling act'. It was a huge relief to have her immediately phone me as soon as she knew and then step in and take over the reins whilst I got over the whole event. Mind you, I did follow on behind her commenting, later on so I could see all the entries properly, and make up my own list of picks - and some of the mischief plotting that was going on did make me chortle at times! Many thanks once again Sarn, that was a real lesson in life!

 

And finally, we had one new Playmate joining us for the first time:

Let's welcome Denise (Bryant) - with this fabulous Halloween card. You totally 'get' what the snippets challenge is all about Denise, lovely work!

That's our picks from Challenge #411 and we had 44 entries (going back up again - hooray!) in total.

Now for the prize draw, which is a bumper selection of Halloween goodies - jointly donated by Heather Mills and myself. Many thanks once again Heather! And the winner is:

Greta

 

Congratulations Greta! It seems like ages since you last won a prize - and I'll do my best to make sure this arrives in time for you to have a little play before Halloween. ☺

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 a good prompt for me and 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 #412 which you can find HERE. The prize is an Altenew 'Poured Acrylic' paper pack and a Lawn Fawn 'Giant Happy Birthday to You' die.

Challenge #411 was in aid of Ruby's Memory and I just sent off a further donation to USPCA, the rescue charity who saved Ruby and gave her the chance of the wonderful life she had with Lynne and Greg. That means, thanks to your generous prize donations, and the addition of Gift Aid tax relief onto my donations in lieu of buying prizes, we've raised £150 for USPCA so far - and still plenty more prizes to go as well! 

The September Rudolph Days challenge started on 25th and runs until the end of the month - over at ScrappyMo's HERE.

We had our flu vaccinations on Thursday - I won't bore you with details of the queuing fiasco but let's say the organisation left a lot to be desired. Next year, if the organisation looks to be basically inviting folk to 'join in a scrum' then we'll book into a local pharmacy (in the UK for example, Boots and Lloyds offer the service) with properly timed 20 minute appointments. Not everyone knows you can do this and that all the NHS conditions still apply (such as free jabs for certain age group and conditions) and they also notify your GP after you have your jab.

 

And, drum roll - tomorrow is 27th September, exactly three years from the day we collected Dudley and our lives changed forever. Happy 'Gotcha Day' sweet boy and thank you for all the love and joy you brought with you - gosh, you look so very tiny there:

 

Photo was taken very soon after we got Dudley back home on his 'gotcha day' - not a very long journey but he was bewildered, stressed and exhausted. So he did what puppies do best, curled up in his new bed with a blanket 'scented with his Mum and siblings aroma' that the breeder thoughtfully gave to all the puppies .................. and had a 'snoozelet', before even thinking about exploring his new home! We both remember it so well, Len ended up sleeping most of the night downstairs on a sofa - with a very homesick little puppy on his chest, covered in the soothing blanket - listening to his 'new Dad's' heart beating.

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

Rudolph Days Challenge - September 2021

Hooray, Mo and family are hopefully all well once more and this month's Rudolph Days Challenge has gone ahead. You have from today, 25th, to the end of the month to enter.

Here's my offering:

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" square white card blank

- a sheet of paper from the Crafters Companion 'Watercolour Christmas' paper pad, trimmed by one eighth of an inch on all sides then glued onto the card front

- a 'topper' from the back of the same paper pad, die cut using a square stitched die from 'The Works'

- backed the 'topper' with a piece of Tonic Studios 'Red Velvet' pearlescent card - just a smidgeon bigger than the topper itself

- then backed that with a square of thin craft foam and glued it onto the card front

As the pack has two of each prettily patterned papers I made two card the same of course. Still sticking to my resolution not to break my back making scores of Christmas cards this year though.

The card is, needless to say, more richly coloured in real life.

Harrumph, although this paper pad is great for making super fast Christmas cards, it's NOT the paper pad I actually ordered from Amazon. Looks like Crafters Companion have stuck the wrong label onto the back of the pad - the label IS for the one I wanted, just on the wrong pad. I opted to keep it as some of the papers are lovely plus didn't want the hassle of returning it - but the jury is out as to whether I'll use many of the shaped animal and snowmen 'toppers' in the back of the pad. Basically they're not sized properly to go onto some of the scenic papers, very poor design work IMHO. Who designs a hat to add to a snowman, which would cover half his face for instance - weird. Having hunted all over the internet, I think the original 6 x 6 pad I was after (Glittering Snowflakes) is now discontinued anyhow. 

Ah well, another lesson learned. ☺

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #412

I think we're gently moving into Autumn here, probably my favourite season. We have what I thought was a collared dove, but we now think is a pigeon, nesting where it did last year - in the middle of an ornamental bush/tree in the front garden. Not high enough to be safe from cats either. At first we thought there was just the one rather scrawny baby but the other day Len spotted two of them looking at him. Fingers crossed both of them survive to fledge and leave the nest safely. The hedgehogs are still eating us out of house and home and if they don't have any late 'hoglets' then they should be all set for the Winter ahead.

I needed a card for Len's great nephew's 16th Birthday in a bit of a hurry - and this is the result. Quite similar in design to a snippets card I made for Challenge #406 HERE. As they would say in Thailand - 'Same, but different':

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" square white card blank

- a sheet of paper from the very dramatic Altenew 'Poured Acrylic' set of papers, trimmed to 5.5" x 5.5" and glued onto the card front

- a genuine snippet of white card, die cut using a Lawn Fawn die called 'Giant Happy Birthday to You' and the Cuttlebug

- then just glued the sentiment to the card front using a Zig glue pen - finished!

Just love a super fast card - my 'in-house critic' said the background looks like a piece of modern art.☺

So, here's the prize for this challenge:

It's an Altenew 'Poured Acrylic' paper pack and a Lawn Fawn 'Giant Happy Birthday to You' die. The papers are double sided and really fabulous, many are just so perfect for male cards, the last photo shows the rear of the pack to give you a better idea of the colours and designs - and the die is also wonderful. I think the die would also be really cool to either use with rainbow paper on a plain background or, even better, use up your snippets to create stripes or whatever takes your fancy on spare card/paper and then die cut the sentiment to go against a plain background.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 2nd October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you want to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

 

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.

 

At last, the bruising has gone, my toes are back to being a healthy pink and recent events have been put aside. Still being a bit cautious but I suppose that's no bad thing. End of a chapter I hope. Onwards and upwards!

 

Huge, huge thanks to my very loyal pal SaRn for her brilliant help in stepping in and taking over the commenting when things weren't too good here - of course she also hosted a few 'illicit hooch' parties in the Tree house at the same time. Perks of the job I should imagine! Hic ☺ !

Stay safe and be kind.

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

Allsorts Challenge and tribute to Kath

I've already written a good bit on here about 'our Kath' from 'My Plain and Simple', who we all lost a few weeks ago. On Sunday I made a card for the current Challenge for Kath over at Allsorts - where Kath was a DT stalwart. The theme was chosen by Kath months ago as part of her usual DT role and she chose 'Favourite Stamp(s)' - and the DT have added the option of 'floral and paper piecing'. Two things which appeared on Kath's gorgeous cards very regularly.

And this is my card:

I used: 

- DL white card blank

- the front (or back?) half of a DL card, trimmed to an eighth of an inch smaller all round than the card front and then set aside

- one of my most loved, and oldest, stamps is Penny Black's 2007 'love blush' - so I used that and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink to stamp the image onto a piece of white card and also onto a couple of sheets (red and pale green respectively) from the Prima 'Firefly' paper pack

- fussy cut the leaves and roses from the stamped papers - as always I ran a non-bleeding brush pen round the edge of each of the fussy cut pieces

- a few of the pieces were so tiny to fussy cut that I used Polychromos pencils to colour the relevant small pieces on the image panel itself

- then glued the roses and leaves onto the image panel - using a glue pen and added a few red and green Polychromos strokes here and there

- had a dig around my folder of 'stitched edge' dies and found a good fit using a Presscut Oval 'Stitch Hole' die - so then die cut the image into an oval panel

- cut four strips a quarter of an inch wide from some of the leftover patterned paper and glued them to the top and bottom of the main front panel before trimming all sides from the back using small scissors

- chose a sentiment to use from the Penny Black 'Special Thoughts' stamp set

- used a removable tape runner to temporarily fix the image panel in place so the sentiment would be nicely spaced

- then used the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink to stamp the sentiment

- peeled the oval image panel off and then popped it back in the same place using thin Ultratape sticky pads - I love these as they give dimension without being too thick and can easily be snipped into small piece for adhering small images etc. to cards

- glued the whole front panel to the card front - finished!

As SaRn said, Kath would have had something to say about the 'tongue out' look of concentration that we all seem to assume when doing paper piecing!

You still have a few days left to join in with the Challenge for Kath, link at the top of this post. It runs until 12 noon (GMT) on Friday. Quite apart from being a tribute to a very talented lady, there are also some lovely prizes to be won. 

Edit: Many thanks to Barbara for the heads up to The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers where the current challenge theme is 'Paper Piecing'. My first time playing along and apparently a snarky sentiment isn't necessary. In fact, I always thought it was a 'closed shop' and not open to all. How wrong can you be. I did smile at Barbara's comment along the lines of 'Who would think to paper piece flowers and leaves' - given the tiny size of them, my reply would be 'Only an idiot like me'.

Birthday thank you!

Just a quick post to say a massive thank you to all of you who sent such lovely cards and kind gifts for my Birthday! I'm enjoying the day and will email or message you all individually during this coming week. 

PS - Yes Carol L, your card did arrive in time!

Much love

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #410 - results

 

Before I move onto the Snippets Playground results, please can I draw your attention to a lovely tribute challenge, currently under way over at the Allsorts Challenge Blog, for Kath - a much loved friend, crafter and snippets playmate who very sadly left us a few weeks ago. It runs for this week only so you have to get your skates on. 

Kath chose the theme of 'Favourite stamps' for this challenge, months ago as part of her Allsorts Design Team work.  Brenda and the girls on the DT have added the option to include Kath's love of paper piecing and flowers. There are some lovely prizes to be won but, putting that aside, it would be wonderful if as many of us as possible can make a card and join in, as a way of saying thank you for the memories of a sadly missed, talented and very lovely lady.

Now for the picks from our previous challenge. Many thanks to Bonnie for being our Guest Designer using the adorable Egyptian Feline set of stamps - both Bonnie and her husband have been unwell and she was very apologetic about not being able to hop around and comment on all your entries. 

As we know only too well from my own recent acrobatics act, sometimes we just physically can't do what we hoped we could do in terms of blogging - and that's absolutely fine! I want to send a huge, huge thank you to SaRn for stepping in and helping me out with the Playground whilst I'm recovering. Even if she did, from what I've seen, also take the opportunity to host a gathering in the playground tree house ........... in full knowledge that I wouldn't be able to clamber up the ladder and break up the party. Dudley is taking climbing lessons now!

First of all, we have a *Gold Star* pick:

I think this is just amazing and such wonderful use of snippets - made by Maxine. All that perfect faux stitching was done by hand and must have taken ages. At first i did think Maxine used a special die set! Well done Maxine and do feel free to collect a *Gold Star* badge from the RH sidebar of my blog for your own blog.

 

I always love to see clever ways to use up snippet strips and Emma's entry immediately caught my eye. It's clever, boldly colourful - and yet still so elegant. I can totally picture this as a Christmas card design as well.

And another entry using strips of paper in herringbone style - made by Jackie T. Everything works together so perfectly - all topped off with the co-ordinating robin 'topper'. Such a perfect Christmas card.

This brilliant card, made by Karen Ladd, really jumped out at me, metaphorically speaking anyway.☺ The vibrant colours are so happy, great use of snippets - and how Karen created the background is brilliant, the sandy torn edged ground and then turning the blue shallows into deep water - very cleverly done.

And let's go for a final pick - making one gold star pick and four others, you were on a roll this week girls!

Liz brought this card to share with us - and what a great layout for using up snippets! I love this card just as it is but can also imagine the same layout for a multitude of other occasions using loads of different colour schemes. Great stuff Liz.

That's our picks from Challenge #410 in the Playground, we had 33 entries in total and no new Playmates. Now for the prize draw which is a Clearly Besotted 'Egyptian Feline' set of stamps from me. And the winner is:

Valerija

Congratulations Valerija! I'm sure it's a long time since you last won a prize - and I was delighted to read in your comment about the stamp set having special significance.

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 #411 which you can find HERE. The prize is a bit of a bumper selection of Halloween goodies, jointly from Heather Mills and myself.

Len posted off the prizes from Challenge #409 for me the other day. Apologies for the hastily written shop bought notelets I included with each one but I've done little or no crafting for almost two weeks.

Today is my Birthday - whoop whoop! At the time of writing I have loads of cards and a couple of very intriguing parcels which have arrived over recent days, all as yet unopened of course. Just the pick-me-up (no pun intended) that I need too.

Am still recovering from the fall - bruised knees and some of my toes turned a fetching shade of black and purple, purely due to all the scrabbling around I did whilst frantically trying to get back up. But each day brings an improvement and the bruising is fading nicely. We also have the Elk 'rising cushion/seat' now and that's a huge comfort to know - although I don't plan to ever need it of course! Call it insurance. We need to 'test drive' it - Len can be the guinea pig needless to say.

The rising cushion reminds me of the 'olden days' when in theatres and cinemas a full sized organ would rise from the depths of the stage with someone already sitting there merrily banging out 'cheery tunes' before the main event began. We knew things were changing when the organs were no longer but the same mechanism was used to raise a stall selling snacks during the intervals! Just a very distant memory from my early childhood you understand. ☺

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

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #411 - Ruby's Memory

Hello again - thanks for calling by! It's time for another snippets challenge dedicated to dear sweet Ruby's Memory, in aid of the centre who originally rescued her, and this is our sixth one.

The prize for this challenge has been kindly offered by Heather Mills with a few extras added by yours truly:

 

This super selection contains all things Halloween - stickers, purple sparkly ribbon, spooky embellishments, alphabet stickers, Halloween coloured sequins, sparkle dust, washi tape, Echo Park 'I love Halloween' paper pad, Taylored Expressions 'Boo to You' sentiments stamp set and a 'Sweet November Hazel & Webster' stamp. Oopsie, I left the sequins and sparkle dust out of the top photo - and also forgot to cover up the price of the cute little stamp.

It will reach the winner in plenty of time for Halloween I promise.

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 18th September. 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.

 

Huge apologies being so behind with commenting on Challenge #410. Also, I haven't yet managed to package and post the three 'Oddball Bunny' stamp prizes either. I'll email the winners once they're on the way.

All because I took a bit of a tumble one evening earlier this week, which ended up hours later in us having to have an ambulance call out to get me back up off the floor using an amazing inflatable seat thingy as well as to check me over. Oh the shame of it! Agonising shoulder pains as well as dodgy legs do not make one a floor gymnast - and certainly not able to hoist oneself back up from a flat floor, or even take the pain of being hauled up, trust me we tried! It's shaken both of us up and the rest of the week has just flown by. Even having a shower had me almost trembling in fear that it might happen again, although I know it was just my own clumsiness getting up from a sofa awkwardly. Hey ho - getting older ain't for wimps, we've now ordered the same inflating seat thingy 'just in case'. Thankfully am just a bit battered and bruised although for some reason still not firing on all cylinders mentally - not much new there then.

Have a good week! And be careful when standing up ☺

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

Birthday card for Kai - 2021

Today is Kai's Birthday - Mum to Len's two grand daughters. Most of you know that the family lives in Germany - and, like us, have been in and out of lockdowns until they're dizzy.

In honour of Kai's Birthday, I broke open a new Stamping Up set of stamps and matching dies, bought a while back - to have a play. After so long away from serious crafting I forgot how to set stamps onto the Misti! No worries, not losing the plot - just not concentrating properly and so ended up putting them on face up instead of face down.

This is the card I came up with - I worry it's a 'bit old fashioned' for a gal in her 40's - but Len gave it his 'stamp' of approval at least - and Dudley gave one of his interested and approving dabs of his nose when I showed it to him:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- piece of Neenah 'Desert Storm' card stock as a contrast to the pink striped background I added later. Initially I hoped to make the card blank using the 'Desert Storm' card but it isn't thick enough so I resorted to cutting a piece a smidgen smaller than the card front and glueing that in place

- then die cut a pink striped panel from a piece of paper from Dovecraft's Back to Basics 'Bright Spark' paper pack - it's pale pink and not at all bright so I reckon it crept into the paper pack when no-one was looking! I used a die from a Heffy Doodles A6 stitched rectangles set of dies - huge thanks again to Sarn for initially finding these and subsequently enabling 'Little Miss Copy Cat' to follow suit - I love the delicate 'stitching' as well ☺

- next, used the Stamping Up 'Wrapped Bouquet' set of stamps to stamp the bouquet, newspaper wrap and little tag sentiment - all using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and my smallest Misti

- die cut the stamped elements using the Stamping Up 'Wrapped Flowers' set of dies then flipped the newspaper wrap over and stamped on the reverse  - I followed a YouTube tutorial to work out how some of it was done, otherwise I'd still be sitting here pondering!

- coloured the bouquet itself using Polychromos pencils and added some Clear Wink of Stella

- die cut extra green and white foliage, using snippets, for later on

- now we finally had lift-off - I'd begun to wonder to be honest

- as per the video I folded the newspaper wrap into shape and tucked then adhered the bouquet of flowers into the 'wrap'. It already was looking good - hooray!

- tucked and adhered the additional die cut foliage in place - at this point the 'bouquet' was still a stand-alone element

- added the tiny 'For You' tag using a snippet of beige embroidery thread

- did a hunt for a suitable sentiment and ended up using a Craftwork Cards pre-printed and die cut oval 'Happy Birthday' which I glued onto the top left hand corner

- I'd already worked out the positioning for the bouquet so then added that using some red line tape behind the 'newspaper wrapping' and thin sticky pads behind the bouquet itself so that it all sat nice and level 

- final touch, three white pearls 

I'm adding this into Darnell's NBUS challenge - the stamps and dies are on their first trip out!