Rudolph Days Challenge - January 2022

Gosh, I did wonder if I'd make it over to ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days Challenge this month - plus some others listed further down. However, despite having lost the plot by embarking on a batch bake of 12 similar cards, I got there in the end!

My favourite image is on the top single card with the upside down elf. However, I loved the stamp set so much, I did two of each of the six images and used the same sentiment stamp for each one. Although the set does come with a selection of other sentiments to choose from.

I used:

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

- stamped the different images, all from MFT's 'Christmas sELFies Stamp' set by Birdie Brown, onto white card and coloured with Pro markers

- die cut the aperture panel using a Lil'Inkers 'Stitched Rectangle' die and then die cut the aperture for the image using MFT's 'Peek a boo Square Window' die

- then stamped the sentiment underneath the window - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink. Thank goodness for the Misti as well!

- added the image panel to the back of the aperture using red line tape

- cut some card 'frames' from red, olive and pale blue card - just very slightly larger than the die cut aperture panel

- glued the image panels onto the 'frames' and then onto the card front

Ha, written out like that it seems so quick and easy but there was a lot of matching Pro markers to the coloured card, careful measuring, placing the aperture die, sentiment - etc. etc. 

I then resisted the urge to add some googly eyes to some of the images - there would have been tears and a tantrum here if I'd spoiled them with stray glue at that stage of the game! 

I'd also like to join in with the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge (at last I made it!) - Anything goes with the option for using a stencil . No stencil B, but at least I'm playing along ☺

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #34 for January - it was the first outing for the set of MFT stamps, although I've had them for a while

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge # 579  - Anything Goes with the option of using a sentiment. Tick!

The Cutie Pie Challenge - Clean and Simple (unless you decide to make 12 of course!)

Double D - Blue and white (option Winter)

Peace on Earth Christmas #8. The Inspiration Board includes a tree with blue ornaments and of course my little elfin friend is dangling a blue ornament

Crumbs, that's a record for me I'm sure - seven challenges in one go! And all run by people I consider to be amongst my lovely friends too. My one regret is that I just haven't had time to join in with Jo's Christmas Kickstart challenge with colours of the rainbow - those pesky cards above took me days! Promise I'll be there next month Jo!

Teal and silver snippets for Christmas

A reminder that the NEW Snippets Playground now has a post showing the picks and also the prizewinners from the Grand Draw. 

And, as my own blog is free for me to play on today, here's a snippets card I made the other day:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, tent style for a change

- snippet of silver mirri card, which was lying on the desk - trimmed to just slightly smaller than the card front then glued in place

- then turned to the snippet of card which really started this Christmas card off, found in the front pocket of my expanding snippets folder when I was looking papers to use on Edward's recent Birthday card. It's absolutely gorgeous, a really deep teal colour with foiled shimmery teal 'snowflakes' all over - trimmed to 5.25" x 4" and set aside

- used more of the snippet of silver mirri card to die cut the sentiment - using a Tonic Studios' 'Merry Christmas' die

- glued the sentiment, using a glue pen, to a strip of white card and backed it with very slightly wider silver mirri card

- only at that point did I add the whole sentiment strip to the teal piece of card using wet glue, allowed it to dry and then trimmed the excess off each side from the back of the piece - that way gives you an accurate guide line for your scissors

- glued the finished panel in place and added some teeny silver sparkly flat 'gems' to the centre of each large 'snowflake'  

I remember very clearly buying that lovely piece of card a lot of years ago in a lovely craft shop in Wiltshire - of course I now wish I'd bought more. Aha, perhaps I did - there's a rarely used box of A4 patterned card stock from those days and (possibly) some whole sheets just might be lurking in there. Need to investigate further. ☺

NB - I've turned comment moderation off on Pixie's to see how it goes. It seem to be working well over at the new Snippets Playground  - fingers crossed!

Off you go now - over to the new Snippets Playground! Dudley is over there, keeping an eye on the slightly 'unlicensed bar' being run by a certain somebody!

Birthday card for Edward

Len's g'nephew, Edward, will shortly be celebrating his Birthday and - as always after Christmas - I was so busy with other blog stuff that it was a bit of a rush to make a quick card yesterday for him:

I used:

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

- snippets of plain and patterned blue paper, found tucked in the front of my expanding snippets folder. No idea where they came from

- trimmed the plain blue paper to an eighth of an inch smaller all round than the card front and glued it in place

- trimmed the blue striped paper by an eighth of an inch smaller all round than the plain blue layer and glued that in place

- die cut the sentiment using a white card snippet and a sentiment from the Impression Obsession 'Birthday Top Edgers' set of dies

- made a panel for the sentiment by gluing some of the leftover plain blue paper to a snippet of white card

- glued the die cut sentiment onto the panel using a glue pen then popped it in place on the card front, using thin sticky pads

- showed Len and his immediate reaction was that something was missing- so I had a good rootle around in one of my boxes of embellishments and suddenly remembered 'card candy' from years ago. At one time no card was complete without card candy added to it, so I popped some white ones onto the card and got the seal of approval!

I'm absolutely thrilled to see that the new Snippets Playground blog is so popular - 86 followers already and loads of lovely comments and entries for the current challenge over there. The link to the new Playground is both on the sidebar here and also on a tab at the top of the page. Come and play!

New Snippets Playground is open!

Here are my two snippets cards for our first challenge over at the new Snippets Playground:

 

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.5" white card blanks, side opening

- A5-ish pieces of white card onto which I stamped two different images, both quite 'naughty looking and ready for mischief' by Saturated Canary The top one is called 'Stinker' and the other one underneath is called 'Ooh La La'

- coloured them both with Polychromos pencils (I stuck to the colours on the image in the stamp packaging for ease) 

- then went back to the IndigoBlu 'Giggles' stamp set I wanted to use - so much choice and I wanted to use them all! 

- stamped my chosen sentiments beside the image(s) - with much measuring, and trimmed the card down to size 5.25 x 4"

- added snippets of co-ordinating papers (I chose those first before doing any colouring) across the top and bottom of each card panel using a glue pen and trimmed off excess from each side

- added the stamped panel to the card blank using Collall All Purpose Glue  - finished!

The sentiments are made from cushioned rubber, therefore not see through, but with the aid of the Misti and a piece of grid-lined acetate they weren't too tricky to line up.

Click on the image for the link.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #418 - Christmas Draw - Prize Z

Phew - finally! Here's the 26th and last prize in the 'Snippets Playground Christmas Draw': 

I used:

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

- snippet of Tonic pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card, trimmed to 5" x 3.75"

- then the fun began! I was using two Clearly Besotted stamps sets - 'Picture It Christmas' for the scene and 'Baa Humbug' for the sheep and a sentiments

- took a piece of white card - A5 and much too big but I wanted to be able to overdo the background blending and then trim it down to size

- right now I can hardly move in here due to the Grand Draw crafting frenzy having taken over my life so I couldn't easily get to my sheets of masking film but just used 'fully adhesive' Post-It notes - bit more fiddly as I needed two side by side for the scene but it worked well, with careful fussy cutting - phew!

- first of all, stamped then masked off the scene image, top and bottom cut to the lines and those fiddly little trees in the distance - I used my much loved Tim Holtz 'Tumbled Glass' Distress Ink pad and a make-up brush for this step, keeping the lower part of the scene lighter than the sky. Again, I have an Altenew fabulous set of four shades of blue that would have been perfect but just can't get to them right now! One BIG sort out is well overdue but at least I pop stuff into fairly organised 'used, supplies, unused new stuff to put way etc.) baskets - ready to have a blitz later on in January

- next I stamped the three sheep (all stamping was done using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a Misti as usual) and coloured them, bearing in mind colours that could also be used for the background to draw the scene together - and after months I finally got to use my Pro markers again. Hooray! Len did the 'reaching up, lifting down and then replacing once I finished' to be on the safe side but I do think I could have managed it myself - hooray!

- used the scenic back ground as it was, untrimmed, and coloured it in, using the Pro markers I already had used for the sheep, plus a few additional ones 

- coloured the gold star using a Signo 'Sparkling Gold' pen

- then trimmed the background panel to just a teeny bit less than the red backing and glued it in place

- fussy cut the sheep 

- positioned and checked where the sheep would go and then stamped the 'baa humbug' sentiment. before glueing the sheep in place

- and then stamped the final sentiment at the top left of the card - and it blurred! What? Right at the final hurdle as well, sob

- ran around the house screaming like a banshee for five minutes and then just re-stamped the sentiment onto a snippet of white card and punched it out using a SU oval die, before glueing in place

- finished - and then I headed for a darkened room to lie down for a few hours!

I'd seen a very similar card design to this one, over on Clearly Besotted, and loved it, which is why I bought the background stamp to go with the sheep - and it will be great to use with loads of other Clearly Besotted or a lot of other sets of 'cute' stamps. 

And here's the prize:

It's two sets of Clearly Besotted stamps from me - 'Baa Humbug' and 'Picture It Christmas'. Sorry a few of the stamps aren't the right way up in the packets - obviously the way the manufacturer packs them to get the optimum number of stamps on a sheet! Two great sets of stamps - those sheep and the sentiments crack me up and I love the snow scene and all the sentiments on the other set. ☺

All the rules can be found on the post for Sunday 12th December 2021, along with Mr Linky for your single entry. I do suggest that you read the rules thoroughly - particularly about the theme for this Grand Draw Challenge.

Just leave a comment on this post you're currently looking at, if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Remember, the Grand Draw challenge, including all comments, will totally close at 11am on Saturday 8th January. 

We have now donated £300 (including Gift Aid) to USPCA, the charity in Northern Ireland that rescued Lynn's beautiful Westie Ruby and it's all been down to your lovely prize donations. Thank you all so much.

All that remains is for me to also thank you all for joining in, all the lovely comments, a massive thank you to Sarn for pitching in and helping me out with commenting, being my 'wing gal' and a million other things - and once again, those of you who kindly donated prizes. I hope you all had fun in this very last Grand Draw. At times, I've almost been on my knees here. However - onwards and upwards! Ha - if I can get up off my knees! ☺

As they say, see you on the other side ................. over in the brand new Snippets Playground! Sunday 9th January at 00:00 UK time - it's a date! I will have a link on here for you to skip over and don't forget, I will still be using this as my personal blog!

Love from Dudley and of course me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #418 - Christmas Draw - Prize Y

Here's the 25th prize in the 'Snippets Playground Christmas Draw':

It's such a sweet, smaller sized set of stamps and matching dies, by Poppystamps and called 'Poinsettia Joy'. I think these would be brilliant for tag making! Kindly donated by Darnell - someone else who has been very generous to the Playground Grand Draw.

All the rules can be found on the post for Sunday 12th December 2021, along with Mr Linky for your single entry. I do suggest that you read the rules thoroughly - particularly about the theme for this Grand Draw Challenge.

Just leave a comment on this post you're currently looking at, if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

A heads up again - tomorrow we reach the end of the alphabet and the final prize of the Grand Draw will be on offer. Do remember that Mr Linky and ALL commenting will be finishing at 11am on Saturday 8th January in readiness for the switchover to the new Snippets Playground blog the following day (Sunday 9th January). If you think you could be interested in the final prize (and nope, I'm not saying what it is before it publishes at midnight) - do remember to nip over to this blog on Thursday, Friday or up to 11am on Saturday.

Love from Dudley and of course me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #418 - Christmas Draw - Prize X

Here's the 24th prize in the 'Snippets Playground Christmas Draw':

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of deep red 'poinsettia embossed' card, trimmed to 5.25" x 4" which arrived from one of you lovely Playmates, to protect the front of a card this Christmas. Much too nice not to use so it was sitting here on my desk and is a perfect colour match for the red I was using for the stamping

- snippet of pearlescent gold card, trimmed to 5" x 3.75" and layered onto the red card, which in turn was glued onto the card front

- piece of white card onto which I stencilled a background of holly and ivy leaves, pine cones, foliage and berries. I used Uniko's 'Winter Foliage' stencil, a soft make-up brush and Delicata's 'Golden Glitz' ink pad then set it aside to dry properly (really shimmery in real life, camera being awkward)

- used the Misti to stamp greenery, pine cones, holly leaves and berries onto a snippet of white card - using whatever ink pads I could grab quickly and stamps from the Uniko 'Winter Foliage' set of stamps

- die cut all the elements using matching 'Winter Foliage' dies

- then stamped sentiment words using SU's 'Real Red' ink and stamps from Uniko's 'Christmas Sentiments' stamp set and just trimmed then by hand

- trimmed the background piece of stencilled card paper down to just leave a very narrow gold border of the pearlescent card layer and then glued it on top

- finally, added all the stamped elements, including the sentiment words - using thin sticky pads

We had some lovely neighbours who moved away to a local village in 2019 and never gave us their new address. However, they popped a Christmas card through our door on Christmas Eve and included said address. Too late for a Christmas card but I made this for New Year instead. So pleased they finally remembered, nothing worse than receiving a card and not knowing where to send one in return - especially when you always exchanged cards previously. We've known them since the girls used to add children's drawings to their cards - and they are both beautiful and very clever young career women now.

Back to the card, I played it safe and speedy by stencilling using a single colour (gold) ink pad - other options were to use sparkly white paste or, possibly too busy as well as tricky, to use a tiny make-up brush to pick out the different leaves etc. in different shades of green with brown for the cones and red for the teeny berries in the stencil. Something told me it would take forever and might look too busy in any case. But they certainly were options - along with a steel grey which I think coule look rather elegant.

The idea for this prize came about when Kanda (Andrea) was clearing out a lot of her craft stuff back in the Summer and, knowing I love Uniko's goodies, she sent me some used stuff including her own set of 'Winter Foliage' stamps and matching dies. Thanks again Andrea - still miss you in the Playground!

And here's the prize:

 

I rushed off to Uniko and bought, for the prize (and for me of course), a 'Winter Foliage' stencil, a set of 'Christmas Sentiments' stamps (absolutely love the clean and crisp font) and a set of 'Winter Foliage' stamps. Plus there's a really lovely Tonic 'pine cone' die which will work so well with the pine branch stamp as well (take a close look at the illustration on the die packet to see what I mean). Our Val very kindly donated the pine cone die and I've kept it safely in the toy box here for ages!

Sadly, Uniko are sold out of the matching 'Winter Foliage' dies - and I've been on their wait list for ages - else they would have also been bought to add into this bundle. However, the elements shouldn't be hard to fussy cut as there are no enclosed areas - and of course you can always stamp directly onto your piece of work.

All the rules can be found on the post for Sunday 12th December 2021, along with Mr Linky for your single entry. I do suggest that you read the rules thoroughly - particularly about the theme for this Grand Draw Challenge.

Just leave a comment on this post you're currently looking at, if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Love from Dudley and of course me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #418 - Christmas Draw - Prize W

Here's the 23rd prize in the 'Snippets Playground Celebration' prize draw:

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" square white card blank, side opening

- followed a video made by John Next Door, which you can see HERE rather than me type out all the many steps to make a rather special shaker card

- the supplies I used are: snippets of Tonic Pearlescent 'Majestic Gold' card stock, snippets of Tonic satin mirri card 'Scarlet Organza' (absolutely luscious!), snippets of acetate to make the shaker element, 'Champagne' sprinkles by Lucy's Little Things' (a gorgeous mixture of sequins and beads in shades of gold and also pearly see through), Kanban (really ancient) gold and red sparkly gems added to four of the snowflakes I added to the card front

- tools/adhesives are Collall All Purpose Glue, red line tape, foam tape (big tip about this below,) Glossy Accents, various square dies to make the red and gold frame element, and most importantly the fabulous Crafts-Too John Next Door 'Baroque Snowflake Plate' die

It most certainly isn't quick to make a card like mine and, on New Year's Eve afternoon, I actually thought I'd bitten off more than I could chew. Partly as the 'clearing space for my Gemini to be handy project' is a work in progress, mostly due to this final Grand Draw. and I did (to be totally honest) find that my old Cuttlebug struggled a bit. But we both got there in the end. Basically, despite the Gemini and my sweet little Altenew mini die cutting machine, I do need to bite the bullet and buy a new manual and foldable die cutting machine, Cuttlebug or very similar, purely for thick Sizzix dies and as a manual backup - these days my current Cuttlebug would fail its MOT (road safety for USA friends!) for sure. 

But, I'm not a quitter, so I kept going and tweaking until I had something pretty much like John's card (a talented man for sure who always makes it look so easy!) - within the limits of my square dies. It's a thick card when finished if you add all the layers of foam tape suggested by John. You can see that by the shadow cast on the photo I took. I do have some unassembled card boxes here (from the days when I made cards very layered and festooned with flowers, ribbons and charms - which I really loved making!). I'll need to ask my tame mountain goat to clamber up to the ceiling height shelves in my craft room and retrieve the boxes for me - or perhaps Dudley can stand on the mountain goat's shoulders?! ☺ I am SO bad!

The foam tape tip I mentioned above is one I discovered a lot of years ago and possibly a lifesaver for shaker cards. When I buy a new roll of foam tape (very rare - I've had my current roll a good few years) I gently rub some talcum powder onto both sides of the rolled up reel then brush any excess off. Then keep the roll of tape in a small poly bag. Just use the tape in the normal way when assembling your shaker cards and you'll find that the shaker elements don't stick to the sides at all! No need to fiddle on with talc when trying to assemble a shaker card - the tape is nicely 'non-stick' down each side. 

The prize is a John Next Door 'Baroque Snowflakes Plate'. This die is utterly gorgeous and I first spotted it when Linby raced in with a card to share fairly recently. HERE is her original blog post for you to check out a different way to use the die. You can use it as a plate as I did or just die cut loads of adorable snowflakes to keep on hand when you're making Christmas cards (I intend to make a little box of them using some lovely white pearlescent paper I found the other week) - or both!

All the rules can be found on the post for Sunday 12th December 2021, along with Mr Linky for your single entry. I do suggest that you read the rules thoroughly - particularly about the theme for this Grand Draw Challenge.

Just leave a comment on this post you're currently looking at, if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Do please remember that the Grand Draw Mr Linky will close at 11am on Saturday morning, UK time. I've already begun to close comments for earlier prizes and will be closing them on a daily basis from now on as I think people have had ample time to check out the prize posts. It will be tight for you to play for the final prize which will appear on Thursday, so don't hang about as it's one I think a few people will be keen on. The complete Grand Draw will close at 11am on Saturday - and all commenting even for the final prize from Thursday will be included included - in readiness for the move across to the new blog which I wrote about on here yesterday.

The new Snippets Playground blog launches on Sunday 9th January, and the Grand Draw results will be published over there, not on here - but I will remind you on here of course. My current plan is for the results to appear on Sunday 16th January but that may change as it's quite a mammoth task sorting out who wants which prize(s) and - so far - I've been way too busy to do more than watch and respond to your entries, selecting possible picks as I go, whilst frantically writing new posts and also making sample cards where possible. Never fear, we will get there folks - we always do!   

Huge thanks for your lovely comments about the new Snippets Playground blog - not long to wait now!

Love from Dudley and of course me, 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #418 - Christmas Draw - Prize V

NEWSFLASH! Important announcement after details of today's prize.

Here's the 22nd prize in the 'Snippets Playground Christmas Draw':

It's two more stamps from Jackie T, and it's actually the final two from her massively generous donation. The stamps are Sweet Dixie of course and are called 'Funky Bauble' and 'Oh Christmas Tree'. Thank you once again Jackie for your part in making the Grand Draw such a success.

All the rules can be found on the post for Sunday 12th December 2021, along with Mr Linky for your single entry. I do suggest that you read the rules thoroughly - particularly about the theme for this Grand Draw Challenge.

Just leave a comment on this post you're currently looking at, if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Please note that I have closed commenting on the first fortnight of the Grand Draw - and will be closing more prizes as this final week progresses.

And here's the news I've been keeping to myself for months now. Today it's exactly 10 years since I took over the Playground keys from Jules. And to celebrate, in one week's time - the day after the Grand Draw has closed - the Snippets Playground will have its very own, new, fresh and fun blog!

Be sure to mark Sunday 9th January 2022 down in your diary! Here's a badge for your own blog as a taster. ☺

I'm thrilled to pieces and hugely grateful to the incredibly talented Loll who designed the new Snippets Playground blog. My own Pixies Crafty Workshop blog will continue and I will add reminders and links in 'Pixies' to new Snippets Playground posts, certainly in the early days. Do be sure to become a follower of the new blog so that it can fly on its own please.

Do please come and play - our motto will be 'Snippets Playground .... where the sun is always shining'. So let's make it a happy and fun place folks. Of course the tree house, bicycle shed, swings, see-saw etc. will still be there at your disposal. And Dudley will still be keeping watch. ☺ 

Picks and prizes will continue, not always with samples though - this place is bursting at the seams! I still have some duplicates but not as many as there used to be. It's also a chance for me to explore all the fabulous techniques you use when making snippets cards rather than being bound by 'samples'. I can see some fun times ahead.

Love from Dudley and of course me,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #418 - Christmas Draw - Prize U

Happy New Year everybody! Here's hoping it's a good one for all of us - and perhaps this time next year we'll be able walk around more freely than right now. However, let's still do our very best to enjoy 2022, regardless. ☺ 

Here's the 21st prize in the 'Snippets Playground Christmas Draw':

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of Neenah 'Desert Storm' card, trimmed to 5" x 3.75"

- piece of mauve patterned paper from the Whimsy 'Snow Flurry' paper pack, die cut using a die from the Lil' Inkers set of 'stitched rectangles' 

- used the Misti to stamp an alpaca (from the Sticker Kitten 'Alpaca wishes' set of stamps) and the plant in a pot onto a snippet of Neenah 'Desert Storm' card - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink 

- then stamped the scarf, part of the alpaca's body for the 'saddle/throw' and the plant in a pot once again onto a little snippet of blue 'Snow Flurries' paper from the same Whimsy paper pack

- spent what seemed like forever fussy cutting the alpaca etc - after colouring the plant's leaves and adding a pink cheek to the alpaca with Polychromos pencils

- added the blue throw and scarf to the alpaca and the blue pot to the stamped/fussy cut plant pot

- stamped the 'Cosy Christmas' sentiment onto the mauve background

- glued the rectangles onto the card front then added the alpaca and plant

- finished!

I used the 'Desert Storm' card for the alpaca as I didn't fancy colouring such a large area with pencils and Len was busy so couldn't get my Promarkers down for me. I just realised that Jo of Christmas Kickstart possibly did the same thing and I do know she had a blue throw on her alpaca as well! Oopsie, thanks for the subliminal ideas Jo - I won't enter this into any challenges. ☺

And here's the prize:

It's a really fun set of stamps, made by Sticker Kitten (a UK company that I found through Jo's fabulous Christmas Kickstart Challenge) called 'Alpaca Wishes'. I really like the quirkiness of this stamp set and there's a lot of scope for creating different scenes with one or two of the alpaca and some of the wealth of little extras in the set.

All the rules can be found on the post for Sunday 12th December 2021, along with Mr Linky for your single entry. I do suggest that you read the rules thoroughly - particularly about the theme for this Grand Draw Challenge.

Just leave a comment on this post you're currently looking at, if you would like the chance to win today's prize.

Love from Dudley and of course me,