Sunday Snippets - 'Special Delivery'

My snippets cards this time are heading off to Germany very shortly. We transfer funds to Kai, Mum of our two teenage English/German Grandaughters and she pops it in cash form into a card each for the girls. I usually send unsealed but already written cards from us for her to use as it seems a little more personal. Trust me - it's much easier all round and the girls have the fun of money to spend after the festivities. So, I made each of the girls a card and envelope:

I used:

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

- the stamped image was in a Gummiapan (UK Meissen) sale a year or so ago, no name but to me he's 'Skating Reindeer'. I bought three very similar different reindeer images and they too also come with matching dies, they cost me very little and one is still to make an appearance on here!

- stamped the image onto the reverse of a Tim Holtx piece of Mixed Media card, using a VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad

- coloured the image using Arteza Watercolour pencils and a small brush and water for blending Faber-Castell Polychromos Pencils and Sansodor blending solution and then die cut it - using the matching die. I made a little jig of the image for best placement - always best to pay safe after spening precious time colouring an image!

- next, took a background 'snowy hillside with frozen pond' piece of card from the KanBan 'Christmas Wobblers' backgrounds pack and die cut it using a 5.5" x 5.5" Heffy Doodle 'Stitched Squares' die - now that I knew where the skating deer should be positioned

- glued the scene panel onto the card front which left a nice white outside border

- added the white 'snippets' sentiment, already made in two layers, using my favourite Tonic Christmas sentiments die - using a  glue pen

- the final touch on the card is the reindeer in action! The mixed media card was quite robust so I just added him to the scene using thin sticky pads and the usual glue stick trick whilst placing him

- made two whilst at it of course! Finished .......... Part One!

- Part Two - the 6" x 6" envelope needed something adding to make it a little more special - initially I thought about putting the German yellow post box onto the card scene itself - with a card in the reindeer's mouth as if he was on the way to posting it. Wasn't going to work though by any stretch of the imagination! Sigh

- so, I used the German post box idea on the envelope instead. The box itself with the 'extras' are all part of a delightful Charlie & Paulchen set of small dies - called 'Weihnachts Post' (Christmas Post) - bought not long after I discovered the delights of teeny tiny dies.

- used snippets of yellow card to cut the vertical sentiment strip and the actual post box plus leftover snippets of TH Mixed Media card for the envelope and the embossed panel on the little door - showing collection times, which I edged with a border of Tombow Black brush pen. Then used a glue pen to add the 'collection times' and also the envelope to the post box. The letter box itself opens to tuck things inside - cute! Glued both the sentiment strip and the post box onto the envelope

- finally, finally, die cut the sentiment 'Special Delivery' using an unbranded die and a snippet of Tonic pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card and glued that to the envelope front as well, leaving blank space above to write in the name of the recipient

I'd like to enter this card into:

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #69 - the reindeer as well as the post box dies were having a first outing!

Also Allsorts Challenge #810 - where the theme is 'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas' or, 'Anything Goes'

Dudley Pupdate: a neighbour is having some indoor house alterations carried out and Dudley has generally coped well with the noises drifting over our garden .......... until the other day. We quickly realised that he was padding to and fro from the back to the front of the house upstairs and was evidently very anxious. He was terrified by an imtermittent sound and it took us a while to figure it out. Eventually it emerged that one of the numerous guys working indoors at our neighbours house was nipping outside to use a nail gun to assemble some woodwork. So it sounded like a faint shotgun such as we would hear during the hunting season around here - but much closer, for want of a better description. This is a pooch who is unfazed by storms, fireworks and thunder and lightning. But - take him out in a car OR get out of bed to get ready for the day and there's a real pantomime! He does keep us on our toes!

Speaking of Dudley, a couple of people mentioned it would be nice to see his new haircut. Instead, for now, I have a 'Spot the Dudley' photo - taken during this last week on our bed, in his favourite safe place where he'd literally built a circle of his most loved toys to act as his 'look out' spot with a bit of meditation thrown in:

I find it a rather sad photo, it's the pink around his eyes - which comes with being a fairly newly trimmed white Havanese. Aw, one of his ears was flipped back - they're like little pink shells inside. BTW, he literally gathers all the toy circle with his mouth and paws, no human intervention at all! And his chin is resting on Honka's neck .............. needless to say!

We have a new Challenge #495 being run by our lovely Sarn over HERE! AND, it's the first of our December/Christmas Challenges with more than one bumper prize bundle per challenge - go and take a look! Then get your snippets out.

Goodness knows what the latest storm Darragh has done to the Playground decorations ... just don't try to fix them back up with a nail gun, otherwise Dudley will go into total meltdown!

Love from myself and Dudley,