Rudolph Day - February 2025

And once again, I used a lovely embossed panel, in rich deep green, sent to me by a USA dear friend to protect her card to me in the post:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" silk weave linen 'Pale Ivory' card, tent style

- snippet of Tonic 'Inca Gold' mirror card to cover the whole front and glued it in place

- trimmed the green embossed panel to just slightly smaller than the gold layer and also glued that in place

- then die cut the main sentiment feature using an unbranded die from Amazon - no name, but I can always send the link by checking my past orders of course. Just ask.

 

- die cut the sentiment stamp in Tonic mirror ' Inca Gold' and then the letter inserts from a snippet of the same linen 'Pale Ivory' - and the three berries were cut from a teeny snippet of Tonic 'Scarlet Organza' card

- used a glue pen to adhere the sentiment die parts to the embossed dark green layer - worked really well despite a question mark over my head here - and finished!

This card is for February 2025's Rudolph Challenge HERE - almost finished so be quick, it's a short month!

Len stopped by later to have a look and, typical man, said - 'Bit late aren't you?' - meaning late for Christmas not long gone! At least he liked it but just where does he think the 90+ hand made cards appear from each Christmas? No, surely not the Pixies!! 😏

Sunday Snippets - Slimline 'Happy Birthday' card

The idea for this snippets card has been bubbling away for a little while here - and finally it came to fruition, as my offering for our 'Celebration' Challenge in the Snippets Playground:

A big round of applause - remembered the snippets!

I used:

- 6.25" x 3.25" Silkweave Linen 'Pale Ivory' mini slimline card blank

- using a Just Rite 'Three in a Row' set of cutting dies, the back complete layer for the panel (fully hidden in my version) was die cut using a snippet of the same Pale Ivory linen card and then topped with two layered triple-frame Pale Ivory die cuts to form the row of apertures

- next, die cut three Tonic pearlescent 'Majestic Gold' squares, using the main triple frame die again

- then, I reached for the lovely craft gift that this was built for - a row of three very pretty square stickers from a lovely friend in the Netherlands, a beautiful set of 3D stickers made by Zeeman Products. They're SO pretty with some lovely sparkle - watch out for some Easter cards!

- stuck three little square floral sparkly stickers to the pearlescent gold squares then glued them into the apertures

- added the whole triple panel to the card front using narrow foam tape

- die cut the Gummiapan 'HB2U' sentiment twice from a teeny snippet of green card, layered them together then glued them to the card front, using a fine glue pen - finito!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

- Allsorts Challenge # 817 HERE -  under 'Anything Goes'

Dudley Pupdate: Lately, Dudley has been showing off his 'touch you with my paw' skills, when he wants something. One of the sweetest is when I'm reaching down to give him his dinner each evening, he dabs my hand with his cold, damp nose and then taps my arm twice with his left paw - like a ritual. It never fails to make Len crumble! And it's ME who's the waitress! The other thing is his habit of always being close enough that you need to very be careful not to trip over him when you want to move around. Much like a pigeon, he has an uncanny knack of moving to exactly the place you're aiming to move to, back and forth until we're dizzy, much like a pigeon wandering in the road does when you're approaching in a car. So, another name for him is now 'Little Pigeon'! Len already calls him 'Little One' and it's so endearing to hear.

Remember, the results from Sarn's Challenge #499 are now published in the Snippets Playground HERE.

Do come and play with us in the Snippets Playground - it's the second week of our 500th Challenge Celebration with two mystery prizes. Dudley is itching to dry the swings and see saw down in readiness each morning and Sarn will no doubt have goodies to share - so please come and play if you haven't already done so. We're thrilled with all the lovely comments you've been leaving - 500 Challenges certainly is a milestone!

Love as always, Dudley and yours truly,

Sunday Snippets - A Valentine card from Dudley!

Being totally loopy here I followed, which makes me doubly loopy, Dudley's 'morse code woofed request to make a Valentine card from him - to Len! I had the perfect little set of stamps and dies, pleading to be used once again and this is the result:

I used:

- DL sized white card blank, tent style

- a sltightly smaller piece of the same card as the card blank, and then die cut the three square apertures using Just Rite's Frame Set 'Three in a Row'

- backed the frame piece with a snippet of light blue card, using red line tape

- glued the whole piece onto the card blank using Collall All purpose glue 

- next onto the dear little 'Dudley' puppies - using a set of stamps and matchng dies by Clearly Besotted called 'Puppy Love'. I still feel very sad that Clearly Besotted just faded away as it did, their products were such a joy and this particular set is probably my most loved and used one - I wonder why?

- stamped the three little puppies and a couple of sentiments onto snippets of white card and gently coloured their ears, paws and tails a little with a pale peach Polychromos pencil before die cutting the puppies and hand cutting the sentiments

- next I punched out a few small hearts using the same SU mini heart punch that I used for Len's card from me - and another snippet of the same Tonic pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card to have a little play before positioning the puppies into the frames

- added the puppies into the frames using thin sticky pads. followed by the punched hearts and two sentiments - using a glue pen

- final touch was to die cut a row of hearts from another snippet of the 'Red Velvet' card and just use a glue pen to add it underneath the puppies in their frames above. I used Positively Papercraft's 'Two Piece Heart set'. And speaking of Positively Papercraft. Ann seems to have given up her own Positively Paper Craft online shop and has teamed up with one of the UK shopping channels - I loved how she had such a good eye for different dies to many of the run of the mill ones and her prices were extremely good, so that's another loss it seems. 

As I had to make this card in secret, with Len likely to see what I was up to - I got rid of the snippets as I went along so as not to leave any clues!

I'd like to enter my card into the following challenge:

- Allsorts Challenge #817 HERE under the 'Anything Goes' theme. The main theme is 'Shades of Blue', which I hope to add a second card to during the challenge

Dudley Pupdate: I did have a few happy smiles when making this card as the three 'puppy poses' are our Dudley down to a 'T'! 

From left to right they are: 'Hello there, I smell food and am looking hopeful'. Middle one is 'Oh well, that didn't work, so am going into full pleading, begging and how cute am I then mode' and the final one on the right is 'You mean I have to actually wait until you finish eating to see if there's a little morsel left? Sigh.' Later .......... 'Am still in pose three in the puppy begging book and my tummy is now quite flat - get a move on!'. Len really laughed when he saw the card on Friday - no explanation needed!

Remember, I've just kicked off a new challenge over in the Snippets Playground HERE. It's yet another special one to celebrate our 500th challenge in The Snippets Playground! There is a mandatory theme if you wish to play and be a pick and/or be in with a chance of winning one of two mystery prizes, each to contain five items. The theme is 'Celebration'. 

Hope to see you on the swings - Sarn and I are waiting for you to come and play as well as join in our celebrations!

Love as always, Dudley Dog and me

Sunday Snippets - A Valentine card from me

I decided to get cracking and make a Valentine card for Len - I still have to make the one 'from Dudley Dog to Len' though, I know - crazy as ever:

I used:

- 5.25" x 4.25" black card blank, side opening (the card blank is .25" less in height than a true USA A2 card to accomodate the final size of the hearts panel BTW!)

- a snippet of white linen card for the background to trim once the next few steps had been done

- a piece of the same black card stock as the card blank - I do chop up matching bought cards to match the main card where necessary - even black comes in goodness knows how many shades!

- I used an unbranded die (I know, glutton for punishment) to die cut one edge of the black piece of card - the die cuts beautifully. hooray! The die is from Amazon called 'Hearts Border'  - happy to send the link to anyone as I'm as sure as I can be that it's not a copy

- then I could trim the top and bottom edges of the hearts edged piece of black card and ensure it balanced with the dimensions of the main card blank by trimming the left side down to suit 

- I could also trim the white layer to leave a border - so in effect I worked backwards a bit and had to also trim approx. .25" from the top of the black card blank. I ended up with a card size that's balanced to suit the top layer of hearts - it's a trick I often use

- next, glued the white layer onto the card blank then added the black die cut layer

- for the patterned hearts I used snippets from Altenews 'Black and White' paper pack and a glue pen

- then dug out a snippet of Tonic pearlescent 'Red Velvet' card and die cut the little 'With Love' sentiment twice, using a dear little die from a Die'sire set of dies called 'TeaTime Sentiments' and layered them 

- used a SU mini punch to punch out a few hearts from another snippet of the 'Red Velvet' card before having a play around for positioning and then gluing them and the sentiment in place - finished!

The leftover snippets were so tiny, just little scraps and were whisked into the bin as I was working in 'secret' and Len was around. I swept a soft brush over the card after the photo was taken to remove those tiny specks of white - blow me, they're actually in the card stock itself and with the naked eye are practically invisible! Always makes me smile that the camera will pick up what you don't even know is there and yet it stubbornly witll ignore very obvious spakle and shine much of the time!  

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Darnell's NBUS Challenge # 71 - HERE The 'Hearts Border' die was having a first outing

Allsorts Challenge #816 - HERE The theme is Romance and/or Music. Nice one ladies!

Dudley Pupdate: Last Sunday morning we watched something extra on TV before getting out of bed. Right at the end of the programme, suddenly a pair of front paws appeared beside me practically tapping on the bed with impatience. I looked straight down at Dudley, he literally locked eyes with me and then very deliberately looked over at the digital clock on a unit at the other end of our bedroom! Len saw it as it happened as well, so I'm not losing the plot here! Basically, time was creeping beyond his after breakfast treat time and he was dropping a not too subtle hint! Or was it coincidence? Watch this space. 

Very importantly, the results of Challenge #498 are now published HERE.  

Do please come and play in Sarn's current challenge over in the Snippets Playground - numbers are looking good and we might end up with queues for the trampoline that has mysteriously appeared!

Also, Challenge #500 starts next Sunday  and there is a mandatory 'Celebration' theme to comply with if you wish to enter the 'picks and/or the prize draw'. Sarn says there WILL be cocktails. Mine's a Mojito please!

Love from myself and Dudley, xxx

Sunday Snippets - 'Beautiful!'

I wish I could say that I spent a few hours stencilling and stamping ......... using a variety of my languishing Distress inks to produce the background for my snippets card - but then I would grow a nose just like Pinnochio! Read further down to find out  more:

I used:

- A6 linen 'Pale Ivory' card blank, side opening

- the 'cheats' layer is actually a sheet from an A & C pack of A6 double sided design papers! They do several sets, and some of the backs have ATC sized 'grungy' stamping. I chose Set #7 'Papyrus' for a first play as the colours are more muted than some other sets.Trimmed slightly to measure quarter of an inch less than the card blank on all sides

- then stamped the flower onto the front panel using VersaFine Clair 'Morning Mist' ink and a stamp from Crafty Roo - bought in a clearance sale a little while ago for the massive sum of £1, sadly there's no name or reference number on the packet but I imagine that's a moot point as Kym' s stock absolutely flew out of the door in the clearance!

- at the same time, I also stamped another flower exactly the same, as well as one of the sentiments which also came in the pack, using the same ink - onto snippets of linen 'Pale Ivory' card

- I had already selected a piece of card for the plain backing layer and so went with Zig Brush pens to colour in the flower head and centre, plus the leaves - stamped onto the linen effect card - all ready for some fussy cutting

- glued the fussy cut parts of the flower and leaves onto the image panel

- glued the image panel onto the plain 'beige' piece of card and then added the 'framed' panel to the card front using very narrow foam tape for a bit of a 'lift'

- finally, trimmed the stamped sentiment and backed it with a snippet of card left over from backing the image - and then glued it in place. finished!

I found the designs to be pretty similar in the pack but well worth playing with if you would like to dip a toe into 'grungy backgrounds'. 

I've just ordered a warm grey TomBow brush pen from Amazon, hindsight tells me that black for any touching up arounf the fussy cut edges doesn't cut it if you actually stamped in grey! To be fair, in real life it's much less obvious - how fickle is the camera eh? The colours are less washed out in real life, but I'm fiddling around with my desk lamp and its many angles and functions here.

I would like to enter the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge #816 HERE - under the Anything Goes' Option. I LOVE the main theme which is 'Romance and/or Music. Perhaps I can make another card to join in - ANY help with kick starting inspiration here is alwaays welcome, right now I'm in a real 'slump'

Darnell's NBUS Challenge # 71 HERE

Dudley Pupdate: Dudley had a trim during the week - one hour session only but Len did a lot in that time and he looks good. Mind you, they were both exhausted from the 'fisticuffs' session that Dudley put Len through! My turn later today as he needs a thorough brush and comb, I did mention to Dudley that a b.a.t.h was in the offing before long. He totally ignored my hint and tapped me with his paw for a tummy rub! His annual vet's appointment is due very soon so I think we'll save that for sometime a few days beforehand.

We have a new Challenge #499 being run by our lovely Sarn over HERE. As always, Sarn has a lovely selection of items in the prize bundle to be won. AND, news of our' 500 Challenges' Anniversary as well! However did that happen?

Love from myself and Dudley,