Sunday Snippets - 'Art Deco - take two'

I really liked the Altenew card I made previously in an 'Art Deco' style - so when Altenew then brought out a set of 'Art Deco' frame dies, I was pushing my way to the front of the queue, of course:

I die cut the black flower outline using the fall out from cutting the frame

I used:

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

- a snippet of Tonic satin effect 'Black Velvet' card, literally just a tad larger than the size of the card front

- die cut it using Altenew's 'Deco Cover' die set  (three dies in the set BTW) - the largest one fits the USA A2 size perfectly. I used the satin effect 'Black Velvet' card to do this step and struggled a LOT. The usual issue of intricate dies cuts not wanting to leave the die itself was problem but I used waxed paper and that really helped a lot. Then the card itself wanted to keep 'peeling' its layers even as I gently worked with it. In future I think a perfectly plain and black all through card would work best with this particular naughty die! To be fair, it's the first Tonic card stock item I've ever found to be difficult - and thinking back, the same one on more than one occasion as well!

- once done, and  after lie down in a darkened room, I then glued the frame to the card front using a glue pen

- next came the flower - using a die by Altenew called 'Streamlined Sprig' and first I die cut the outer lines of the flower sprig, using the fallout from cutting the Art Deco frame - worked really fine just using my baby Altenew die cutting machine

- backed the flower heads and the leaf using little mauve and green snippets of shaded paper I found in the back of my much loved Lawn Fawn 'Watercolor Wishes' paper pad - I never throw a scrap of that paper out, so useful!

- then I could play with the Misti and the assembled 'sprig topper' to work out the right place to stamp the sentiment - using a piece of square printed clear acetate for alignment before doing a test  stamp onto the acetate to check, and then stamping a stamp from Woodware's 'Deco Sayings' onto the card itself (also used VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink). All inking was easily wiped off the Misti and the acetate with a Lawn Fawn Shammy  BTW

- finally, I then glued the flower sprig in place and called it a wrap!

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

Darnell's NBUS Challenge # 73 - HERE. The Altenew 'Deco Cover' set of dies were out for a first play

Allsorts Challenge #820 - HERE. The current challenge is 'Spring Flowers' but I doubt if these are any season really - so am entering under 'Anything Goes' 

Dudley Pupdate: This week Dudley (on Monday morning) was sick after spending time sucking his beloved Honka, sure sign it needs to be changed. Len just grabbed old Honka and marched off with him, Honks, to the bin. Monday is collection day so no second chances there - poor old Honks! And then he came back with ..... yes, another duplicate fresh Honka from Mama's store in the garage and plonked it in front of Dudley - no arguments allowed. Talk about 'tough love'. Dudley was almost sat in shock - me too kiddo! Dudley and I were just looking at one another for a while.

But how odd, an hour or so later, the postie called with a delivery - and Dudley always runs for his precious Honka before he goes into meltdown. He was so distraught that he grabbed new Honka without even thinking .................... and they've been best friends ever since!  Hmm?!

Very importantly, the results of Challenge #502 are now published HERE.

Do please come and play in Sarn's current challenge over in the Snippets Playground - we have glorious sunshine right now and need help with putting up a gazebo or two, to protect those little freckled faces! Dudley, on his little stilts, will be at the ready for you to pay attention to his 'barked' directions. 

As if! That always reminds me of the indignant image of a sweet little white puppy, with the caption 'Today I barked at the postman ................... then he laughed'!  Oh, and already - Dudley's hair is growing back at a rate of knots! Hooray!!

Love from myself and Dudley, xxx

Sunday Snippets - 'smile'

A fairly pink card from me:

I used:

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

- used an Altenew 'Bold Floral' stamp and Clair VersaFine 'Morning Mist' inkpad to stamp the flower onto a snippet of the same white card as the card blank (I have a 'thing' about whites being the same shade)

- then coloured the flower using Arteza Watercolour pencils and a fine brush

- die cut the flower using a matching die and set it to one side

- die cut a lattice panel from a snippet of Tonic pearlised 'Luna Silver', using a lovely unbranded die gifted to me by a kind friend and also set that to one side

- die cut the pink frame from a 5.25" x 4" snippet of pink linen effect card, using a die from Penny Black's 'stitched frames' set of dies - which left me with the centre as a further snippet for future use

- backed the pink frame with a 5" x 3.75" snippet of the same white card using very narrow red line tape

- at that point I could pop the frame with the white centre panel into the Misti and juggle the silver lattice die cut and the flower about to position the 'smile' sentiment, before removing the lattice and flower then stamping the sentiment using 'Morning Mist' again. The sentiment is from the Funky Fossil 'Making Memories' set of stamps that were part of the prize in Challenge #480 

- then stuck the lattice panel onto the front panel using Stix2 micro dots

- adhered the flower using thin sticky pads

- finally, stuck the front panel onto the card front using very narrow foam tape - and the glue stick trick of course

And, whilst everything was out on the desk I made a second card almost the same, just changing the colours:

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

- Darnell's NBUS challenge #63 - HERE- the lattice die was having its first outing

- Allsorts Challenge #785 HERE - under the 'Anything goes' option

- Creations in Pink - Challenge #71 HERE

Dudley Pupdate: The other day, Len spotted a new bit of cooperation between Dudley and myself that I'd been keeping quiet until we both perfected it. Honka Duck is a pretty big thing for such a small chap to carry at the same time as he uses a strategically placed footstool to hop up onto our bed. So, if I'm sitting either in or on the side of our bed he brings Honka to me and holds him up in the air. That's my signal to take Honka from him and put him onto our bed so that Dudley can then skip around to the foot of the bed and hop up. It worked so seamlessly and Len's jaw did drop. 'How did he learn that one? was his question, at which I just shrugged as if it was the simplest thing in the world! Little does he know how long we've been working on it!

It was my turn for a little surprise on Thursday when I couldn't find Dudley anywhere - suddenly I spotted him and had to grab my camera to take this photo:

Len was sitting at his desk playing the guitar and Dudley was on his 'lookout' fleece covered table beside him .......... with his head resting on Len's arm as he dreamily absorbed some Spanish melodies! Apparently he was like that for around 20 minutes, I wonder it it's in his DNA? Havanese are descended from dogs of the Bichon variety that were originally taken to Cuba (hence the Havana link) by Spanish Traders many years ago. Len says my theory is 'barking' mad - ha, ha!

Remember, the results from Challenge #481  are now published in the Snippets Playground HERE 

Hope to see you on the swings for the current challenge as that runs for almost another week.

Love as always, Dudley and yours truly,

Sunday Snippets - Easter Greetings

Happy Easter everyone! And, in many places, including the UK, we put our clocks forward at 2am on Sunday - easy to remember 'Fall, back, Spring, forward'. It always takes me a few days to get over that lost hour of sleep!

There's a new Challenge being run by Sarn, over in the Snippets Playground HERE. 

My snippets card for today used snippets of pale ivory linen card for the lily, leaf and the backing layer underneath the lily, as well as underneath the lilac coloured frame to peep through the die cut corners:

I used:

- 5.25" x 4" pale ivory linen card blank, tent style

- used Altenew's 'Layered Lily' stamp and matching die set for the flower and leaf- stamping them using a set of SU teeny stamp pads I've had for many years and of course the Misti to help with positioning the layers

- then die cut the flower and leaf before putting it to one side

- to create the lilac 'frame' I used a die from Penny Black's 'Stitched Frames' set of dies to cut into the centre of a piece of  5" x 3.75" lilac card stock

- for the centre panel I used the same Penny Black die to cut into a snippet of pale ivory card. just slightly bigger than the aperture 

- used SU's 'Old Olive' to stamp the Easter Greeting, using an unbranded stamp from a set of Easter stamps

- adhered the pale ivory centre panel to the 'fallout centre' piece of lilac card from when the lilac frame was die cut - this was to add more stability and the 'image panel' stands ever so slightly proud as a result, which is a nice effect in real life 

- still not finished with faffing with the frame, I trimmed a snippet of pale ivory linen card to a whisker smaller than the lilac frame and adhered it to the back of the frame so it showed through the corners of the die cut frame before flipping it over and popping in the centre panel

- used very narrow double sided foam tape, with a glue stick, to adhere both the framed image panel in place

- added the lily leave using a glue pen and then the lily flower was added using thin sticky pads

- finally, popped three Memory Box 'Fairy Drops' on and called it done!

Using the Altenew layering stamps and dies is good fun, once you get the hang of it. I bought them in a closing down sale, I'd hesitate to buy at full price what is effectively one flower and a leaf.

On the other hand, you do sometimes get what you pay for with unbranded goods. The Easter sentiments set is really lovely (Amazon UK) but the stamps are soft and floppy and clearly not polymer. I expect they won't stand up to rigorous use. However, they do stamp well plus it's a set I won't use very much anyhow so I can live with that.

I'm entering this card into Darnells NBUS #60 Challenge HERE. The Altenew stamps and dies, Easter sentiment stamps and also the Penny Black set of 'Stitched Frames' were all having a first outing.

Dudley Pupdate: I had a wry smile over in the Snippets Playground when I read that Sarn and I, ably assisted by Dudley, had been hiding Easter eggs! Dudley was doing the 'hole digging' apparently - and lately his doggie instincts have caused some fun here. He's a 'grazer' and likes nothing more than a dish of freshly raw chopped vegetables. Diced sweet (not hot) baby peppers go in a shot and he leaves the diced carrots to sustain him whenever he fancies a nibble, until the remainder are ditched each evening and a fresh lot prepared for him. Obviously he has other food at breakfast and for dinner and our vet is very happy about his diet. His teeth are doing fine but to continue along that road we recently decided to add a whole small carrot into the fun each day to encourage him to chew using his back teeth - which he loved. Err, until, Len found a day old one hidden away in the corner of his study, much as a dog would bury a bone! Dudley looked pretty sheepish when he realised he'd been rumbled and I'm currently standing beside the ladder up to the Playground Treehouse ............... waiting to have a little word in Sarn's ear! 

 /) /)

 (-.-)
0_(“)(“)

With love from Dudley and myself, 

Because

Literally months ago, I started making some cards to use as notelets, to send with prizes or 'just because'. I recently finished making the last ones, 10 all the same:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- piece of white card covered with Altenew 'Painted Fantasy' washi tape, then trimmed to 4" x 4"

- wrapped a strip of plain vellum across the lower part of the panel, using red line tape to adhere it to the back

- die cut the word 'because' out of gold mirri card - using a 'because' die by Lil'Inker Designs (bought in a sale when they announced they were closing down) 

- added the die cut 'because' to the vellum using a glue pen

- mounted the panel onto a marginally bigger square of SU's 'Certainly Celery' card, using Collall All Purpose glue

- mounted those panels onto a marginally bigger square of gold mirri card

- and finally added the completed panel to the card front - finito!

The light here was dreadful when I took this photo - but, I suddenly remembered that the desk lamp I bought about a year ago not only dims but the 'warmth' adjusts in steps as, well from crisp daylight white to a cosy warm setting. I keep meaning to ask Len how that works - but it's jolly useful. I generally like a warm light if I'm not taking a photo, colouring or matching stuff and it's great to have the option.

I've seen folk using vellum on top of bold patterns and wanted to have a go for ages. And right now am crackers (who just said 'we know you are'?) over so many of the lovely wide washi tapes on the market.

I'd like to add this card into Darnell's current NBUS challenge #31 HERE. The washi tape and the sentiment were having their first outing - and my card was inspired by a card Darnell sent to me for my Birthday, last September! See, I don't rush into things very often.

Speaking of rushing, my comments are lagging, even for Challenge #412 and I do so apologise, but with good reason in some ways. I was given a super (hinted at, I cannot lie) Gemini Junior die cutting/embossing machine for my Birthday by Len a few weeks ago. I think the agonised moans and groans using the Cuttlebug from in here helped! So, have been clearing out bookcase shelves to make space for either the machine as a die cutting dedicated space and/or some reorganising in the craft room.

Today, Monday, I posted several books onto a local Facebook free 'give or need' (they call it a 'whisking' site) - and they went just like that, clicks fingers in a snappy fashion! I now have a direct link with the lady concerned and she will take all the books we wish to give and she will either keep, re-offer for free on a whisking site or take them to local charity shops. She never resorts to recycling or landfill so it's a win, win for us - even IF she does sell some of them on, and I do know that some are slightly more rare/valuable ones. I'm getting more SPACE to play, and that's worth a lot of money in my 'book'! Snigger - that pun just popped out, I promise!! So, if I'm a bit quiet - that's the bombshell that just landed in my lap and I really can't let the chance pass.

 

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,

Friends are special treasures

I wanted to make a run of cards, to enclose with the backlog of Snippets Playground prizes which are still here, waiting to be posted off to the winners at some point. I made a run of 10 cards, all the same, using a sentiment stamp which is a great favourite of mine 'Friends are special treasures'. I always think of SaRn when I use this lovely stamp set as I first spotted it over on her blog, a good few years ago now. And also, during this lock down, my blogging friends have become even more precious - if that were possible. Len calls it my 'lifeline to the World' - and he's so right at times.

And once again, I did a bit of cheating. This time with the NBUS Altenew floral border on the cards, see what you think:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" (a2) white card blank, tent style

- cut some 6" x 6" squares of card using the same white card (I actually just halved some of the same card blanks I often use to cut down for the A2 size). These panels were destined to be trimmed down further but if you read on you'll hopefully understand why I did this

- and this is the 'cheats bit' - I used a NBUS product by Altenew (bought it from Seven Hills Crafts) called 'Vibrant Spray Die Cut Tape'. Oh boy, how I LOVE this stuff!

- for each front panel I cut a length of the die cut tape approximately 6" long, peeled off the backing and then adhered it along the bottom edge

- next, I lined up the panel in my guillotine so that one bottom edge of the die cut tape would be cut straight across. Just a question of making sure no white card was left showing, whilst keeping as much of the floral design as possible, and plenty of spare card left above the tape

- then I trimmed the sides to 5.25" width and then across the top of the panel at 4". That allowed me a little bit of 'wiggle room' on either side of the panel to line up the edge cuts as well as possible taking the floral pattern into account. Any slightly 'odd' looking tall parts of the design at the very edges can be easily peeled back and trimmed with small scissors to give a more pleasing effect.

- stamped the sentiment onto the panel using the 'Friends are special treasures' stamp from the Hero Arts 'Live Life' set of sentiment stamps, the Misti and another NBUS item, Versafine's Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad (huge thanks to Kathleen for recommending this - it's brilliant!)

- final step was to glue the panel to the front of the card blank - simples!

These really were great fun to make, particularly for a batch making session, and I've spotted an idea for a different design using the same tape. The way things are going it'll be while until I get those packages posted so there will be a few more winners by then and a few more message cards to be made to include with prizes.

I adore the Altenew border, and you actually get 5 metres on a roll, so although the initial outlay isn't exactly cheap, you'll get a good few cards out of it! They have other designs but this is my favourite, I would be thrilled if they bring out one in a Christmas design needless to say.

A couple of things, the Altenew tape border is very slightly 'off-white' and my card stock here is all bright white. I would have hopped into the car and nipped down the road to Hobbycraft for a pack of slightly off-white card blanks - but of course that's not an option at the moment.

I do love the Versafine Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad, it gives such a strong black stamping straight away. However, it's so juicy that you can actually see a faint shading on the reverse of the card, so possible best avoided for one layer cards - unless you sneakily back the inside of the front of the card with a slightly smaller panel of card of course.

Both the above points are purely down to my tendency towards OCD when crafting, this I freely admit!

I'd like to enter this into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #14 May 2020. I love this challenge, so thrilled that Darnell has brought it back. Of course the Altenew tape is my NBUS item, as well as the Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad.

Typing this when I really should be baking. It's too late to begin now so it looks as if I'll be forced to do some more crafting. At long last, I feel as if Mr Mojo is peeking round the door ready to return - I have loads of ideas for Christmas, snippets and other occasion cards racing round in my head! Hooray, it's not before time.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #328

Phew, time for yet another challenge in the Snippets Playground, and this time it's a much smaller prize than the previous fortnight's. Still a 'good 'un' though I think!

Here's my snippets card for this week - made for Bradley (Len's great-nephew) when he had a Birthday yesterday. I used a brown snippet for the backing plus a white snippet to stamp the 'block' design onto, so they aren't small snippets but still came from my snippets/scraps folder which means I can play along - snort:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of white card onto which I stamped the image using an Altenew 'Galactic Stream' ink pad and a fabulous and very bold stamp from Uniko called 'Block Party Birthday'

- then backed the panel with a piece of slightly bigger brown card from the snippets folder

- glued the image and its backing to the card front and called it done!

I've had the stamp in the Playground toy box (along with my own identical stamp of course) for months now. I needed to make a card quickly and this came to the rescue - male cards really do give me issues. Mind you, this would also make a great girly card of course - and my next try will be white on black which I bet could look very impressive! I've also seen it with parts coloured in and that really looks super, great for kids perhaps? That one grabs me the most for variation for sure. Possibilities, possibilities!

Here's some of the lowdown on my 'adventures' whilst making this card. I started off with my one and only full set of four Altenew ('Sweet Dreams') ink pads and the intention of making the card graduate in shades (ombre). But time was against me and when I hit issues (despite covering parts up with paper as I went) I just reverted to a single colour - the darkest one in the set - using the Misti of course.

I love Uniko stamps (and in fact have a gift voucher in front of me that a lovely blogger friend sent me earlier this year - still to spend, wahoo!). But, like many polymer stamps, they seem to have a sort of icky and almost oily film on them when new, which makes the ink quite patchy if you don't clean them before using them for a first time. It's possibly ink dependent as well (am sure Kathy K once put me on the right track) but I think the secret is to perhaps wash them in soapy water, rinse and let them dry naturally - but of course, I was in a rush wasn't I?!

Anyhow, I got there in the end - but Dumbo hadn't thought about the pad being 'dye' ink had she?! So, I ended up with blue finger tips 'cos I was using a sponge to apply the ink to the stamp. Just behind me, on a cupboard shelf there's a huge pack of disposable gloves, but of course it was too late when I realised. And I mean DEEP blue hands!

I love brown and teal together so the brown backing card was an easy choice when it jumped up out of the snippets folder!

And here's this week's Snippets Playground prize - no surprise at all:

It's a Uniko 'Block Party Birthday' stamp of course - and I do generally buy Uniko stamps in DVD sized cases for easy storage, like I did with this one.

Sadly I can't get hold of a single Altenew ink pad the same as the one I used as it's a really lovely colour - so this time we have a smaller prize than we've had lately. It's still one I think you really would have fun with if you read the options for use I mused upon above here. It was a fluke that Tara from Seven Hills Crafts had the single pink stamps she sent me - all UK companies seem to just stock them in sets.

And of course, I hope numbers will still be up as (with luck) you come to play for the fun as much as anything!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 23rd June. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry and 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're wanting 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 - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I ignore you on my little list..

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the winner of last fortnight's bumper of Concord & 9th 'Everyday Tintables', a Concord & 9th 'Fabulous Phrases set of five dies and an Altenew 'Puffy Pink' ink pad.

The hedgies contine to vist - Len (so sweet) has been saying they're 'fighting' a bit. Ha! Just wait until the patter of little prickles :) Perhaps I need to tell him about the birds and the bees! In fact, we had three of them prancing around the garden the other night! So funny, despite two feeding stations, they were patiently queued up waiting for their turn at the main one. We caught it on CCTV but were fast asleep ourselves at the time.

And then, on Friday evening Len went out late to check the hedgies and there, right in the centre of the garden, sat a smallish hedgie. As Len approached, it looked up at him so trustingly with such a sweet little face and made no attempt to curl up or run away. An enchanting moment to treasure - and of course he didn't have the camera to hand, sigh. But - sometimes it's what goes into our memories that is more important - although I would have loved a photo to share with you of course.

And we have another visitor but one that would be really hard to capture on camera. For a couple of years now we've thought we had a little wren living in the honeysuckle-clad arbour at the end of the PG/garden. These evenings it's becoming more bold and what a delight to see as we sit watching the comings and goings before dinner. But, wrens are very shy and also very fast as well so only time will tell.

And, the little blue tits fledged and flew away when we weren't around. They were totally ready to go earlier in the week and it's really odd having their little nest box so silent.

Happy days!

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,