Butterfly Birthday

Had to make a card in a bit of a rush for a friend's Birthday so decided to dig out a NBUS stamp set, then whipped this card up:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank, side opening

- piece of Core-dinations purple card, cut to 4.75" square and glued onto the card front

- piece of white card stock, cut to 4.5" square

- used stamps from Woodware's NBUS 'Mosaic Butterfly Round' set of stamps, the Misti and a Ranger 'Black Archival' ink pad to stamp the large butterfly mosaic stamp and a sentiment (the set comes with a choice of five sentiments) first of all

- then positioned a corner stamp from the same set of stamps and stamped all four corners, turning the square piece of card by 90 degrees each time - hooray for the Misti!

- coloured the image panel using my long-neglected Zig brush pens - straight onto the card so the colours are rather bright ☺

- glued the panel onto the layer of purple card - finished!

Another time using the Zigs, I really must have a play at diluting the colours and try to use them more 'artistically' with some blending. Need to watch some You Tube videos first - as well as allow more time! 

This stamp set would be great to use on acetate as a clear window, coloured with Pro markers and set into a big circular aperture.

It wasn't until the card was finished, I realised I could have changed the colours I used, in order to enter Mrs. A's Butterfly Challenge. Sometimes I think my single brain cell goes on strike!

18th Birthday card for Ben

One of Len's Great-Nephews celebrated his 18th Birthday recently, and finally I remembered to re-use a stamp I'd bought a while ago for such Birthdays. This is the card I made:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- a piece of patterned paper, white spots on black, from the Altenew 'Essential Black and White' paper pack, cut slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- stamped the main elements of the image onto a piece of white card stock using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the Woodware '18th Birthday' stamp set - and of course the Misti!

- then stamped the number 18 onto a piece of diagonally striped black and white paper from the same patterned paper pack

- carefully fussy cut the number 18 out and glued it onto the white stamped image - making sure I ran a black Whispers marker round the edge of the fussy cutting first, this hides any little white bits that might otherwise show up :)

- trimmed the image panel to required size and glued it to the centre of the card front

The Altenew paper pack is very stylish and lends itself nicely to cards such as this one.

Little tip when you need to fussy cut any apertures - which I had to do on the number eight, top and bottom. Use a hand punch to punch one or more holes in the aperture first. It makes fussy cutting so much easier and you don't run the risk of ruining the stamped image by trying to poke the end of a pair of sharp scissors through to get started.

Happy Birthday Len!

Today it's Len's Birthday, not 'a milestone one' but he's clocking up the mileage as they say - albeit just two years ahead of me anyhow :)

Again, the day after we came home from Cornwall, I locked myself in the craft room in a flat panic when I should have been 'doing wash loads'. I made a card for Len from me (see Sunday's Snippets post), a card for Mia in Germany and also this card - from little Dudley to his 'Dad' for his Birthday:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank, side opening

- then stamped the image and words onto a piece of white card using a really cute Woodware set of stamps called 'Puppy Boots', the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- thankfully, with Dudley being mostly white, I just needed to colour his boots/wellies with blue Pro markers to match the blue card I'd chosen to use for the 'frame' layer - along with a little touch of champagne/peach colour for his ears

- next followed a fair old bit of careful trimming down of the image to keep it as centred as possible

- a piece of blue card for the 'frame' cut to size and glued in place onto the card front

- topped the frame with the image panel and there we were - all done!

You might think the pooch is a bit skinny looking compared to Dudley - but when he's wet he doesn't look all that different to the image - apart from the wellies!

I did add an insert, along the lines of 'Next time remember to get me some wellies too'. A reference to the image, which turned out to be SO apt, and the fact that Len was fine trotting around our little Cornish garden in front of the cottage in his wellies - but poor ole Dudley had to be toweled, rubbed and wiped dry most of the time. The morning dew, and what spasmodic rain we had, meant that 'rarely' did he escape a 'good ole toweling down'! Often it was before he was even allowed to poke his nose inside the cottage, poor little scrap. He's so funny, at one point he truly did look like the 'ET image in the bicycle', with his head wrapped in a towel.

But, as I said already, he totally loved the different outlook and the sheep, the sheep! We did laugh one evening when we knew he was indoors with us but we couldn't find him - and there wasn't that far to search either. So we left him and were on the sofa, idly chatting with the TV on after dinner. Eventually the floor length curtains began to move as this little lump shuffled along. He was behind the curtains, against the huge floor length window/doors - looking longingly at the field where the small flock of sheep were. Either that or he was stargazing?

A card for the current Butterfly Challenge #95

As soon as I spotted 'pink and paper piecing' as optional themes on Mrs A's Butterfly 'all the P's' challenge - there was no holding me back. Especially as a lovely blogging buddy just very recently gifted me a pre-loved 'Zentangle style' stamp, which she thought would be good for paper piecing - and it has a butterfly on it!!

In the end, I also added pearls as well - but just couldn't run to patterned paper and peach (the other two options) without losing sight of the bright, modern and funky card I had in mind. Adding the pearls was stretching it a bit, but I do think they work OK-ish:

I used:

- white DL card

- a slightly smaller layer of white card cut to size, which I edged right round for about half an inch or a bit less, using a purple Pro marker (didn't have any bright enough purple card here - and this is one trick I do keep forgetting to use!)

- at the same time I also swiped the purple Pro marker over a couple of snippets of white card - in case my trimming went wrong! 

- glued the 'purple edged' card onto the card front

- then took a piece of white card not yet trimmed to size and, using the Misti, stamped the lovely floral image and a sentiment in Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink in the centre. Thanks to Kath I now know that the pre-loved stamp set is made by Woodware and is called 'Tulip Doodle'

- whilst the Misti was set up I also stamped the floral 'Zentangle' image onto paper in almost neon shades of pink and green (goodness knows how old they are!) - as well as the butterfly onto little pieces of purple card I'd coloured with Pro markers. Over time I've learned that if you do have enough paper/card then it's really best to stamp extra in case of mistakes when trimming the images for paper piecing

- then trimmed the white card panel with the stamped image and sentiment down to size, before going any further

- next carefully trimmed around the leaves, flowers and butterfly that had been stamped onto coloured paper/card (I use very small Fiskars embroidery scissors, kept purely for paper cutting). Then ran a black Whispers pen around the edges just to keep the outlines as crisp as possible (if you do this, don't use a Pro marker or similar, as it will bleed - I learned this the hard way a very long time ago!)

- using a Zig glue pen (the bullet shaped one where you can apply wide or very narrow lines of glue), I then, step by step, added glue to the card front images and popped the leaves, flower heads and butterfly in place

- final touch, little pearls on the stems where the stamp design had already drawn circles as well as on the centre of the butterfly's body- just to add dimension, emphasise the butterfly theme and also make this up to FOUR of Mrs A's 'theme choices'

I realised afterwards that I could have just pretended to do some paper piecing and used Pro markers to do the colouring - so here's the proof:

Such a pretty stamp and also I'm delighted that Mrs A has widened the choices of themes and colours. You still have almost a week left to join in! The link is above right at the top of this post and prizes can be won :)

Rudolph Days - February 2017

Running in at the last minute with my entry for this month's Rudolph Days challenge over at ScrappyMo's. February being such a short month always catches me out in so many ways - not least some serious slippage on my planned target of making 12 Christmas cards per month!

Anyhow, I had a NBUS stamp to play with and also made four cards the same while I was at it:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- piece of white card onto which I stamped Woodware's 'Snow Post' stamp using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the Misti - as already said, I made a batch of four in one go

- coloured the image using Pro markers

- then I faced cutting round all those curves to retain the 'edge of a postage stamp' look.......aak! After some thought I trimmed straight down all sides using scissors. The stamp's outer edge isn't totally 'in line', that's part of the design though, so using a trimmer was out and it had to be scissors

- and here's the sneaky part, I cut each of those half moons out using a normal office single hole punch! It still took a while but nowhere near as long as fussy cutting would have taken :)

- mounted the image onto a slightly larger piece of red card and then onto a slightly larger piece of black card

- just glued the image panel onto the plain card front and called it a day - times four

I think the stamped image itself does most of the work really, so refrained from adding a sentiment or anything else - plus the background to the stamp has lots of Christmassy greetings in small print as it is.

Still a bit behind with Christmas card target though but some serious 'batch baking' in March should help!

18th Birthday card for Edward

One of Len's great-nephews just celebrated his 18th Birthday and this is the card I made for him:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- navy blue card cut slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- a whole sheet (shock, horror) of card from the DCWV 'Juniper Berry' stack, cut slightly smaller than the navy layer and then glued to the card front

- stamped the main elements of the image onto a piece of white card stock using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the Woodware '18th Birthday' stamp set - and of course the Misti!

- then stamped the number 18 onto a snippet of greeny/blue card from the same patterned paper stack

- carefully fussy cut the number 18 out and glued it onto the white stamped image - making sure I ran a black Whispers marker round the edge of the fussy cutting first, this hides any little white bits that might otherwise show up :)

- trimmed the image panel to required size, backed it with navy card and glued it to the centre of the card front

I'm hoping to get my money's worth out of this stamp as Edward is followed by three more young men who will be turning 18 within a couple of years. Plan ahead! :)

Addicted to CAS - Challenge 100 - 'Monster'

Determined to join in with Addicted to CAS where the theme is 'Monster' right now,  I spotted an unused set of 'monster' stamps here in one of the NBUS boxes - so it would have been rude not to play really!

I used:

- 5" x 7"white card blank, tent style

- piece of slightly smaller white card, embossed using one of the Cuttlebug 'Coolio' set of four embossing folders and glued onto the card front

- a stamp from the Woodware 'The Blimps' set, stamped onto white card stock using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and coloured using Pro markers

- then I die cut a 'Polaroid' frame using the Lil' Inkers 'Instant Camera' die 

- stamped the words 'Selfie time' using  Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the 'Good to be Bad' set by Clearly Besotted

- then positioned the image how I wanted it behind the frame with one arm 'out of shot', trimmed it to size and stuck it in place using very narrow red line tape

- added the frame with image to the card front

- finally glued a couple of goggly eyes in place

I quite like the 'outer space' feel of the embossing folder - cue spooky Martians music :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 221

OK, who stole this past week then? I can't believe how fast it flew by! The weather has been up and down - Parsnip is switching between a body warmer and his sunshades!

This week I have two snippets cards of mine to share - I was on a roll the other afternoon and spent a couple of hours stamping and colouring. This is the first card I made:

I used:

- white DL sized card blank

- stamped the image onto a snippet of white card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the fabulous Woodware 'Boxed Daisies Trio' stamp

- also stamped the image onto a snippet of spotty mauve paper from the Wild Rose Studio 'Wintry Christmas' paper pack - you'll see why in a minute

- coloured the image on the white card using Pro Markers and then trimmed round the inner edge, cutting carefully around the leaves and petals which flow out of the frame

- next I trimmed the outer edge of the spotty mauve stamped image, leaving the black edge showing

- that formed a mauve spotty frame so it was just a case of gluing the coloured image in place

- stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Stampendous 'Happy Messages' set - directly onto the card front - ha, before doing anything else!

- glued the image panel in place on the card front and added a tickle of clear Wink of Stella' to the daisy centres

- confession - I'd done a little bit of wonky cutting on the right hand side of the image and needed to cover up the mistake so I die cut three butterflies from a deeper mauve snippet of the same spotty paper and stuck two on the image and one just fluttering inside the sentiment. Really I'd have preferred not to have added the butterflies - but needs must when the Devil drives :(

- added little mauve sparkly gems to the butterflies

This is the second snippets card I made - told you I was on a roll:

I used:

- white DL sized card blank, again

- stamped the image onto a snippet of white card using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and another fabulous Woodware stamp called 'Cone Flower'

- coloured the image on the white card using Pro Markers and Whispers Marker pens for the fine detail such as flicking the little hairs onto the flower centres

- added clear Wink of Stella to the flower petals and the leaves

- then trimmed round the inner edge of the frame leaving a white band right round the frame

- mounted the image onto a snippet of black card stock, trimmed to just a teensy bit bigger than the image panel it was just a case of gluing the coloured image in place

- stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Stampendous 'Happy Messages' set - directly onto the card front - again, before doing anything else! The words 'Thank You' were in one line, so with heart in mouth I carefully snipped them apart - much more versatile now

- glued the image panel in place on the card front

I love both of these stamps, they're quite fresh and funky looking and there's also scope to paper piece.

Onto the weekly 'peek at the picks', which gets tougher all the time. I know we don't have a theme each week, other than use snippets, but I decided to make the first three of this week's picks all Easter related:

Love this sweet little Easter basket, brought to share with us by Tiziana. Such a cute little bunny as well :)

How clever is this mug, holding Easter treats, made by Carol L. A really great idea and the traditional Easter colours are fabulous too.

I really smiled at this sweet bunnies card - made by Sam (Whisper). They do look as if they're celebrating :)

Onto a few other entries with some clever ideas for you to think about:

Such a pretty card, made by Heather. I love the design but what really adds even more to the card are those layers on the little lady's dress - they're vellum which has been inked in different colours and the effect is just fabulous!

And here's a totally amazing card, made by Janis of Her Peaceful Garden. I love the finished card in any case but (although some of you have already hopped over to comment) - I wonder if you can guess how those beautiful background roses were stamped? Think lettuce and you'd be getting warmer. Go and see - you won't regret it!

And last, but by no means least, how about this glorious card - made by Diane H? I just adore it and how clever to have all those beautiful flowers peeping out of the turned down corner. Amazing - and a delight to look at.

We had no new Playmates this week, although with 57 entries the Playground was still busy of course.

Time for the prize draw for the House Mouse stamp, and those lovely dies donated by Barb. And our winner is:

Meg

Well done Meg, your last win was August 2015 so it's good to see your name first out of the hat this week. I still have your address and will post the prize off to you this week.

I'm a bit conscious that those of you who opt for just one part of a prize might feel that your name never seems to come up as a winner. Please rest assured that I'm very happy to split prizes even though it would cost extra postage - so don't feel it lessens your chances! It's just the luck of the draw, everyone has an equal chance now and it's far better that you don't win something you don't really want. So please still feel free to opt for just part of a prize, Mr Random will pick you sooner or later I'm sure.

Now here's this coming week's prize(s):

Linked to today's snippets cards - it's two of the same Woodware stamps that I used on my cards today ('Boxed Daisies Trio' and Cone Flower').

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 26th March. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. If you only want to play for one or other of the stamps then just say so in a comment - if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining part(s) of the prize. But, both stamps are up as one complete prize if you so wish of course. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

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 :)

Di and, of course, Parsnip!
x

Merry Monday #195 - Buttons

The current challenge over at Merry Monday is 'Buttons'. At first I thought I was stumped, partly as although I do have some buttons in Christmas colours - the cost of large letter stamps gives me the shudders! Then spotted that Bonnie had made her buttons out of card, remembered a little used SU 'Buttons' Embosslits - and away I went. This was the result:

I used:

- 4.75" x 4.75" square white card blank

- snippet of baby blue pearlescent card for the 'frame', trimmed to size

- snippet of white card for the image, stamped using Memento 'London Fog' ink and a stamp from the Woodware set called 'JGCL535 Bubble Wreath' then trimmed to a tiny bit a smaller than the blue 'frame'

- next, using the SU 'Sweet Buttons' Embosslits die I cut some smallish buttons using snippets of blue, mauve and maroon card

- worked out where I wanted them to sit on the wreath by placing them onto the clear stamps and just moving them round until I was happy - at that point thinking I'd pick out various matching Pro Markers to colour the smaller 'bubbles'

- changed mind and coloured the smaller bubbles pink and glued the 'buttons' 

- hated the pink but not wanting to waste all that work I just coloured over the pink with Silver Wink of Stella

- gave the 'buttons' a coat of clear Wink of Stella 

- die cut the bow using a die from the fabulous Penny Black 'Swirl Wreath' set and 'medium sticky' backed Maroon card snippet and stuck it onto the wreath

Needless to say, the sparkle is lovely in real life!

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playgrounds Weeks 208/209 Celebration - Prize G

Today this is the snippets card I made. It was made a while back so it has appeared on my blog previously as am still taking things fairly easy here:

I used:

- 4" x 6" Kraft card blank

- robin and holly stamps from the Woodware 'Tweet Birds' set (in fact these little guys could be coloured differently to make little blue tits or such), stamped onto a snippet of white card and coloured with Pro Markers

- then cut with a die from the Spellbinders 'Resplendent Rectangles' set and a little red gem added as the holly berry

- sentiment was stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' using a stamp from the Personal Impressions 'Many Greetings' set

- the background papers are snippets from LOTV's 'Classic Christmas' paper pad

I wonder how many of you have noticed that LOTV have very few different paper pads in their online shop now? They were down to just 10 different ones when I last peeked. They've moved to smaller premises and closed their lovely shop. Also my impression, from a newsletter, is that they will be concentrating on stamps and some of the peripheral supplies will no longer be sold. I suspect that this is almost certainly the paper pads - these are showing as limited stocks right now. Such a shame as I loved their papers, and do wonder what else might follow in the reduction of their ranges - so this could be last chance saloon ladies! :(

And this is today's prize:

It's the stamp set I used on my snippets card - a Woodware 'Tweet Birds' stamp set with nine little birdies for you to play with, plus a couple of sentiments and two holly sprigs. The birds are about 1.25" in size - would be cute for paper piecing too :) Most importantly, I have three sets of these stamps to give away. 


As usual, just add a comment underneath this post if you'd like to be in the draw for today's prize of the 'Tweet Birds' stamp sets. At the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session using Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE - so you do have to have entered at least one snippets make to be in with a chance :) Maximum of three entries please.

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playground Weeks 208/209 Celebration - Prize C

Time for another 'Snippets Playground Celebration' prize - and this is my snippets card. It's another bit of a cheat as this card was originally made back in November 2013 and here it is again - shame on me though, I haven't used the stamp since then:

 

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- Woodware 'Tipsy Tree' stamp, the trunk was coloured with a Pro Marker and the rest paper pieced using snippets of different papers from Wild Rose Studio's 'Wintry Christmas' Paper pack then it was mounted onto a snippet of plain turquoise card

- another snippet of plain turquoise card, topped with pink spotty backing paper and a snippet band across the centre from the same patterned paper pack

- sentiment was stamped directly onto the finished image using a stamp from the 'Tipsy Tree' set plus Memento 'Elderberry' ink pad

- white Josy Rose nail heads to finish off

And here's today's prize - as if you can't guess - and there's just the one of these to be won. Look though, you get three sizes of trees and also some great sentiments (which I've used with other images on totally different cards) - oh and you get robins, stars and such:

It's a Woodware 'Tipsy Tree' stamp set, same as the one I used. The drill as usual is to add a comment underneath this post if you'd like to be in the draw for this particular prize. I've seen this stamp used in lots of different ways and can't understand why I haven't made more use of mine!

Now, this is important girls, I possibly didn't make is clear enough but of course you can leap in throughout the whole giveaway and say 'yes please' to as many prizes as you like .... even if you haven't already made and entered your snippets make into Mr Linky at that point in time.

Your 'yes please' will certainly be in the pot when it comes to the grand draw, so long as you've entered into Mr Linky by then. At the end of this I'll be using Mr Linky as the focus for the random choices so please feel free to squeal with delight at as many prizes as you wish and say some 'yes pleases' on the way through the festive season - just remember to add at least one snippets make into Mr Linky to be in with a chance.

As already said, at the end of all of the celebrations I'll do a massive draw session for all the prizes using Mr Linky - which is on the main snippets post HERE - so you do need to have entered at least one snippets make over on that post to be in with a chance - think I hammered that one home enough huh? :) Still a maximum of three entries please.

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 201

Phew, that was one busy week in the Playground, what happened? 107 entries, that's what happened!! Loads of celebrations, led by the usual renegades suspects needless to say :) Parsnip was on the hunt for illicit brewing - and judging from his massive hangovers during the week he was very successful!

I think the Playground gates may have closed an hour early yesterday, if they did then I'm really sorry - I did set the time right on Mr Linky but suspect that our one hour clock change might have messed it up. If you were left hammering on the gates, remember that I'm fairly relaxed about a teensy bit of back linking and you can enter your snippets make here and now.

I'll try and keep this as brief as possible so first of all, here's my snippets card for this week. It might look like a bit of a cheat so let me explain about the snippets. I cut, folded and made a load of white DL card blanks the other week - which left me with a pile of white offcuts aka snippets measuring approx. 3.75" x 8.25". So, I used six of them up by making three Christmas cards - and of course three of the DL blanks. This is just one, they're all coloured the same, just the coloured borders are different (pink, turquoise and mauve):

I used:

- white DL card blank

- a slightly smaller white offcut/snippet which had a Pro Marker run around the outside to create a border picking up a colour in the image (thank you Sarn for reminding me of this really neat trick!)

- the image was stamped onto another smaller again white offcut/snippet using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and Woodware's 'Christmas Bells' image stamp - and the sentiment is from the same set

- then it was just a case of sitting here colouring in with Pro Markers as well as a silver gel pen for the 'dangly bits'

- layered everything up using Collall All Purpose glue and hit my target of 120 Christmas cards by the end of October, hooray!

I'm entering this into the current 'Allsorts Week 335 Challenge' where it's 'Christmas'. Love the Allsorts challenge and must make more effort in future!

And, I'd also like to enter Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #253 where this week's theme is 'It's time to sing'. OK, so it isn't 'carol singers' per se, but the sentiment is a line from that oft heard song by Wizzard 'I wish it could be Christmas every day' :) I wonder how soon they'll be playing that in supermarkets and local hostelries? I've been missing in action from Hazel's challenge lately so I hope that can be remedied over the next few weeks.

The whole time I was working on the three cards I thought about our turncoat Prefect Sarn and her wonderful Sarntangles - I need to get her stamp set out again and have a play!

Oh my giddy aunt - no wonder I was thinking about her as I made the cards on Tuesday afternoon - in fact my ears should have been on fire - this is what I found on her blog:

Last night's Snippets Playground Party 

Hi lovely Playmates . . . oh my HEAD this morning! I can't believe you're up and about already after last night's Playground Party.

The Bond theme seemed to go down really well, and Mrs A's rockets went up really well . . . which is probably the right way round!

I saw Jenny L lace Miss Di's Peppermint Tea with something "special" which, luckily for Di, allowed her to sleep right through the whole thing. This was part of the plan to enable her to have "plausible deniability" which we learnt about in the Politics class the other week. 

Jenny L also bribed Parsnip with some honey, so he'll keep schtum too! 

The donkey rides proved popular although half way through the evening, the donkey started being STUBBORN and we had to lace his water with some of Lynne in NI's Irish Whiskey . . . he seemed quite amenable after that! 

Kath's toffee apples got gobbled up early, although we howled with laughter at those unfortunate enough to nab the ones she fiendishly made with COOKING apples rather than the sweet & juicy Jazz apples!

Sally H's Scrumpy was also delicious and went down well with Carol L's marshmallows and weenies, (although I may have had few too many marshmallows)!

Later this week, Darnell is coming over with some of her very bubbly fizzy drink . . . so we're looking forward to that. If she offers you some "tea" from her flask, beware of negotiating steps afterwards (did you see what happened to the Mister after she gave him some of her special tea for goodness sake?) You have been warned!

Right . . . don't expect daily reports of the bike shed parties - because some of it won't be printable. 

You know what they say: What goes on behind the bike sheds, STAYS behind the bike sheds! Any snitches will be dealt with severely! 

So funny - I laughed until I cried - totally crackers the lot of you!

And now for the headache of choosing the weekly picks:

This idea is just brilliant for using up snippets, made by Lesley G. Little rolls of paper (done round a cocktail stick then slipped off and snipped to size to create a Christmas tree) - absolutely wonderful idea!

I totally love this wonderful piano card, again it's great for using up snippets (particularly for the key board) and also very elegant with the addition of the red roses, and even some music patterned paper inside. Brought to the Playground by Valerija :)

Wow! What a great way to use up snippets - and of course you can vary the size to suit (ha, pun totally intended!). Made by Jenny H and I so want to try this idea. Jenny did use a 'Santa's Belt' die but am sure you gals could improvise if you fancy having a try. Great way to whip up some quick and really striking Christmas cards!

I wanted you to see the three cards above as I do think they're clever/different use of snippets. Certainly some inspirational ideas there girls.

We had TONS of other really eye catching snippets makes too so here's a quick canter through a few of them:

This Halloween hat is just amazing! So much carefully made detail (made by Alice), and it hides candy inside too! A wonderful make indeed.

This fabulous card was one of two similar ones, made by our very own Darnell. Great way to use snippets, and of course Darnell had the patience to insert each piece of the mirri card into the Poppystamps die cuts :) Hmm, we're out of stock at sensible prices here in the UK but I'm on a waiting list for one for me and one for the Playground toy box :)

Quite apart from this being a really gorgeous card, made by Barb, there was also such a neat trick in the making of it. See the background? Barb just reversed the clear stamp and used the back of it with Distress Ink to stamp a perfectly proportioned background. One to remember for the future.

I picked this card, made by Lynne in NI, because it's a great way to use up snippets of course - and also it made me laugh. Just look at the pelican's 'thought bubble' - snigger :)

I know that a good few of you have already seen this brilliant card, over at Bonnie's. I've included it because it made me smile of course, and also 'cos I know a few of you have at least one of these amazing Memory Box 'Grand' dies, I have this Christmas one plus Happy Birthday. What a great, and different, way to use it by adding the image panel to the lower part of the card! I've never thought to do that and it works so, so well.

I picked this beautiful card, made by Meg, because it strikes me as absolute perfection. For a start, the fabulous House Mouse image is beautifully set off with the 'puffy parts' to the hats, the little baubles and that glorious bow - and then the gorgeous backing papers are just so very right.

And speaking of perfection, I just had to include this as the last (but not least!) pick of the week. Made by Eve, it's such great use of snippets and absolutely beautiful.

So, that was a longer session than I thought it would be - and of course I could have just kept on going with so many more of your wonderful entries.

This past week we had five new Playmates joining in the fun:

Janice hopped in with a lovely Get Well card for a friend. Fabulous use of snippets and I do so love the doily background - why do we forget these great ideas?!

I've shown you all 12 of the brilliant Christmas tags made by Megan J, a wonderful way to use up little snippets and some great paper piecing going on there.

Coni scampered into the Playground with a fabulous Autumn card, and had bravely used acetate as well! I just adore the leafy wreath with shadow effect. Do hop over to Coni's blog - her wonderful header photo is a lovely little fellow called 'Beau' :)

I always have such trouble making card for fellas, this one by Beebeebabs is brilliant! Such a fun image and I do so love the whole idea - it made me smile for sure!

I do so love this card, brought to us by Birgit. Really sweet image and what a great quilted panel by MFT, with just the red heart popped up it looks so right.

Thank you so much for joining in for the first time this past week - and we'd love to see you playing along with us again!

Bit of a drum roll now as it's time to choose the winners of the stamps and die sets, a bumper draw this time to celebrate 200 weeks of the Playground since I took it over from Jules.

And, I didn't say last weekend that in fact I had two of each of prizes B and C here, bought as I thought I'd like them for myself at the time. Realistically though, there are so many of you who would love to win one of them (especially the Tim Holtz set) that, as I've never opened them and am unlikely to, I've added them into the pot as well.

Prize A - the Flamingos die set and co-ordinating 'Tickled Pink' set of sentiments:

Kath (Handmade by Kath)

Prize B - the Tim Holtz 'Holiday Joy' stamps and dies sets:

Carol L

 Kanda (Andrea)

Prize C - the Sizzix 'Ornaments #3' stamps and dies sets:

Kate P

 

Sonia

Crumbs, that was a bit of a marathon! I have addresses for all of you except for Sonia - so please can you drop me an email with your address Sonia (di_wray@hotmail.com) - thanks!

Well done to all the winners - I do hope you have fun using your prizes :)

And the prize this coming week is:

Five stamps in total, making one prize unless you choose otherwise in a comment. It's the Woodware ''Christmas Bells' stamp set along with four adorable Snag 'em Stamps from the 'Colors of Christmas' set, kindly donated by Greta - they are from top left clockwise, three little baubles, Christmas owl, large single bauble and a hedgehog tied up in Christmas tree lights :) These would be fabulous for little gift tags or as a focal point on CAS cards.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 7th November. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw. As always, I only include folk who say a positive 'yes' for the prize in a comment. In the past I sometimes had to do redraws after publishing winners so decided this was easier. Plus, some weeks the prize is made up of different items, some of which folk may or may not want. If you only want part of the prize then please say so and I can then do a second draw for the remainder if you do win.

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 :)

Have a great week and I hope you had a wonderful Halloween, no doubt we'll have been up and down like yo-yo's here as we do get a few callers - all of whom really do wear some fantastic costumes!

Bonfire night is next here in the UK of course! Oh deep joy, 'whizz bang pop' for another week!!

Di
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