Pixies Crafty Snippets Playground - Week 60

A little bit quieter in the Playground this week - ha, bet you were all playing kiss chase with the little boys from the football field down the road!

My snippets card:

It's a bright and cheerful Birthday card, for a cute little chap who is one year old today.

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- little giraffe stamp from Hobbycraft. For those girls in the UK, it really is worth looking at their own range of small clear stamps, tons of useful images at £1 each! Coloured with Pro Markers and die cut using a Sizzix die, framed by using the same die and SU 'Marina Mist' card

- blue backing papers are all SU snippets in 'Marina Mist'

- patterned papers are from Echo Park's 'Hello Summer' paper pad. Oh my gosh, I love this paper pad - in fact it took me ages to decide which papers to use as they're all gorgeous, plus they go so well with SU colours

- die cut number 1 was cut in SU's 'Marina Mist' (another teeny snippet), and popped onto a punched SU 'Petite Curly Label' - I used a teeny snippet of 'So Saffron'

- the little kite is a Martha Stewart embellishment, bought in NM last September

- Luke's name was stamped in 'Marina Mist' using a rarely used See-D's alphabet set and the 'banner' end was punched using SU's 'Petite Pennants Builder' punch, very carefully after marking the spot I wanted as the centre of the V then sliding the card into the side of the punch to use what would normally be the top part of the pennant - betcha I lost you there!

- three green Card Candi's along the chevron band

And now a little selection from this week's snippets:

This ATC, by Ike, really made me laugh. Such a great spin on Valentine's Day - and really creepy-cute. I suspect I look like this in the mornings :(

Eliza paid us her first visit, and hopefully not her last one (so I hope you girls played nicely), with this brilliant card - a pose I thoroughly agree with. Do please go and say hello, Yoda is waiting there to say hello back :)

And Bubbles came to show us this gorgeous altered chest, to store some precious letters in - all the details of how she did the makeover are in her posting.

I've truly just scratched the surface of all your gorgeous makes - remember that Mr Linky's thumbnails  in last week's snippets post will lead you to have a closer look.

And the winner of last week's 'Springtime' stamp set is:

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This coming week's give away has already been in use on my snippets card today, well my own paper pad was used, there's a new one sealed one here up for grabs:

And this is my pad, with a few spread out for you to see how delicious they are, and they're double sided too:

Crumbs, I sound like an Echo Park rep!!

If you want to join in the Playground fun and frolics and be in with a chance of winning this real 'splash of Summer' pad - the Playground is open all of this coming week but it will close on Saturday 23rd February at noon, UK time and Mr Linky is below as usual. Just enter a snippets make into the Playground this week and I'll do a draw after the Playground closes next Saturday. But, as usual I am asking for a snippets make please, maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you DON'T want to be entered. 

Have a lovely week - we've had sunshine here, yay!

Di
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Alfonse Mucha style

Years ago I had a much loved set of Alfonse Mucha Art Nouveau prints, and whilst in The Range on Thursday, found some decoupage sheets that reminded me so much of those long gone prints:

Then, in another aisle I came across packets of pre-embossed cards - a perfect combination for a super-fast card.

I used:

- A6 white embossed card by Papermania

- decoupaged image - huh, absolutely no name on the sheet or packet :(

Happy Saturday!

Di
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'No snow' Christmas card

The current challenge over at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge is not to use snow on your entry. I was quite taken aback earlier this week when looking through all the card fronts I'd kept to 'upcycle' - every one bar a mere handful had snow somewhere! With no time to resort to stamping etc. I used one of the card fronts to make this:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square cream card stock

- most of the front of a small square Christmas card

- green Core'dinations card for matting and layering

- 'spotty' burgundy and cream backing paper from MME's 'All is Bright' pad

- sentiment by Craftwork Cards

 - the bush had little burgundy dots on, which I just covered with some teeny little pearlised gems to add dimension

Job done!

Am also entering this card into Hazel's other Christmas challenge, Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra, where it's always 'anything goes'.

Thank you so much for your lovely comments yesterday - I did have a lovely day out in the end with a crafter friend. It was lovely just to relax, the sun shone for us and I felt all the better for it. Ha, and so did Len when I produced his Valentine's Day gift on my return home - bought while I was out having fun - an 18 year-old bottle of Malt Whisky :)

Di
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Hearts away for Valentine's Day'

First of all my dear blogging friends, please forgive me but my hopping around WOYWW had to be put on hold, we had to do a little casualty rescue mission and are still reeling a bit. Our lovely little neighbour took a turn for the worst and Len jumped into his trusty steed like a knight in shining armour and charged off to casualty whilst I sort of ran around the house here wondering what was going on.

Abi is home again but it's not the end of it and, to be honest, I managed to cook dinner and then fell asleep from sheer exhaustion :( I will hop round in slow time I promise! Please send positive thoughts for a lovely teenager going through a tough time right now.

Today I've promised to take a friend out to Reading for some retail therapy and don't want to let her down. Even though I feel I could truthfully sleep for a week - but the trip will probably be good for me : (

Anyhow, I had to rustle up a Valentine's Day card super fast yesterday for Len while he was out playing Robin Hood at archery - yesterday morning - last minute as always:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card stock

- Penny Black stamp called 'Hearts away', another stamp I've had for ages and never used - shame on me, coloured with Pro Markers then die cut with a Nesties heart, layered onto a scalloped Nesties heart, die cut from black card

- black card from the snippets folder

- red card with white glittered hearts on, also from the snippets folder (I think it came from Hobbycraft ages ago)

- sentiment by Hero Arts, layered onto a SU punched scallop oval - using a little snippet of red Core'dinations card

- Josy Rose red heart nail heads

Phew, it was a rush in case he came home early - that'll teach me to leave things right to the end stop :(

And then yesterday evening after things had been tough, he even went and brought out the lovely bouquet he'd hidden for Valentine's Day to make me smile again - what a guy!!

I'm entering this card into the following challenge:

Penny Black Saturday Challenge - where the theme is 'Love and Marriage'

Happy Valentine's Day Len - my knight in shining armour!!

Di
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WOYWW 193 - and some ideas

My desk when I ran away yesterday afternoon to post some letters and do a little bit of shopping:

Usual mug of cold coffee, basket of cards awaiting inserts and the mess leftovers from what I'd been doing earlier. Oooer, and at the back a packet of mini Easter eggs in a lovely box - from Sarn, and a super card from Sam as well.

I think I must have caught a virus, it's the 'sort and tidy' one that seems to be doing the rounds in a lot of craft rooms right now. After doing SU card stock swatches last week, I moved onto finish off making swatches for all the ink pads. Then sat twiddling my thumbs yesterday wondering what else I could do to make life easier/less stressful when crafting. Sometimes I'm a bit like a dog looking for a lost bone with stuff flying in all directions :(

The cataloguing of stamps is a mahoosive ongoing project that I can't stick at all the time but a comment left by Helen on my last week's WOYWW post, about something her friend did, triggered off this:

It's a sort of swatch, for punches :) Not every single one, just those used for sentiments so I can try it against the card and of course against the stamped sentiment (or even the unstamped one) to check for size and shape. I used Shrinkles shrink plastic (the frosted one) 'cos that was all I could lay my paws on in here then wrote the names of the punches on in permanent ink and rounded the corners - they were lethal sharp before that little extra step.

Another small, but to me important, discovery has been how to cope with the Tonic glass mat on the desk here. I totally, love the glass mat but found that card was slipping about so l during the week I played with this as a solution when stamping and sticking bits of card together. For me, it works brilliantly without having to put summick non-slip underneath my work:

It's a repositional tape runner, by Dovecraft. A quick swipe or two on the back of what you want to be kept totally immovable, then just turn it over and stick to the glass mat.

This is the back of a piece of embossed card that I'd just turned back over after adhering a Stickeroo topper - where there was absolutely no room for error. You can see a sort of  globule of removeable glue, I'd just started to rub it off with my finger. Yay - another solution :))

The creation that was being worked on is hidden until it arrives at its destination - so I've nuffin' more to show - why not go to Julia's where you might see more creativity and less of the OCD stuff. But hey, at least I didn't just say it's the same old mess :)

Happy WOYWW!!

Di
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Here's lookin' at you

At Sunday's meeting I was asked to make a couple of Get Well cards for lady Committee members. They are both lovely ladies and of course I set to straight away yesterday. The first one is for Marge, who has a wicked sense of humour. So I thought it had to be something amusing:

Marge and I often sit opposite to one another at meetings and many a time I have to look away - just a little rueful smile and a raised eyebrow from her sets me off with the giggles. Plus, her little ritual is to treat herself to a mini bottle of red wine at lunchtime to help during the afternoon when topics get turgid, sometimes I think a full bottle would be a better option :)

So, Penny Black froggies came to the rescue - and this is the Stickeroo I picked - and the sentiment inside will say 'Here's Looking At You' - I just know she'll cotton onto the meaning :))

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card stock

- Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'Pond-side Celebration' sheet, plain oval Nestie and a scalloped oval Nestie

- SU's 'Certainly Celery' card stock plus a matching one from a SU patterned pack bought over a year ago

- 'Dragonfly' embossing folder made by Craft Conceptions

- sentiment from SU's 'Sincere Salutations' set, stamped in 'Certainly Celery' and die cut with SU's 'Decorative Label' punch

- a snippet of pink ribbon from Hobbycraft I think, I have the last 2" long piece in a little poly bag ready to be taken to search for some more

Di
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Cupcake Birthday girl

I made this card for a very good friend, who helped me through some very dark days many years ago. It's also for a relatively new challenge called Seize the Birthday, which looks like fun - with the novel idea of using the same sketch for two challenges, first for her and then for him:)

I retied the bow after taking the above photo :) Love the huge shoes.

And, a peek at the inside, the sentiment says 'Friends Always'.

For the challenge, Seize the Birthday, this is the challenge sketch we had to follow:

I used:

- 7" x 5" tent style card stock, made by chopping an 8" square one down

- image is a pre-coloured LOTV one. Die cut into a circle, mounted onto a scalloped circle of SU's 'Wisteria' card

- backing paper is lavender with silver dots, from the snippets folder

- Craftwork cards sentiment, mounted onto a scalloped oval of SU's 'Wisteria' card

- a snippet of lavender coloured satin ribbon

- almost hidden sentiment and a band of the remaining little snippet of lavender backing paper

What a trip yesterday - no snow but torrential rain and even some floods to cope with :( And the meeting dragged on while I quietly kept peeking out of the windows to check the rain wasn't turning into snow. It sure was good to get home!

Di
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Pixies Crafty Snippets Playground - Week 59

Gosh, this will have to be super fast today - need to get sorted out with stuff to take on my 'Sunday snow trek' after this is written on Saturday afternoon. Tons of you joined in again this week, with some SUPER makes to show. This is my speed of lightning snippets card for this week:

And a peek at the inside:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- snippets of 'milky/minky brown' paper (got this years ago from Craftwork Cards) plus some pearlescent pink card

- image is pre-coloured, by LOTV

- milky/minky brown ribbon

- little pearlescent pink butterflies - using SU's 'Beautiful Wings' embosslit folder (wow, I LOVE this!)

- tiny self-adhesive pearls

- and I even tickled up the inside a bit:)

OK, so who caught my eye this week - well, first of all I found this in the Playground earlier today:

Yeah right, VERY funny. When I said summick would be OK for the roof of the tree house after last week's post talking about thatched houses and little creatures on top of them - this is NOT what I meant, I meant tasteful!

Anyhow, least said about that the better. Here are some of the makes you brought this week which especially caught my eye - although every single one of you who plays should be included!

 

Annie (aka Wipso) joined in for the first time this week - using snippets of material to make quilts and bags for a very worthy cause, plus each one also has a little handmade stuffed toy - do hop over to Annie's blog to find out more. Most of you will also know Jo, Annie's sister, and they are working away like dingbats on these right now.

 

Maureen (aka Scrappy Mo) made this totally fabulous Christmas card - it's beautiful!

 

And Sarn made some adorable boxes for the mini eggs we'll all be eating before too long. Although I gather she was waving some around in the Playground during the week - almost got killed in the stampede :( Really clever idea and there's also a 'How-to' :)

I wish I could cover every one of you - but if you want to see more just go to last week's post and Mr Linky is there with little thumbnails for you to peruse and visit your playmates if you haven't had a chance to peek already. 

Next is the draw for those Penny Black Stickeroos - hang on while I go and look at the Random number site..............................................................still there? 

The first two goes with the Random number thingy came up as folk who didn't want the Stickeroos, but it was third time luck for:

SHAZ IN OZ

 

Well done Shaz, if you drop me an email with your address they will be in the post to you this coming week - have fun!

And for this week's draw, I thought  little touch of Spring might be nice:

It's a big unmounted rubber set - to give you some idea the daffodils are almost life sized, the whole set is about 5" x 8". And I'll be truthful, it's a set I've had for a while, unopened, bought as a bargain and unlikely ever to be used by yours truly. So I certainly won't be offended if you say 'No thanks'. 

If you want to join in the Playground fun and frolics and be in with a chance of winning this set of stamps - the Playground is open all of this coming week but it will close on Saturday 16th February at noon, UK time and Mr Linky is below as usual. Just enter a snippets make into the Playground this week and I'll do a draw after the Playground closes next Saturday. But, as usual I am asking for a snippets make please, maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you DON'T want to be entered. 

And YAY - I worked out how to get rid of the annoying white boxes that appear round uploaded photos if you have a coloured background - whoop, whoop!! If anyone's interested just say the word and I'll do a post later in the week pointing you in the right direction.

Di

Especially for a Kraft card loving pal

I have a blog buddy who 'says is as it is' - and she thinks that Kraft card is like wrapping paper or those old fashioned paper bags from our youth :) Good point, but I made this the other day - just to make her teeth itch, evil little monkey that I am:

A couple of people noticed the little round dots in all colours of the rainbow lying on my desk on WOYWW, left over after the holes had been punched in the SU card swatch I'd been making. Yup, they were just sitting waiting for inspiration to come calling.

I used:

- 6" x 6" square Kraft card

- a snippet of SU's 'Wild Wasabi' card stock, die cut twice with Marianne Creatables die number LR0120

- cream snippets die cut with Joy! 6002/024 daisies die. I left each flower in the die after cutting it and rubbed it over with a smidgen of Memento 'Toffee Crunch' ink using a finger dauber before removing it and then did the 'rubbing in the centre with a flower shaper' trick just to raise the petals a bit

- a selection of those little coloured circles - still lots left to ponder on :)

- my current favourite SU stamp from the 'Four Frames' set, stamped with 'Wild Wasabi' and the sentiment itself is from LOTV's 'Small General Greetings' set - and of course I used the matching SU punch

As usual, the SU paper and ink are a much better match in real life than the photo seems to infer :(

Kathleen, this one is just for you today! Snigger :)

Di
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Saturday Supper - Kedgeree

What with Len being on foods that didn't really need much chewing lately, I made this during the week:

Kedgeree


Serves 2

½ onion, finely chopped 

55g/2oz butter

300g/10½oz basmati rice

1 tsp madras curry powder

freshly grated nutmeg

200ml/7fl oz milk

110ml/4fl oz double cream

300g/10½oz naturally smoked haddock, (NOT dyed) picked over, bones removed and flesh cut into chunks

sea salt and cracked black pepper

small bunch parsley, chopped

3 hard-boiled eggs, shelled and halved

good pinch cayenne and freshly ground nutmeg (optional) 

NB. The recipe omitted the fact that you should gently poach the fish first, I realised this thankfully and just gently poached it for about 5-10 minutes in half milk and half water. That way it's easy to flake the fish and check for any bones.

To serve

knob of butter

wedges of lemon

Cook the onion gently in the butter for a few minutes, then add the rice.

Continue cooking gently and stirring, adding the curry powder and nutmeg. After a few minutes, add the milk, cream and 250ml/9fl oz water.

When the mixture begins to simmer, add the fish and continue simmering, stirring occasionally until the rice is cooked. (You may need to add a little water if the mixture becomes dry.)

Season, add the parsley and stir. Add the eggs and garnish with cayenne and nutmeg if using. Serve topped with a knob of butter and wedges of lemon.

Another time I might just slightly increase the amount of curry powder, but not by much - just perhaps a heaped teaspoonful instead of a rounded one. I reckon you could also increase the amount of fish by half as much again - this is really a breakfast recipe and for a supper you might want just that bit more 'substance'.

And I forgot to add the parsley before I served it so just chucked it on top - and omitted the knob of butter at the serving stage. Needless to say this is a James Martin recipe - I love his recipes but always try to cut down on the amount of butter and cream he uses :)

The two-legged mouse loved it - we're still taking it easy but he was at the dentist on Thursday and is doing well apparently. Good job - I could murder a nice steak!!

Di

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Martha Stewart was a good girl

...because, this time a packet of MS embellishments I bought in NM came with the promised 10 rather than just four lacy butterflies and six teeny gems :)

I wanted some little cards to enclose with Snippets Playground prizes etc. so made a couple of these for starters, the production line will be going to make more in different colours (mauves and pinks) as they were such fun:

I used:

- 3.75" x 3.75" square white card stock

- deep purple (aubergine really) backing paper from the snippets folder - ages ago I'd bought a pack of quite sturdy but thinner than card envelopes to punch out butterflies for some sample Wedding invitations. Another design was chosen by the happy couple so there I was with nine envelopes left to chop up and file away

- a snippet of white card

- sentiment from the SU 'Four Frames' set stamped using Memento 'Elderberry' and a LOTV stamp from the 'Small General Greetings' set - and then punched out using SU's matching punch

- one of the MS embellishments - the set is called 'Hydrangea'

Yay! It's Friday - hope you all have a great weekend.

I'm supposed to drive up to beyond Oxford for a school reunion Committee meeting to finalise plans for our Summer Reunion in June. But we're all watching the weather forecast - it's held at the National Herb Centre near Banbury. A lovely spot but, out in the wilds and very exposed, I've almost been stuck there previously in snowy conditions :( Don't fancy living on herbs for a few days......although they do sell wine I think :)

Di
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Upcycled bear

Oh, I do prefer to use the term upcycling rather than recycling :) This is another attack on the shop-bought Christmas cards and it's for Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge, where this week's 'theme' is the letter 'P'.

Snigger, I rejected all the penguin cards we seemed to have been sent, in favour of 'paper'. The cute little bear seems to be carrying rolls of wrapping Paper, to wrap Christmas Parcels:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- papers from Echo Park's 'Seasons Greetings' pad, these are printed on both sides and so useful to mix and match

- Spellbinders dies - 'Wonky Squares' and a pennant die

- self-adhesive ribbon from Trimcraft's 'Jolly Happy Christmas' pack

- little red self-adhesive button from Hobbycraft

The 'Wonky Squares' dies are fairly new - thanks to Kath using them here. I can see these dies being the first ones to be tried when Christmas cards are being upcycled :)

Another one for the box and am also adding it to Craftyhazelnuts Christmas Extra Challenge.

Di
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WOYWW 192 - and I need to get out more!

Sigh, looking at my desk yesterday afternoon I realised that maybe, just maybe, I truly do need to see someone about this OCD trait that jumps up and waves its arms every now and then.

Storage isn't bad in the craft room here, but the only way I can store 12" x 12" card stock is in 12" square Really Useful Boxes - flat and on a fairly high shelf. Got fed up rootling through them, especially the luscious Stampin' Up plain ones, so yesterday I took the bull by the horns and spent a happy couple of hours doing this:

The fruits of my labours - a home made colour swatch. I know, I know, SU do sell their own but this satisfied the OCD trait that wanted to come and play. The SU Stampin' Spots are there 'cos I was checking which additional colours I might want - the answer is none 'cos they've practically discontinued them :( Shame!

The storage container with the Stampin' Spots in is really for peel offs, from Hobbycraft - it holds 20 with one spare space so you can move 'em round like those games we used to play with as kids, makes it much easier to lift a little pad out.

The finished 2" x 2" swatch, tied with ribbon until I nip out to buy more book binder rings - the one lying on the desk would defy even the strongest person! I found a lot of the card colours in the snippets folder but for some colours I had to cut into a fresh sheet (ack! pain) - just a 2" strip, the remains of which are also in the SU Really Useful Box to be used to back sentiments, make flowers etc.

e

The colours are sorted into SU Collections and each one has the colour on a printed label on the back.

Err, I also have swatches for my collection of coloured ink pads - just with a swipe of colour on the front of white card and the name on the back. No need to do it for the SU ones as the card swatch does that job I think. Yup, the men in white coats could be here soon!

And, whilst ferreting round in a drawer I found this - it's a pack of two Replacement Cutting Channel Mats for Woodware's T-400 Finger Guard Trimmer. NOTE, it's the smaller 24cm one, NOT the 35cm T-200. I ordered them wrongly a while ago and, rather than throw them out, am more than happy to post free and for nothing to anyone who might have a T-400 Woodware Trimmer. Just drop me an email - di_wray@hotmail.com. If more than one person is interested, then it's first come, first served.

Now, if you want to really see fun and messy - hop over to Julia's to inspect her desk and then travel onwards to many others who will be linking in today.

Happy WOYWW!

Di
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Less Is More - Kraft and Kreme

It's been a couple of weeks since I joined in over at Less Is More - shame on me. Happy 2nd Birthday to Chrissie, Mandi and Jen!!

As soon as I spotted this week's challenge - 'Kraft and Kreme' - I had an idea, instead of mulling possibilities over for days on end and then missing the deadline:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square Kraft card stock

- a strip of cream card from the snippets folder, stamped with a sentiment  from SU's 'Wonderful Words' set, using Memento 'Toffee Crunch'. I'm sure I bought 'Wonderful Words' as a pre-loved SU set a while ago (sounds better than second-hand) and I love it

- double embossed lines above and below the sentiment - which don't show up in the photo of course:(

- two hearts die cut using the Cuttlebug 'Concentric Hearts' die set - same as Liz won on Saturday in the Playground. The hearts were then stamped all over using Memento 'Toffee Crunch' and an 'inchie' stamp from Inkadinkado's inchies 'Flourishes' set - did the stamping after the cutting to have a fighting chance of not having huge gaps :)

- then ran the hearts through the Xyron, cut a little slit in one and looped them together before sticking onto the card - many thanks to Kath for showing this on a card she made for the Playground a few weeks ago

Hope your week is going well!

Di
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Inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh

We had friends round for dinner recently and, whilst setting the table that afternoon, I suddenly remembered a neglected stamp. The connection was that I was using our lovely Charles Rennie Mackintosh place mats and coasters, bought quite a few years ago as a lovely gift by my buddy Moira - who lives near Glasgow. I've always been a fan of CRM and would love to go to the Hunterian museum in Glasgow some day, it's on my 'bucket list'.

This is the card I subsequently made with that 'neglected and never used before' stamp:

I used:

- A6 white card stock

- a large Nesties oval to cut the aperture on a piece of backing card and then I used the trick of placing the cut aperture piece over the front of the card itself, popping the Nestie back in and running it through the Cuttlebug so that the inside lines up with the front (hope that makes sense?)

- the image was stamped onto acetate with another amazing bargain from the fabulous Kraft Kabin (where Julia of WOYWW runs classes), costing all of £1, a wooden stamp by Funstamps called 'F-M66 Glasgow Nouveau 1'

- I stamped the image using StazOn and then did just a little bit of colouring using Sakura Gelly Roll pens - long neglected and almost forgotten about

- the sentiment is from a Stampendous set called 'Happy Messages' also stamped in StazOn just 'cos it was to hand. I'd looked at a few Charles Rennie websites and realised that fancy script was so not his style, hence the simplicity of the sentiment font

- then it was just a case of attaching the acetate with extra-tacky tape to the inside of the front of the card and backing it with the piece of card which also had an oval cut in it

I think this is deffo. a card which will need even just a plain folded insert so the message written to the recipient doesn't show through and spoil the 'window' effect I was looking for. Funny, the photo makes the acetate look really set back in the card - not so, it's sandwiched between the front of the card and the backing which is right behind.

Di
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Pixies Crafty Snippets Playground - Week 58

Wow, another bumper week in the Playground! Now, I can't see me ever running out of snippets here - am sure the little perishers breed in their folder, so long may this continue.

First, my snippets card:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- backing papers from Pink Petticoat's 'Wild Blossoms' collection - one is a whole sheet slightly trimmed and the other is a snippet (if I still have a patterned paper pad I tuck the snippets under the front cover)

- blue card from the snippets folder

- my baby sewing machine - kept purely for working on card/paper

- images/sentiment are Stickeroos from the 'Young Things' sheet, the shoe is separate on the sheet but I thought it looked 'the biz' on top of the sentiment - more about Stickeroos further down this post

- baby blue ribbon with an iridescent edging from the ribbon box

- two flowers, layered and held together with a pearl brad

And here are some of the wonderful makes that caught my eye this week in the Playground:

Cathy made this little beauty - wow, some patience there, loads of teeny snippets used and a brilliant result!

Our Jules (Founder and Patron of the Playground - yay!) made this brilliant card. I have a couple of these LOTV stamps and just know that the really detailed colouring is a labour of love!

Kath brought this lovely 'January Blues' card along - love the paper piecing and that's one of my favourite Penny Black stamps - super Kath!

As I always say, each and every one of you made some beautiful cards and other makes this week - you can hop round them all by going to last week's Mr Linky thumbnails here.

Back to last week's draw, those fabby Cuttlebug dies were won by:

LIZ

I just checked the comments and Liz was hoping to win, which is great - well done! The way the hearts are interlocked is to snip one of them right across at the point where it will lie underneath the top (unsnipped) interlocked one - so the snip is hidden :)

Can you please email your address to me Liz - here - di_wray@hotmail.com and they will be popped into the post for you this week. 

As you all stuck to no more than three entries (thank you for reading the small print) I could use the Random Number Generator without having to re-jig numbers! Len showed me how to capture the results - err, I hate to admit it but I was using the Control key instead of the Function key to capture the screen, no wonder it wouldn't work :(

Anyhow, back to Penny Black Stickeroos - I carried out my threat and bought some online. I have enough to split them into seven sheets this week and seven for another week later on - thought that was fair. So this week you can win a sheet the same as the one I used for my snippets card today (it is intact 'cos I bought one for me too!) plus six others, also unsullied by yours truly:

Have tried to split/spread the styles across what I'd ordered - from the left we have the girlies, cute hedgies and other friends, two lovely florals, a quite modern looking Christmas sheet, a soft shades of browns/blues floral one (love this so much!!) and one with hearts - ready for Valentines Day.

So, if you want to join in the Playground fun and frolics and be in with a chance of winning this set of Penny Black Stickeroos - the Playground is open all of this coming week but it will close on Saturday 9th February at noon, UK time and Mr Linky is below as usual. Just enter a snippets make into the Playground this week and I'll do a draw after the Playground closes next Saturday. But, as usual I am asking for a snippets make please, maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you DON'T want to be entered.

I'll post to anywhere in the World BTW - it's open to all of you lovely Playmates, the flowers won by Brenda went all the way to Canada. And why not, blogging is a universal sport!!

Speaking of universal - our lovely Bernie in the US of has her latest blog update here. She is absolutely blown away (and upwards) by all of your lovely visits to her blog and support. From the bottom of my own heart, I love and thank you all lots and you are such stars!! I had to go into the settings in Bernie's blog to stop anonymous comments (and therefore, with luck, the dreaded spam) - have just done the same on mine too. What beats me is WHY they think an old biddy like me would want Viagra?! A large G & T works a treat :))

Di
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Saturday Supper - Spicy Pea and Lentil Soup

I made this really yummy soup yesterday evening for Len - who says he's doing fine and thank you!

Spicy Pea and Lentil Soup

Serves 4

1 onion (chopped)
150 grams potatoes (peeled and sliced)
800 ml vegetable stock (hot)
350 grams frozen peas
400 can of green lentils (drained)
2 rounded tsps curry powder (mild)
1 tbsp oil

Heat oil in a big pan and cook onion until soft. Add curry powder and cook over a low heat for one minute.

Add potatoes and stock, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add peas and lentils.

Return to boil and simmer for another 5 minutes

Purée the soup or blend until not quite smooth and season to taste.

The two-legged mouse 'woofed' it down, and then trotted back for more - under normal circumstances I wouldn't blend it until really smooth of course, although it didn't spoil the mildly spicy flavour at all. And we'd have fresh crusty bread - aren't I kind cutting the crusts off (the birdies are loving it).

The Snippets Playground closes at noon - just to give me time to sweep up the sweetie wrappers, collect up discarded hair ribbons (which I'll wash, iron and pop into the lost property box in the Playhouse if you're missing any) and also some time to calm the donkey down! A bottle or two of Newcastle Brown Ale should do the trick.

Di
x

A Friday Smile for Annie and almost missed the deadline......

....for Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge 109 where the theme is 'Nativity', just squeezed in on the last day:

I used:

- A5 gold edged cream card stock

- 'up-cycled' image, chopped from a 2012 Christmas card 

- gold mirri card to back the image and the backing paper (which was a freebie not so long ago)

- a vertical strip of gold mirri card so the deep purple/aubergine ribbon stands out

- gold Card Candi

And it's a new month over at Hazel's monthly Christmas Extra Challenge, where it's always 'Anything goes' so I could even be first to play this month.


A special friend called Helena emailed me this and am still giggling here:

It's the caption that sets me off every time I look at it :) So, it's for Annie's Friday Smile.

Being of a curious nature and wanting answers to everything, I Googled to see which was faster - and found that the cheetah can run at 70mph and an ostrich at 40mph :( Then, I spotted the story behind the photo itself.

It's genuine (the caption was added by some wag later) but in fact the cheetah was chasing a hare which is out of the shit shot. The ostrich of course didn't know this and legged it - well, would you have waited to be introduced? Apparently, when it began to tire, the ostrich turned on the cheetah - who then promptly also legged it, back the way it came :) Result, cheetah belting in the opposite direction (probably muttering 'sh*tsh*tsh*tsh*t' to itself), one very bemused and weary ostrich left standing......................and the hare got away. I love a happy ending!!

This will post at midnight Thursday/Friday but am off to bed right now (8:30 pm for goodness sakes!!) as I have a wounded soldier here, needing some TLC after a nasty tooth extraction with some embroidery work by the dentist thrown in just to complicate it - so I'll do the links once we're up and about on Friday morning. Sigh, how many ways can you scramble eggs?

Have a super weekend, whatever you have planned :)

Di
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