Snippets Playground Celebration

It's a while since we had a 'two week' chance to win a prize in the Playground and I just noticed that the blog view counter has passed 200,000 page views - plus last week we had 70 entries. Sooooooooo, it's time for a little extra prize and a chance to win a pretty special die as a thank you for all your support:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- clear sparkly self adhesive film to cover the whole card front

- a snippet of white Centura pearlescent card, embossed using an Anna Griffin embossing folder called 'Rosa' - a gift from ScrappyMo when she was over in the UK last year. Sadly only a little bit of it shows in the end but it's a beautiful folder - thank you Mo!

- the main image was done like this, first of all I die cut the panel from white Centura pearl card using the most fabulous die by Taylored Expressions called 'Mr and Mrs'. I'd expected it to be really tricky-woo so had bought a metal shim plate as suggested but I didn't need it, nor did I use waxed paper - it popped out of the die perfectly. To adhere the die to the snippet of pale blue backing card I did ponder awhile and instead of using a Quickie glue pen plumped for covering the whole piece of blue card with double sided adhesive film, peeling off the front protection and then fixing the white die cut before sprinkling with Cosmic Shimmer's Glitter Jewels 'Diamond Sprinkles'. I then added some self-adhesive pearls in assorted sizes.

- the finishing touch is a tie made using a band of white organza ribbon which has silver heart outlines on and then a piece of the same ribbon just tied across the centre. Then I added a heart charm tied on with a bow made using the last snippet from a reel of iridescent cord

This is the die that's on offer for one lucky winner:

Some of you already know the 'drill' - but here it is anyhow.

1. All you have to do is to enter a total of at least THREE snippets makes over this current week and next week - into the normal snippets playground Mr Linkies which are posted on Sundays. It's just a total, so you can add three in one week or spread them over two weeks. Of course you can still enter up to three snippets cards per week for the normal prizes.

2. There's one thing I'm going to ask you to do to make it easier for me please. If you are entering three cards over the two weeks for a chance to win this lovely die, can you please add *3* after your name in Mr Linky when you add your third card.

Please shout if this isn't clear :)

I can see so many uses for this die, for example, imagine it cut out in gold and set on a cream or even a chocolate background, for a Golden Wedding Anniversary!

Di
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For baby

As I said in yesterday's Sunday snippets post, our playmate Victoria just had a baby girl. I made this card from all of us in the Playground, assisted by Parsnip of course:

I kept it simple and stuck to a Stampin' Up image as Victoria was my SU demonstrator, before the pitter patter of tiny feet became imminent.

I used:

- 4" x 4" square white card blank

- stamp from SU's 'Easy Events' set, stamped using SU's 'Smoky Grey' and coloured with Whispers pens before die cutting using a Nesties circle die

- popped the image onto a Nesties scalloped circle, die cut from a snippet of SU's 'Rose Red' card stock

Easy peasy lemon squeezy - those little SU stamps are really lovely to use!

Di
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Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 112

And another bumper crop of 70 entries this last week - perhaps all checking up on the progress of the ark :) I think it's been a case of rain has hampered progress, with no sign of it abating either. We were awake most of Friday night and I'm sure I could hear trees falling in the nearby park.

Anyhow, here's my snippets card for today:

I used:

- 5.5" x 5.5" square white card blank

- all papers are from the 'Me to You' 'Spring Chic' paper pad - a great pad as it's double sided and I did sneak in almost a full sheet of lemon as the main backing frame but all the rest were snippets tucked into the pad using my new storage system - shown here

- the image is by Wild Rose Studio called 'Birthday Girl', a gift from Sam when we met up with ScrappyMo last Summer. (More of that later in this post!!) Stamped with SU 'Smoky Grey', coloured with Pro Markers and the little girl's top and the tablecloth were paper pieced 

- the lace 'belly band' (that always makes me giggle!) was punched using Martha' Stewart's 'Vintage Lace' edge punch and topped with a piece of pink ribbon

- sentiment is a pre-loved SU one, stamped with SU 'Smoky Slate' and then punched with SU's 'Label - Curly' punch

- the flowers were die cut with one of the very first die sets I ever bought, and still a great favourite - made by Joy!, ref. 6002/024 - and topped with self-adhesive pearls. Funny though, the pink gingham paper I used is a perfect match to the other pinks in the card, yet it looks mauve in the photo :)

And straight onto this week's picks:

 

Given all the comments flying round about us building an ark in the Playground, this card made by Kim did make me laugh :) Have you SEEN the sentiment?! Snort!

Gosh I do so hope none of you girls have been affected by the awful floods down this way - not to mention the frightening gale force winds plus the heavy snow over 'the pond' and bad weather elsewhere. Mother Nature is sure going through a bad bout of PMT right now:(

I asked Cornelia to link up her sour cream containers, not only did she use up some snippets but there's also a great tutorial as well on how to make these little beauties.

Some weeks one of you comes up with two great snippets ideas and I can't choose between them - so this is Cornelia again. Brilliant heart card, and again you can check out how it was made.

And here's another great use of snippets, also with a link to show how it's done - brought to share with us by Jenny L. Oh I adore those flowers and apparently BIG flowers are supposed to be the latest thing (a return visit) for card making and scrapping.

Pippa brought us this card - made from (rather posh Earl Grey) teabag packaging. It's yet another ingenious idea - although I can't think that 'Yorkshire Tea for hard water' packaging that we generally have here is likely to be inspiring :(

Isn't this a fabulous card, made by Scrappy Mo? Lots of snippets used and even sparkle - which I know gives Mo the heebie jeebies 'cos it does tend to get everywhere!

So that was a quick scamper this week - as always you all made such beautiful stuff it was very hard to choose.

And we also have a new Playmate - please will you welcome Janeen who brought this lovely card to show - and also hopped back again later in the week so I guess we didn't scare her off too much!

And now the winner of last week's prize of the sentiments set and the rose stamp:

Eve

Well done Eve, can you drop me an email  to di_wray@hotmail.com with your address please and the stamps will be posted off to you just as soon I find the paddle for the canoe - it floated away overnight :(

This coming week's prize is, as almost always, linked to today's snippets card.

Yup, it's the same image stamp - Wild Rose Studio's 'Birthday Girl'. Kindly donated to the toy box by Sam.

AND we have a second Wild Rose Studio stamp called 'Bunny on Scooter', which was donated at the very same time by Scrappy Mo. It was the day we three playmates met up last year and went to Flutterbys Craft Store - and both the little scallywags sneaked off and bought these for prizes :) Thank you girls!

The snippets challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 22nd February and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize.

Both items are one prize but can you please say if you aren't playing for either of the items in this week's prize 'cos then I could do a second draw for whatever it is the first prize winner doesn't want.

Please NEVER be afraid to say you're just playing for fun - it doesn't offend me at all, and the Playground is first and foremost for us to have fun, the prizes are just a thank you for playing :)

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, I can sort it out for you quite quickly and am always happy to do so.

Have a great week and hope to see you in the Playground - bring your wellies (if it wasn't so very sad that might have been a funny).

STOP PRESS! Our little Playmate Victoria became a first time Mummy to a darling little baby girl - for more info. please look HERE. No name as yet, but what a little sweetie, can't you just smell the baby powder - many congratulations and she is absolutely adorable!! Love and hugs from us all in the Playground :)

SECOND STOP PRESS: If you check this more recent post, you'll see that I have one of the 'two weeks' thingies running. What you can win and how to be in with a chance is all there. 

Di (and a wave from Parsnip)
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A card for 'Mister Len'

It's a bit of a standing joke here about how much time Len lavishes on caring for the 'Playground' wildlife. The birds take up a lot of time (and money!) and of course Spike the hedgehog visits during the Summer. So it was only fitting that they should send their own Valentine's Day card to 'Mister Len' :)

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'Embrace' sheet. I did recently buy this stamp 'pre-loved' but time to spend colouring wasn't around - so I used the Stickeroo

- plain orange and yellow card from the snippets folder

- the green spotty paper is by Raspberry Road from a pad called 'Summer Goodness - free with Quick Cards Made Easy magazine a good while back

- the border across the card was punched using Martha Stewart's 'Zigzag' edge punch and topped with a a snippet of orange ribbon

- the sentiment is by Craftwork Cards, popped onto a punched oval

Ha, I bet he guesses I had a little paw in the making though, if he doesn't then I'll begin to worry! :)

Di
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Noel Hedgie

The current challenge over at Merry Monday is to use an animal on your card. Browsing through my Christmas stamps I spotted a little Penny Black hedgehog stamp peeking out of a box at me and an idea was born - so out came the hedgie, along with Clarity Stamp's 'Noel Frame' and we were away:

Sorry, the light here was dreadful when I took this photo and the embossing looks very flat - it's really shiny in real life :(

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- Clarity Stamps 'Noel Frame', stamped with clear VersaColor and embossed with Personal Impressions 'Mirror Gold'. Then Penny Black 'Little Angel' hedgie was stamped in SU 'Smoky Slate', coloured with Polychromos pencils and blended with Sansodor and the little halo coloured with a gold pen

- SU 'Real Red' card stock used for the border round the image

- the white embossed layer was made using SU's 'Square Lattice' folder, stuck onto the card base and the image popped on using thin sticky pads

As I had a 'reet ole selection' of stuff out to make this, I went for broke and made four the same :)

Di
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Well I never!

Having sorted out the paper pads, I pulled out a LOTV pre-coloured Art Pad the other day, flicked through the 'now sorted and easy accessible' patterned paper pads and blow me - what a match I found from a totally different manufacturer:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank with one edge already laser cut into pretty butterflies - from Hobbycraft

- image is LOTV from their pre coloured 'Cute Cottage Garden' Art Pad, die cut with a Nesties circle

- the papers are from Wild Rose Studio's 'Annabelle's Meadow' paper pack - one of my all time favourites and what a match for the image!

- a snippet of SU's 'Certainly Celery'

- rows of tiny pearls down the butterfly bodies

I thought the card was busy enough without adding a sentiment or anything else.

If, like me, you love the 'Annabelle's Meadow' papers here's a little heads up. I decided to replenish the pad as it's getting very low and I had quite a long search online to find another pad. Many places are sold out, so if (as I do) you already have the Annabelle's Meadow toppers you might want to check how much matching paper you have :)

I just spotted Stamping Sensations challenge for February which is 'Wings, Fantasy and Fiction' - my butterflies have wings so I'm going to play over there too :)

Di
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Laughing in the rain

This little duck stamp has been sitting forlornly on my desk for a few days, waiting for inspiration. When I saw the great sketch that Kathy K followed with her snippets card here, inspiration did indeed arrive. Err, plus we do still have the weather to go with it, sigh:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- stamped image by Funstamps called 'Puddle Duck', coloured with Pro Markers and then the umbrella paper pieced with dotty paper and the image corners rounded

- plain peach card backings are snippets

- patterned papers are from a paper stack which came free with Quick Cards Made Easy magazine a while ago, called 'Let's Fly Away!'

- sentiment is by Hero Arts from their 'Live Life' set, stamped using SU's 'Pumpkin Pie'

This is the sketch over at Sunday Sketch and Stamp and I'd like to enter this card, thanks for leading me there Kathy.

I'm really enjoying following sketches, so helpful when you need a KITA (little push in the right direction - also known as a Kick In The A*se rear end). Can't think why I didn't do it before now :(

Progress on the Playground ark continues, and Parsnip has appointed this little duck as Foreman (or Foreduck maybe). Snort.

Di
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Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 111

Welcome to another roundup in the Snippets Playground. It's been wet yet again here - just let the Water Authorities announce a drought come Summer and I'll totally flip! Am thinking perhaps we ought to start building an ark? Wash my mouth out - can you imagine the mayhem with hammers and nails flying round the Playground?! :(

Here's my snippets card for today:

 I used:

- 6" x 6" square cream card blank

- snippets of plain pink and cream card

- Martha Stewart 'Daisy' edge punch

- snippets of LOTV's 'Country Lady' paper pad

- stamps from the Inky Doodles set called 'In my Heart'. I stamped the frame onto a cream snippet using VersaMagic's 'Pink Petunia' and the sentiment using Memento's 'Toffee Crunch' then fussy cut round the outline of the 'frame' There's also a sweet little heart stamp in the set so I stamped one of those to pop just above the tied ribbon

- cappuccino coloured ribbon from the ribbon box

- Josy Rose matt green nail heads just to finish off

Let's move onto this week's picks - the usual tricky decisions to make:

I adore this little cutie, made by Sue P, so much lovely detail, dimension and use of snippets!

This is an amazing way to use up your snippets, by making a sunburst. Kim showed us this and there's also a link to a tutorial on how to do it - one to try for sure!

And here's another great use of snippets, made by Elizabeth, So lovely and Elizabeth used snippets,  a Stamps Away Patchwork Template - err, and a craft knife. One I'd love to try but craft knives terrify me :(

This adorable card, made by Carol L really tickled me. And look, even the little snippety stars from cutting the die border didn't go to waste :)

Isn't this butterfly canvas absolutely brilliant? Karen P brought it to show and I really love it.

I just adore this baby card, made by Sue J. What really struck me, apart from it being such a beautiful card, is the idea of cutting letters from gingham paper - great idea!


Pat brought us this amazing card - wow, I love the embossed background and every single detail - including the beautiful dress - is just perfect!

Ooops, my allocated time at the laptop is almost up so it's time to welcome two new playmates:

What a fabulous rainbow of buildings, made by Caroline.

And another really bright and beautiful card, made by Carol S.

Hope you come back and play often girls - you're both off to a flying start!

And now for the winner of the 'Poppy Patch' die:

ScrappyMo

 

Well done Mo! I have your address but can you email me to say if you'd like the pack of waxed paper to try out with the die cutting.

And this coming week's prize is:

Yup, it's an Inky Doodles stamp set the same as the one I used on my snippets card today.

Plus:

As we're on the theme of romance and roses, I'm including this lovely pre-loved 'Artistic Rose' stamp by Hero Arts, which was kindly donated to the toy box by Karen P (along with quite a few other goodies which will appear over the coming weeks).

The snippets challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 15th February January and will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Maximum of three entries and please say 'No thank you' in a comment if you wish to still play but not be the winner of the prize.

Both items are one prize but can you please say if you aren't playing for either of the items in this week's prize 'cos then I could do a second draw for whatever it is the first prize winner doesn't want.

Please NEVER be afraid to say you're just playing for fun - it doesn't offend me at all, and the Playground is first and foremost for us to have fun, the prizes are just a thank you for playing :)

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, I can sort it out for you quite quickly and am always happy to do so.

Have a great week and hope to see you in the Playground.

 
Di (and a very wet and soggy wave from Parsnip)
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LOTV Angel with Doves

Aw, I do love this little angel:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- sweet angel image from LOTV's pre-coloured Art Pad called 'Nativity Play', die cut using a Nesties 18 die with the little trick of keeping part of the image outside of the die cut. Just a tickle of 'Glamour Dust' added to the angel's wings and some of the stars

- sentiment stamped directly onto the image using a sentiment from Personal Impressions' 'Many Greetings' set and SU's Smoky Slate' ink pad

- SU's 'Smoky Slate' card stock as a border, topped with paper from Fizzy Moon's 'Festive Fun' paper pad

And for good measure, I made three exactly the same :)

Wahoo, and this week's theme over at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge is to use a die cut or punched shape - I think this qualifies, no?

And am also entering into  Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra where it's always anything goes.

This morning I'll be doing the weekly Snippets Playground write-up ready for tomorrow. I know that most of you have the Playground keys now - but Parsnip is on sentry duty from 11am until midnight when the Playground re-opens. Bwahaha, I now have visions of him marching like a true sentry to and fro in a bearskin - being a bear that isn't too hard a call. He doesn't bite but he's likely to snitch if anyone tries to sneak in :)

Di
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Forever friends

Shame on me, this is the first outing for a SU stamp set I bought quite a while ago:

I used:

- 4" x 4" white card blanks

- stamps from SU's 'Cross My Heart' set, stamped in SU's 'Smoky Slate' and 'Rose Red' onto a snippet of white card

- the layered backing card is also SU's 'Smoky Slate' and Rose Red'

It isn't your eyes, am sure this is outta focus a bit!

But I do love the birdie, hitching a ride on the elephant's back :) I made two at the same time, so that's two more little cards ready to pop in with Playground prizes.

Di
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Just saying 'Hello' card

It seems like ages since I used a Penny Black Stickeroo on a card, so the other day I set out to put that right:

 I used:

- 7" x 5" cream card blank

- Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'petals and poetry' sheet

- beige and brown card stock from one of the first paper pads I ever bought back in the Dark Ages, by K & Company called 'Classic K McKenna'

- I used the beige 'hessian' card as a background mat and to frame the Stickeroo

- the brown layer, from the same pad, looks a bit like leather. I embossed it using a folder called 'Bon Jour' by Couture Creations. The card is double side printed and I'd already guessed that the core might show once it was embossed - sho nuff, I was right! So I just lightly rubbed over the leafy pattern with fine sandpaper

- the peach ribbon came from the ribbon box

- sentiment is a discontinued Elzybells one, stamped onto a snippet of the 'hessian' card using VersaMagic's 'Hint of Pesto' and then punched using SU's 'Modern Label' punch

Here's a tip I posted about a while ago, which some of you just might not have seen.

It's a sort of swatch, for punches :) Not every single one that I own, 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.

This is the swatch:

 

And this is one of the templates against a sentiment when I was choosing which sentiment went with which punch.

I keep my unmounted Elzybells sentiments in separate little polybags with a stamped slip showing the actual sentiment - they're then all shoved into a bigger poly bag so I can grab them easily. Nothing fancy but it works for me :)

Di
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Organising paper pad storage

Warning - this is picture heavy!!

Sigh, searching through my paper pads when crafting was driving me totally crackers here. I had them piled in shallow drawers like one half side of this trolley (really wasteful on space at the side of the drawer):

 and the Christmas ones were in a deep  A4 sized box (again wasteful on space):

In a 'neat freak' mood I did a little bit of research and found a solution which I think, time will tell though, will work for me. First step was to order some CD storage boxes like these:

 

They came in packs of four, the lids - which I didn't intend to use - are ready assembled and the bases can be assembled in no time. Yup, I chose pink - now there's a surprise :) I know that Ikea also sell them, or something very similar, but no way was I trolling off to Ikea in a canoe at the minute. They're just a smidgen over 6" wide - perfect!

So, now I had the boxes, the next step was to empty a book shelf in the craft room and begin to play. The books are all destined for the local Hospice shop and, as part of my purge, more will follow - but this was at least one cleared shelf to play with.

I then went through drawers and boxes, pulling out every 6" and 8" square paper pad/pack. The first issue was that I wanted the pads to be stored upright instead of flat as they had been before, so I can flip through them easily. I didn't want them to be stored in poly bags (partly due to the limiting width of the boxes not having much to spare), but I do have a habit of just popping leftover snippets inside the front covers and of course they would just drop out - sigh. But, more online searching came up with a solution which I adapted to suit. This is it:

Little pockets to hold the snippets inside the back cover of each paper pad. I used 5.5" wide envelopes, sealed them and then chopped them in half to get two pockets per envelope. I did consider cellophane bags chopped down so I could see through them but they were going to be too flimsy.

So here's a paper pad with some snippets - I confess that with this system I had to chop a little bit off any pieces that would be too wide, or even right on the paper pad height, so they would fit. But, after the whole exercise I'd lost very little paper in fact.

And here are the pieces tucked into the little pocket - which I just stuck onto the inside of the back cover using a tape runner.

Here's one of the boxes, all loaded with Christmas papers - and room for even more to come if I decide to spend, spend, spend :) Oh, and A5 paper pads sit really nicely at the back of the boxes too - yay, I hadn't bargained on that.

I did the same with my 8" paper pads, this time using 7.25" square envelopes sealed and then chopped in half to make the pockets and they sit happily upright and sideways on in one of the boxes.

And here are the four boxes, all loaded and sitting cosily on the shelf. Still need to do the labels for the fronts of the boxes and also just a few dividers as I did categorise the pads a little bit into types but not much, things like vintage, male, contemporary, gingham, flowers and so on.

Some little tricks I used are - some pads had the front, and sometimes the back, covers loose. I just flipped a couple of pieces of sellotape over the pad spine to keep the covers in place. Some paper packs came totally without a glued spine, so I did the same thing as whole loose sheets within the same pad/pack should be fine. I don't plan on digging about in there like a dog looking for a bone folks!

I also sealed and cut a few spare envelope 'pockets' for future use 'cos those snippets sure do breed and I only added pockets to those where there were snippets to be stored. Some papers may never have snippets, such as full sheet ones in the vintage ranges.

It's just food for thought, you might probably all have your own super efficient filing systems. Including sorting out the books for the charity shop this little exercise took me less than half a day.

Just ordered some more boxes and I think the embossing folders will be next for 'the treatment', then those chunky Tim Holtz dies and perhaps the DVD sized boxes containing unmounted SU stamps - watch this space.

And why are you peeking to see what books are left on those other shelves in the photo huh? :) Little 'sticky beak'!

Di
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Contemporary NOEL

The current challenge over at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge is to use stripes and/or spots.  I used both:

I used:

- 7" x 5" white card blank, with an embossed line run round the edges using the Hougie board

- Woodware stamp called 'Huge Noel', stamped with Memento 'Tuxedo Black'

- paper piecing using snippets of spots and strips from the Wild Rose Studios 'Wintry Christmas' paper pack

- the 'frame' is SU's 'Perfect Plum' card stock

- sentiment is from the same Woodware set, stamped in Memento 'Tuxedo Black'

- brushed silver Josy Rose nail heads

I did a fairly similar card, but in much more traditional papers, a while ago for Sunday Snippets.This time I made two really clean and fresh ones in different papers while I was at it - trying to keep on target with 12 Christmas cards a month :)

Oh, and this is also for Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra of course, where it's always anything goes for Christmas.

Need to catch up on Playground commenting, it's been a busy day here but thank you so much to those of you who took the time and trouble to grab the snippets playground button and put it on your sidebar, 'cos actions do speak louder than words :) It took me ages a while to do and it's really very gratifying that so many of you girlies have genuinely cared enough to grab the button and pop it on your sidebar. If anyone is stuck, let me know - I won't snitch on you, hee, hee!!

Di
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Butterflies sympathy card

I made another sympathy card, for the same bereaved friends (Nanny's family) I mentioned the other day:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- pink and grey papers from the 'Sweet Afternoon' paper pad by Teresa Collins

- the butterflies were punched using using butterfly dies by Memory Box, the solid one is 'Isabella' and the matching 'lacy' one is 'Pippi'

- little white pearls down the butterfly bodies

- sentiment was stamped in VersaMagic 'Pink Petunia' using a stamp from SU's 'Four Frames' set and punched using SU's 'Decorative Label' punch - then I added the Elzybells sentiment

Di
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