Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 198

Hello again and welcome! The lovely Eve has kindly volunteered to act as Prefect again this week - it's a really busy week for me, with Len's Birthday in the midst of it - so I'm extra grateful for the helping hand!

And Eve has also made two snippets cards for us this week, which is a lot better then I can ever do! PLUS, they showcase some of the stamps that you can win (generously donated by her as well) - yay! Hooray for Eve, what a star! These are her cards:

For this card Eve used Stampin' Up's  'Nature's Perfection' and 'Simply Wonderful' stamp sets.

And for this card Eve used Stampin' Up's 'A Happy Thing' stamp set.

Both cards are here with me and they're absolutely beautiful! The black and gold one is so  sparkly and elegant and did you see how Eve paper pieced those lemons, right down to extra little leaves too! For details of how Eve made these two beauties - hop over to her blog HERE.

OK, straight onto this week's picks now:

Jenny H made this fabulous card - I chose it because the colours are just beautiful, wonderful papers used and the flower, vintage looking lace and little butterfly are just perfect. Great use of snippets!

There are some similarities to the elements on Jenny's card now that I look again at this beautiful card made by Annie - the vintage 'feel' is so lovely (I must be feeling 'vintage' these days!). Loads of gorgeous elements combined - and of course lots of snippets used too :) Love it!!

Maura never fails to come up with gorgeous uses for die cuts and this is one splendid example. Clean, classy and so eye catching! And such a great idea to sponge the colours onto white card stock before die cutting those beautiful flowers.

Sonia has been playing with alcohol inks this last week, this is one of the entries to the Playground. Do hop over and take a peek at Sonia's blog - there's a load of really good information about using alcohol inks - thanks for sharing that Sonia!

How about this for a really elegant card, made by Elizabeth. Beautiful embossing and isn't that framed butterfly totally gorgeous? I really love this card - perfect for so many occasions.

Just now there are loads and loads of Autumn themed cards to be found on blogs - Janis brought this one to the Playground, and to me it sums up everything that is beautiful about Autumn. Tons of snippets used and the richness is absolutely stunning!

Not as many picks this week, although every single entry deserved a mention. I ventured out to the supermarket yesterday and managed pretty well. A little bit achy afterwards but nothing too bad (yay!!!) - just not risking too much by sitting here for long spells.

And of course it's time for the draw for last week's prize of the Die-namics MFT 'Floral Fusion' die - very kindly donated to the Playground toy box by Darnell and the Waffle Flower 'With love' die. And the winner is:

 Jane J

It turns out that Jane was only playing for the 'With love' die - so I ran the Random Number Generator again to choose the winner of the 'Floral Fusion' die - and this is who popped out:

Jenny H

 

So, Jenny H wins the Floral Fusion die :)

Hopefully we have two happy bunnies - I still have your address Jenny H (from a win way back in February). But as it's your first win Jane, could you please drop me an email with your address (di_wray@hotmail.com). I'll make sure both prizes are posted off this week.

Next, our prize(s) for the coming week which have been kindly donated by Eve, and they're SU stamp sets the same as she used on her lovely snippets cards. It seemed like a good idea to have two prizes, the first drawn one will be prize A which is two/double stamp sets ('Nature's Perfection' and 'Simply Wonderful') and the second drawn one will be prize B which is one stamp set ('A Happy Thing').

You can play for one or both of the prizes, the first number to be drawn will win prize A and the second number drawn will win the prize B. So, you will need to comment if you wish to be in the draw and let me know if you're playing for prize A, B, or for either one of them (ie. both!). I hope that isn't as clear as mud? To be fair, if you win prize A and your number then pops out for prize B then I'd do a redraw for prize B - just to spread the love a bit further.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 17th October. 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.

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 :)

As already said, Eve is helping me out this week and will be commenting on your entries as well as letting me have her choice of weekly 'picks'. I'll still be hopping in to see what's going on, keeping a note of who would like which prize(s) and also watching in case you have any questions or linking problems. Also, I'll be commenting on Flickr and Split Coast Stampers entries - so I certainly won't be lying on the sofa eating grapes and watching soap operas!

Last, but certainly by now means least - I have news of two of our Playmates, and it's not good news I'm afraid.

I'm sure many of you will have read last week that Cornelia's detached retina was healed - well, unfortunately it's happened again. That means that Cornelia has to totally rest her eyes for as long as three months because the movement of one eye can affect the other! I think her son is reading comments to her so it would be lovely if you could hop over and give her a virtual hug.

And Brenda L really, really needs your love and prayers right now as well. I'm sure that many of you know that her much loved husband (Dwayne) had been ill for some considerable time, undergoing surgery and treatments. Sadly, he passed away yesterday - thank you Liz for updating me. So, so sad - I'm sure many of us have been through similar journeys with our loved ones and my heart breaks for them.

Have a good week, try to behave for Eve - and remember to hug those you love even more tightly than ever.

Di and of course, Parsnip!
x

Happy mail

I try to enclose a little card with each weekly Snippets Playground prize. Sometimes it's the Sunday Snippets card I made - at other times, my snippets card might not be suitable and that's when I set to and make something different - such as this card:

I used:

- 4" x 4" square white card blank

- flower and leaf stamp from the Uniko 'Pure Florals - Gerbera' sets, stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink then coloured using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and Sansodor blending solution

- at this point I was planning to use the matching dies to cut out the leaf and the flower, but I'd gone over the outside line whilst blending in a couple of spots and the outline dies leave a white border, sigh. So, I fussy cut round them instead

- stamped the sentiment next, using VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and two words from the Winnie and Walter 'The Big, the Bold and the Happy' stamp set 

- then I added the leaf and flower using Collall All Purpose glue

- top right hand corner looked too bare, but adding Josy Rose nail heads or similar would have been too fussy IMHO - so I rounded it off using my Fiskars Corner Rounder scissors

- final touch, a tickle of clear Wink of Stella all over the leaf and the flower

Job done - another time I might even get the Twinkling H2O's out and have a play, gerberas do come in such lovely, vibrant almost jewel like colours:

These beauties were delivered on my Birthday the other week, from Len - aw :)

Di 
x 

Wildlife on a Wednesday

Even though we're almost galloping into Autumn this week (torrential rain and a definite drop in temperature), last week we had some welcome visitors in the Playground/garden:

This gorgeous Red Admiral butterfly was sunning itself and Len managed to get a few photos. We've noticed a few late butterflies this year, usually they're all gone by now. Certainly the swallows left for their long journey to warmer climes a few weeks ago.

And we have some real fun and games with 'Horace and Doris' the hedgies, they turn up every single night to feed, so thankfully the discovery of a snoozing nest in the front garden didn't faze one or both of them.

Len has a proper little feeding station set up for them and they trigger the outside light when they arrive, but don't seem at all worried to be 'in the spotlight' so to speak. This is a photo he took last week - and I have no idea if it's the male or female hedgie, but suspect it's Horace:

The set up is on a paving slab sitting on top of the patio - to keep their little feet dry :)  The red you can see in the background is part of the leg of a low square plastic table which sits right over the feeding area, bought just for the purpose of keeping the rain off! So it's like a gazebo really - just a shame it's bright red and a bit 'in your face'!

On the menu? Spike's Dry Hedgehog food and a few ordinary peanuts - the water bowl is out of shot. Hedgies are VERY messy eaters - they flick the food all over the place, so it's a daily clean up job for their 'carer', bless him.

I have subsequently read that peanuts really should be crushed lest a hedgie gets one wedged in its back teeth and can't close its mouth properly (no dental sticks or toothbrushes in hedgie land). So now we have a dedicated pestle and mortar for use when preparing their nightly menu.

Mad or what?

Di
x

Penny Black and More October challenge - Warm Autumn colours

The current challenge over at Penny Black and More is  'Warm Autumn colours'. Such a lovely theme and this is my entry:

I used:

- A6 cream card blank

- a dark brown mat, cut from a snippet of course

- backing paper from the My Mind's Eye paper pad called 'Sunshine'

- Penny Black stickeroos from the 'April in Paris' sheet - I think it should be Autumn in Paris as the colours are so rich and Autumnal on all the stickeroos. Little tip, I stuck the whole strip across the patterned paper and then trimmed it in situ, from the back with scissors - simple but useful idea, at one time I'd have tried to cut it to size first (you live and learn)

- wrapped a couple of snippets of aubergine wide organza ribbon and narrower satin ribbon down the left hand side of the patterned paper before sticking it to the dark brown mat

- then adhered it to the card front before tying a couple of snippets of the same ribbon into a knot. Another little tip, I always tuck a little piece of  red line tape underneath the knot or bow to stop it from moving about

A quick card but I do love the 'depth' in those stickeroos! No sentiment, this is just a card for general use.

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 197

Yet another busy week in the Playground - with lots of beautiful makes and here's my snippets card for this coming week:

I used:

- 6" x 6" white card blank to start off with - more of this, and why, further down

- a snippet of bright pink card stock (my SU card colour swatch tells me this is 'Melon Mambo')

- the die cut the pink card snippet, having backed it with Stick-It adhesive sheet, using a Die-namics MFT die called 'Floral Fusion'. Love this die as it's great for covering the whole front of a card - and the possibilities for variation are endless

- then peeled off the backing paper from the adhesive sheet on the reverse of the die and carefully placed it along the spine of the 6" x 6" white card blank

- next step was to just trim each of the other edges along the line where the pink frame met the white card blank - a perfect way to make sure the die totally and squarely covered the front of the card without any 'wonky bits'

- stuck two snippets of white card on top of one another for extra rigidity and die cut a stitched rectangle using a die from the Lil-Inkers set, stuck it on the bottom left corner of the card using red line tape

- next, covered the back of snippet of black card stock with snippets of Stick-It adhesive sheet (you can patch these easily so never throw away any leftovers!) and cut three sentiments - using a Waffle Flower 'With love' die then layered them on top of one another

- added the sentiment to the stitched rectangle and also added a couple of little pieces of pink which were waste which popped out from the die cutting

- then went a bit mad with black pearls in three different sizes :)

Showed it to the in-house critic - 'a bit in your face isn't it' was a observation - not the die cuts, it's the bright pink that made his teeth itch! :) I do think it would be really pretty in pale colours, or white and silver for example (and would work beautifully as a stencil I'm sure) - but wanted to show the die off properly so you could see all the detail, 'cos it's part of this week's prize of course!

Now straight onto the weekly picks:

This sewing machine one of those snippets makes that stops you in your tracks - brought to show by Alice (ScrAPamondo) - and absolutely stunning with so much detail! There's even a little drawer at one end. It never ceases to amaze me how ingenious and inventive you girls are!

Our Sam (aka Hettie) made this wonderful box card for her parents' Diamond Wedding Anniversary. What a totally sparkly and  fabulous creation - I LOVE it. Such a lovely idea to incorporate photos of their actual Wedding Day too!

Jane J recently had a holiday on the Island of Rhodes - and she did some crafting whilst there. I think this is such a great idea - a holiday Moment incorporating many happy memories to savour once back home - even the circles were made by using the tops of bottles as tools!! I did giggle a bit, do hop over to Jane's blog to see the photos - she was even crafting on the flight over to her holiday!

And from sunshine we hop straight into snow :) This gorgeous Christmas card was made by Carol L - I picked it because it's so fresh and clean, with wonderful use of snippets too! I don't have this actual die but am sure the Memory Box 'Pine Border' quite similar dies could be used to CASE this elegant card, with a little bit of jiggery pokey :)

Carole L has been making a slower than hoped recovery from surgery (we've both been sitting on the bench in the Playground watching you lot have conker fights) so please let's wish her well. And, I picked her card because it summed up how snippets and a couple of shapes can make for a really elegant card. The rose die is a Penny Black one BTW.

And here's another lovely pink rose, brought to us by Pat. Such beautiful water colouring and the die cut framework is absolutely lovely.

And last, but by no means least, here's a really gorgeous card - brought to the Playground by Diane H. I think it's absolutely beautiful and it's such a wonderful take on the inspiration photo over at Diane's - probably one of the best takes I've even seen in fact! See if you agree:

So, that's the weekly picks - always such a difficult job to choose as each and every entry is always a real delight.

We have two new playmates this week:

Sonia entered three times, and this pen pot is one of her beautiful makes - a very talented lady!

A crafter who added her name as Repolainen brought this fabulous owl card - I do so love how the feathers make such a gorgeous finishing touch!

Hope to see you both in the Playground again!

And of course it's time for the draw for last week's prize of the Winnie and Walter 'In a Word: Friend Cutaway' die and the Marianne 'Don and Daisy - DDS3324' stamp.

This was serendipity for sure, I ran the number generator and the first person out, although they'd commented, hadn't said one way or the other about the prize so I take that as a 'no thanks' - which is absolutely fine. Ran the Random Number Generator again and who should pop out:

SarN

I squeaked with sheer delight here as Sarn was really keen to win this prize (most weeks she just plays for fun) and had entered three times. It's absolutely pure coincidence - but a very happy one that her number got drawn!

Next, our prize for the coming week and, as already said, it's a Die-namics MFT 'Floral Fusion' die - very kindly donated to the Playground toy box by Darnell, a good while ago. And, I've added in a Waffle Flower 'With love' die. So both items are duplicates of the ones I used today:

As I've said before, I really do have a Playground toy box here along with a little notebook to keep track - so if you sent a prize and it hasn't appeared yet, rest assured it will!

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 10th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Do say if you only want one or other part of the prize (one or both dies) but both are up for grabs as one prize of course. And please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

I've emphasised the bit about saying 'yes please' if you want to be in the prize draw as I do have a slight suspicion that the first person drawn this week might well have wanted to be in the draw - but they didn't say so - so I did a re-run. Am sure Sarn will be delighted though :)

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

Anenomes

I made a really quick card  and, in truth, the beautiful papers did most of the work:

I used:

- 6" x 6" white card blank, tent style

- a snippet of SU's 'Melon Mambo' card stock

- patterned paper from the 'Botanica' Collection by Craftwork Cards, trimmed to size and adhered onto the Melon Mambo card square. Thankfully I tried Collall glue with a teeny piece of white card and a snippet of the patterned paper - sure enough, the glue was going to show through so I had to resort to a Stix2 tape runner

- the banner is from the same paper set, adhered with same tape runner onto a snippet of white card for rigidity before being trimmed to shape with scissors and stuck onto the top part of the front panel

- found a snippet of lemony yellow ribbon and put that along the top of the panel before then gluing the whole panel onto the card front

- final touch, little piece of lemony yellow ribbon tied in a knot around the strip of ribbon - and held in place with a little piece of red line strong adhesive tape behind the knot

Gosh, so pleased I tested the reaction of the Collall wet glue before potentially ruining the whole panel. What alerted me was that the paper is matt and not overly thick and therefore was likely to be pretty absorbent - lesson to remember there.

I'd spotted this wonderful paper over at another blogger's and raved about it. A sweet blogging buddy immediately sent me her own pack, which had apparently been a magazine freebie. Too sweet - mwah, and thank you again!!

Yesterday we had the front garden borders tidied up, dramatically thinned out and mulched ready for the onset of Winter. The gardener found what seems to be a hedgehog nest (underneath a huge strappy leaved plant we'd got him to cut right down so it would regenerate) so great care was taken not to wake 'snoozing Spike' and he's now had an extra layer of bark mulch carefully added on top of his home - even left his little doorway clear for him to come and go! We think it's just a Summer sleeping place, they usually make more substantial nests for hibernation. 

Having tiptoed round we decided against trying to take a photo, but he'd obviously gathered loads of fallen leaves over a period of time :) Edit - he was back around midnight foraging in the back garden and feeding and drinking at his little restaurant, so at least we didn't chase him away - or it could even be a nest from last year. Oh, and there sure are two of them visiting each night, often jostling for position at the feeding station :)

So, you never know who's sleeping just where round here!

Di
x

Less is More - Week 243 - Something shiny

The current challenge over at Less is More is 'Something shiny'. Over at Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 248 it's 'Stick it down' - plus I'd also like to enter this into Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for September where it's always 'Anything goes':

Gosh the light was weird when I took this photo! The trees are actually peel off stickers, with the difference that some parts are sticky but others aren't, so they have layers which don't adhere to the card itself - giving a 3-D effect.

I used:

- DL white card blank. tent style

- scored lines top and bottom, half an inch from the edges, using my Hougie board

- three gold and clear 3-D Christmas tree peel offs - no name on the packet :(

- peel off 'Merry Christmas' sentiment

And, needless to say I made another one the same whilst I was playing!

Di
x

Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - No Squares

The Cuttlebug Mania Challenge this fortnight is 'No Squares' and all you have to do is to use a manual die cutting/embossing machine (it doesn't need to be a Cuttlebug but it must be manual, not electronic). Then make your entry, link into the challenge, link to the challenge in your own blog post and and make sure that you also say what products you used for any die cutting/embossing. We're a nosey lot and do like to know just what you've used :)

Our sponsor this fortnight is 'Digiscrapkits' - over here.

Most of my card are square these days, with a few oblong ones thrown in for good measure - but after some head scratching I came up with a rocker card, and not a right angle to be seen:

I used:

- a pre-coloured image from The Hobby House called 'Spring Bringer', die cut slightly smaller using a die from the Tonic Studio's 'Circle Layering' set (I wrote quite extensively about this set about 10 days ago in a Christmas rocker card post)

- layered the image onto a snippet of SU's 'Crisp Cantaloupe' card which had been die cut using a Spellbinders 'Scalloped Circle' nestie

- stamped the word 'Hello' onto the image using VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and a sentiment stamps from the Stampendous ''Happy Messages' set

- to make the base I used the two largest dies in the circles set, cutting one from SU's 'Pistachio Pudding' and then a slightly smaller one using a sheet of Craftwork Cards 'Vintage Rose' paper

- glued them together and then scored the circle right across the centre and folded it to form the rocker base

- stuck the image panel onto the rocker base using red line tape. That was a bit tricky-woo to make sure it was all lined up fine, and whilst concentrating on the lining up I took my eye off the ball, sigh. So there's a deliberate mistake but no way was I going to rip the image layer off without wrecking the whole card. The flowers on the paper are upside down (of course they're the right way up on the back, which is the side I meant to use as the front), but then again, the flowers the little girl is carrying are also mostly upside down - so that's alright then :)

You have two weeks to join in with Cuttlebug Mania - hope you find time to come and play!

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 196

We're officially into Autumn now - and galloping towards 'you know when' at a rate of knots. Do remember that it's still Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's - until Wednesday 30th September, and of course you can combine your Rudolph Day card with a snippets one :)

Let's get cracking and first of all here's my snippets card, told you Autumn was in the air:

I used:

- A5 white card blank, tent style

- the image is a stamp by Marianne Design 'Don and Daisy - DDS3324', stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and coloured using Pro Markers then die cut using a Spellbinders Nestie 'Labels 18' die

- then took a snippet of Neenah 'Desert Storm' plain card stock and drew round the outside of the die before fussy cutting to create a narrow frame for the image - and glued the image to it

- using a little strip of the patterned paper I backed it with Stick-It adhesive sheet and die cut the word 'friend' using a Winnie and Walter die called 'In A Word: Friend Cutaway'

- more snippets of Neenah 'Desert Storm' card plus a whole (gasp, shock, horror) sheet of patterned paper from Papermania's Capsule Collection 'Sunshine' paper pack to form the main background of the card

- to cover the front of the card I did some quick maths then layered an oblong of the patterned paper onto Neenah 'Desert Storm card - leaving a narrow border right round

- guillotined the top part of the background according to my calculations and adhered it to the top of the card front

- next, added the die cut word 'friend' - leaving the bottom of the card totally blank at this point

- once the die cut 'friend' was in place, I could tell whether the bottom piece of the background was going to meet the bottom of 'friend' nicely and still leave a white border at the bottom of the card. Bingo! It worked fine so I glued the bottom panel in place

- had my calculations been slightly adrift, by leaving the bottom panel until last I could have made an adjustment by either trimming a bit off the patterned panel if it was too large, or taking a little bit off the bottom of the card blank itself  if the panel was on the small side

- finally, I added the image panel to the top part of the card using Collall All Purpose glue for some 'wiggle room'

I do so love this stamp - Len says my hair looks like that when I wake up in the mornings! And the 'friend' die is going to be fun to use, cut in plain card it would look great, it could also be used for the camouflage technique - and of course would be super combined with stamped words too.

And now onto this week's picks - sheesh, a lot of entries and also many of you were keen on the Sizzix die/Stick-It sheets on offer. Here we go:

Oh how I love all the detail on this fabulous easel card, made by Jenny L. It's super Jenny!!

Still with purple, Kitty brought us this amazing Halloween card - get the expression on that cat's face :)

Eve is on a roll at the moment with beautiful black and white cards, accented with gold foiling and embossing. I picked this one as a lovely example to share with you.

I just love this card, made by Linby. Fabulous use of snippets and a perfect sentiment. This little lady reminds me a bit of Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas film, only without the stitching on her face. It's the eyes I think!

You know that feeling when you see a handmade card or something else on a blog - and it stops you in your tracks? Well, I literally screeched to a halt when I spotted this amazing card made by Donna - gosh it's fabulous and it's all made using dies, a stencil, a stamp and snippets. I LOVE, love, love this!!

I chose this card, made by Janis, as it's a great example of how to use up neon coloured snippets - it sure brightened up the day here!

This is such a pretty tag that Ileana skipped with in to show us - who wouldn't feel better if they received this?

Yay! Cornelia came to play a couple of times this week - first of all bringing us this fabulous card to share. It was published in Craft Stamper magazine and I'm not surprised. The great news is that Cornelia is well on the mend after the retina repairs - but for now she's gonna be sitting out playing on the seesaw, just like me!

Now, we're not just about cards in the Snippets Playground, and this week two fabulous canvases caught my eye:

This first one was made by Brenda (Floral Fantasies), and I think it's just absolutely gorgeous. And loads of you who visited her also thought the same - there's a great explanation of how Brenda made this beauty on her blog as well.

And finally, here's another canvas - this time made by Jane J. She used a technique I'd never come across before called 'Slashed Canvas' - it's amazing! I've read the steps a few times on Jane's blog and now have a good idea about how it was done. Would love to try it and I wonder if anyone else dares have a go, another great way to use snippets!

We had one new Playmate and, bless her little cotton socks, she's our youngest crafter in the Playground ever! Aged 22 months! When I spotted what Daisy Jane had made I asked Jane J (her Nanna) to link her into the Playground so you could all see a crafter in the making - take a look at what the little poppet made:

The conkers were from a 'conker hunt' with Nanna - and to prove that Daisy is already adept with stamps and pens, here she is working (Nanna did the grown up writing of course!):

So cute!! And starting off really young too.

So, with a little drum roll, it's time to pick the winner of the Sizzix 'card front die' called 'Peace, Love, Joy' and/or the Stick-It adhesive sheets:

Donna 

I was delighted to see Donna's number come up (the first two runs of the Random number generator picked two Playmates who had already declined the chance to win so it was third time lucky for Donna!). And not only that, you'll have seen that Donna's fabulous scenic card blew my socks off this week - and you know what? She truly doesn't realise just how good she is.

Donna came to play for the first time the week before last and has only been blogging since February - so this is a fairly quick win, and very well deserved. To date she has just 17 followers - I just bet (and very much hope) a few more of you will hop over and start to follow her after seeing her work! Can you please let me have your snail mail address Donna, and I'll post your prize off this week (di_wray@hotmail.com).

This coming week's prize isn't difficult to guess:

It's a Winnie and Walter 'In a Word: Friend Cutaway' die and a Marianne 'Don and Daisy - DDS3324' stamp, just like the ones I used on my snippets card today.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 3rd October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. Do say if you only want one or other part of the prize (the die or the stamp), but both are up for grabs as one prize of course. And 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 :)

Progress with the back is slow but it's steadily improving - bit by bit we'll get there!

Di and of course, Parsnip!
x
 

Rudolph Day - September 2015

Yay, it's Rudolph Day again, over at ScrappyMo's - HERE. And, it's also Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #247 'Something beginning with P' - as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for September 'Always anything goes'.

So, I began with the letter P as my starting point - and this was the result - presents/parcels:

I used:

- A6 white card blank, tent style

- snippet of red satin mirri card, cut a tad smaller than the card front and glued in place

- snippet of white card, cut a tad smaller again and glued in place on top of the red layer

- Stampin' Up 1" square punch to punch three squares from patterned snippets tucked in the back of LOTV's 'Classic Christmas' paper pad

- plain snippets from the same paper pad, backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet and then die cut using a die from the Memory Box 'Crisp Bows' set - to form the 'ribbon and bows' on the parcels which were assembled and put to one side

- next, a red peel off sentiment - had totally forgotten I had a sheet of red ones!

- then I added the assembled parcel with their bows - best done at the end when the sentiment peel off is in place just to make sure the balance is right (or as right as it ever would be if I'm behind the making!)

I made some cards in a similar style for last Christmas, although they were bright neon colours and much more modern/funky - HERE.  

And, of course, I made another one exactly the same as the one I showed at the top of this post - which means I've hit my target for September of 12 Christmas cards - so that makes 108 made so far this year. Whoop, whoop!


Di
x

At long last!

It's taken us years to capture 'Spike the Hedgehog' in a reasonably decent night time photo, under the garden spotlights, but one evening the week before last, Len managed to catch him whilst he was somewhat preoccupied:

He did turn his head to cast a beady eye at the camera, and then quickly returned to the object of his interest:

Oh help - he'd only brought a girlfriend to dinner! And we don't think dinner was the only thing on the menu either.

Len has now christened them 'Horace and Doris' - quite why is lost on me :)

The worry is, if there are little 'Spikelets' in a few weeks time as a result, we'll be doing the hedgehog rescue palaver all over again.

In fact it got even more complicated - later on we found CCTV shots of THREE hedgies dancing around the lawn playing 'ring a ring o' rosies'! Little perishers :)

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Minions Birthday card

I've wanted to make a 'Minions' Birthday card for ages now, using the Stampin' Up Owl punch. Recently I got the chance to make one for one of Len's little relatives - and they really are such fun to make, if a little fiddly!

This is so NOT my idea by any means, there are loads of Minions cards out there and we've had some fun ones in the Playground for sure. THIS is where I found some clear and easy to follow instructions using the SU owl punch (which was my mission!), along with photos of the stages. And this was the resulting card 'wot I made' - with huge thanks to Trisha for the really clear instructions:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- a snippet of dark blue paper as a frame

- a panel of white card

- snippet of yellow card, die cut using a Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die then backed the lower part with a snippet of dark blue paper

- only at that point did I stick the yellow sentiment layer, with lower part backed with the dark blue paper, to the panel of white card and trim it down to sit on top of the dark blue frame leaving a narrow border right round

- the cheeky little Minions were made by following the instructions here (as mentioned earlier) and using snippets of yellow, black and dark blue card - plus some large googly eyes

- die cut the letters for Joe's name using a snippet of dark blue card and a Tattered Lace 'Anniversary - Classic Alphabet' die

- then just popped the little Minions in place using thin sticky pads

I used some words I'd seen whilst looking for the Minions tutorial, just printed them on the insert .................. 'Sending you Minions of Birthday Wishes'.

Snigger :)

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