Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 260 & 261 - and Prize A

Hi there and a warm welcome to the Snippets Playground. Little Parsnip is behind the bike shed dishing out mince pies, cookies, egg nog and mulled wine - the same as last year! Do please help yourself - and do please also let me know if you notice Parsnip having a secret swig or two! And, despite some of you believing otherwise, I am well aware of the chinking of glasses and muffled giggles! :)

This is actually Len's Christmas card, I made it whilst he was out at archery the other day as it really needed to be done - and I wanted it for the prize 'hint'. Thankfully he doesn't look at the blog:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- plain white card stock for all the layers - I love white pearlescent card but wasn't sure how well the sentiment would stamp - didn't want to risk it smudging!

- first of all I took a piece of white card stock and die cut the 'slider aperture' using a die from the MFT 'Surf & Turf' die set - at that point I hadn't cut the piece of card down to size as this was a first play and various things needed to be checked before I did any trimming

- at the same time I die cut four discs, using the circles die which comes with the 'Surf and Turf' set

- then I stamped Lawn Fawn's 'Winter Bunny' onto a snippet of white card, coloured it with Pro markers and die cut the image using the matching die

- now I could fathom out spacing for the elements on the card I was ready to roll!

- embossed a snippet of white card using SU's 'Softly Falling' embossing folder

- die cut another snippet of white card using Cheery Lynn's 'Winter's Neighbourhood Border' die, twice

- the reason for the second cut of the die was so that I could carefully trim the houses and trees off and use it as a template to lightly pencil in a cutting line at the top of the slider panel so that the houses would sit properly along a curved line

- trimmed the curved part at the top of the slider panel and glued the house and trees die cut in place

- then cut the 'Softly Falling' snow panel so that it would sit above and behind the houses and trees and still leave a gap for the slider to run freely

- at that point the panel was ready to be trimmed to the same size as the card front

- next thing was to use the Misti to stamp the sentiment, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a sentiment from the Inkylicious 'Seasons Greetings' stamp set

- before adhering the panel to the card front I added the 'Winter Bunny' die cut into the slider aperture, using the little card circles and a couple of MFT 'Spin and Slide Discs'. along with Collall All Purpose Glue. You have to add two sliders side by side so that the little chap doesn't spin round :) The 'slider' goes from one edge to the other with about half an inch spare on either side when the little bunny is either up or down his little ride - wheeee :)

- I used foam tape to add the panel to the card front, and in fact used a double layer of it (it's quite thin) to make sure the slider would move really freely

- added some clear Wink of Stella to the rooftops, the trees and along the curvy line of the row of houses

- then die cut some Christmas trees using Impressions Obsession's 'Evergreen Trees' dies and covered those with clear Wink of Stella as well

 - finally glued the trees in place in a cluster in front of the houses and one above the sentiment
 
I really loved making this card and was so pleased with a working result! The MFT die cuts and the little 'Spin and Slide Discs' are absolutely brilliant - work so well!

Now, I'd spotted the Neighbourhood and the Trees dies being used together by one of you lovely Playmates a good while back - needless to say I can't recall where but thank you for the inspiration! AND, I picked this card, made by Trina, the other week - and that's what really kicked off me buying the slider stuff to go with the other dies. If you go to Trina's blog you'll see some really useful links too! I loved how Trina added a streak of blue to her slider aperture - I was so worried about spoiling mine after all the hard work, I held back!

I'm entering this card into the Merry Monday #226 Challenge - 'Winter Fun'.

And also into Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #312 where the theme is 'Cute or Anything Goes' - I think this surely qualifies as cute :). Plus, Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for December, always 'Anything Goes'.

And now let's move straight onto the weekly picks etc. As there are a few different things happening in the Playground over the coming two weeks, and I need to explain what'll be going on, I've kept the number of picks down this week:

I love this card, made by Carol L. What a great way to use up lots of snippets and the cherry on that sparkly cupcake looks good enough to eat :)

This little robin is one of my very favourite little Penny Black stamps, beautifully added to a branch by Pat. Isn't it sweet? Such a lovely card altogether.

Love the green plaid on this terrific tag, made by Greta! And how perfectly the greens match too - tags are such a lovely way to use up snippets.

Wowser, what a fabulous and huge Christmas tree Sonia and her daughter Prisha made! To see the scale you really need to hop over to Sonia's blog here - it's origami on a massive scale, with all the decorative elements made using snippets!

Sorry, I had to call a halt at four, sigh - as always so hard to choose and so many wonderful ideas. My advice (as always) is to try and find time to visit as many playmates as possible and see for yourself just how clever they all are!

And, we have one new playmate this week:

Heaney came to play, with this adorable Tilda Christmas card - of course I LOVE all the pink :)

Welcome to the Playground Heaney and we hope you come back to play again!

Let's do the prize draw(s) now for the Couture Creations 'Compassionate' and 'Early Songbird' embossing folders. And of course I had three sets of these to give away:

Jacky (Paddington Fan)

Pat

 

Chris (Smith)

Had to laugh when Chris was chosen, she raced in at the very last minute and almost got her fingers trapped as the gates were about to close :)

Can you please all drop me an email with your address in (this is so that I don't make any mistakes!) and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! The sooner the better so they don't get too caught up in the Christmas post - and I don't find myself fighting to get at a post box :) My email address is on the right hand side bar.

Right, so this is what's going to be going on with the Snippets Playground over the festivities. Not only is it Christmas and New Year (aka Holidays) - it's also a whole five years on 1st January since I took over the Playground from the lovely Jules, so time to celebrate big time!

Firstly, the Playground Mr Linky which is below will run for two weeks and closing time will be 11am on Saturday 31st December and this post you are looking at right now is where to add any entries - with a maximum of one entry - over the fortnight. Loads of dithering here about whether to allow more entries but I want to keep things as level as possible. One entry means you're in the draw - and the  more prizes you say you'd like to win in the comments in each 'additional prize' post does up the chances quite a bit as I keep a really tight check on those! You have two weeks to play (if you want to of course!) as no doubt the run up to Christmas plus the Christmas and pre-New Year festivities themselves will be busy for you. Some of you will be busier than others I know and, for those of you who do find some quiet time to craft, it's a chance for you to play along for some rather nice prizes too. It also means I can clear the Playground toy box out of Christmas themed prizes.

So that I don't swamp and confuse you with a load of prizes to choose from in this post, I'll be posting at intervals over the coming couple of weeks and adding more prizes of varying sizes into the pot as we progress through the holiday. To be honest, I'm still planning how to fit them all in as well, same as last year - but it worked out then so am sure it will work this time as well :)

If you see a prize you'd like to be in the 'pot' for then please leave a 'Yes please' (or similar) comment in the same post where I show you the prize. For me, that's going to be a lot less confusing than me having lots of little lists here and there - especially as there are so many prizes coming up!  It will mean that if you would like to be in with a chance of every prize, then you need to comment on each one as it comes up - and please don't leave it right until the end and nip through all the prize posts adding 'Yes please' to each in one fell swoop. Remember, they will show up serially on my dashboard if you do that so I will notice and wouldn't feel that it's in the true spirit of the Playground. So, if you want to play then do try to pop in over the festivities to see what's on offer :)

Also, just saying here 'count me in for all prizes that are offered' doesn't count I'm afraid and will mean you don't go into the draw at all - other people are taking the time and trouble to check out the individual posts and prizes and leave comments so it wouldn't be fair to them. Again, this worked fine last year. 

As I already said, there will only be the one Mr Linky for all entries - which is at the end of this post of course. I'll remind you where to go to link each time I post a new prize on the blog. Also, I'll run the prize draw using this Mr Linky as a basis for the random number generator and will then look at the relevant post to find out who said yes to the particular prize I'm running the random generator for.

As there will be a good few prizes (for example, I again have six of one particular prize which will appear in one post - got a bit carried away there!) - I think the odds of winning something could be in your favour! Plus, the prizes aren't 'First, Second, Third' etc - some are higher in value than others for sure though - so if your name pops out again you could very well end up winning more than one prize.

I hope this is clear girls? Remember, I'm pacing things as best I can over the holidays so I might not manage to comment immediately - ha, probably will be beavering away here making sample cards for the prizes!

Let's start with today's prize:

Cheery Lynn 'Winters Neighbourhood Border' die, Impressions Obsession 'Evergreen Tree' dies, Lawn Fawn 'Winter Bunny' stamp and matching die. Plus, a MFT 'Surf and Turf' slider die set as well as two packets of the super little 'Spin and Slide Discs'.

To be honest, it really is the best of the bunch of the prizes in terms of the number of components, although there are some really interesting and varied prizes to follow - IMHO of course. This time it's four lots of dies as well as a stamp and some twiddly bits. Have I lost the plot here? Do not answer that perlease :)

I hope I've explained how the coming two weeks will work in the Playground? Please just say if it's left you confused.

The Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 31st December. As we'll be right on top of New Year there will be a new Mr Linky on Sunday 1st January 2017 and probably the picks but the results of the huge raffle/prize draw may have to wait until during that first week of January 2017.

Maximum of one entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prizes. Remember, there's the prize today and others will appear fairly frequently over the next two weeks so keep your eyes peeled.

Do say in this post if you only want one or other parts of the prize today but it's all up for grabs as one prize of course and will only be split if the first name out only wants one or other of the items, in which case I'll do a second or further draws for the other part(s) of the prize. And please also remember to link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

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

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

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 :) 

Less is More - Challenge #306 - One Layer - 'Outline'

Wednesday was the first day I really felt like making a card for about a week. Ha, I eased myself in gradually you might say :

I used:

- 3.5" x 3.5" white card blank

- both the sheep and the sentiment were stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and stamps from the Elzybells 'Jump for Joy' set - sadly now out of production

- then just coloured the little tie and added some very pale pink to the ears and cheeks - using a Whispers marker

This is one of a set of four, to be enclosed with forthcoming Playground prizes - and also for the current Less is More challenge :)

And I think the sentiment says it all to you sweet friends who have left such lovely supportive comments during my 'down time'.

Be sure to come back on Sunday as the Christmas Festivities begin in the Playground!

New Challenge over at Cuttlebug Mania

There's a new challenge over at Cuttlebug Mania, starting at 7am UK time today. The theme is 'Use Santa on your project' - a lovely one for this time of year! I've had to skip my DT card this time round but do go and play.

You do have to use a manual die cutting/embossing machine for Cuttlebug Mania entries (it doesn't need to be a Cuttlebug but it must be manual, not electronic). And, you can't mix the two, it must be all manual please. 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.

Details of our sponsor can be found over on the Cuttlebug Mania Challenge blog.

Something I spotted the other day really cracked me up - one picture and a few words - says it all:

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 259

Well, this is a post that almost didn't happen! Still playing catch up here but wanted to at least kick off another Snippets Challenge in the usual way.

Here's my snippets card for this week and, once again, what you see on this card isn't the weekly prize:

A close-up of the Wink of Stella sparkle :)

I used:

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

- snippet of purple card from the snippets folder, embossed using Taylored Expressions 'Twirls and Swirls' embossing folder

- then trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front, a snippet of mauve ribbon wrapped around and stuck in place at top and bottom using red line tape

- little snippet of mauve ribbon just tied around the flat piece of ribbon - it's easy to hold ties like this in place with a tiny piece of red line tape behind the knot to adhere it to the card

- the pre-coloured image is from a LOTV Art Pad called 'Fairies', die cut using a Tonic Studio circular die and embossed just by running a ball tool around the reverse of the die cut before removing it from the metal die

- the sentiment is from a LOTV sentiments set called ''Fairy Sentiments', stamped using the Misti and Memento 'London Fog' ink
 
- glued the die cut onto the embossed card front and added some tickles of clear Wink of Stella to the wings, skirt and the 'pom poms'

Now for the weekly peek at the picks:

Jane's posts about dear little Daisy are always a delight to read, this week Daisy wrote to Santa with a wish list for a yo-yo and a ball for Christmas! Bless her. Jane also brought this lovely card to share as well. Isn't it sweet - just waiting for Santa! :)

And still on with grand daughters, Andrea (KandA) shared this delightful card - made for her beloved grand daughter who lives over in Australia. So sweet (that bear is very like Parsnip!) and I do love the way the sentiments are on baubles - great idea!

Kitty's 'stair step' Christmas card is a thing of such beauty! So much wonderful detail and it really is a pure delight! Do go and see, there are lots of closer views.

A couple of months ago, Connie won an accordion card dies set in the Playground. I love to see folk using their prizes and was delighted to see this 'take' on the accordion card - a square instead of one long card - brilliant idea!

Jenny made this really fabulous poinsettia tree - what a gorgeous decoration! Think of the time and patience to die cut and assemble all those marvellous little poinsettias alone!

I wanted you to see this card, made by Hazel (kbrandy4) as not only is it really beautiful - but the colouring is stunning! Brilliant use of Pro markers there.

Love, love this stunning lantern, made by Lia! The pure white with those deep red poinsettias is just fabulous. And you can also pop a little LED tea light in as well - perfect!

See that stripey paper background on this lovely card brought to share by April? Well, it's made using snippet strips! Clever stuff and there's a really good link to a SU video over on April's blog so you can have a play yourself!

Alice made some wonderful flowers to pop onto the tops of tins containing candles - lots of fabulous close-ups over on Alice's blog too - the flowers really are beautiful! 

That's my picks for this week - 9 in total - and every single one is Christmas related too! More picks than I thought I'd have time to share with you - and, as always, do please check out last week's links. There's some fabulous ideas!

We had 48 Playmates joining in last week - with one new little friend joining us:

Do please go and say a huge 'Hello' to Sarah Mac - who made these adorable Christmas jars. Such a lovely idea. I've been following Sarah for a while now, along with Sarn, and she's hilarious. Always trying out new ideas, and never afraid to blog about her disasters, and very, very funny!

Come back soon Sarah - ha, we may even get you into card making some day :)

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Roll Away sticky roller and refills is:

Janice

Well done Janice! Can you please drop me an email with your address in and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar.

As am sure you girls know, I always ask for confirmation of your addresses now - ever since I made a wrong assumption and we almost lost a prize!

This coming week's prize is:

It's two Couture Creations 5" x 7" Embossing folders - here's a better look at the designs:

'Compassionate', a great favourite of mine.

'Early Songbird', which I think would look beautiful just with an added sentiment in the centre. Or, just use one or other of the embossed bird patterns maybe for a smaller panel/card.

Now, to make life easier for me I really would prefer that both embossing folders make up a single prize - it cuts back on packing and posting at such a busy time of the year. BUT, there are in fact three pairs of these folders to be won! So, if you want to play - you do have three chances of winning!

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 17th December. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. I do have some plans for over the Christmas festivities - very similar to last year - so be sure to keep your eyes peeled.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of one of the prizes. 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 :)

Have a lovely week! Only two weeks to go until the big day! Big hugs from Parsnip, and of course me -

Friday Feast - Corned beef, cheese and onion quiche

It's a while since I posted a new recipe on here, and it was so lovely to temporarily feel up to making and rolling out pastry the other week (albeit from a packet) to bake this lovely quiche. Ha, then the lurgy arrived so I'm falling back on this draft post sooner than planned! Nice recipe for Christmas time😋

A lady at Len's archery club bakes for them each week and he's been raving about her similar quiche for weeks now. So, I found a recipe and had a play. Apparently it's not quite the same but delicious in any case!

Corned beef, cheese and onion quiche 

Ingredients

Makes: 1 quiche - warning, be careful here! I used a standard shallow quiche dish and had I not reduced the quantities by a third then we'd have had a right load of waste/overflow. My advice is to even half the amount of mixture or use a really deep quiche/pie dish - I have that one I inherited which is at least 1.5" deep and will certainly use that next time.

The quantities below are the original recipe - my adaptations (six eggs for two of us seemed huge!) are in brackets

• 1 packet shortcrust pastry mix (I used half a 450g packet ie. 225g - which would still be sufficient for the deep dish I described above)
• 1 (500g) tin corned beef (I used a 340g tin)
• 1 large onion (we love onion so I kept this roughly the same)
• 6 eggs (I used 4 eggs)
• 75ml milk (I used 50ml instead)
• 500g mature coloured Cheddar cheese, grated (I used 375g, which was enough to make this a very cheesy quiche)

Method

Prep: 25 min |Cook: 55 min (ha, ha - as if! I always take loads longer preparing than recipes actually allow!)

	1. Preheat oven to 200 C / Gas 6. Our oven is quite hot so I popped it down by 20 degrees.
	2. Make pastry as per instructions on packet, then grease a quiche dish with butter. I skipped the butter part btw. Roll out pastry and line the quiche dish with pastry. Blind bake pastry for 15 minutes. I always take the greaseproof paper lining and the ceramic baking beans I use out once the case reaches this 'cooked' stage and then pop it back into the oven for about 6 minutes to totally crisp up any potential 'soggy bottoms'.
	3. Whilst pastry is blind baking, begin making the filling: Cut corned beef into cubes and finely chop the onion. Fry these two ingredients together in a frying pan until the corned beef turns to a mush. Then take off the heat.
	4. Beat the eggs and milk together.
	5. Put about a third of the grated cheese into the pastry case, then put the corned beef and onion mixture on top of the cheese in the pastry case. Then top with another third of the cheese.
	6. Pour the egg mix over the corned beef and onion in the pastry case. Then sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top.
	7. Cover the quiche with tin foil and place in the centre of the oven for 45 minutes. Take care at this point, if the topping touches the foil then it will stick and slightly peel off the top of the quiche at the next step!
	8. After 45 minutes remove the tin foil and put the quiche back in the oven until the top goes a lovely golden colour, usually about 10 minutes.
	9. Remove from oven and leave in the dish to to cool or serve immediately.

Tip:

This quiche can be eaten straight away, eaten cold or reheated in the microwave. It goes lovely with either chips and baked beans or a nice refreshing salad. I know that Len eats it cold at archery, but there again it seems that the recipe is slightly different.

I served ours with mashed sweet/plain potatoes and cabbage, We also had half the quiche left over - it's in the freezer right now in the hope that it can be defrosted, popped onto a pie dish and reheated to its former glory! All the more so since I finally got a bit of an apetite again.

Just to let you know .............

................. I'm still struggling a bit here so not posting on the blog as often. Feeling a lot better, but of course have fallen behind with Christmas preparations and am trying to play catch up. Please keep joining in with the Playground - I do hope to keep on top of that at least, even if this coming Sunday's Snippets post might have to be a bit curtailed.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 258

OK, which one of you brought a cold to the Playground? There's a few of us suffering that I can see from my blog hopping! The one good thing is that it should be nicely cleared up for Christmas itself - always look on the bright side 😃 The back is still holding up at the moment - no plans here to go ice skating on the duck pond just yet though!

Here's my snippets card for this week, and what you see on this card isn't the weekly prize - and it is made straight, I promise:

I used:

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

- piece of white card, embossed using a super-sized Crafts-Too 'Merry Christmas' embossing folder which still fit perfectly between the Cuttlebug plates - phew. Then trimmed to exactly fit the card front and glued in place

- snippet of XCut silver metallic self adhesive sheet, die cut using an Xcut 'Christmas Tree' die

- stuck the die cut onto a snippet of dark green card and trimmed it down to size before punching the corners using a Woodware 'Squared Corner' punch

- trimmed a snippet of silver mirri card to just slightly bigger than the green layer and glued the two together

- glued the layered card on top of the embossed card front and left it at that

I'd been after a 'Christmas tree' die made up of words for ages. This one is quite big so you don't really need anything much else on a card - IMHO.

Now for the weekly peek at the picks:

Such a beautiful scene, created by Sandra (Sandma) - and the Brushos in the background to create a Northern Lights effect are stunning!

I love the elegant simplicity of this card, made by Anne F. It certainly lends itself to making a run all the same - beautiful!

Absolutely had to include this great card, made by Helen. Such an effective design and great use of complimenting snippets either side of the image panel - plus, isn't that dog such fun?!

Greta brought this lovely card to share - that die cut is utterly fabulous! And it would also lend itself to making Christmas cards as well of course.

I really love this fun card, made by Laurie! What a great sweater die and the embossed background is just perfect - such a wonderful combination.

Little Scotty dogs are so popular in the Playground right now, especially with tartan/plaid paper - and this little chap on Megan's gorgeous card totally stole my heart! So cute - and it's cherry time in Oz folks!

Cathy has been busy so her visit last week was the first one for a little while. And what a great idea she shared too! The lovely snowflake on this card can be detached and used to hang on the recipients Christmas tree - clever!

I do like it when folk bring easy cards for chaps to share! Love this idea, made by Janice, she used the recipient's favourite football team's colours! One to remember in future.

I love the vibrant orange tones on this lovely card, made by Sue T after a wonderful holiday in sunny Mexico. A perfect background to that beautiful butterfly die cut.

And last but by no means least, Judy (aka PJ) brought us a whole load of brilliant cards to see. 10 cards in total, all made using the OSW (One Sheet Wonder) technique. Basically you start off with a single sheet of patterned paper and a template (loads can be found on line) - then using (say) one stamp and toning plain card as well, you cut lots of different sizes and shapes from the patterned paper and make a whole batch of cards. Hope that makes sense to you? I think it's such a fun idea!

That's my picks for this week - 10 in total! It gets harder each week to choose I must admit. I try to share new and inspirational ideas with you but can only include so many (ha, what happened to me showing just three then?!). I really do recommend that you try to have a browse through last week's Mr Linky when you have a chance.

We had 60 Playmates playing along last week and two new little friends joining us:

First there was Catherine with this beautiful Christmas card - I just love those Christmas trees! Lovely shades of green as well.

And then Chrissie, who most of you will already know from Less is More, arrived with this wonderful card. As always, Chrissie is the tops when it comes to elegant, clean and crisp cards - this is a real corker.

Welcome to both of you - do please come back and play soon!

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Creative Expressions Sue Wilson Caribbean Island Collection St Kitts die set and two co-ordinating stamps called 'Tumbling Leaves' and 'Butterfly Trellis' (kindly donated by Viv) is:

Majda

 

Majda has been playing along with us since June and this is her first Playground win - so I imagine there will be some happy dancing going on when she reads this :)

Well done Majda! Can you please drop me an email with your address in and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible! My email address is on the right hand side bar.

As am sure you girls know, I always ask for confirmation of your addresses now - ever since I made a wrong assumption and we almost lost a prize!

This coming week's prize is:

Can you guess what it is? This is mine and I used it when making today's snippets card. It's very much like the old fluff removal rollers that have been around for ages. Someone came up with the bright idea that such a gadget would be handy for removing the waste bits from dies, and no doubt ramped up the cost as well. I find mine useful for actually removing the little bits of waste from the die cut itself as I often use waxed paper when cutting intricate dies, so they fall out of the die easily. You just rinse the roller under cold running water to remove the bits (use a sieve to catch the little bits of card/paper) and either dry it with a lint free cloth or allow to air dry so it becomes sticky again.

So this is the prize, a roller plus a pack of two refills. To be honest, I think the original sticky roller will last for ages if it's looked after - but I got spares in any case as apparently they will eventually need replacing - plus (just a thought) you could have three rollers on the go and then do one big cleaning session at the end of a die cutting spree perhaps. You can see it in use HERE and I thought it would be a change from dies, stamps and such as prizes :)

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

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. 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 :)

Have a lovely week! We're into December now so I expect it's all systems go with many of you!

Big hugs from Parsnip, and of course me -

Less is More - Challenge #304 - Emboss Resist Technique

I added up how many Christmas cards I think we need just the other day and it looks as if we might well even have some left over! However, it's still nice to make a few Christmas cards at this time of year - albeit without the pressure to 'batch bake'.

Less is More have a really great theme this week, use the 'Emboss Resist Technique'. I've only done this a few times before now but immediately thought of a NBUS Christmas stamp which needed an outing. And this is what I made:

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" square white card blank

- a snippet of white card for the stamped layer, rubbed over with an anti static bag

- stamped the image using VersaFine and a 2012 wood mounted Penny Black stamp called 'Crystal Drops'

- sprinkled a good coating of Stamp n Stuff 'Detail White' embossing powder onto the image and tapped off the excess before setting it with the heat gun

- used a blending sponge to add Tim Holtz Distress inks over the image from the following ink pads: Milled Lavender, Spun Sugar and Tumbled Glass

- rubbed over the whole panel with a piece of kitchen roll to remove any ink from the white outlines

- trimmed the image down to size, backed it with a full layer of white fun foam and glued it to the card front

Slap my wrists for not using this stamp before now! I think all the very fine detail worried me a bit - am now thinking of how it would look on black card and embossed in gold :)

Edit: Encouraged by Darnell and Loll, I'm also playing along in this month's CAS Mix Up Card Challenge, where you need to use Stamping + Sponging + Your Choice (my choice is resist/heat embossing).