Christmas Kickstart Challenge #77 - 'Just Elfin' Around' - Reminder

Jumping in with a reminder that we're halfway through the current Christmas Kickstart Challenge with Jo's reminder post HERE . It's one of my favourite challenges and always a pleasure to join in with the fun. The current theme is 'Just Elfin' Around'' - ie. one or more elves on a Christmas card of course!

I made two very similar cards, just switched the colours around a bit:

I used: 

- A6 size white card blank, tent style

- image from MFT's 'Christmas sELFies' stamp set, stamped using VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink

- coloured the image using Polychromos pencils plus a little tickle of clear 'Wink of Stella' on the ornament as well as the jaunty little bell on the elf's hat (he's my absolute favourite in the whole set of stamps to be honest!) 

- the backing papers are from what's left of two well loved LOTV Christmas paper pads, die cut with a die by Heffy Doodle from their 'Stitched A6 rectangles' set  

- then die cut a backing layer from the white card which had the image stamped on it, using the same Heffy Doodle die

- things got a little bit 'tricky woo' as it might have been better not to die cut the outline of the backing layer until later on - but no matter, this little ship steamed merrily on, 'toot, toot' on the horn!

- so, I die cut the aperture around the image using the perfectly fitting MFT 'Selfie Square' die on top - into the stitched edge piece of white card, thereby releasing the image ............. and sat pondering my next move for ages as this was 'recovery from potential disaster' time!

- then a little light came on and I taped the white card (removable tape!) complete with aperture on top of the patterned paper and nestled the 'Selfie Square' die into the aperture then die cut it. Bingo, they lined up - success!

- I now had two matching 'frames' which I glued together then glued them onto the card front before losing the plot

- and all that was left was to pop the waste square of patterned paper onto the back of the die cut image to even up the levels, and glue them into the aperture!

- sorry that was so convoluted but I needed to write it here for my own future reference as a way of only die cutting one layer at a time to end up with this card - I needed a lie down afterwards! And Dudley cuddled up for 40 Winks as well!

Many thanks once again to Jo for inviting me to be a Guest Designer over at the Christmas Kickstart Challenge and I'd really love it if you would come along and join in with the challenge - this is the LINK to the Challenge post itself. It's still open until the end of the month, so you have plenty of time to come and play - we need more of you!!.

Sunday Snippets and a 'less than boring' dress!

I wanted to use a stamp set that I was sent a while ago by a lovely friend - and this current 'Snippets Sunday' seemed to be the ideal time:

These are my snippets, only thought to take a photo when they had been stamped onto. But, perhaps it gives you an idea of the basics of paper piecing - and also how my indecisive mind works!

I used:

- mini slimline card blank measuring 6" x 3" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of white card for the image, which I stamped using VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink and the main image and a sentiment at the same time (go me!) from Woodware's 'Little Black Dress' stamp set

- then die cut the image using a die from Lawn Fawn's stitched border 'Large Mini Slimline Stackables' set of dies and kept an off cut for doing 'pencil colour trials' whilst colouring the stand

- grounded the stand and coloured the 'body form' and stand using Polychromos pencils with a little bit of their silver pencil where the top of the body meets the top 'knob'

- then I stamped the outfit, using the same main stamp plus a few snippets, found in the back of some old and treasured LOTV paper pads. I used the Misty but in hindsight think that using an acrylic block would allow for easier eyeballing and positioning when you're trying to pick out pieces on the paper for paper piecing 

- fussy cut the pieces for the dress then glued them in place with a glue pen - finished!

I'd like to enter this into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #53 HERE. The stamp set was having its first outing. 

Sarn has posted the results of Challenge #459 over in the Snippets Playground HERE. As always, we had some really good entries, which always makes life tricky when the picks are done. We mostly pick our own for our own challenges - but now and then a scream for help will go up. And it always amazes me how close we are in our choices of the eventual picks!

Dudley Pupdate: Rhetorical question - when you have a poo - do you run around in circles doing 'zoomies' to celebrate? Hmm, thought not! That's fine - just wondering, that's all. 

That was a question from Dudley, by the way! Did I even need to say that?

And then of course, later on, you gobble down your evening meal in double quick time just in case it gets stolen by the 'doggy dinner thieves' before crashing out - partly on the landing and also blocking the exit from Mama's craft room! Having managed to already mess up the freshly cleaned carpets throughout the house just for good measure. It's all in a day's work for a canine security guard! 

    

I gave him a 'Modesty Watermark'! Just in case he sues me for publishing very personal piccies.  He slept soundly and very deeply like that for quite a while, even with me moving around and taking piccies and wot-not. To me, that's when he looks so very vulnerable and yet contented, with a full tummy. 'Forget any intruders - I'm having a snoozelet'! And of course, Honka Duck Mark II is, as always, close by!

There's still one week of the current challenge left to run! Make a card and come and play - there's a chance to win a nice prize if you join in the draw! See you on the swings!

Love, as always, from myself and Dudley,

Sunday Snippets and a little bit of snarky

I lost most of this post so here is a reconstruction - minus any comments you might have made. Just for the record. These are cards I made for Challenge #460 over at The Snippets Playground:

I didn't end up using ALL of the snippets but these are the ones I started out with.

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- a 'Dee' stamp from the A & C 'Miss Dee #704' set to stamp the image onto two snippets of white card for the image panels and also onto the green and terracotta snippets - bearing in mind I only needed the middle part of the image (dress and handbag) - using a Versafine Clair 'Nocturne ink pad). All of the patterned snippets were all from the Studio Calico 'Snippets' paper pad - appropriate huh?!

- then stamped the snarky sentiments, using the same ink pad and a 'drive me crazy' sentiment from the 'Dee Says #790' sentiment set. The 'nicer person' sentiment on the second card is from the same set as the image came from. Bit vicious but it did remind me of a particularly unpleasant teacher from my school days! 

- then coloured the images using Polychromos pencils before adding the dresses and handbags - which I switched around 

- trimmed one patterned snippet to a quarter of an imch smaller all round than the card blank and glued it in place. Then had to cut into a fresh sheet to do the same for the other card - but as someone recently commented, we have to cut into fresh sheets to create snippets!

- then die cut the image panels using a die by Heffy Doodle from their 'Stitched A6 rectangles' set 

- spent ages carefully snipping out the dresses and handbags (those were easier!) before gluing them onto the images

- glued the image panels to the card fronts

- the dresses have stamped 'beads' around Dee's neck - so I popped some self-adhesive teeny, tiny pearls in place

- yay, finished!

I'd like to add this card into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #53 

Dudley Pupdate: SORRY folks - that got lost but it's very likely he was into a pickle of one sort or another!

Love from myself and Dudley - as always

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #77 - 'Elves'

I'm back as Dotty Jo's guest designer for the month of August - over at the Christmas Kickstart Challenge - HERE!  As always, it's a joy to be asked and I do love sticking to a theme - especially when it's a Christmas one.

This time, it's 'Elves' and I had the perfect set of dies, waiting in one of my NBUS baskets for its first outing! Perfick timing.

This is the result:

I used: 

- A6 white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of white card, embossed using the Crafts-Too 'Merry Christmas' embossing folder - then trimmed to leave an eighth of an inch margin around all sides 

- glued the embossed panel onto the card front

- die cut the 'elf' from two layers of black card and glued them together for stability - the dies on the card are all from the Sizzix Tim Holtz 'Santa's Helper' set of dies

- glued the elf at his jaunty angle onto the card front - using a glue pen

- then the fun began! I sat with a pile of red, green and gold snippets, my mini Altenew die cutting machine - and almost went crazy working out 'which die did what' to make the Christmas presents but I succeeded in the end. The trick, at least it works for me, is to cut and assemble ONE present at a time - it takes longer but is a lot less confusing - and also to add a further layer of card behind the main part for both stability and dimension 

- glued the presents and their ribbons together individually as I progressed until I had them all lined up in front of me ready to roll. At that point I discovered I was missing the fully assembled flat shaped present - it was like a man-hunt in here. I'd just swept the little scraps into the waste bin so had to up-end that for a search. Then, I suddenly wondered if I'd accidentally cleared it away with the tiny scraps of unused double sided sticky pads I'd been working with to prepare the presents for sticking onto the card front - and there it was leering at me through the poly bagl Big sigh of relief here

- so the final steps were to add the presents to the front of the card then glue the huge bow onto the top present - using two snippets of thin foam pads on top of one another to bring the level of the top of the bow up to the same as the present box itself

Many thanks to Jo for inviting me to be a Guest Designer over at the Christmas Kickstart Challenge and I'd really love it if you would come along and join in with the challenge - this is the LINK. It's open until the end of the month so you have plenty of time.

I'd also like to enter this card into Darnell's current NBUS #53 challenge for August - HERE. The 'Santa's Helper' set of dies are my NBUS - and they might well remain as 'almost NBUS' for the foreseeable future too! 

Sunday Snippets and Rudolph Days July 2023

The buses all came along at once lately and so my snippets card for today will cover a few challenges. It uses snippets, so most importantly is right for the final week of our Playground 'Christmas in July' Challenge which Sarn is running over HERE.  And this is my snippets card:

And the snippets I used:

Very simple, just plain card snippets in white (mostly off cuts from making card blanks), and smaller pieces of green and peach card. The camera lied about the peach card - as usual! I also cut into a whole piece of 6 x 6 designer paper for the background - slap my wrists:

I used:

- 5.25" x 4" white card blank, side opening - don't ask me how, I got the measurements smaller than the USA A2 card size I was aiming for, probably thinking about other stuff .... or losing the plot!

- a sheet of backing paper from Whimsy Stamp's 'Blurry Flurries' paper pack, cut down to the same size as the card front

- then, to check for size and spacing, I die cut the 'MFT 'Peaceful Dove' from snippets of plain white card for later - two layers for the body and wings

- knowing the size of the dove, I could position my MFT 'Peace' word die onto the paper for the card front and run it though the Gemini

- backed the PEACE aperture in the patterned paper with double sided sticky paper, protected the sticky bits on the front that were exposed by covering them with the peel off paper from one side of the 'sticky - using easy peel tape for extra adhesion - and then set them aside 

- die cut two further 'Peace' sentiment dies from plain white card which I layered up onto the letters which were the fallout from cutting into the pretty backing paper, using a glue pen

- then stuck them into the sticky backed apertures to create a 3-layer inset for each nicely spaced letter, with the saved pieces from the middle of the letters P and A then popped in place

- glued the front panel to the card front

- time to assemble the doves! I added the beak to the top layer of the body and then coated it and the two wings with Clear 'Wink of Stella' for a nice shimmer

- next added the back and then the front wings to the body of the dove - using red line extra sticky tape

- then had a fun time adding the die cut double layered olive branch to the dove's beak before adhering the assembled birdie to the card front

- final touches, one tiny silver sparkly gem in the centre of the star and another tiny silver sparkly gem coloured with black Pro marker for the dove's eye 

It's a shame the subtle shimmer from the clear Wink of Stella on the body and wings of the dove can't be picked up by the camera - trust me, I tried! And of course, I made two cards exactly the same in tandem - me not totally daft!

I'm entering this card into three challenges - go me!

Rudolph Days for July - HERE 

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #52 HERE.  The Peace and the Dove dies were both NBUS.

Allsorts Challenge #739/740 HERE where the theme is 'Anything but square' and it runs for two weeks

The results of The Snippets Challenge # 458 are over on the Snippets Playground blog HERE. 

Dudley Pupdate: It's been a bit of a mixed week here for weather so at times Dudley has needed a gentle push to nip out in the rain to 'spend a penny'. Otherwise we're sure he'd cross his legs for as long as possible as he hates getting wet. News of other animal antics - we still have a huge family of hedgehogs visiting each night - they live under the shrubbery in the front garden and come to eat in the back garden - we had a gap left at the bottom of the garden gate especially for them. Dudley can lie and peek out but he can't wriggle right out. 

There's still one week of the current Snippets Challenge to go, hope to see you in the Playground soon if you haven't played already. It's the final week of 'Christmas in July' with some nice bundles of Christmas themed prizes. Make a card and come and play - one less to make for Christmas - and a chance to win a nice prize if you join in the draw!

Love, as always, from myself and Dudley,

Sunday Snippets and another Memory Box cabin or house

I love the dies made by Memory Box which depict a house/cabin complete with smoke rising from the chimney and this is what I made with my latest one:

Sorry, no photo of the snippets I used - which are the plain white card for the scalloped layer and the 'Night Sky' backing paper.

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- snippet of white card, die cut using the largest die from the Taylored Expressions'Petite Scallop Rectangle Stacklets' set of dies

- then die cut the cabin into the scalloped layer, using a Memory Box 'Cabin Collage' die

- used a snippet of 'Night Sky' scrapbook paper which was tucked in the back of a book of papers bought ages ago which is so useful for 'space' themed cards as well as night skies - no manufacturer's name on it though. Just drew round the portion I wanted to use so that a 'star' appeared in the top left portion of the 'sky'

- then cut it out using scissors and glued it behind the image using a couple of glue pens (needed a very fine nib for some of the cabin detail)

- for the sentiment I used a stamp from Colarado Craft Company's Anita Jeram 'Merry Little Christmas' stamp set and a Memento 'Paris Dusk' small ink pad. I went right through my ink pad swatches before stumbling on such a perfect colour match - squeal!

- glued the image panel to the front of the card blank

- final touch was a tiny, very flat, silver sparkly 'gem', in the middle of the main star

And I made four of them the same - trying to really build up my stock of cards for this coming Christmas don'tcha know. 😉

I'd like to add this card into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #52 HERE. The Memory Box die was my NBUS this time.

We now have our second 'Christmas in July' Challenge, run by Sarn, over in the Snippets Playground HERE - with a lovely prize made up of several goodies. Including, a Memory Box 'Snowy Cabin' die just like the one I used HERE. And no doubt 'someone' will be dispensing Christmas Cocktails liberally in the tree house. 

Dudley Pupdate: we celebrated Dudley's 5th Birthday on Saturday (yesterday). This is how tiny he was the very first time we met him, back in 2018:

He's cupped in Len's hands and we were almost scared to handle him as he was such a little guy. Smallest in the litter, a bit bullied by his siblings and he stole our hearts straight away. He seemed to have such a direct gaze as if he was the one doing the weighing up!

And, this was him with Len, just the other week in our back garden. Looking at the two photos, it's quite striking how he still has a lot of his puppy like facial expression. Although he's certainly a bit too big to cup in one's hands!

Love from Dudley - and of course me,  

Allsorts Challenge Week 737

Lately, the majority of my cards have been made for the Snippets Playground - however, I took a little bit of time out to whip up a swift entry for the current challenge over at Allsorts - HERE. There's a mood board or you can opt for 'Anything Goes':

The poppy at the bottom of the mood board caught my eye so this card was inspired by the shape and colour of the flower head - otherwise it's 'anything goes':

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- whilst I would LOVE to say that I coloured the background myself, it's a cheat - comes from an Altenew paper pad called 'Enchanting Washes'

- I picked where I wanted to stamp the image and used a double set of AALL & Create's stamps called 'Nature's Angels', along with a VerfsaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad and the Misti

- then die cut the stamped piece using an unbranded die with pretty lace-like scalloped edges

- glued the die cut image panel onto the card front - then added three Memory Box clear 'raindrop' gems as a finishing touch, quick and easy!

Although it was just a gentle dip of the toe into the water - I absolutely love how AALL & Create stamps are so full of interest and variety - ALL in the one stamp!  Dumbo here really had no idea just how much they cram into a single stamp. They stamp beautifully - and of course our Brenda over, at Allsorts and her own blog Floral Fantasies, is a true expert in using, as well as mixing up, these products. It'll be a while before I create my own backgrounds and also add extra touches - but for now I'm happy to still have the slightly CAS fresh look about my results. Those who know me well will be well aware that my teeth begin to itch once crafting begins to get 'messy'. Shame, as I do miss out on a lot but there you are - that's just me. 

I'd like to enter this into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #52 HERE. Paper pad, stamp and also the set of pretty scalloped edge dies were all having a first outing.

Sunday Snippets - Christmas wrapping paper snippet

My Sunday Snippets card came about when I was looking through the front section in my huge, bulging and vastly expanded 'concertina' snippets folder. That pocket is where I pop any patterned snippets that don't store in the back of a paper pad. And lookie here - I found a snippet of left over Christmas wrapping paper, from years ago (excuse the dark shadow along the bottom edge of the card):

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- a brown wrapping paper with a holly pattern all over it - just big enough to cover the front of an A2 card

- for stability I stuck the piece of paper onto a snippet of double sided adhesive sheet and then stuck that onto a snippet of white card

- trimmed the holly panel down to 5.5" x 4.25" and glued it to the front of the card blank

- then worked out what size of panel needed for the sentiment and trimmed a snippet of white card to suit - and to add interest used a ball ended scoring tool and a score board to add a single line right around the sentiment panel

- used a NBUS stamp and die set called 'Merry Christmas' by Gemini to stamp the word 'merry' onto a snippet of white card before die cutting it using the matching die which is part of the set, using a VersaFine Clair ''Nocturne' ink pad for the stamping

- then I could finalise the spacing and stamp the word 'Christmas' onto the sentiment panel

- die cut two more layers for the word 'merry' and layered them up using a glue pen before then gluing the 'merry' onto the sentiment panel 

- backed the panel with a very slightly bigger rectangle of Tonic 'Red Velvet' pearlescent card - trimmed from a snippet then glued it onto the card front 

- it looked a bit sparse to me so I added three matt gold sequins from the 'Champagne' shaker mix by Lucy's Little Things

Only finding the one snippet big enough to cover a single card front was a bit disappointing as I would like to have make more the same. But it's a good reason to dig through the umpteen paper pads I have here! Although, in a drawer somewhere in here I do have a few sheets of patterned wrapping paper - great for backgrounds, but none of them are Christmas ones I'll bet!

By the way, the same set of sentiment stamps and die that I used for the card (donated to the Toybox by Linby but I had to run out and buy my own as I loved them so much) are part of the current prize - over at the Snippets Playground.

  

I'd like to enter this into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #52 HERE. Sentiment stamps and die set was having its first outing.

Sarn has posted the results of Challenge #457 over in the Snippets Playground HERE. As always, we had some really great entries - and numbers were really good considering the hot weather lately. Do go and look - one pick in particular has Dudley pondering about starting up a 'fan club'!

Dudley Pupdate: We've been doing quite a lot of de-cluttering lately and have been giving a good few unwanted household things away on websites such as Freecycle and Freegle. Mind you, I swear it's multiplying here as we go! The arrival of more strangers was testing for Dudley at first, but we've noticed that as time goes on he's less anxious and more accepting of visitors, settling down very quickly. Needless to say - he always goes to investigate anyone coming to the house - with Honka Duck Mark II firmly in his mouth - sideways. It always totally disarms people and earns him at least a stroke and usually moves onto a cuddle and some fussing. His sweet little face has got to be one of the best ice-breakers ever! Every single person without fail has left with a smile on their face and usually a little wave at Dudley!

There's still one week of the current Snippets Challenge to go, hope to see you in the Playground soon if you haven't played already. It's Christmas in July with some nice bundles of Christmas themed prizes. Including, as I already said, a sentiment stamp and die set the same as the one I used today. Make a card and come and play - one less to make for Christmas - and a chance to win a nice prize if you join in the draw!

Love, as always, from myself and Dudley,

Sunday Snippets - Sparkle and Shine for Christmas

Time for a new Snippets challenge HERE - the theme is 'Christmas in July'  and to enter you must make something that adheres to the Christmas theme and also uses one or more identified snippets. Sarn and I have two consecutive challenges with the 'Christmas in July' theme - and also two sets of Christmas goodies as prizes, one per challenge, to be won in plenty of time for your Christmas crafting!

Here's my Christmas snippets card:

And my snippets:

I used:

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

- piece of white card, die cut using the biggest die from a Taylored Expressions set of dies called 'Petite Scallop Rectangle Stacklets' then set to one side

- die cut the top layers of the tree lights using snippets of paper found in the front pocket of my expanding snippets file, which I covered with shiny sticky backed clear film first. Die cut the underneath layers from a snippet of white sparkly card. The dies are from Lawn Fawn's 'String of Lights' set

- then die cut the 'strings' and the light 'caps' using  more dies from the 'String of Lights' set and a snippet of silver card

- glued the top layers of the lights onto the sparkly layers and topped them with the silver light 'caps'  

- at that point I could lay the die cuts temporarily in place to position the two sentiment stamps using the Misti

- stamped both sentiments (which are from the Woodware 'Christmas Sparkle' stamp set) onto the scalloped panel, using a VersaFine Clair 'Morning Mist' ink pad 

- used a very fine glue pen to glue the 'strings' in place, trimming any overhang from the top edge

- added the lights using thin sticky pads and Chrissie's trick of rubbing some glue stick over the sticky side before positioning them onto the card to allow a little bit of 'wiggle' if necessary

- then glued the completed card front panel onto the card blank 

- and, of course I made two cards exactly the same!

The light bulbs are really shiny in real life - that laminate sticky film worked a treat!

This card is for Darnell's NBUS Challenge #52 over HERE. My NBUS was the Lawn Fawn 'String of Lights' and the Taylored Expressions 'Scalloped Rectangles' sets of dies. Also the Woodware set of sentiment stamps. If you like the sentiments I used - hop over to this fortnight's challenge in the Playground - there's a set as part of the prize!

Pupdate: Dudley exceeded his record for finding mischief the other day. I was idly stroking him and felt something sticky around a shoulder and up one side of his face. When I looked - it was yucky black and also it ponged. He has a habit of running his shoulder and the side of his face along the 'easy care grass' in the back garden - and somehow he'd chose exactly where a pigeon had pooped! **  Gross - it took two of us to thoroughly clean it off and he was lucky we were busy doing other things or else he'd have been in the bath! Give him his due though - he did sit perfectly still whilst we worked on him, he's usually a wriggling little bundle. Other than that, Dudley's life is complete - he's totally in love with his new Honka Duck and all is well in his doggie world. Later this month he will celebrate being five years old! 

** Don't ask me how I know the smell of pigeon poop. I just do, from bitter experience which I might write in a Tuesday Tale sometime soon - not written one of those for ages!

Love from Dudley - and of course me, 

Sunday Snippets - CAS Stickeroo

I rustled up a super-fast card for today and yet again forgot to take a photo of my snippets:

I used:

- a cream slightly textured Anita's card blank measuring 5" x 7", side opening

- then dug out a snippet of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' card (one of my all-time favourites) onto which I'd already stuck a Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'Pen and Ink' sheet

- trimmed the card around the image to just slightly larger

- then glued a trimmed sentiment from the Creative Expressions Wordies Sentiment Sheets set called 'Birthday' onto one of the offcut snippet strips from the Wisteria Wonder card and trimmed the ends to size

- added snippets of card (two layers) to the back of the image panel and the sentiment

- finally - glued the image panel and the sentiment onto the card front - all done

I actually made a second card which is practically identical using a different image from the same sheet of Stickeroos and slightly different words in the sentiment but everything else is the same.

The results of Challenge #456 are over on the Snippets Blog for you. AND some news about the next couple of challenges too.

Dudley Pupdate: The week began badly with Dudley frantically searching high and low for smelly ole Honka Duck - his little legs were trotting hither and thither from room to room around the house at regular intervals. It was even worse when his 'triggers' occurred such as a delivery, the arrival of post or either of us going out. However, as the week wore on - very gingerly and slowly - Dudley decided that Honka Mark II needed some TLC - and took him under his wing paw. Bit by bit he's settled back down and is a contented little soul once more. Phew!  

We're pretty delighted at the drop in temperature here as it's been unbearably hot at times when the air was so still and humid. Some rain would be very welcome right now! Not least for the farmers and those areas suffering from hosepipe bans.

Have a great week!

Love from myself and Dudley - as always

Sunday Snippets and Rudolph Days Challenge

I made my snippets card for the current Rudolph Days Challenge HERE, as well as for my Sunday Snippets post.

The images were already stamped and sent to me by a lovely friend after I commented on her blog how much the stamp reminded me of Dudley. I tend not to publish names of friends who stamp images for me just in case the Copyright Police come knocking at the door - however - you know who you are and a massive thank you once again!  And not just one copy - there were 20 all the same in the envelope!

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- have already explained about the adorable Penny Black 'Reindeer Pup' image  - which I coloured using Faber Castell Polychromos pencils then die cut using a die from the Penny Black 'Zigzag Stackers Rectangles' set of dies - I LOVE these dies!

- next I stamped a small sentiment directly onto the image - using my Misti and a VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad along with a stamp by Personal Impressions designed by Kirsty Wiseman from a set called 'Many Greetings' - this is possibly my most loved and used Christmas sentiments set of stamps! And I've had it for many, many years

- then took a piece of tartan paper, die cut to a smidgen under the size of the card front - leaving a lovely narrow border. I used the largest plain die from the Spellbinders 'Hemstitch Venise (sic) Lace Rectangles' set of dies and the paper is from Craft Consortium's Essential Papers 'Tartan' pad. The main reason for using the die was to centre the tartan pattern properly - OCD strikes again!

- glued the tartan paper and the completed image panel onto the card front using Collall All Purpose glue - and it was finished!

The images came on white card trimmed to around 4" square - and I'm counting those as my snippets. I have a further 19 images which are about two thirds of the way through a batch baking session - that will boost numbers in the Christmas card box for sure!

I'd like to add this card into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #51 HERE. The 'Penny Black 'Reindeer Pup' images as well as the paper pad were both having a first outing.

We have a new Challenge, run by Sarn, over in the Snippets Playground HERE - with a lovely prize made up of several goodies. 

Dudley Pupdate: The little guy has had yet another haircut - fast on the heels of his previous one, only four weeks ago! I think that Len is possibly a bit 'trimmer and scissor happy' - I'm going to start calling him' Edward Scissorhands'! 

Dudley put up the usual good fight but is now all nicely trimmed (aka scalped!) and even more able to cope with the heat here. He never bears a grudge, no matter how much of a fight he puts up at the time - he's such a sweet natured little pup and always looks so tiny for a couple of weeks. Until the hair grows back with a vengeance!

On the down side of life - Honka Duck had to be removed from Dudley, discretely, and hidden in the garden shed for now, as Dudley was being sick for no apparent reason. Len puts it down to poor manky ole Honka Duck. And I tend to agree as it stopped immediately he could no longer lick and mouth Honka. So right now we have a slightly bemused Dudley not actually 'taking' to the newest version of Honka - which has been within his range for months now! He's slightly bereft, to put it mildly! Watch this space. 😔

Love from Dudley - and of course me,  

Sunday Snippets - dancing in the rain

Here's my Sunday Snippets card:

It's a super quick and simple card this week - not even a photo of the two snippets I used!

I used:

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

- a snippet of black textured card stock for the backing, trimmed to 4.25" square and set aside

- a snippet of blue patterned card stock - found lurking in the front of my snippets concertina file - trimmed down to 4" square

- used a NBUS stamp set that I've had for absolutely ages - called 'Dance in The Rain' by Inkylicious - to stamp the girl and a sentiment onto the blue patterned card, using a VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad

- glued the black layer then the image layer onto the card front

- final touch - a few Memory Box self-adhesive clear Fairy Drops

I really love the sentiment I used for this card - just a few words, but very wise advice. 

I'd like to enter this into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #51 HERE. The Inkylicious stamp set was having its first outing.

Sarn has posted the results of Challenge #455 over in the Snippets Playground HERE. As always, we had some really great entries - and numbers were good. We're well down in the current challenge but, given the current heat we're all trying to cope with, it isn't surprising!

Dudley Pupdate: First of all, thank you so much for your sweet comments about 'our Boy Dudley' and his photos last week. He's so difficult to catch on camera - basically he looks anywhere but at the flipping lens! Remember he took a tumble the other week when trying to leap onto our bed via a footstool placed there specifically for him? We've noticed that if he has his beloved Honka Duck in his mouth (most likely obscuring his view as he carries it sideways) - now and then (but not every time) he will stop and wait for help to get him and his 'Bestie' up onto the bed. It isn't that he's hurting - he's just got a very good memory and at times we think the memory of his tumble seems to stop him in his tracks. Wise little guy! Other than that - the pavements around here are way too hot for him to go out and about for daytime walkies so he's spending his time happily in the back garden or lying flat on his back indoors ..... in typical 'guard duty' pose!

There's still one week of the current Snippets Challenge to go, hope to see you in the Playground but we fully understand that this heat is deterring many from spending time crafting.

Love, as always, from myself and Dudley,

Sunday Snippets and a new challenge

Challenge #456 is now up and running over on the Snippets Playground folks! I loved Susan S's 'wave' card, which was one of my 'picks' last week. So much so that I set out to make my own for Len's G Nephew Bradley- similar but you really can vary this technique SO much:

My snippets

I used:

- card blank measuring approx. 5.5" x 4.25", tent style

- a snippet of dark brown card, trimmed to 5.25" x 4" and glued in place

- a snippet of white card the same shade as the card base - embossed using a Stampin' Up 'Textures' folder then trimmed to 5" x 3.75" and glued onto the brown layer

- used four circular dies from my Tonic Studios set of round dies, a quarter of an inch graduating down from the largest one I wanted to use - one circle from each of the four colours of dark brown, beige, cream and grey

- cut each circle in half using a trimmer then glued the 'halves' one on top of the other - lining the bottom and one side to the left of the biggest layer at the back (you can vary this for some interesting options!)

 

- die cut the sentiment from dark brown card using a 'Sentiment Strips Die' by Altenew then glued it onto a 3.75" wide strip of beige card to cover where the semi-circles would join up

- added three narrow strips of card to the back of the entire sentiment strip - to lift it to the height of the layered semi-circles and be able to tuck them in place

- then added the sentiment strip across the centre of the card front using strips of thin sticky pad snippets - before then tucking the layered semi-circles underneath the sentiment (just a smidgen), also raising them onto snippets of thin sticky pads

Dudley Pupdate: Dudley is none the worse after his tumble last week - he's just as adventurous and full of mischief. In fact, when he's quiet we tend to go hunting for him to check out what he might be up to!  

On Saturday, after his evening meal, we gave him one of his ice creams I bought last week. They're each a mixture of Strawberry, Banana and Apple but to be honest we think he was a bit underwhelmed. We even had to decant it into one of his little bowls before he would venture! I tried a little taste from the actual ice cream tub, it's very much a strawberry flavour and Len is sure that Dudley has turned his nose up at the offerings of a fresh strawberry in the Summer months:

However, it was an opportunity to take a few photos of him having cuddles on Len's lap later on:

This final shot is almost identical to the previous one - I've put it on here as it's the closest I could get to Dudley actually looking at the camera lens!

Love from myself and Dudley - as always