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).

Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - 'Light in the darkness'

Time for another Cuttlebug Mania Challenge and the theme this time is 'Light in the darkness'.

For example you can use candles, lanterns or stars on your entry - I'm sure you'll think of some others. I almost went for a Nativity image where the stable was bathed in a lovely glow, so there's another idea for you.

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.

This is my DT card, the light here was dreadful when I took the photo needless to say:

I used:

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

- a piece of white card stock, die cut using a Lil' Inkers Stitched Rectangle die, backed with a panel of white fun foam and glued onto the card front

- Memory Box 'Glowing Candles' die which I die cut from white, silver and green snippets

- the first layer I glued in place was the green layer with all the pieces still in place apart from the white parts of the candles. The Woodware Ultra Fine glue applicator was invaluable when layering up this intricate die

- next took the silver die cut and snipped off the little branches and poked out all the loose pieces then glued it on top of the green layer 

- then poked out the six white candle pieces from the white layer and coated them with clear Wink of Stella before gluing them into the silver apertures. For once I thought ahead :)

- added little red pearlescent gems to the ends of the branches and just a few on the main part of the holly arrangement

- I wanted quite small, raised and very shiny silver lettering so added a peel off sentiment in the top left corner

- final touch was to add some Stickles to the candle flames. The yellow I have would be too bright and the lemon too pale, so I mixed a little blob of both together on a scrap of paper and applied the mix with a very fine paintbrush

I hold my hands up and confess that I got the basis for this card design from the super-talented Loll. I've had my die since October 2013 and this is only the third time I've used it, bad me! Thanks for the inspiration Loll (you popped up on Pinterest when I was looking for general ideas for candles on cards), I loved your card and also it was time to give the die another outing!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 257

OK, so that was a much easier week with the back issues and so long as I still rest when it tells me off (and cuddle up to the heat pad, which is my new best friend) am feeling loads better! Yay 😍

So, I made a snippets card, but nothing on it is on offer this week - due to a very generous prize donation from Viv which I can't wait to share with you. I do still have some wonderful donated prizes in the Toy Box, so please be patient if you sent goodies and I haven't yet offered them.

It was a bit weird to have a totally free hand with my Sunday Snippets card rather than be guided by the prize on offer, and this is what I made:

I used:

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

- a panel of white card, die cut using a Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangle' die and glued to the card front, with a snippet of white fun foam backing to whole panel to keep it evenly raised

- a selection of Christmas trees, punched using SU's 'Tree' punch and little snippets which were stored in the back of my favourite LOTV ''Frosty Christmas' paper pad

- glued the trees in place on the card front - tip, I arranged them first and then just popped a little pencil dot above the top of each tree to help to position them when I glued them in place - then rubbed the dots off of course!

- pink metallic Josy Rose nail heads on top of each tree

- stamped the word 'joy' using Brilliance 'Mediterranean Blue' ink pad and a stamp from the Personal Impressions 'Many Greetings' set

- final touch, just three pearlescent sequins

I'd like to enter this card for the current challenge over at Merry Monday #223 - Dark Blue, Light Blue & Pink.

Now for the weekly peek at the picks:

Preety showed the journal she's been working on, made using an up cycled diary. There are loads of wonderful photos and lots more detail over at Preety's blog - love it!

I think this is such a lovely card, made by Sue (Zouave Cards). Love the bold butterfly against such a pretty embossed background Sue!

This marvellous Christmas tag really caught my eye this week. Made by Pat - and aren't the wonderful citrus colours fabulous with the gold? So different and really striking.

Isn't this card adorable? I love the Memory Box 'Piestra Tile' die (don't use mine enough!) and those darling little pups - just so cute! Andrea skipped into the Playground waving this lovely card.

I love this card, made by Janice. It's so elegant and really eye catching - a great example of using white with navy and a touch of silver. Great for 'batch baking' too!

This is a great card, made by Kath. Wonderful papers for the blue backing and such a lovely image as well - all pulled together in Kath's very distinctive clean and fresh style.

Gloria came to visit this week, with this card and tag set. Isn't it brilliant? Love the tea set theme and stamping the deer and tree design onto each piece is so clever!

This is the sweetest Christmas card, made by Sandra. The little dancing poppet is just so cute and Sandra added lots of lovely embellishments and pretty paper as well - love it!

And last, but not least, here's another Christmas card with a fabulous image. Made by Hazel (Kbrandy4) and beautifully coloured then co-ordinated as well. 

That's my picks for this week - again, nine in total but as always I could have gone on for a lot longer.

We had 49 Playmates playing along last week (doubtless Thanksgiving kept quite a few of you occupied) and no new little friends joining us.

I did giggle a little while ago at something I spotted on line:

Anyone relate to this after their Thanksgiving turkey dinner? 😃😃😃

Prize draw time now and our winner of the Creative Expressions Sue Wilson Festive Collection 'Silent Night' die set is:

Liz (Crafty Sunflower)

It's about 14 months since Liz last won a prize according to my records. She's almost always the first person to comment on my blog posts (Playground and any others that appear during the week) and rarely, if ever, misses a week in the Playground. Plus, I often choose Liz's fabulous work as a weekly pick - she's one of our die cutting queens and has been responsible for a lot of my 'must rush off and buy that' moments! So this win is well due and very much deserved.

Well done Liz! 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:

A package arrived here out of the blue recently, containing the above items, very kindly donated by the lovely Viv - it's a single prize consisting of three parts. All from the Creative Expressions Sue Wilson Caribbean Island Collection, there's a St Kitts die set and two co-ordinating stamps called 'Tumbling Leaves' and 'Butterfly Trellis'. The lovely thing about this set, from me peering at the stamps and dies through their packets, is that the co-ordinating stamped images will be beautifully die cut using the largest die in the set. Or you can use the set to layer up the die cuts of course, just like Sue Wilson does. A really super prize - and Sue Wilson again I see!

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 3rd 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. It's so much a 'set' that it will not be split up at all folks! 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 :)

Here's an important piece of news girls - our Playmate Brenda is having a fabulous Christmas giveaway of a Tattered Lace Crossover Machine over on her blog HERE.

I'm certainly entering into the draw as my beloved Cuttlebug is not working at full steam and I suspect it might be a bit worn out - bit like me really 😞

Have a lovely week! I'll still be rationing time at the desk - plus, I really need to get my rear end in gear for the Big Fat Man in the Red Suit! It's December soon, it's just four weeks to go until Christmas Day when this post appears - help!

Big hugs from Parsnip, and of course me -