Sunday Snippets - THAT postage stamp die set

Spring is really teasing us here - temperatures are rising at times and the sound of lawnmowers drifts across to us - in our easy care revamped garden. Len is a happy guy for sure, and the wildlife still visit as well. But then it rains and blows a 'Hoolie'! 

Very last minute snippets card from me - using one of the currently hugely popular 'postage stamps' set of dies in 'simple mode':

My leftover snippets of the 'Certainly Celery' papers - sob, only a few tiny scraps left now

I used:

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

- first of all I used white card, the same as the card blank, to die cut the main outline of the card topper using an unbranded die 

- then trimmed some plain SU 'Certainly Celery' card for the bottom layer and also some deep purple slightly shimmery paper for the next layer

- glued both those layers onto the card front

- then die cut the snippets of SU's 'Certainly Celery' paper pack, using the dies to match the faux apertures in the main outline

- glued the patterned snippets onto the outline die cut, using a glue pen

- then used the same glue pen to glue the whole outline panel onto the card front

- stamped the sentiment onto a snippet of white card, using a LOTV stamp from their sadly discontinued and still very much loved by yours truly 'General Greetings - Small' set of stamps - using a VersaFine Clair 'Monarch' ink pad (gorgeous colour!)

- used a SU plain small oval punch to punch out the sentiment

- used a snippet of the left over purple glimmer paper to punch out a SU scalloped small oval

- glued the white sentiment onto the purple scalloped oval

- used thin sticky pads to adhere the completed sentiment to the card front 

- added a strip of the patterned paper to the envelope flap and called it finished

I learned a few things along the way. The idea of using papers from the same colour range is better in theory than in practice.  In real life the card does them justice, but on camera and unless you're close up they really are too similar to give it that 'Wow' factor. Tiny backing layers of the purple paper to frame each of the 'Certainly Celery' panels would give more definition - but I thought of that one too late. The way to do that, IMHO, would be to die cut the purple layers for each 'aperture' then do the same with  the patterned paper but also trim a little sliver from the top and one side of those patterned papers to create a narrow margin all round the patterned paper layer. Next time, I might well give that a whirl!

 

I'd like to enter this card into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #61 HERE - the die set was having its first outing.

Dudley Pupdate: For the past week or so, Dudley has been rather subdued. He's eating fine but he's often in a little dream world of his own. Physically everything is working as normal but we're watching him closely and he will be off to the vet if need be - before he can even say 'I wanna treat for going'!  It could just be that, like us, he's fed up with all the damp weather and longing for Spring to arrive properly.

Having said that - he still put up a jolly good fight on his hind legs when I was grooming him yesterday afternoon. Overall the match was a draw, although I'm sure that Dudley scored a few below the belt hits! What can you do when a little fluffy white face with beautiful eyes plants itself on your 'chest shelf' and silently appeals 'Enough Mama, enough please!'?

Very importantly, the results of Challenge #476 are now published HERE. 

Do please come and play in Sarn's current challenge over in the Snippets Playground! 

Love from myself and Dudley,

Happy New Year!

Many of us will be glad to see the back of 2022 - the year in which we lost our beloved Queen Elizabeth, I lost two close friends and also my guardian (from when my parents returned to the UK and left me at school in Germany) - and several of you suffered much, much closer family bereavements. A year of losses for many of us - but I do try to always remember that 'heartache is the price we pay for love'.

Onto brighter things though - we're into a brand new year, and one in which I so hope that Sarn, myself, Dudley and you, will continue to thrive in the Snippets Playground Challenge. There are so many ways to use up snippets - it's almost endless - sigh, as are the ever-expanding storage holders we keep our snippets in!

Our current Christmas/New Year Challenge is a change from the intensive and massive load of running a Grand Draw. This year, we've gone for one 'Winner Takes All' prize of a 'Your Chosen Favourite Craft Store Gift Voucher' to the value of £50 - or the equivalent value voucher wherever you live. Check out the Snippets Playground if you haven't done so already.

The current challenge has a theme - not something we often do but this is Holiday Season after all! It's - 'Anything BUT Christmas'. As well as using snippets of course and this is what I made. I CASE'd it from my own card, made several years ago - which was in turn had been CASE'd from a SU Demonstrator. And here it is:

The 'snippets' before being attacked. My crafting OCD means I don't like to store snippets of any size with undulating edges if possible!

I used:

- 5.75" x 4" black card blank

- a layer of slightly smaller white card stock, quarter of an inch on each of the four sides

- a layer of smaller again black card stock for the board - I ran it through the Cuttlebug, using Cuttlebug's 'Swiss Dots' folder and then trimmed it to 5.125" (five and an eighth in old money!) x 3.25" - then glued it onto the piece of white card stock

- snippets of red, blue, yellow and green card - punched using SU's 1" square punch and SU's Itty Bitty round punch

- double layered the 'dots' and glued them onto the pieces and used a white Prismacolor pencil to add curves to give the impression of even more dimension 

- added the Lego pieces using thin sticky pads then

- 'happy birthday' sentiment was stamped using a stamp from the 'Happy Messages' set by Stampendous, and a Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad onto a piece/snippet of the same white card as before - sized at 3.125" x 1.625" (the detailed measurements are for my own reference really)

- added the sentiment using thin sticky pads onto the card front - and called it a wrap!

Made for a little neighbour, aged six (Jack).

Dudley Pupdate: Oh what a little scamp he is right now! We think that being rather spoiled over Christmas is reaping its own rewards! The other night, he claimed my space on the bed, and despite spending so much of his time cosied up to me during the day, he let me know with a Grinch-like growl that I wasn't very welcome to disturb his slumber! Len gave him a semi-stern ticking off so he moved - I then woke up in the early hours of the morning to find him (Dudley) snuggled back, right up against me, head back sharing the pillow and snoring gently! And looking so angelic of course!

 

Sorry the above images are so small and also a bit blurred. I clipped them from a couple of CCTV shots - taken when Dudley went out onto our front drive to give his 'Bestie' Arnie a big hug on Thursday! When they meet they go into 'hug mode' and dance round and round like a couple on the dance floor! So far we haven't managed to catch them on our phones or a standard camera for better definition  - but at least this proves I wasn't fibbing when I mentioned it a while ago!

As I type this we're hoping that the usual mayhem of New Year's Eve fireworks here won't trouble Dudley. So far, so good, although he did jump late on Boxing Day when a barrage went off nearby. He'd been asleep so that was probably what startled him. Our best bet is to have the TV on with the sound up and the London Celebrations streaming - as a distraction from what's going on in the neighbourhood.

Welcome 2023 - we need you to bring happiness and peace into our lives for sure.

Love from Dudley and myself,

'Spirited Snowmen'

The current Challenge #701 over at Allsorts is 'Sparkle and Shine'. I love a bit of sparkle and shine, on Christmas cards especially, and came up with this:

I used:

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

- topped the front of the card with baby blue pearlescent card for the 'shine', die cut using Lawn Fawn's 'Stitched Windy Backdrop' cover plate

- then, using snippets of white card, stamped a skating snowman - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from SU's 'Spirited Snowmen' set

- coloured the image using Polychromos pencils , including using the Polychromos silver pencil for the skate blades

- die cut the image panel using a die from a now discontinued set of four dies, marketed originally by The Works and sold under the M&C label - called 'Oval Frilled & Stitched'. I found them on eBay, brand new for £6 the other week - bargain!

- then stamped the sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a little stamp by Clearly Besotted from their 'Let It Snow' set of stamps, discontinued

- stuck the image panel onto the card front, using thin sticky pads

- finally, die cut some snowflakes from a snippet of very sparkly silver card, using using a Penny Black 'Snow Family' die set - and glued them in place, shame the lovely crisp silver sparkle just doesn't want to be picked up by the camera though

And yup ....... I made another one exactly the same whilst everything was out on my desk. 

The set of The Works dies are NBUS so I'm also skipping over to Darnell's to join in with NBUS Challenge #44.

Happy Birthday Joe, at 17

Len's great-nephew (he has four of them) has just turned 17. I almost forgot his Birthday, which was on the day of our Queen's funeral, and in fact had even forgotten I made and asked Len to post this card in the 10 days of public mourning. However, goodness knows how, it turns out I did remember to take a photo, which I found on my camera just the other day:

I used:

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

- a piece of dark blue shimmery card, found lying on my desk in 'the pile' waiting to be popped into the snippets folder. Trimmed to an eighth of an inch smaller than the card base all round then stuck onto the card front

- then I dug out a new paper pad from one of my NBUS baskets on a shelf behind where I sit to craft (for me it's the best way to ensure I use new things and don't just file them away to be forgotten)

- the paper pad is really gorgeous and was bought with the red tartan in mind for some Christmas cards I have planned - however, this blue tartan/plaid was perfect for my needs

- the paper pad is called 'Tartan' , made by Craft Consortium, a UK Company - the darker colours are so perfect for male cards

- trimmed the tartan paper from all sides to look as balanced as possible and then added a three quarters of an inch or so strip of plain dark blue shimmery card in place across the card - before trimming the sides off

- glued the tartan panel to the front of the card, with the outer dark blue framing it

- then stamped a sentiment using an ancient Lili of the Valley stamp and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink - I could have dug around the ink pads for a Navy Blue but I was basically almost running on 'empty' at that point in time

- I'd used a scrap of white card the same as the card base to stamp the sentiment on and then punched it out using a SU round punch - one and one eighth of an inch in diameter I think- and stuck it in place using a piece of very thin sticky pad

One super fast and simple card - made thanks to a video of very similar 'male cards' I'd spotted online, but can't find again, as so often happens.

So there we go - almost back in the saddle, I hope!

Birthday card for Mia - 2021

Mia, the eldest 'not so little', grand daughter over in Germany just celebrated her 14th Birthday. It only seems like yesterday when she was a little tot!

Mia is still very much into dancing and I used a 'pre-loved' stamp set, bought from a de-cluttering FB group, for her card - I just love the pure joy of the dancing figure:

 I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank

- snippet of white card onto which I stamped the dancing figure from SU's fabulous 'Beautiful You' set of stamps - using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad

- dotty patterned paper from Dovecraft's 'Back to Basics 11' paper pack in lilac and soft green, the green was snippets and also cut into a whole sheet of lilac

- next stamped the dancing figure onto a snippet of the dotty green using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black', fussy cut it and edged right round the cut edge, sideways on, with a black Whisper pen

- used a glue pen to adhere the fussy cut dress and hat portion of the figure onto the white panel

- then, and only then, did I die cut the image panel using a Creative Dies 'square 'Wonky Stitches' die

- used SU's 'Certainly Celery' for all the plain green 'frames', again - one snippet and then cut into a whole sheet

- first layer onto the card was a slightly smaller piece of 'Certainly Celery' as the main 'frame'

- then backed the image panel with a slightly bigger frame of 'Certainly Celery' and set it aside

- trimmed a piece of the lilac dotty paper to just a bit smaller than the green frame and popped a strip of green dotty paper over the lower area to 'pull' the image and rest of the card together. I glued it in place and then trimmed off the excess from the back

- then I took the second try at a stamped sentiment, from the same set - which in truth had stamped way to heavily at first attempt, just below the dancing figure, sob - thankfully before I actually decided on the die cutting size and shape

- die cut the sentiment, using a very useful 'flag' shaped die from the MFT 'Mini Mail' set of dies

- then used the waste from the die cut 'flag' to draw around the inside edge onto green card and trim/fussy cut to just a bit bigger than the sentiment - making sure I didn't chop the longer end too short

- glued the image panel in place followed by the layered sentiment 'flag'

- mused for ages and just couldn't find a lilac gem to match so settled for a Lucy's Little Things 'Bubbles' domed embellishment as a change from a white pearl, glued in place using Glossy Accents, as a finishing touch

I do so love this stamp set of SU's and will certainly use it more frequently. It has three 'figures' in total and each one lends itself to paper piecing. Plus lots of lovely sentiments.

I'm linking into Darnell's current NBUS challenge #31 - it was a first outing for me using my 'Beautiful You' stamp set, and possibly only its second ever outing (the previous owner had only used it once). 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #413

Welcome to a new Snippets Playground Challenge.  Oh boy, it seems like temperatures dropped quite rapidly in the space of just one day last week. With the nights drawing in as well we do seem to be heading for Winter before too many weeks go past. Let's hope for one final burst of Summer before then.

And for this challenge we have another lovely Guest Designer. This time it's our super Head Prefect - SaRn!!

 

And, Sarn has made not one but three fabulous 'topiary' snippets cards! They're absolutely gorgeous and to find out how 'Little Miss Mischief' made them and what snippets she used, just hop over to her blog - the link is shown above the photo of the three cards.

And, the prize this fortnight, kindly donated by Sarn is:

 

- a brand new set of stamps made by Stampin' Up called 'Vertical Greetings'. Needless to say, I just love these stamps, both for the images as well as the great selection of vertical greetings. Sadly they're now discontinued so this is a great chance to win yourself the set!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 16th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, 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.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you want to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

 

Please also remember that I only allow a total of nine other challenges, which makes 10 in total, when you enter a snippets make into the Playground.

 

Dudley has given up using our downstairs toilet as his 'cooling down' space since temperatures dropped. In fact, on Friday night he spent most of the time whilst we were sleeping, snuggled up on the bed in between us. And when he does that, he generally surrounds himself with two or three of his most loved toys, so it can get a little bit crowded! ☺ 

 

Stay safe and be kind.

 

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley and of course me, 

Birthday card for Kai - 2021

Today is Kai's Birthday - Mum to Len's two grand daughters. Most of you know that the family lives in Germany - and, like us, have been in and out of lockdowns until they're dizzy.

In honour of Kai's Birthday, I broke open a new Stamping Up set of stamps and matching dies, bought a while back - to have a play. After so long away from serious crafting I forgot how to set stamps onto the Misti! No worries, not losing the plot - just not concentrating properly and so ended up putting them on face up instead of face down.

This is the card I came up with - I worry it's a 'bit old fashioned' for a gal in her 40's - but Len gave it his 'stamp' of approval at least - and Dudley gave one of his interested and approving dabs of his nose when I showed it to him:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- piece of Neenah 'Desert Storm' card stock as a contrast to the pink striped background I added later. Initially I hoped to make the card blank using the 'Desert Storm' card but it isn't thick enough so I resorted to cutting a piece a smidgen smaller than the card front and glueing that in place

- then die cut a pink striped panel from a piece of paper from Dovecraft's Back to Basics 'Bright Spark' paper pack - it's pale pink and not at all bright so I reckon it crept into the paper pack when no-one was looking! I used a die from a Heffy Doodles A6 stitched rectangles set of dies - huge thanks again to Sarn for initially finding these and subsequently enabling 'Little Miss Copy Cat' to follow suit - I love the delicate 'stitching' as well ☺

- next, used the Stamping Up 'Wrapped Bouquet' set of stamps to stamp the bouquet, newspaper wrap and little tag sentiment - all using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and my smallest Misti

- die cut the stamped elements using the Stamping Up 'Wrapped Flowers' set of dies then flipped the newspaper wrap over and stamped on the reverse  - I followed a YouTube tutorial to work out how some of it was done, otherwise I'd still be sitting here pondering!

- coloured the bouquet itself using Polychromos pencils and added some Clear Wink of Stella

- die cut extra green and white foliage, using snippets, for later on

- now we finally had lift-off - I'd begun to wonder to be honest

- as per the video I folded the newspaper wrap into shape and tucked then adhered the bouquet of flowers into the 'wrap'. It already was looking good - hooray!

- tucked and adhered the additional die cut foliage in place - at this point the 'bouquet' was still a stand-alone element

- added the tiny 'For You' tag using a snippet of beige embroidery thread

- did a hunt for a suitable sentiment and ended up using a Craftwork Cards pre-printed and die cut oval 'Happy Birthday' which I glued onto the top left hand corner

- I'd already worked out the positioning for the bouquet so then added that using some red line tape behind the 'newspaper wrapping' and thin sticky pads behind the bouquet itself so that it all sat nice and level 

- final touch, three white pearls 

I'm adding this into Darnell's NBUS challenge - the stamps and dies are on their first trip out!

Dragonfly Garden

I recently had a little splurge on some Stamping Up goodies, and one item was the really pretty 'Dragonfly Garden Bundle' of stamps and co-ordinating dies. I knew exactly who I first wanted to use the set for - a very special friend who loves 'flying and fluttering' pretty insect as well as the colour pink:

Here's the result:

I used:

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

- piece of smooth white card onto which i stamped the wild flower image using a Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad

- selected the pink papers from an Echo Park paper pad called 'Be Mine' so I could select the right shade of pink for the image colouring

- coloured the wild flowers image using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

- stamped the dragonfly onto more smooth white card using a Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink pad

- coloured the dragonfly image using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, including the silver one in the set

- then went over the wings using a clear Wink of Stella brush pen for some gentle sparkle 

- punched out the dragonfly using the co-ordinating punch, punched two more dragonflies from plain white card and layered the three together using a glue pen

- trimmed the plain deep pink and the script papers then glued the plain pink layer onto the card front

- punched one long edge of the image panel using an ancient Fiskars punch - as close as I could to making the punched out pattern  equidistant at the top and bottom.

- then trimmed the panel to sit properly aligned on the pink script panel and also trimmed the plain left edge. That panel trimming process was possibly the most fiddly part and I've since wondered if I should have created the blank panel first and then done the stamping and colouring as my heart was in my mouth lest I spoiled it!

- glued the image panel onto the pink script panel then added the result to the card front

- next I used a much loved Stamping Up wood mounted stamp to stamp the sentiment, die cut it using a die from the Lil' Inkers Stitched Rectangle A2 set of dies

- backed the sentiment with a trimmed snippet of left-over deep pink paper and glued it in place onto the card front

- added the dragonfly to the card front using little pieces of thin sticky pad, stood back and went 'Hmmmm' - I didn't particularly like the stark white border around the 'critter' so I went around the edge using a silver Wink of Stella brush 

- by this point I was now going 'Hmmmm' over the white area at the top left of the panel - it seemed to make the right hand bottom of the card look too heavy - so I added three sequins in a similar blue to the dragonfly (using Glossy Accents) onto the 'white space', which just pulled the whole card together, IMHO.

- stamped a sentiment onto an insert and added to the card - finished!

The sequins are from Little Things from Lucy's cards and the mix is called 'Bubblegum'. In the USA, Simon Says Stamp carries stocks of Lucy's 'little things'. They don't have her UK full range - but I bet you'd easily find enough to spend your pennies on!

Am entering this card into Darnell's NBUS #26 Challenge - HERE.

I used loads more pencils (for blending, especially on the dragonfly) than those in the photo - but didn't want them to overpower the card itself in the photo. Sigh, but I couldn't pick up the subtle glimmer of the dragonfly, still getting to grips with the new camera.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #398

Hello again! Mixed bag of weather here - but Spring is certainly trying hard to spring!

Time for another snippets challenge and also another lovely Guest Designer! This time it's Lesley G of 'Lesley's Craft Room' - and she's brought us more than one card plus a super prize to spoil us a bit: 

 

Oh my word - this is well above and beyond the call of duty - three cards! All three are fabulous of course and I know that Lesley has written a post with lots of detail about the making of the cards and also a video I believe.

Many of you will know Lesley as a Stampin Up Demonstrator - which is really a bit of an understatement. Lesley runs classes in her home (not during current times sadly), is super-talented, has a team of SU Demonstrators and many customers - all of whom love her for being such a lovely, caring lady. 

SaRn has been lucky enough to go to Lesley's on many an occasion. I live too far away but do look on her as a friend as well as my SU demonstrator. And on top of all this - she's one of our regular Snippets Playmates of course! Three cheers for Lesley - wave your hockey sticks girls!

Here's a photo of the prize from Lesley for this fortnight:

 

Two lovely parts to this challenge's prize - which I won't be splitting by the way. First of all there's a 'Time of Year' set of stamps which Lesley showcased in the first card of the above series - super versatile for various occasions from 'Christmas' through to 'Birthdays' and also 'Thinking of You'. Secondly there's a super bold' Happy Birthday' die. Lesley made two cards using the die, shown as cards 2 and 3 above. Of course, both parts of the prize are Stampin' Up!

It's times like this I wish I could sneak an entry into the Playground incognito!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 20th March. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's a maximum of ONE entry, 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.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you want to be in the draw in a comment on here, then you will be bypassed if your name comes out of Mr Linky. I'm sure you all know I ask for a positive 'yes' on the blog post itself - just in case you're only playing for fun - otherwise I don't add you to my little list.

 

Please also remember that I only allow a total of nine other challenges, which makes 10 in total, when you enter a snippets make into the Playground.

Dudley is looking so smart right now - Len finally finished off trimming him after I did the bottom of his ears and end of his tail plume and he's done a great job! We've been working on clipping his claws 2-4 at a time - depending on how much of a fight Dudley puts up. Whenever possible, I prefer to do it on my own and just catch him at the right moment during his brushing and combing sessions. Some days it's obviously not going to be worth trying so this has been a real lesson in patience and 'dog psychology' for sure. 

 

Speaking of 'dog psychology' - late Saturday afternoon we were busy together with something, being watched by Dudley as usual. I said something that wasn't agreeable to Len and he spoke pretty sharply to me in response. Dudley gave out one single, quite low but warning, 'woof' ........ and glared right at Len. Great way to defuse tension for sure - we both cracked up laughing, although Dudley still looked pretty defensive on 'Team Pixie' - tee, hee. It's that invisible thread 'woof' string I had inserted in his back! I think we're all probably overdue some space right now!

Ruby's Memory, ......... I had one final try to donate on Saturday and it worked! Hooray :) A receipt and letter should come through this week - hopefully electronically as I think they need every penny. Our donation, including Gift Aid, was £25. Happy Dance here!

Rather worryingly, our lovely Playmate Connie of My Grammy's Attic is in hospital with COVID pneumonia - that was the situation as I typed much of this post this on Wednesday. She managed to send me a brief email and I know we all wish her a good and speedy recovery. I know for a fact that Connie has been so careful and it just shows that none of us are safe until we've been vaccinated and this wretched virus is finally beaten into submission. Yes, some of us have had side effects from the vaccination but none of us have grown a unicorn's horn ...........yet! And it's infinitely preferable to catching the 'real thing'! So if you're hesitating - please think of others and have the jab.

And, no surprise, with a rather busy week behind me I'm still playing catch up on commenting on Challenge 397. More than halfway as I rush off to groom Dudley then cook Saturday's evening meal - be patient, I will get there.

 

Stay safe and be kind.

 

Lots of love from us all - Parsnip, Dudley and of course me.

 

Frog on a mono-cycle

Not very often you see a frog (a juggling one at that) on a mono-cycle! I recently thought I'd make a fun Birthday card for Joe, one of Len's great nephews, and this is the result:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank

- slightly smaller (5.25" x 4") piece of plain green card stock - glued onto the card front

- then a very slightly smaller piece of white card which I set to one side for the moment

- stamped a 'cycling frog' onto a snippet of white card - using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from a (pre-loved but NBUS by the first owner and yours truly) set of Stampin' Up 'So Hoppy Together' stamps

- coloured the image using Pro Markers and then trimmed it down before mounting onto another piece of the same plain green card

- I'd already chosen the striped paper from an ancient Capsule Collection pad by Papermania (called Verde) and carefully matched the plain green card as well as the Promarkers to the greens (NB once again the camera lies and his tummy is the same lime green as one of the paper stripes!!)

- from the striped paper, die cut a flag using one of  MFT's 'Stitched Fishtail Flag Stax' dies

- at that point I could work out where to place the sentiment, using the Misti and also just placing the image panel in place without adhering it

- then stamped the sentiment using a stamp from Clearly Besotted's 'Say What?' set of sentiments, the Misti and Memento's 'Tuxedo Black' ink onto the piece of white card I'd set aside earlier

- adhered the fishtail die cut and then the image panel onto the white panel

- glued the white panel onto the green panel 

- final touch - added Josy Rose Hot Nailheads so the frog was now a 'juggling frog on a mono-cycle' (try saying that fast three times), plus three more nail heads just scattered here and there on the card front

Finished!

I'd like to add this into Darnell's current NBUS Challenge #18 as it was a first outing for the frog stamp.

Rudolph Days - November - 2019

I suddenly remembered it was coming up to the last Rudolph Days Challenge of 2019 over at Scrappy Mo's. I haven't missed a single one this year and didn't aim to start slipping now, so I did a little batch of six of these:

I used:

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

- Stampin' Up's 'Real Red' card stock, cut an eighth of an inch smaller on all sides and set aside for now

- a 'pre-loved' but brand new/unused matching set of stamps and dies (from a Facebook De-cluttering group), made by Sizzix and called 'Fairisle Stocking'

- first used SU's 'Real Red' ink pad to stamp the stocking onto white card and then used a Dewdrop Brilliance ink pad in 'Pearlescent Ivy' to stamp the holly sprig

- die cut the stocking and holly sprig using the dies that came with the set

- then die cut the aperture into the 'Real Red' layer, using the MFT 'Peek-a-boo' Window rectangle die, having checked using the little die cuts for what I thought was the best position on the piece of red card

- glued the red layer of card complete with aperture onto the card front, using Collall All Purpose glue

- then stuck the holly sprig onto the top of the stocking using a teeny piece of narrow red line tape, before adding the whole stocking into the aperture using thin sticky pads

- the sentiment is from a Clarity Stamp Word Sticker Collection called 'Clarity Christmas & Celebrations'. A great idea and a huge time saver as well

- finally, added some tickles of red sparkly Stickles to the holly berries. I generally add my Stickles using a very fine pointed brush, which is better as I'm a bit clumsy and also it allows me to mix two colours of Stickles together on a scrap of paper then pick it up with the brush (deep and a bright red in this case)

Once again, I forgot that the double stitching on this lovely aperture die doesn't show up so well on dark coloured card, sigh. And, although it doesn't show up in real life, I think that in future, when I'm using the black background Clarity stickers it would be worth gently running a black marker round the cut edge just to hide any smidgen of the white backing before adding them to cards etc. Little Miss Picky strikes again :) But I do so love the stickers anyhow!

I keep telling myself to just stop making new Christmas cards and concentrate on actually doing the inserts for a bundle of Christmas cards still not totally finished and then get cracking to get them in the post. It's a bit hard though, all the more as I plan to run our Grand Christmas Draw again this year and need to make all bar a couple of the samples for when it runs! Having said that, I guess finishing and posting what I have should take priority - certainly for Overseas.

I'd also like to join in with Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge #465 - so sorry I haven't been along to play for a while Hazel! It's always anything goes, with an optional theme, which this time is 'something beginning with the letter R' - so my red qualifies there, wahoo!

Of course, tomorrow is the start of Dudley's 'Little Adventure', as explained on Sunday's Snippets post  - wish us luck. 

Vroom, vroom!

A little (not so little now) neighbour, called Taylor, is ten tomorrow. It's safe to post this card I made for him, as he doesn't know about the blog:

I used:

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

- a snippet of SU's 'Smoky Slate' card stock, trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- next layer is a snippet of white card stock - embossed using a Cuttlebug 'Diamond Plate' EF (the closest I had to tyre tracks) and trimmed to a teeny bit smaller than the 'Smoky Slate' layer - then glued in place

- next, out came the Misti and a Stampin' Up set of stamps called 'Rev Up the Fun', and this card is made totally using stamps from that set. Taylor's Dad has a motorbike and he loves to go for a little spin on it all togged up, sitting behind his Dad

- I stamped the bike onto a snippet of white card using Memento 'Danube Blue' - I'm a bit careful/mean and only buy colours like this in the 'Dewdrop' size if I rarely use them. The Misti is so useful to get a totally crisp image

- then, using the Misti again, I stamped the 'exhaust fumes'- checking for position with a snippet of scrap card, and SU's 'Smoky Slate' ink pad before doing the real thing

- whilst at it, still using the Misti, I also stamped a couple of the tyre tracks stamps - again with SU's 'Smoky Slate'

- more stamping - the sentiment onto a white snippet - using SU's 'Real Red'

- with the stamping all done I just used scissors to trim down the 'tyre tracks' and set them aside - I'd usually use the trimmer but scissors worked fine as I had a strong line to follow

- mounted the trimmed image onto a snippet of SU's 'Real Red' card stock, and did the same with the sentiment - only I switched and used SU's 'Smoky Slate' for that element

- added the 'tyre tracks' onto the card front using red line tape

- then added the sentiment and the image panels using thin sticky pads

All done!

Sorry if I haven't visited the Playground entries as promptly as I should - bit busy here but will be there ASAP! 

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #349 - results

First of all - Happy Easter everyone! I needed a couple of last minute Easter cards earlier in the week - and rustled them up in about an hour. A record for me.

Don't usually show a card on 'results week' but as I used snippets of green card, here's what I made:

I used:

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

- piece of white card stock onto which I stamped the chicken and egg from Stampin' Up's 'Hey, Chick' set plus the 'Easter Wishes' sentiment by Pink Gem designs

- coloured the chicken and egg using Pro markers and also Whispers markers for the very fine bits such as the chick's legs. I do have some Letraset Extra Fine Nibs for Pro markers but was in a hurry!

- a snippet of SU 'Certainly Celery' card stock - trimmed to just slightly bigger than the stitched rectangle

- then glued the layers onto a card front - all done!

I really like the quirkiness of this SU set of stamps - always makes me smile.

Let's get straight on with the fortnight's picks:

I do so love this adorable little Easter gift bag, made by Kath! Such a great way to use snippets on the cute bunny and other decorations - someone will be thrilled with this for sure!

This absolutely had to be one of my picks! I totally love the design, great way to use up snippets. And the image is just wonderful - DO hop over to Meghan's blog and you'll see a perfect, absolutely matching, photo there of Meghan's niece and nephew. Brilliant! And, as always, such fabulous colouring of the image too.

I really love this card, made by Glennis. Such a pretty background and the flower is stunning! I know the flower was stamped onto a snippet of white card - I bet most of us have loads of little white snippets we can't bear to throw away! And the final touch of the washi tape and heart is just perfect!

No new Playmates this time, although we had a total of 58 entries - yay!

Now it's prize draw time, and our winner of the MFT 'Stitched Diagonal Cover Up' die and the Impression Obsession 'Thanks' die is: 

Liz (Cavill)

Well done Liz! I think you'll get a good bit of use out of the cover-up die especially. Please send me your address, with your full name at the top as well so I can copy and paste or just write straight from the email onto the envelope - for speed and ease. It's also confirmation that you still would like the prize of course and I'll post your prize once I hear from you. Please put Playground Winner or similar in the subject line of your email in case it drops into my junk mail. Email address is on RH sidebar as always.

Remember folks, there's still almost another week to run on Challenge #350 - you can find it HERE. The prize is a Clearly Besotted 'Panda Planner' set of stamps, plus a £15 gift voucher (which was kindly donated by Clearly Besotted).

Dudley's hair trim session on Wednesday turned out to be a bit of a saga. The place is a bit off the beaten track on the outskirts on Winchester - I drove whilst Len had Dudley on his lap -  doing the usual yodeling act (Dudley, not Len!). And the stupid Sat. Nav decided to play silly games and I/we got hopelessly lost - going round in circles. I knew that, once I spotted the main street of Winchester with the iconic statue of King Alfred, that we were in trouble! Who knew there were so many steep hills and narrow lanes around the City itself. Eventually we did find the place and left Dudley with his Auntie Steph ..... whilst we recovered in a nearby Costa Coffee. As I suspected, he needed a fair bit of work on those matts and the upshot is that we're taking him back for 'Round Two' on Monday morning! So far it's possible that he won't have a puppy cut just yet - but if it means double sessions then it's not fair on Dudley really so we'll see what happens. We're only being charged for one session - but I still have to do that awful 'hunt the groomer' thing all over again!

I haven't managed to take a photo of him since Thursday afternoon's outing, in fact he looks very much the same (as Steph spent the time working on the matts). But, I did spot that some of you wanted to see his starfish impression so managed to do a quick shot of him before the grooming trip:

To be honest, it's not a brilliant photo - I've had better chances since but didn't have the camera to hand. This is one of Dudley's favourite places to lie, totally flat on his tummy and cool down - on a bathroom floor with his nose just resting on the landing carpet - so his nose is at the bottom of this photo, hidden by his top knot flopping forward. Legs splayed out behind him and often forming a real starfish with all paws spreadeagled wide apart.

He weighed 6.2 kg the other day, so is certainly stabilised at what might well be his fully grown weight.

Other Dudley news is that he met a sweet little 'Princess' on his walk just before we headed off to Winchester. From Len's description, she might be a little Shih Tzu. She's lives quite locally, called Tilly and is just 14 weeks old. We'd been wondering about Dudley being so shy with other dogs (male and female) and hoping it was just a puppy thing - having your puppy hide behind your legs is obviously not what you want. But, no such problems with Tilly - it apparently was mutual love at first sight. With both dogs dancing around playing and then whining when it was time to carry on their separate ways! That's our boy!! x

As always, Parsnip and Dudley send their love, and so do I of course!

Rudolph Days - March 2019

Despite Mr Mojo taking a hike here, I was determined to join in with ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days challenge which runs until the end of this month.

Whilst laid up in bed, I did manage to find time to keep a little eye on a couple of Facebook 'de-cluttering' groups and snapped up some bargains. To be honest, this place is bursting at the seams but I did only buy items I'd use a lot and/or had wanted for some time. And all items were unused as well! The SU set of stamps and really complementary dies I used for this Christmas card were on my wish list:

I used:

- 5.5 x 4.25" white card blanks, I made four cards the same and three are tent style and somehow I managed to make one with a side opening, which I do quite like as a format. I buy 6" x 6" white cards from Hobbycraft and trim them down to size - and also trim the envelopes to use as notepaper in the craft room so not as wasteful as it may sound

- 5.25" x 4" red satin card (from Joanna Sheen) - which always looks so rich and is top of my list for Christmas card stock

- 5" x 3.75" white card for the front panel

- used the SU set of dies called 'Hometown Greetings' to die cut the house and tree and that gave me the size I needed for the aperture I was going to die cut next

- used two circle dies, one inside the other, to cut out the circle from the white card. The inner die was a Tonic Studios plain one and the outer one was from the 'Stitched Circles' set by The Works. That left a circular aperture as well as giving me a stitched white ring to use later on in the making of this card

- at that point I could stamp the sentiment, so I used SU 'Smoky Slate' and a sentiment stamp from the SU 'Hearts Come Home' set of stamps

- then ran the white panel through the Cuttlebug with SU's 'Softly Falling' embossing folder - I love this folder and made sure I used it so that the wider spaced 'dots' were at the bottom of the panel so they didn't interfere with the sentiment too much

- the next thing was to assemble the little 'photo frame' by using a tape runner to add the die cut as I wanted it to the back of the frame and then carefully snip away any excess from just under the frame

- rummaged round in my ribbon boxes and found a snippet of narrow silver lurex ribbon and wrapped a piece around the top of the aperture

- glued the red layer onto the card, topped by the white layer

- added the circle frame (which I guess is really rather like a bauble/tree ornament) using teeny snippets of thin sticky pads

- then tied a teensy weensy bow using the same silver lurex ribbon and stuck that in place using Glossy Accents as a strong glue

- final touch was to use the SU 'Owl Builder' punch to punch out a tiny little heart  - from a snippet of the red satin card and glued it in place, again using Glossy Accents purely as it was already open on my desk

I got this idea from another blog and am so grateful to Dawn Griffith who is a Stampin' Up Demo lady, she made it all so easy - easy enough for me to make four the same as I was at it! Her blog post is HERE as well as a link to a video Dawn made. Dawn did use a length of narrow ribbon along the lower part of her card but to be honest, not only was I short of the silver ribbon, but I thought the card was fine without it.

She also changed the coloured layer for dark blue and also soft baby blue on other cards using the same design - all of which look lovely! Thanks Dawn!