A card for Josh

A neighbour's eldest boy celebrated his Birthday on Saturday (yesterday). He's now 14 and that's a sort of 'in between' age - too old for LOTV cute images/Lego and such - yet not old enough for more 'manly cards. No doubt that will come though!

So, I opted for a fairly neutral style:

Needless to say, the colours look a bit washed out - rather like our weather right now. Dudley is drawing up plans to build us an Ark!

I used:

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

- a slightly smaller layer of Neenah 'Desert Storm' - which was a snippet

- a slightly smaller piece of patterned paper from Craft Consortium's 'Ink Drops - Ocean' pad

- glued both layers in place onto the card front

- then dug out a couple more snippets of the same 'Desert Storm' card and die cut the sentiment twice. For the sentiment I used a die by Lawn Fawn die called 'Giant Happy Birthday to You' - SO useful!

- glued both sentiment layers together using a glue pen

- adhered them to the card front using a glue pen

- despite the card being for a 'young man' I did feel it needed something more - so I glued three white sequins in place and that was it, finished!

The results from Challenge #439 are now available over in the Snippets Playground HERE. Hop over and see if you're a 'pick' - or perhaps the winner of the prize on offer.

Despite the rain I did manage to fit in a trip in my car to have my hair chopped (rather overdue) and also to collect a repeat prescription, which involved a long queue and some dithering people in front of me. Am now signing up to a local pharmacy to deliver directly here without me needing to put in requests. This new pharmacy is in the same parade of shops as my GP as well as my current pharmacy so if it goes 'pear-shaped' it's close enough for me to go in person and sort things out. 

However, the rain has made it impossible to venture out for a decent 'ride and walk Dudley' trip. It's a bit like giving a child a packet of sweeties to become excited about and then taking them away. I've really missed it - having the Purple Peril and then being 'grounded' is a bit cruel of Mother Nature. 

Dudley Pupdate: Dudley speaking - well, I got through Halloween without too many 'woofs'. I stuck with my favourite and most sinister bandana all evening - we forgot to take any photos though! The camera was on the coffee table all ready to go - but in all the excitement we just forgot and 'enjoyed the moment' as they say. I had a fair few cuddles (from some very pretty teenage girls, my favourite!), and almost left home with some of the most loving callers! Mama soon chased me back indoors though - spoilsport! Tell you what, I slept like a little log right through the night - just exhausted by it all. And no chocolates for me of course - but I did get a few Doggie Choccie Drops, as consolation. Back to Mama now. x

See you in the Playground!

Lots of love from myself and the little perisher, Dudley,

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Challenge #328

Phew, time for yet another challenge in the Snippets Playground, and this time it's a much smaller prize than the previous fortnight's. Still a 'good 'un' though I think!

Here's my snippets card for this week - made for Bradley (Len's great-nephew) when he had a Birthday yesterday. I used a brown snippet for the backing plus a white snippet to stamp the 'block' design onto, so they aren't small snippets but still came from my snippets/scraps folder which means I can play along - snort:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4" white card blank, side opening

- a snippet of white card onto which I stamped the image using an Altenew 'Galactic Stream' ink pad and a fabulous and very bold stamp from Uniko called 'Block Party Birthday'

- then backed the panel with a piece of slightly bigger brown card from the snippets folder

- glued the image and its backing to the card front and called it done!

I've had the stamp in the Playground toy box (along with my own identical stamp of course) for months now. I needed to make a card quickly and this came to the rescue - male cards really do give me issues. Mind you, this would also make a great girly card of course - and my next try will be white on black which I bet could look very impressive! I've also seen it with parts coloured in and that really looks super, great for kids perhaps? That one grabs me the most for variation for sure. Possibilities, possibilities!

Here's some of the lowdown on my 'adventures' whilst making this card. I started off with my one and only full set of four Altenew ('Sweet Dreams') ink pads and the intention of making the card graduate in shades (ombre). But time was against me and when I hit issues (despite covering parts up with paper as I went) I just reverted to a single colour - the darkest one in the set - using the Misti of course.

I love Uniko stamps (and in fact have a gift voucher in front of me that a lovely blogger friend sent me earlier this year - still to spend, wahoo!). But, like many polymer stamps, they seem to have a sort of icky and almost oily film on them when new, which makes the ink quite patchy if you don't clean them before using them for a first time. It's possibly ink dependent as well (am sure Kathy K once put me on the right track) but I think the secret is to perhaps wash them in soapy water, rinse and let them dry naturally - but of course, I was in a rush wasn't I?!

Anyhow, I got there in the end - but Dumbo hadn't thought about the pad being 'dye' ink had she?! So, I ended up with blue finger tips 'cos I was using a sponge to apply the ink to the stamp. Just behind me, on a cupboard shelf there's a huge pack of disposable gloves, but of course it was too late when I realised. And I mean DEEP blue hands!

I love brown and teal together so the brown backing card was an easy choice when it jumped up out of the snippets folder!

And here's this week's Snippets Playground prize - no surprise at all:

It's a Uniko 'Block Party Birthday' stamp of course - and I do generally buy Uniko stamps in DVD sized cases for easy storage, like I did with this one.

Sadly I can't get hold of a single Altenew ink pad the same as the one I used as it's a really lovely colour - so this time we have a smaller prize than we've had lately. It's still one I think you really would have fun with if you read the options for use I mused upon above here. It was a fluke that Tara from Seven Hills Crafts had the single pink stamps she sent me - all UK companies seem to just stock them in sets.

And of course, I hope numbers will still be up as (with luck) you come to play for the fun as much as anything!

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 23rd June. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

It's 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.

Remember, if you link into the Playground and don't say clearly that you're wanting 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 - just in case you're playing only for fun - otherwise I ignore you on my little list..

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 :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the winner of last fortnight's bumper of Concord & 9th 'Everyday Tintables', a Concord & 9th 'Fabulous Phrases set of five dies and an Altenew 'Puffy Pink' ink pad.

The hedgies contine to vist - Len (so sweet) has been saying they're 'fighting' a bit. Ha! Just wait until the patter of little prickles :) Perhaps I need to tell him about the birds and the bees! In fact, we had three of them prancing around the garden the other night! So funny, despite two feeding stations, they were patiently queued up waiting for their turn at the main one. We caught it on CCTV but were fast asleep ourselves at the time.

And then, on Friday evening Len went out late to check the hedgies and there, right in the centre of the garden, sat a smallish hedgie. As Len approached, it looked up at him so trustingly with such a sweet little face and made no attempt to curl up or run away. An enchanting moment to treasure - and of course he didn't have the camera to hand, sigh. But - sometimes it's what goes into our memories that is more important - although I would have loved a photo to share with you of course.

And we have another visitor but one that would be really hard to capture on camera. For a couple of years now we've thought we had a little wren living in the honeysuckle-clad arbour at the end of the PG/garden. These evenings it's becoming more bold and what a delight to see as we sit watching the comings and goings before dinner. But, wrens are very shy and also very fast as well so only time will tell.

And, the little blue tits fledged and flew away when we weren't around. They were totally ready to go earlier in the week and it's really odd having their little nest box so silent.

Happy days!

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,

Card for Edward

One of Len's great-nephews just celebrated his 19th Birthday. As always, I struggled making a card for a young man (any man or boy for that matter!) but came up with this:

I used:

- A6 white card blank, tent style

- pieces of rhubarb red and air force blue card stock for the narrow frames - one outer set and one inner set

- piece of patterned paper from the Dovecraft Back to Basics 'Monochrome' paper pack

- I used a snippet of white card for the stamping, already trimmed to the size I wanted

- but first of all I stamped the plane onto a snippet of white card, using Memento 'Rhubarb Stalk' ink and a stamp from the Stampin' Up 'Sky Is the Limit' set

- then carefully cut around the plane leaving a narrow white border

- using the Misti stamped the 'vapour trail' with Memento 'Teal Zeal' ink. The trail stamp comes with a looped heart but it was easy to just avoid inking that up - and of course I used the fussy cut plane to check the positioning of the 'trail'

- added a couple of clouds using stamps from the same set and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink

- then added the sentiment (I liked the swirls around the word Birthday - as if someone was doing a loop-the-loop) - using Memento 'Teal Zeal' ink and a stamp from the Penny Black 'Special Thoughts' set

- as all the pieces for the layers had been trimmed to size when I first set out to make this card, I just glued them onto the card front before adhering the plane with a couple of thin sticky pads

Showed it to Len and got a big thumbs up! Hooray indeed :) Adding the plane raised with sticky pads makes a huge difference and I'll be using that trick again for sure.

The SU stamp set is a pre-loved Sale-A-Bration freebie from a couple of years ago- so glad I recently found and then bought it. Lesson there though - don't dither else some things do disappear.

I Googled the stamp set and found umpteen card ideas - the one I based this card on can be found here. My version quite isn't a straight copy but Brandy's card of two years ago certainly provided the inspiration in a big way - she's a clever crafter!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 305 and 306

Well, here comes Winter and the long dark nights. We changed the clocks here in the UK (well, at 2am on Sunday if we're being pedantic). So, it's time to snuggle up and start thinking about Christmas really. Almost into November folks!

But, we have a few Birthdays amongst friends as well as family before then so my snippets card this week is one I made for Len's great-nephew's 16th Birthday, which is on Tuesday of this coming week.

I will hold my hands up straight away and confess that this is very similar to a great card that Kath (Handmade by Kath) linked into the Playground back in May of this year - here's the link. I'd run straight off to buy the stamp set and then when I came to use it last week, without realising, I came up with almost the same design as Kath - except that I only used one of the two sentiment stamps from the set. To be honest, due to it's design, I suspect there are a limited number of ways that it can be used - certainly a DL card is a perfect companion!

Anyhow, this is what I'm rabbiting on about:

I used:

- white DL card

- two long snippets of paper from the 12" Studio Calico 'Snippets' paper pad (best to at least cut these before doing any stamping in order to get the positioning right). Yup, there IS a lovely contemporary paper pad design called 'Snippets' - which a lovely blogging friend surprised me with as a gift a while ago!

- then I stamped the numbers part of the Woodware 'Numbers' stamp set along with 'many happy returns' using Memento 'Gray Flannel' ink

- next I flipped the rest of the striped snippet over and used the matching yellow back of it to re-stamp the '16'

- fussy cut the yellow coloured 1 and the 6 and used a glue pen to adhere them to the card front on top of the relevant numbers

- then added the previously cut two strips of patterned paper to the top and bottom of the card (I was feeling brave and used a tape runner to do this)

A quick and easy card to make (perfect for a male or female if you use appropriate colours) - although another time I think I'd just use a Pro marker or similar to colour the numbers rather than spending ages carefully fussy cutting them out. I like this idea as it does make the recipient stop for a second - and it's brilliant for male cards too of course.

Which, as is generally the case, leads us into this fortnight's prizes - note the plural there:

Just for the fun of it, I added a 6" x 6" Studio Calico 'Snippets' paper pad to the Woodware 'Numbers' stamp set as it's one of the best contemporary pads I've seen.

They took a bit of tracking down but were half price which was a bonus. However, the postage was outrageous just for a single pad, so I ordered two for the same postage all in - subsequently discovered they're sent from Spain so the postage is (almost) forgiven (bless though, they did include a little flat heart shaped lollipop in the package as a little thank you)!

And I also bought a second 'Numbers' stamp set - which means there are two prizes the same this time round - stamp set plus paper pad. The paper pad is actually only 6" x 6" but it could still be used with this stamp (which is about 7.5" long) - I'm sure you'd find ways! Mind you, it would have a ton of other uses as well. And of course the prize can be split - I will post the prizes to anywhere by the way.

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

It's a maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. As I already said, the prize is as above and I will happily split the stamp sets and paper pads, in which case I'd do further draws for the other items. 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're wanting to be in the draw 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' just in case you're playing only for fun. Thanks!

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 :)

Be sure to call back next week to see the winner of last fortnight's prize which is Avery Elle's 'Ribbit Ribbit' stamp set and MFT's 'Rectangle Peek-a-Boo Window' die, another lovely Guest Designer and my picks from the past two weeks.

Love from Parsnip and of course from me,

Birthday card for Uncle Frank

This is my quick card for today, very clean and simple:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- a snippet of white card onto which I stamped the old fashioned gramophone and sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and stamps from a 'pre-loved' SU 'Timeless Talk' set - gosh the Misti was so useful for the solid black stamping!

- then added a layer of black card to the card front, using Colall All Purpose glue, leaving a narrow white border all around

- next die cut an aperture for the image using the largest die from the MFT 'Peek-a-boo Wonky Windows' set of dies and a piece of red card from the snippets folder, which I'd trimmed down to just slightly smaller than the black layer of card

- then ran the die cut piece of red card through the Cuttlebug again, using a Couture Creations embossing folder called 'Scattered Notes'

- laid the red card on top of the image panel and gently drew a pencil line around the inside of the aperture 

- then hand cut around the image - a good quarter of an inch outside the pencil line so I could add red line tape to the edge of the image and stick it behind the aperture (having first rubbed out the pencil lines)

- then just glued the red panel to the card front and decided to leave it as it was

My card was made for my 'Uncle Frank's' recent Birthday, who along with his late wife Alice was my guardian when my parents left me at boarding school in Germany. This was so that, in case of emergency (medical or otherwise), they could step in and sign documents on behalf of my parents, who were back in the UK. No emails back then - in fact a telephone was a rarity!

It also meant that I could go and stay with them at half term and that's why I chose the stamps I used for the card - to remind Frank of something he did to amuse me all those years ago. Alice and Frank didn't have any children of their own so my 'long weekends' must have been a bit of a nightmare in some ways. Their music tastes for instance were sensible and I was your typical teenager of course! But, to entertain me, I clearly recall Frank playing some of his precious records at 45rpm instead of the old 33rpm - just so we could listen to what sounded like 'The Chipmunks' - or someone singing who'd been on laughing gas! Happy days! And we still laugh about it too :)

Quick LOTV Birthday card for a chap

Needed a card in a rush for a chap the other day so out came the LOTV Art Pads for a quick rootle - and this was the result:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- dark blue snippet of card, trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front, glued in place

- white layer of card, again slightly smaller than the dark blue layer, embossed using an XCut 'Wicker' folder and glued in place

- image from the discontinued LOTV 'Vintage Boys' Art Pad, die cut using a Tonic Studio plain circle die - and I ran a ball ended embossing tool round the back of the die cut before removing it from the die, just to give it a bit of a border

- before I glued the dark blue piece of card to the card front, I'd gutted it by die cutting a circle using a 'Stitched Circle' die from a set by The Works

- added the dark blue stitched circle to the back of the image and glued it onto the card front

- the sentiment is by Craftwork Cards, already printed and die cut (told you I was in a hurry) - which I backed with a small stitched dark blue circle using another die from The Works set

- glued the sentiment partly onto the circle - finished!

This card is so like the fresh cards that Kath Buckle makes - here. I love her style and am really pleased how this turned out!

The stitched dies are brilliant - all thanks to my friend SaRn pointing us in the direction of The Works. At £6 per set of eight stitched dies you really can't go wrong - they also do a square set, err, which also happened to fall into my shopping basket (plus the same for the Playground toy box of course)! The stitching doesn't show up very well in the photo against the dark blue, but in real life it adds 'that certain something' to the card :) Thanks SaRn for being such a great enabler!

18th Birthday card for Edward

One of Len's great-nephews just celebrated his 18th Birthday and this is the card I made for him:

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card blank

- navy blue card cut slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- a whole sheet (shock, horror) of card from the DCWV 'Juniper Berry' stack, cut slightly smaller than the navy layer and then glued to the card front

- stamped the main elements of the image onto a piece of white card stock using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and the Woodware '18th Birthday' stamp set - and of course the Misti!

- then stamped the number 18 onto a snippet of greeny/blue card from the same patterned paper stack

- carefully fussy cut the number 18 out and glued it onto the white stamped image - making sure I ran a black Whispers marker round the edge of the fussy cutting first, this hides any little white bits that might otherwise show up :)

- trimmed the image panel to required size, backed it with navy card and glued it to the centre of the card front

I'm hoping to get my money's worth out of this stamp as Edward is followed by three more young men who will be turning 18 within a couple of years. Plan ahead! :)

Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - 'Music'

Time for another Cuttlebug Mania Challenge and the theme this time is 'Music'.

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:

 I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75" cream card blank

- a slightly smaller 'frame' of black card glued onto the card front

- then I die cut the 'happy birthday' panel using a Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die and a Stick-It backed snippet of tan coloured card and stuck it onto a square of cream card, smaller than the black 'frame'

- die cut part of the 'happy birthday' again using the same die and cream card to inlay the cream parts of the sentiment. I don't always do this but it does give a more 'finished' feel (IMHO)

- then die cut three little guitars using an All Occasion Dies 'Small Guitars' set, Stick-It adhesive sheet and small brown toned snippets of card. It's a sweet little set and you get both a classical and an electric guitar die BTW

- the 'scratch-plates' actually drop out of the die cuts so I just swopped them around to provide contrast and stuck them in place

- then used a Stick-It backed snippet of black card to die cut the 'Musical Score', again with an All Occasions die, and stuck it in place with a few notes on the tan panel as well

- popped some teensy gold gems onto the guitars to cover the cut outs for the knobs (being a purist, in a house with five guitars, I think there's been some poetic licence used when designed the knob placements on the little die)

Having said that about the knobs, I do think that both of the guitar dies are really lovely and they weren't very expensive when I bought them in Coventry the other week either.

This card is for a good pal's hubby, next month, he's into music and guitars :)

Do join in with Cuttlebug Mania if you can - remember you don't need to have music related dies/embossing folders. You could work some music patterned paper or an image/stamp into a card design for example - and use a 'non-music' die or embossing folder as well. 

Teenage boy's Birthday card

Oh how I struggle to make cards for boys once they're past the 'cutesy' stage! Len's 15 year old nephew Ben had a Birthday recently and, after almost banging my head on the desk here trying to think what to make, I resorted to buying a digital card set on line. I'm only really posting it on here as my blog also serves as a reminder of who I sent which Birthday cards to, mostly so I don't do any repeats to the same person.

I used:

- 4" x 5.75" white card blank

- a digital card set which came from here, printed onto almost matt photo paper

- trimmed and glued the backing layer onto the card front

- then just cut the top layers and backed them with pieces of white fun foam before gluing them onto the card front. I already said in a previous post last week that a full layer of white foam underneath largish raised areas will help to prevent the card from ending up with 'buckles' here and there, especially after being whipped through the Royal Mail sorting machines!

A really quick and easy card and I do like how the silver outlines look so realistic. There's a £5 minimum spend on the site I bought this from, so I bought a few other card/topper sets at the same time. Now I just need to remember to use them of course :)

And another reminder for myself - this card was made for a little neighbour who is eight years old tomorrow. Card topper designed by my in-house critic - trimming and sticking by yours truly :)

I was really thrilled when a lovely bloggy friend asked if Len would do a repeat of the 'builders' card he designed this Summer - for her little Grandson. Of course he was more than happy to do so and and altered the name and age to suit. Bless her (you know who you are if you're reading this) - she even offered to pay for it! It was a total pleasure to help out and the payment was to know that you and the little chap liked the result.

Trainee chef?

Len's great-nephew apparently has himself a placement working in a restaurant kitchen, yay for Edward! After the difficulties he's faced all his life, this is such an achievement and everyone is really proud of him. Plus, it's a restaurant working towards its first Michelin Star, so it's very much a case of 'Yes chef' and 'No chef' :)

It was Edward's Birthday recently and, as with all teenagers, I was a bit stumped until, whilst trawling the internet, I came across a fairly appropriate free Clipart image. And this is the card I came up with:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- snippets of plain backing card, SU's 'Blackberry Bliss' - one cut to make a mat just slightly smaller than the card front

- the striped white, grey and black paper came from a LOTV paper pad called 'Mr & Mrs - it reminded me very much of the butchers style aprons I like to wear when cooking :)

- the image, as I said is by Clipart, re-sized and printed onto white card before being die cut using a Spellbinders 'Wonky Rectangles' die

- then mounted the image onto a slightly larger panel of SU 'Blackberry Bliss' card stock, cut to shape by drawing round the outside of the same die used to cut the image and then cutting it by hand

- the sentiment is by Craftwork Cards, already printed and ready just to pop out of the sheet. I did go round the edges with an emery board to smooth off any pips and rough bits, then ran a black Whispers marker round the edge to cover the white edge which would have shown from a sideways view

- mounted the sentiment onto a circle of 'Blackberry Bliss' card, punced using SU's 
1 3/8" round punch

- glued it all together and called it a wrap

By golly though, Clipart has come a looooong way since I first used to liven up conference presentations and training material, in a previous life back in the Dark Ages! Always worth checking Clipart when looking for images.

Edit: Luckily I made this card and wrote this post weeks ago - always handy to have a post or two in reserve!

Di
x

Birthday balloons

I needed to make a card for a little neighbour, who is four years old this week, this was the result:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank

- piece of SU 'Real Red' card stock as a 'frame' to the patterned paper, glued to the card blank

- cloud patterned paper is LOTV from their 'Up, Up and Away' paper pad, trimmed to just a little smaller than the red layer and glued in place

- a selection of  plain snippets of card, die cut with a balloon die from the Tim Holtz 'Crazy Things' die set

- using more of the same little snippets of coloured card I die cut the letter using the First Edition' 'Alphabet - Sans Serif' set of dies and then the number 4 using a Memory Box 'Classic Numbers' die

- glued the letters and numbers onto the balloons

- added small loops of red metallic cord round the tied part of the balloon and then stuck lengths of the same cord to hand from behind each balloon. It's much easier to do this as a two part process rather than wrestle with the cord all in one piece around the tied part and then hanging down

- before adding the balloons to the card I stamped the sentiment onto a white card snippet, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Hero Arts 'Messages' set

- die cut the sentiment using a Spellbinders plain oval die and mounted it onto a 'Real Red' Spellbinders die cut scalloped oval

-worked out where I wanted the sentiment to go and added three strips of ultra sticky tape 

- added a thin sticky pad to the back of each balloon and stuck all five in place with their dangling cord lengths then pressed onto the sticky tape where the sentiment would go

- added the sentiment, again using thin sticky pads

- to be on the safe side I had cut the cord lengths long enough to be able to trim them down once in place - job done!

I thought this card would be really quick to make - fiddle faddling around with the cord and adding it to the balloons took longer than expected though, sigh.

Di
x

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 212

And we had yet another really busy week in the Playground, with lots of lovely entries shared - 65 in total. As always, it's gonna be tough doing the weekly picks!

This is my snippets card for this week. I spotted the idea in 'Die-cutting Essentials' magazine and must confess I thought it would be really quick to CASE/make. But, I hadn't bargained on the lack of any measurements in the instructions so just had to play around with plain white paper templates until I was happy enough to cut into any snippets. Because I really wanted to use a new die on this card it became a mission and I wasn't gonna give up - otherwise I think the waste bin would have come into play:

I used:

- 7.75" x 7.75" square white card blank

- covered the whole front with Neenah 'Desert Storm' card stock

- the 'shirt' is made using SU's 'Whisper White' card stock. The layer for the shirt itself is just a square with a slit cut to the top left, lines embossed to make folding crisper and the 'collar' folded back and held in place with narrow slivers of thin sticky pads

- the 'tie' was drawn freehand and hand cut from a snippet of LOTV's 'Country Gent' patterned paper - after some fiddling around with a couple of prototypes!

- the pocket was cut from a snippet of SU's 'Whisper White' card stock - and to create the pointed end of the pocket I used a Spellbinders hexagonal die

- gosh it took umpteen tries to get the folded handkerchief right - cut from a fresh sheet of the same patterned paper as the tie in the end and I was almost at the point of despair

- the sentiment was die cut using another snippet of patterned paper, backed with 'Stick-It' adhesive sheet, and using a really great Joanna Sheen Signature die called 'Retro Happy Birthday', I'm sure I first spotted it over on a playmate's blog - as is usually the case!

Finito! And I'm not sure I'd ever make another one - but if you'd like to have a try here are the measurements for my attempt. I was a bit hog-tied by the size of the sentiment as it's 3" x 2" - pick a smaller sentiment and you could reduce the size of the card for sure.

Card blank, 7.75" square. Neenah layer, 7" square. Cut slit for the collar, 1.25" in from the left hand side and 1.25" in length - folded by approx 0.5" from the top edge tapering down to the end of the cut slit. Tie is 6" long overall and 2.25" wide - it tapers down for the point from 2" above the bottom of the tie. The pocket started off as a 3.125" square and after cutting the bottom point using the hexagon die it measures 3" from top to bottom. The handkerchief started off with much smaller snippets than I eventually used - in the end I used a 4.5" square piece of paper from a fresh sheet and sliced it across diagonally to form two triangles to get enough overlap - just chopped off the bottoms before sticking it to the reverse of the pocket.

The sample in the magazine had faux stitching drawn round the 'sewn' sides and bottom of the pocket - I really liked the effect but to be honest was at the stage where I'd have cried if it hadn't worked out properly! Just thought, I could have pricked holes down the edges maybe - too late now. 

Let's whizz through some weekly picks now:

I've had such lovely messages thanking me for your weeks 208/209 prizes - and just have to show you this card, made by Val using the stamp she won:

I really love how Val has used the same paper as the background sheet to paper piece the number 25. Really clever idea and it pulls the whole card together so well.

I just love this butterfly canvas - made by Cathy. It's truly inspiring and certainly makes me want to break out the mixed media box again and get mucky!

Kathleen made this absolutely adorable baby card, using a Woodware stamp and paper piecing. It's just so lovely and a great way to use up lots of toning snippets!

Love this card, made by Eve - such gorgeous colours and great paper piecing too. We seem to have a bit of a roll on paper piecing in the Playground right now :)

We have another Baby card, this time made by Sam (Whisper). I adore this stamp, my own one sits on a shelf right in front of my desk. It's a 'centre swing' card and is one of the few fancy folds on my quite short list of ones to try - so much so that I have a 'Card School' article beside me as I type - kept from a recent QCME magazine. Really so effective!

Janis brought this fabulous card to share - I think it's just stunning! Do hop over to see just how Janis achieved the look - using her 'molten technique'. Certainly one to try out here!

Isn't this a great card - made by Jane W. What a terrific way to use up lots of different snippets, punched into circles. I'm sure you'll all agree that every single week here brings yet more inspiration!

And last but not least of the weekly picks:

Sandma scampered into the playground with this perfect scene - I really love it. Such a beautiful depiction of the Northern Lights - yet another technique I want to try!

I have little scraps of paper here and there with notes about ideas to try out. Jannie of the Cuttlebug Mania challenge made me a beautiful covered A6 sized notebook for my Birthday - rather than just admire it, I've literally just now written this idea/technique in as one to try! So that's a perfect use for such a pretty notebook and a great way to tidy the desk a bit too..

We have three new Playmates this week:

Lia brought this card to share - I love the effect of the little butterflies soaring across the sun!

These darling ATCs were made by Susan (Renshaw) - so pretty.

And Jo L was encouraged to come and play with us by our own Jenny L. I just love this tag - gorgeous background, made using an inky snippet and those beautiful stamps. That reminds me, I have some similar stamps in the toy box here - for another week's prize.

Welcome to the Playground girls! We do hope you'll come back to play with us again.

And now for the prize draw for last week - the two embossing folder strips, kindly donated by Viv - and our winner is:

Susan (Renshaw)

Wow, it's first time lucky for Susan! What a welcome to the Playground - do please send me an email with your address in Susan and I'll pop the embossing folders in the post to you ASAP. My email address is shown in the right hand sidebar.

And now for the next prize on offer - this coming week it's two Joanna Sheen Signature dies:

They are: a 'Forget me not' flower die, the same as I used on Friday's card HERE, and a 'Retro Happy Birthday' die, the same as I used on the pocket on my snippets card for today.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 23rd January. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. As these dies are quite small I would prefer to keep them as one prize but if you have a burning desire for only one or the other then just let me know in a comment - and if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining die. 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 good week - I think we have a strong possibility of snow here in the UK. Let's wait and watch the whole country grind to a halt after a few flakes huh?

Better news on the 'foot front'. After the slight despair I felt after the hospital visit (which proved to be as much use as a chocolate fireguard) I had a progress appointment with my GP. He's begged to differ with the hospital 'experts' and says that it was in fact two flare ups of gout - back to back. Plus, he actually saw me laid up in bed - unable to do more than hop to and from the loo - right in the throes of the worst one of course. So, knowing first hand the state I was in, he will be putting me on preventative treatment. Yay! Sometimes I wonder if am my own worst enemy with hospital visits and putting a smiley face on! I don't like taking meds but almost bit his hand off!

It's a real balancing act to get the dosage right versus the acid crystals so it will involve blood tests before starting treatment and certainly regular ones thereafter to monitor progress and keep an eye on the dosage. But such a small price to pay. It isn't a guarantee, there may still be flares or I may never have another one - but any chance of prevention is fine by me.

Di and of course, Parsnip!
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Football fan's card

Phew, this is a last of a little run of male cards I'm pleased to say - I always struggle and am much happier making pretty things :)

This card was for a little neighbour's 7th Birthday, yesterday. He's mad about football (aka soccer elsewhere) and follows his Daddy in being an Arsenal supporter:

I used:

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

- slightly smaller black border panel

- made the football by using SU's 'Honeycomb' embossing folder and white card as well as some black card. Snipped a few hexagons from the embossed black card and added them onto the white embossed card before running it through the Cuttlebug with a circular die (one from the Tonic Studio's set I keep banging on about)

- then I cut a couple of strips of Kanban 'Green Grass' patterned card and snipped the top edges to look a bit like blades of grass

- cut a panel of Kanban's 'Blue Sky' patterned card just a bit smaller than the black panel

- stuck one layer of the grass strip about 1" from the bottom of the sky panel, added the football and then added the other grass strip over the bottom part of the football so it went right to the bottom of the sky panel. I know, I possibly wasted some sky precious patterned card but it made the whole thing much more robust

- as usual, I'd left a bit of an overhang when adding the grass strips so trimmed each layer as I went, back to the edge of the sky backing card

- next added the black panel behind the sky, grass and football panel then stuck it onto the card blank front

- all that was left was to add the wording using peel off stickers for ease - some are silver ones coloured with a yellow Peel Off marker pen

- almost came unstuck next, I wanted to add Arsenal's current badge/logo. Found and resized an image and then the printer kept screaming it had a paper jam when I was doing a test print. Called the in-house support team who was also stumped, poking here there and everywhere in the printer with no sign of a paper jam. And, for some reason as we were giving up and ready to try it on another printer I just idly lifted the entire printer up to peek underneath - and there was the jammed piece of paper. Just think, if we'd given up and ordered a new printer - the asses ears would have been waving high here when we discovered the jam as the printer was moved to make way for a new one! Moral of the story? Leave no stone (or printer) unturned :)

- having resolved the printer issue (and having had help from in-house support team to bring the logo to a more true red as by this time I was almost running round the walls here), printed it on matt photo card and trimmed round the shield. That left the white cut edges of the card which I just ran a gold calligraphy pen round before adding said shield to the card with a thin sticky pad - phew

Making that last bit took longer than the rest of the card! And I did giggle - when he first saw the card almost finished Len remarked 'Like it. You're really on the ball kiddo with that one'. Then there was silence before we both cackled at the unintentional pun! Nut case.................who also sends his huge thanks for all your lovely Birthday wishes the other week!

By the way, I did spot this idea for the ball in a few places on line. Another use for that SU embossing folder!

Di
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Birthday card for yet another male

It's no secret that I really struggle with male Birthday cards - teenagers are the worst I find. Also, October and November are really busy months for Birthdays so there's not much time to download digis and/or have colouring sessions. This is the card I made for one of Len's great-nephews:

I used:

- DL white card blank, tent style

- piece of red card from the snippets folder, die cut using the Memory Box 'Grand Happy Birthday' die, trimmed a little and then added to the bottom of the card blank (I'd used Stick-It adhesive sheet when cutting the die)

- using Ranger 'Black Archival' ink and stamps from Indigo Blu's 'Loud Music' set I then just stamped three images above the die cut greeting

Quite a quick card to make, if you discount the couple of hours (no kidding!) I spent hunting round for ideas!

Di
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Guitar card for the Birthday Boy

First of all - thank you so much for the comments about my embossing folder issues which I wrote about yesterday - lots of great suggestions - which will be tried before the folder ends up in the waste bin I promise :)

As already said, it was a special Birthday for Len last week and  some of you know that he's a keen guitarist, at the last count he had five guitars in various genres and that's why his cards from me often feature music or guitars. I'd seen some brilliant guitar shaped cards on blogs and some featuring cards with guitars cut from templates (Pat made a beauty not that long ago in fact!).

Whilst searching for templates I stumbled across a more abstract style that really took my fancy - and to be honest I didn't trust my free hand cutting round a template even if I managed to find one either!

I can't track back to where it originated to give credit but there were at least a couple of versions on line. No instructions on any of the cards I spotted but it wasn't difficult to fathom out what to do and this is what I ended up with:

I used:

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

- SU 'Early Espresso' card stock for the main layer, cut just a little smaller than the card blank

- snippets of black and SU 'Whisper White' card stock, die cut with circle dies from the Tonic Studio's set

- layered those onto one another to form the 'sound hole' and then, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from SU's 'Sincere Salutations' set, stamped the greeting

- at that point I could work out just where I wanted the 'sound hole' to sit so that was stuck in place next

- using gold cord for the strings I wound it around the card - all in one piece - held in place by ultra sticky tape at the back

- at that point I glued the whole front piece to the card front

- next punched the 'bridge' using SU's 'Word Window' and 'Whisper White' card and stuck it in place, making sure it was very slightly curved over the 'strings', then added a black Josy Rose nail head at either end

- then sneaked a plectrum from one of Len's guitars and drew round it onto a snippet of red card before fussy cutting it

- stuck it in place with a little piece of thin sticky pad and then added the magic Birthday numbers, using gold peel offs

Yup, the card was a hit - even though you can't get much of a tune out of it :)

Di
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'Digging around'

Our next door neighbours' little boy is obsessed with all things to do with 'digger dumper trucks' and such and one of Max's favourite games is moving earth from one flower bed to another - using one of his many toy trucks and JCBs. So, when it came to making his Birthday card, it was a bit of a 'no brainer' really - I found a card almost identical to this one over at Memory Box's gallery, but can't find a name to give credit to:

I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- olive green Core-dinations backing card as a frame

- pale blue card to build the scene on

- strip of brown Core-dinations card with a 'hole' dug, partly using a SU 'Itty Bitty' punch and then finished off freehand  :)

- a snippet of brown card and a snippet of olive green Core-dinations to die cut two Memory Box 'Arboscello' trees. I then radically 'pruned' the brown tree and just added a few of the leaves from the green tree

- the JCB is a Memory Box die called 'Excavator', die cut using goldy yellow and black card snippets. I just inked over the cab and the upright exhaust using a permanent black marker pen. The little face as suggested by my in-house critic was such fun to do (not!). It took umpteen attempts to add two eyes and a mouth to such a little peach coloured punched circle. In the end I used temporary adhesive to glue a little row of the circles onto my glass cutting mat and then went along adding eyes and noses to them, all using a black fine liner pen - and finally there  was one that was balanced and useable! So much easier than trying to add marks to teeny circles that want to fly away as soon as they're touched

- the clouds were die cut from white card snippets using MFT's 'Cloud Trio' set set

- the name 'MAX' was die cut using a snippet of blue Core'dinations card and Tattered Lace's Every Day Anniversary Alphabet (D695) die set and popped onto one cloud

- the number '5' was also die cut using Tattered Lace's 'Mini Numbers' die set and popped onto the side of the JCB - love these numbers but really they're very small

- added the smaller cloud to the 'scene' using glue and then gently shaped the 'Max' cloud and added it to the card using thin sticky pads

- inked in a little flock of birds freehand using a black fine liner

- final touch, a silver 'Happy Birthday' peel off, bottom right of the card to balance things out - and also 'cos my in-house critic insisted that you can't send a little boy a Birthday card without it having that greeting on :)  

I'd like to enter this card into the current challenge over at Cardz 4 Guyz, where the theme is 'Something beginning with T'. I have on this 'ere card a tree and the beginnings of a trench :) It's my first time playing along with Cardsz 4 Guyz, but I hope not the last - maybe it'll pull me out of the 'girlie cards' comfort zone :)

Di
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