Results of Challenge #423

 

Spring is sprung! Hooray for a few days of lovely sunshine here.  Did those of you in the UK (and any other places affected) remember to change your clocks? Spring forward - which means we lose an hour's sleep.

Here are the results of the final Ruby's Memory Challenge, with the 'picks' first:

This is such a clever card, made by Karen (Ladd). To see it open, do hop over to Karen's blog post HERE - a really great design, beautifully made (and 'constructed' too!) and of course plenty of snippets used. Love it!

This is just one of three cards that Janis made after a good rummage through her scraps/snippets etc. So good to see a real selection of cards appearing as if by magic out of 'bits and bobs'!  

So that was two picks featuring St Patrick's Day cards - and my final pick is a Mother's Day card:

Vicky made this really elegant card from a few snippets of flowers she'd previously coloured. I do love how Vicky happily shows what she began her project with and then tells how she set about making the card. Her idea for the 'Mother's Day' part of the sentiment is genius! You'll need to pop over to find out ☺ 

As always, we had some great entries. If you're a pick, please always feel free to collect your 'Top picks' badge from the 'Badges' page.

Onto the prize draw, that lovely trio of Easter Egg holders, also really useful for card fronts. And the winner is:

Liz

To claim your prize please send me an email using the Snippets Playground gmail address shown on the RH sidebar, with PLAYGROUND WINNER (or similar) in the subject line. Please add your FULL NAME above your home ADDRESS so that I can copy and paste it for speed and ease.

The current snippets challenge still has almost a further week to run - just scroll down to the previous post to find it. 

We finally reached the £300 target for the USPCA Rescue Centre in Northern Ireland - well done once again to all of you who donated prizes.

Next week it will be Sarn writing the blog post for the new Challenge #425. So there won't be a Dudley 'Pupdate' on here - but I propose to still write about Dudley over at Pixies if there's anything to report when I'm taking it a bit easier. And of course on here when it's my turn to write posts. So do still pop into Pixies if you see a post appear on your reading list. If it's anything important then Sarn will let you know to pop over - but it's only fair that Sarn's posts are hers alone. And really, Dudley's tails tales are mine to tell of course. Mind you - I'm still not too sure where his loyalties truly lie, he will happily cover up high jinx in return for treats! I have eyes in the back of my head - as my Mum always used to say when I was into mischief. ☺

Dudley won't pose for photos right now (has only just stopped wearing a paper bag over his head during his walks) - but the fun still goes on. He wears a very sweet harness when he goes out for walks and his latest trick upon hearing the rattle of his harness, collar (legal requirement in the UK and it has his ID tag on) and lead is to dive onto our bed and lie on his back playing possum! It's like trying to knit with spaghetti manipulating a harness onto an upside down and very uncooperative pooch! Then, as soon as the harness and collar are on him - he hops up as if to say - 'OK, I had my fun, let's go!' And off he trots quite happily. 

Edit - result! On Friday afternoon, Len managed to catch Dudley whilst they were playing chase/fetch the ball (Dudley here, 'you gotta be kidding me - I don't do fetch').

See, I wasn't kidding about his ears having to be cut short after the nasty matt removal, but they will grow back and still be peach and silky soft and at least he still has his plume of a tail ☺ The other day, post massacre, a lady passing by said 'Hello gorgeous' - we're pretty sure she was referring to Dudders, although I did detect a slightly hopeful 'preen' from Mister Len!

Love from Dudley (Mister W-B) and Di xxx

Challenge #424

Spring is certainly in the air at long last! We've had some lovely sunny days and a noticeable rise in the temperature.

Straight onto my snippets card:

All the 'how I made it' details are over on my own Pixie's blog, HERE, should you want to know more.

The prize for this fortnight is totally unconnected with my snippets card by the way:

 

I've been having a 'sort out/Spring clean' of the Toy Box and pulled together all the assorted Clearly Besotted stamps, dies and a stencil (that stencil is on the way to me). From left to right, 'Chirpy Chicks' stamps set with matching dies and a small 'Happy Easter' sentiment by 'Stamping All Day', 'April Showers' set of stamps, no dies but there's a Clearly Besotted 'Rainy Day' stencil in the image below the stamps, pinched from their website - and 'An Apple A Day' set of stamps and matching dies. I know that some of these items have been previously offered as prizes - these are duplicates (brand new) for various reasons. 

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 2nd April. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Mr Linky is below this post.

Dudley news. It's been a bit of a week here - first of all, Dudley is fine. Us? Not so fine. After his bath/shower on Monday (which was an adventure and a Tsunami in itself) - whilst blow drying him - Len discovered a really huge and very tight 'cotton wool like' matt of his very fine silky hair on one ear. Right next to the skin so it was dodgy even trying to snip it away. We both pondered long and hard but it had to go and it was too risky to use even any of his grooming safety scissors.

So the matt was trimmed away by Len, using the clippers - and then the ear looked weirdly odd against the other ear, so the other one had to be trimmed, get the drift? - and the upshot is that both of his gloriously long haired pale peach coloured ears have been trimmed right back to being very short. They're still peach but back to how they were when he was just a little puppy! Then of course, his head looked tiny against his very fluffy body - so the rest of him has had to be trimmed. We now have a true little Havanese puppy here once again! He refuses all photos right now, not even if you pay him in treats. Of course, Dudley is really unaware that anything has changed, thank goodness - but we certainly know.

I now have a very small sized balaclava knitting project on the go - my version is in white, very tiny and with pale peach ears:

Having said that - he's still the same little tinker and just yesterday managed to roll on (what I suspect was bird poop) something in the garden. Sssssh, don't tell Len - he was merrily cleaning it off with an Aqua Wipe and I just had to zip my mouth - for once! Never a dull  moment for sure.

And, finally - here's some very exciting news. I've become worried about what would happen to the Playground if I was unwell or stepped under a bus. We've got close to that situation (the health, not the bus), but somehow, with the help of a very loyal friend it's carried on. She does get embarrassed if I 'gush on' so here we go. As of the next challenge I will have our Playground Prefect and Mischief Maker SARN sharing the running of the Playground with me!! The next challenge, #425 will be Sarn in charge. Help me ............I just deleted some rude words there!

We've been working this out for a little while - after I made the Playground into a separate blog - it suddenly made sense. As a team, and I stress we are a team, even though I can still 'pull rank' on account of being a lot older! Sarn and I will share the Playground gmail address, the commenting (for some time Sarn has been propping me up there), the Toy Box prizes and some of the decisions. The Playground will undoubtedly become naughtier, Dudley will be even busier snooping, despite the balaclava mentioned above, and let's hope we have many happy times ahead. 

The current plan is for Sarn and I to 'host' alternate challenges. I will be hosting the even-numbered challenges (+ posting the results) and Sarn will be hosting the odd-numbered challenges (+ posting results).

I am truly excited to have such a loyal friend to help steer the 'Good Ship Lollipop', as we continue on our voyage through this wonderful world of crafting, using up snippets! Remember, it's all about the snippets! 

OK girls - that's the news - remember that 'Launch Day' is two weeks from now! By the way - I did hear the clinking of glasses and bottles earlier this evening. Plus the distinctive shake of ice in a cocktail mixer - and a little voice from the direction of the tree house singing 'Aye, aye, aye, aye caramba!'. I think there could be some parties ahead - and someone is experimenting and perfecting her technique! We did think Dudley wandered in to his bed just now with a bit of a wobble!! I thought the limit was hot chocolate and crumpets, sigh. I sense fun and games ahead - sighs, and offers up a plea for mercy!

Love and hugs from Dudley and Di, xx

Results of Challenge #422

  

A few less entries for Challenge #422 - where were some of you? Up in the tree house eating crumpets and drinking hot beverages is no excuse whatsoever!

Let's get straight onto the top picks - first of all a *Gold Star* followed by three picks this time:

 

 

What a stunning card, made by Kate P for her musical son Ben! And what a wonderful surprise inside as well. No doubt he was totally delighted - the amount of detail - as well as love and snippets that Kate put into making this is so worthy of a *Gold Star*! Do feel free to take your Gold Star badge for your blog Kate - it's in the page labelled 'Badges' above.

Leslie M linked in this terrific snippets card - great use of snippets and I do so love the clean and fresh white with the vibrant colours. I did have a little smile, Lesley says that the stamp she used has escaped many purges in her craft room - it's certainly timeless and truly is a keeper! 

This card, shared with us by Vinita, is absolutely fabulous! The snippet is actually the white layer you can just see on that fabulous die cut 'shine' sentiment. I would love you to hop over to Vinita's blog post to see the step by step detail of how she created the glorious, glittered ombre gerbera. Certainly some inspiration there!

And we also have this lovely card, made by Alice. Lots of lovely snippets and a great Christmas card with a background also made of snippets. And it's so worth you hopping over to Alice's blog to see just what a splendid collection of snippets backgrounds she made in readiness for future cards. A great idea and one well worth copying I think!  

As always, we had some great entries. If you're a pick, please always feel free to collect your 'Top picks' badge from the 'Badges' page.

Onto the prize draw. As there were only 10 people, out of the 38 entries, who were playing for the Tattered Lace sentiment dies - I've resorted to the 'name out of the hat' system for once, as it would probably mean a lot of Random Number Generator reruns to pick two winners. The winners are: 

VINITA -  27

ALICE - 28

Well done to both of you! I did have to pinch myself when I realised that both of you were also in the Top Picks this time as well - pure coincidence and a dash of luck!

To claim your prize please send me an email using the NEW Snippets Playground gmail address shown on the RH sidebar, with PLAYGROUND WINNER (or similar) in the subject line. Please add your FULL NAME above your home ADDRESS so that I can copy and paste it for speed and ease.

The current snippets challenge still has almost a further week to run - just scroll down to the previous post to find it. Challenge #422, despite lower than usual numbers, did have me running round the playground keeping an eye on our Guest Designer Sarn - but thanks again for being such a good sport Sarn! I fear that Dudley was being bribed with treats as he certainly didn't report back to me as often as he should have done! 

 

A gentle reminder. Can you please remember to use the URL of your entry post, not the URL of your overall blog when linking your entry. It just makes life easier when commenting otherwise it can be a bit of a hunt - and also helps other playmates to find your snippets posts as well. Thanks!

On Tuesday afternoon I missed a great shot of Dudley. He'd not long returned from a longish walk with Len and was flat out on his back at the top of the stairs (Dudley, not Len!). Unfortunately he heard me turn my camera on, so I lost the chance. Right now he's waiting at his favourite post, top of the stairs right beside my craft room door, for our grocery delivery, with his beloved Honka Duck tucked firmly under his chin. No doubt it's just in case the delivery guy should push Len aside, run into the house, race up the stairs and kidnap Honka Duck! And then (shock, horror) perhaps send Dudley a ransom note for Honka Duck ......... in exchange for doggy treats! Who knows the workings of a dog's mind? Or a cat's mind for that matter?

Love from Dudley (Mister W-B) and Di xxx

Challenge #423 - Ruby's Memory

 

This is the 10th challenge for Ruby's Memory. The first one was on 7th February last year and thanks to your lovely prize donations, when this final Ruby's Memory challenge closes we will have donated £300 to the USPCA charity (remember we donated £50 over Christmas in case you think the figures don't add up).

Let's get straight onto what the prize is this time and it's a rather bumper and fun one to finish up with - kindly donated by Zoe:

Here's an image of one of the holders made up - borrowed from the Craft Stash website - so you can see the gap which will hold something about the size of a Cadbury's Cream egg or a Kinder egg. Sorry it's so small, if I expand it then it pixelates, but you get the idea:

The prize comprises three 'Easter Egg Holder' die sets - made by Creative Craft Products. They are 'Easter Chick, Easter Bunny and Easter Lamb'. The sets can be 2D or 3D, so they can be used for card fronts as well and they come with a lot of dies per set! Perfect for using up snippets for sure and 'eggselent' for adults and children alike IMHO. The three sets are all included in a single prize by the way - I won't split them up. It would take too much fiddling around doing a triple draw with different choices - not to mention packaging and postage. 

As always, the Snippets Challenge will run for two weeks and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 19th March. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day. Mr Linky is below this post.

Dudley news - on Friday evening we had a slow cooker beef casserole which had been sending out lovely smells for a good few hours. Dudley had already been fed steamed chicken breast (which is his favourite dinner) when it came to us sitting down to eat. Immediately he was up on his hind legs desperately trying to see what it was on the table that smelled so tantalising. Of course he's not tall enough to see no matter how far he tries to stretch up! Len went and got one of his small feeding dishes and we both donated some small pieces of beef, sliced carrots which were originally pinched from Dudley's personal store and cooked in with the casserole, a tiny little dribble of gravy and a teaspoon or so of cheesy mashed potato. Down went his own 'tablecloth' on the floor beside us, then the dish and he was in seventh heaven! The moans of pure delight as he savoured every mouthful were hilarious! For the rest of the evening he wore the biggest smile we've ever seen on him - nonstop - and his eyes were literally sparkling with pure delight. 

We've given him tiny little titbits of Christmas dinner etc., in one of his little dishes before now - but for some reason that casserole ticked all his boxes! It's the exception rather than the rule here as we're well aware about what not to feed dogs in case anyone is worried! I'm typing this on Friday evening and right now he's lying flat on his back, gently snoring. We think a lot of his joy came from him feeling included in our meal. Let's just hope he doesn't demand his own high chair so he can sit up at the table to eat with us!

Love and hugs from Dudley and Di, xx