Using my snippets, guest designing in the playground

Good morning, it's been a chilly weekend but fortunately my garden is still making me smile from my kitchen window. Even on the dullest of days my winter flowering violas are smiling at me from their baskets and pots.

and under their leaves my bulbs are sending up shoots.

My title may seem a very strange for my blog post today,so unless you already join in with the challenge, Pixie's snippets playground, let me explain. A couple of year's ago I discovered Di's delightful blog Pixie's Crafty Workshop and her fun fortnightly Pixie's snippets playground challenge. Here is the link for this fortnight's challenge. In a nutshell Di like many of us likes to hoard use all those little snippets of card, ribbon etc which we all have in abundance. Her challenge allows us to use those snippets. Di makes such beautiful cards but recently has found that time has been her enemy, as it is for most of us, and asked for some guest designers to help out. 

Over the years I have got to know Di pretty well by email, she is such a kind and super generous lady and offers incredible prizes from every fortnight. Her postage bill must cost her a fortune. I contacted her last year to say that of course I would be delighted to offer my services as a guest designer. Di being Di waited until this year before taking up my offer as she knew I had a lot on my plate. I don't do deep personal stuff on my blog but there were some family health issues which really did knock us sideways last year. Thankfully though things are on the up now.

So back to snippets....I always have lots. As I do a lot of design work I regularly need to create an inky backgrounds and I often have snippets left over which are large enough to use for card bases. This means that I have a good supply of spare backgrounds. I also use lots of card to mop up my inks left on my craft. Here are a few of those snippets and I chose 2 to make my Guest design card with.

I also always have spare Visible Image sentiments stamped for making cards for Dotty's tea rooms. They are one of my most popular sellers. People love to send a card with a great inspirational quote on and these fit the bill perfectly.

 I went through my snippets backgrounds and found these 2 below...the left one was made with distress oxides and the right with sprays and acrylic gold ink. I chose 2 of my Visible Image sentiments which I thought went well with the backgrounds and then got down to designing my cards.

I decided to dig out a lovely Memory box trees die I have not used for ages for the "smiles" card and make a happy "bird" card. For the turn back time sentiment I decided to use my all time favourite Tim Holtz weathered clock die.
I had a snippet of faux metal, which I had made using aluminium tape and embossed on card for another project, which was big enough for my die.

I had enough left over to die cut some cogs too (another Bigz Tim Holz die)

Here is my bag of inky mop up snippets...just odd bits of card which I use to mop up the inks I use on my craft mat.

I found a perfect snippet for die cutting my birds.

So then it was just a case of putting my designs into reality, adding a few extra embellies and matting and layering them.  These are the 2 cards finished. First up is my "happy birdie" snippets card...pun intended! 

 and this is my turn back time love snippets card...finished off with some heart die cuts using even more snippets of card.

I would like to enter my turn back time card into these challenges;

Pixie's snippets playground #319 how could I not!
Frilly and Funkie 2/3 all you need is love
Simon says stamp Monday love is in the air
Let's craft and create 1/3 anything goes
Pile it on 2/3  3D embellishments
Deep Ocean love is all around
Try it on Tueday's 1/3 love is in the air
Allsorts 1/3 love is in the air
That's crafty 1/3 I heart you

They have both gone down to Dotty's Teahouse. I often get asked about Dotty's (people think she is a person not a shop...well actually she's a vintage caravan, but that's another story) and in case this is your first visit here (apologies to those of you who have seen these photos) this is a gorgeous vintage tea room in Carshalton High Street where I sell my cards. These are a couple of photos from the opening day May 2016

Below is the lovely Rebecca (the owner) in pink in the centre with the Mayor of Sutton and our MP having fun with the balloons.

and below was my view of the ponds as I walked down on Wednesday with my latest batch of "freshly baked!" cards. It was a real land mark too....I took card Number 600 (gulp) with me...now that is a lot of snippets baked  used.

I really hope that you might look at all your crafting snippets in a very different way now...no piece is ever too small in my books not to use again.

I would like to thank Di so much for inviting me to guest design for her and to thank her again for the incredible amount of time and effort she gives to running her delightful challenge single handed.  She would love to see you join the happy band of crafter's already playing in the "playground" and always gives a very warm welcome to all new crafters. Tell her that Jane sent you 😊 Here is the link again It really is such a kind, friendly place to share your snippets' makes.

For those of you who have popped over from the playground today to see what I got up to it is lovely to see you here and although I rarely have time to leave comments on everyone's lovely challenge work I do visit to admire your lovely projects shared there. There is lots of fab talent around.

Before I close I gave  a heads up in my Ovo post on Wednesday but just a little reminder again today that Visible Image Stamps are back on your TV screens this weekend (10/11 Feb). The shows are on Create and Craft TV (channels SKY 674, Freeview 23, Virgin 748 and others) Saturday at 4pm (UK time) and Sunday 10am (UK time) They are launching the Zodiac stamps with some fab demos by Mark and Pauline...

I will be waving at my samples.  Once aired the shows can still be viewed for the next 7 days on catch up on the Create and Craft website here  Enjoy your Sunday. I will be back in the morning bright and breezy with my weekly design team dose of inspiration for Visible Image.

Thanks so much for stopping by and for the kind comments that you take the time to leave me.

Bye for now,

Jane x