A {loving} Froggity Blog hop

Hi all

Well can you believe it is a month since the last frog hop with the talented froglets from Banana Frog? That means it's a month since I was in Mexico realising all the pictures had mysteriously disappeared from last months post! More on that later for now let's get on with this month ....

The theme for February is hearts being the month of love so I thought I would see what else I could create from the many choices of heart shape stamps from Banana Frog and came up with this...


A {Heartfelt} Butterfly

A very simple but effective idea for an embellishment, a brooch, a mobile etc etc using the I heart you stamp set and a Big and Juicy ink pad with a few beads, a bit of wire and some stickles for added sparkle


I simply stamped one of the hearts 4 times, joining two of them. I used the big and juicy ink pad so I could get a rainbow of colour


I cut these out and curled them adding a layer of stickles to the surface with my finger tip (do this gently so as not to smudge the ink, although that could be quite a cool effect!)


I made a simple wire body, threaded with random beads and stuck my butterfly together adhering the single hearts as the top wings so I could space them out.


Just look at all the possibilities for different size butterflies and different shapes with just this one set. They could be stamped onto vellum, book pages, felt .. the possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination. So why not grab some lovely heart stamps and look at them in a new light, you never know what you may find and I think these heart felt butterflies would work perfectly with my heartfelt blooms posted on the frog blog a while ago!

And so to last months blog hop post and those missing photos, it has taken me a while to get them on line due to a whole host of reasons with demming at the stitches trade show, tv, dropping my hard drive (yep my whole life is on it eek!) and being poorly sick but I'll stop making excuses and say they are now in their rightful places in this post here and this is what it looks like finally!


Ok whittering over, thanks for dropping by and your next stop is with the oh so talented Jo. Have fun on the hop, leave a comment, a little froggy mentioned prizes :) and I'll see you soon
Until then as ever I hope you are well and happy and Happy Crafting
Love
M x

A Froggy Autumn

Hi all,

It's the second installment of the Banana Frog sketch focus for this month and this is my offering


Hop on over to the Lilly pad and check out how the other froglets interpreted it but before you go I'd like to share a quick step by step of the layout I made.


I used some small leaves from 3 different stamp sets; totally tropical, tropical taste and build a daisy and arranged them in a pattern on a stamp block to create the pattern on the paper strip across the layout.


I tore a strip of cream card and using a clear embossing ink stamped a pattern of the leaves and then embossed them in gold.


Using a spice big and juicy ink pad and some cut and dry foam I coloured the strip of stamped card with all the lovely spicey colours in the pad


Next I customised my 12x12 brown Kraft cardstock by distressing and inking the edges, coloring a block in the middle with some more ink from the big and juicy ink pad and stamping the cherry blossom stamp from the Banana Frog Kawaii Kokeshi stamp set in the top corner and then embossing it in gold


I stamped out my title using the rosecube alpha stamp set and mixing up the colours from the big and juicy ink pad, cutting them into letter tiles


And lastly my journalling block came from the totally tropical stamp set, cut out and distressed again with the spice ink


I assembled it all with some more torn cardstock in dark brown, some vintage lace and small photos mounted onto distressed mats of brown cardstock.


I love the autumny colours of the big and juicy ink pad and the gold embossing of the simple stamped images.

And that's it for today, what will you create with your Banana frog stamps and autumn colours? There's still time to hold onto autumn before the winter really sets in!

I hope you're well and happy, This is the start of a Banana Frog triple for me so I'll see you tomorrow with my project of the day, until then Happy Crafting
Love
M x

A merry Froggy Christmas!

Hi all

Today it's my turn at Project of the day over at the Lilly pad. Oh my life can you believe it's only 3 months to Christmas day?

So with all my froggy Christmasness over the last month I have decided to add the finishing touches to my Christmas table with this


A Place setting fit to accompany all my recent frog projects


Faux luminarys from last months project of the day, a Christmas card from this months colour focus and a Christmas cake from my Lilypad lesson.


As ever pop on over to the frog blog to see step by step pictures and instructions for my place setting.

BUT before you go! Do you fancy an early Christmas present? The lovely Bev has said I can give away one of the new Christmas stamp sets to round off my Christmas month nicely and all you have to do is leave a comment on this post AND go and leave some love on my post over at the Lilypad, Shimples!! You have until the 30th September which is frog hop day :) Good luck!

Thanks for stopping by and until soon Happy crafting

Love
M x

A froggy sketch

Hi all
It's sketch day, part one, over at the lilly pad. Every month the froglets either have a sketch to work with or a colour inspiration, this month is a sketch and this is my offering


Pop on over to the lilly pad to see how the other froglets have interpreted it, that's the great thing with sketches everyone works with them differently!

My layout is a photo of hubby in Xcaret ecological park in our beloved Mexico and quite aptly I have used The totally tropical stamp set and the tropical taste tadpole set alongside the oh so cute DeLouisville tadpole set.


I created my own paper with a piece of 12 x 12 and a big and juicy stamp pad in vibrant primaries.


I then stamped a thin strip of this with flowers from the tropical taste tadpole set and the top of a big strip with flowers from the totally tropical set.


I then layered up contarsting Rose Moka papers and positioned some of the stamps to work out their positions. This is a great trick with acrylic stamps so you can get an idea of how things are going to look.


I then stamped an embellishment of the large flower corner in totally tropical on to some white card using the big and juicy vibrant primary ink pad to tie the layout together, cut it outand added it on foam pads for dimension as well as stamping out the title block with the same ink pad and using the DeLouisville alphas for the title, don't they fit perfectly?!


and lastly I stamped a journalling block from the tropical stamp sets to record my memory of the day.

And that's it my version of this months sketch over at Banana Frog, I love making my own papers with my ink pads, why don't you have a play too?

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon (at the moment I am somewhere up the Baltics having a fabulous time, I hope, bobbing about on a cruise ship) Until then Happy Crafting!
Love M x