More Froggie Love

This was my original idea for a froggie card. I wanted the frogs to float around in the main piece. So today I played until I got what I wanted. Can you say lots of time wasted?? Really, I don't know how these card-a-day stampers can not only stamp a card, but blog about it every. single. day. without killing half the day. I can't! :-o

But I will be stamping up a storm soon as I have been invited to join a design team as a guest designer for April and May. I'm very excited and scared! Will share more later!

I think it's something like Murphy's Law at work when I decide to use a big piece of white cardstock as my main design piece or ANY design piece. Inevitably, I smear it or the ink doesn't take right, or I get something sticky on it or I get it perfect (or close) only to have something go wrong after everything is glued perfectly in place. Just must happen to me, I guess.

I actually started this card (or its predecessor) yesterday with lots of changes taking place because of goof-ups. I will call this my "Jane Eyre" card because I watched Jane Eyre (1983 version) on YouTube while working on it. I watched almost the whole series and STILL didn't have a finished card to show for it. Today I listened to Rush and Sean and worked on this one. Should I then call it my Rush/Sean card or my Conservative Talk Radio card?

Maybe it's because I do so many things to the card elements that I have so many mishaps. I don't just cut the paper, I punch it, pierce it, or emboss it or paint it or whatever. Glue is often my worst enemy. Ever since I found out that my cards were coming apart because the mono adhesive wasn't doing its job, I started using mono multi. Well, it's a white liquid glue. And no matter how hard I try, inevitably it squishes out the sides somewhere and puts the whole card at risk of being damaged and trashed. Wasn't card making supposed to relieve stress?? ;)

So please forgive me for not spending more time getting better pics of this card. I am too tired to worry about it, but may try harder later. If I do I'll switch out the old ones with the new ones.

Did you notice that there is no designer paper on this one? Yes, I'm doing things the "old-fashioned" way like I used to before discovering the wonderful world of designer paper.



For the main piece I stamped the flower from Stampin' Up! Unfrogettable in Basic Black ink on glossy white cs. Then I stamped the frog from Hero Arts Sending Happy Thoughts (CL305) around the flowers. I let that dry while I worked on the green area. I stamped the SU Canvas background stamp in Certainly Celery ink on Certainly Celery cs and set it aside.

Once the frog ink was dry I colored in the flowers with the Ruby Red and Rose Red markers and colored the green parts of the flowers with Certainly Celery and Old Olive. For the frogs I used a water brush and ink pads to give them a watercolored look. I started by applying More Mustard ink. Then went over that with Old Olive.

Once that was completely dry I ran the piece through the Cuttlebug using the Tiny Bubbles folder (my favorite). Wow, did that do the trick! I love it when something clicks for me.

I attached the frog piece to the Real Red and black cardstock using 3D-Dots and then ran a stitch around it to warm it up a bit. A big thanks to Barbara Latham (a reader of my blog) for her tip about tucking the strings to the back. I think it looks much nicer using your advice. Barbara says to pull the loose thread tail through to the back and secure it by tying it to the beginning thread tail. I glued mine down on the back rather than tie since I didn't leave a long enough tail to tie with. Her tip made my work look much more professional, don't you think? Thank you again, Barbara!

After putting the frog piece together, but not securing it just yet on the card, I figured out where the sentiment should go and stamped it in Basic Black ink using my Stamp-a-ma-jig to place it just right. The sentiment is also from SU Unfrogettable.

Once that was done I ran the Certainly Celery piece through the Cuttlebug using the Distressed Stripes folder sideways. I added the black polka dot ribbon, used the corner punch on the tips and attached it to the black background piece which I had already done the corners of with the punch.

Then I added the frog piece, the red gems and the bow. I also added gold gems to the flower centers on the frog piece to give it a finished look.

On the inside I used white cardstock and was a bit flummoxed about what to do since I had not used any designer paper I could repeat. So I figured I could use a more muted theme of the frog piece and just color part of it. I blocked it with Post-It notes so that it would have a nice clean ending place where the ribbon could go. I ran out of black polka dot ribbon (GASP) so I used solid black grosgrain to keep things at least in a similar vain. I added the bow (a scrap I scrounged up) to repeat the outside ribbon. I stamped another sentiment from Unfrogettable in a way that really pleased me. I hope you're pleased, too. Btw, that is not a smudge on the right side. Not sure why that showed up on my pic. Better check the camera lens!

Thanks for looking!

Stamps: Hero Arts Sending Happy Thoughts (CL305), SU Unfrogettable

CS: Black, Certainly Celery, Real Red, Glossy white, White

Inks: Basic Black, More Mustard, Old Olive, Certainly Celery

Markers: Ruby Red, Rose Red, Old Olive, Certainly Celery

Other: Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles and Distressed Stripes embossing folders, Sewing machine, Stamp-a-ma-jig, Red gems, Gold gems, Black polka dot ribbon, Black grosgrain ribbon, Post-It notes for blocking, 3D-Dots, Corner punch