~ Banana Frog Hop ~

We are at the end of July and it's time for another Banana Frog Hop. As the theme is on Summer, I've got some summer treats lined up.

Just before my boys left school, I made up some summer treats for their teacher. As they have quite a few teachers that they want to give, I made up these little sour cream containers (instructions can be found here) from scrap patterned papers. For labels, I stamped a large star from Just About Stars set and used the Teen alphabets for names. 

Using a souffle pen, I went over the name so that it was more visible. 

As these containers were easy to do, I made quite a few and filled them with chocolates. They made a lovely summer treats especially if you have a fair number of teachers to give to!

Who says labels have to be boring! Now these can be tailored to any occasions depending on the colours that you used. 

If you fancy any Banana Frog stamps, just leave a comment and you might just be lucky! Thanks for dropping by! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

Welcome to May's Banana's Blog Hop. As it's Banana Frog's birthday this month, the theme is all about birthdays! Well, here's my offerings:

As I'm making my foray into the digital arena, I created the background paper of this card. Then I made use of That Takes The Cake stamp set and played with the cake stand and cupcakes. It was finished with a sprinkle of Stickles.

The second card is a little traditional. I went for a clean and simple look. Paper from Cosmo Cricket. I used Paperchains stamp set, stamped the triangle stamp back to back so that they could be folded to create a bunting. Then I finished off by using the journaling box from Sentimental Style stamp set and stamped a sentiment.

Your next stop is Katy! And if you fancy winning a Banana Frog stamp set, just leave a comment! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog! ~

Over at the Banana Frog Blog, it was my turn to showcase Project of the Day. I did a Hybrid project. I created my papers based on a couple of digital elements and printed them out on an A4 sheet. Here is my A4 sheet: 

Digi images from Anna Aspnes' ArtPlay Palette Blooming Marvelous and Spring Transfer Words.

The tag was sprayed with a mist and then stamped with Hiya Chick stamp set. 

 The card page was slightly misted.  I added a sentiment from Sentimental Style set and butterfly from Butterflies and Swirls.

 Finally a 6x4 LO. Journaling lines from Hiya Chick set and 'imagine' word from Retro Space. 

On the homefront, just found out that my wee one passed his Grade 2 violin exam! Phew! He was so worried he would fail as his mind blanked out when he was asked to play his scales. Poor chap! He was so nervous before the exam and I didn't realised it would affect him. He came out utterly disappointed. His teacher had said he played his 3 pieces brilliantly so thankfully that managed to salvage his marks! He was so happy that he has asked his dad for a pair of roller blades (we usually reward them when they pass an exam or do well in something)! Not sure how I feel about it as he can't skate but hey, he can always learn. Both boys now have to prepare for their Grade 3 exam due to be taken in July! Good luck to them! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

Welcome if you have come from Beki.

The theme for this month's hop is 'birds'. I always have a soft spot for them. For my project, I wanted to re-create the birds in a different style. I've been seeing a lot of embellishment covered in newsprint, map etc. Hence, I went down that route. 

I've been dabbling a lot in digi lately so not surprisingly, I turned to my stash of digi papers to find a suitable paper. Having printed them out, I stamped my bird image on them and cut it out. Here's my finished project:

The tag was decorated with a background stamp from Backgrounds set and the bird was adhered with foam dots. 

Whenever I play with my mists on projects, rather than wipe off the excess mist from templates, I tend to stick a tag on top of it to soak up the extra mist. This creates a background image on the tag. The tag is then kept for future use. I just feel it's such a shame to wipe off the extra mist. Here's another misted tag:

The background of the tag was decorated using stamp sets from Totally Tropical & Hiya Chick. Here, I cut off the tail of the bird and re-arranged them on the bird. 

The back of the tag can be left blank or simply stamped with background images. I tend to leave blank until I know what I'm using it for... I tend to give them away with birthday cards so usually an inspirational quote will be stamped before sending it off!

If you fancy winning a Banana Frog stamp set, simply leave a comment! Thanks for hopping by and this is the last stop. If you have missed any stop, simple return to the Banana Frog blog! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

Apologies.... this post would have been up earlier if it wasn't for a car that refused to start during school run! Not wishing to walk 30 mins (just one way), we opted for the bikes. Got home just in time for the RAC man to show up! What a great start to the first day of the school term!

If you have come from Anne, welcome! Anne is one of our latest Froglets to join the Banana Frog team.

For today's project, I challenge myself to use stamps that I've not touched before. Usually in a set, there are certain stamps that get used a lot and a couple that is left on the shelf, so to speak! So I told myself that I needed to get them out of their 'virgin' state! 

As the theme this month is on 'hearts', I chose the It's All About Hearts stamp set: 

I've never ever used the large hanging hearts so I decided to make use of that stamp in a card. 

I cut out the scalloped border and the hearts and adhere them using foam dot on the card. Then I applied glitter on them. A sticker sentiment finished the card. 

For my second card, I used the row of hearts background stamp. Here's the card:

I created a border strip with the background stamp, centre it on the card and adhere using foam dot. Then I added a butterfly ribbon on top of it. Left the sentiment blank so that I can fill it in later.

Now that I've used these stamps, I will no longer be daunted by them the next time I see them. Hope you are enjoying the blog hops. And if you fancy owning a Banana Frog set, leave a comment and it might just be your lucky day! 

Your next hop is Francine! Happy hopping! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

Welcome if you have just arrived from Lory.

My project today is to keep track of those little bits and pieces that I need to use for documenting memories.  Currently I'm have several albums on-going and there are times where I get a souvenir from that particular day and need to keep in a safe place. The problem is sometimes, I keep it so safe that I fail to find it and this has annoyed me many times! Hence, I created this little bag to put these bits in one place and hopefully, ease the headache of searching for them when it is needed.

The bag is a recycled packaging. I merely painted it over and then decorated with patterned papers. The calendar was downloaded and printed out from Crafty Secrets site. The papers were from a digital collection by Carina Gardner. The swirls came from the Butterflies and Swirls set while the date is from De Louisville alphabet set.

The back was stamped using several Banana Frog sets: Butterflies and Swirls, Totally Tropical and Build A Daisy. 

Hopefully with this bag, I can now keep all my souvenirs in one place and when the time comes to scrap my page, I can easily find them. As for the theme on Winter season, nothing wintery here but since the new year falls in the Winter months, the new resolution was to be organised and hence, this bag!

Thanks for dropping by and if you fancy a Banana Frog stamp set, leave a comment. Winner will be announced on the Banana Frog blog! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

Welcome to the Banana Frog Blog Hop! Hopefully you're enjoying the hops so far.

The theme for this month's hop is on Christmas, very appropriate as Christmas is only a few weeks away. Currently, I'm in the midst of making Christmas tags as I tend to put these together with the Christmas cards and are given away to close friends/relatives. Here's a couple that I've done:

The Christmas tree came from Winter Wonderland set.

The baubles are from Christmas Elegance set.

To ensure mass production, the tags were coloured using Tim Holtz inkpads, dry-embossed and sprayed with a bit of glimmer mist. Then a background layer was laid on and then the stamped image. The back of the tags were then stamped with a Christmas sentiment. 

Your next hop is Annlouise. Have fun hopping and if you fancy winning a Banana Frog stamp set of your choice, just leave a comment! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog! ~

It was my turn to blog on Banana Frog and I created some Christmas labels. I use them a lot when wrapping up presents and I loath to buy them when I can create them easily with my supplies. This time, I made use of some digital papers from Elle's Studio. Here are my labels: 

Stamped image from It's Christmas, Deer set. 

Stamped image from Winter Wonderland set and coloured using Copics.

Stamped image from It's Christmas, Deer set, sprinkled with sticklers.

Luv the thought of being able to create different types of labels for different people. My boys will definitely have their own labels to distinguish between their presents! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

If you have come from Nat, welcome! Hope you are enjoying the hop so far. The theme for this month's hop is "Autumn".  Seeing that it's October and it's the end of the month, I can only think of Halloween! So with that in mind, I created this: 

Papers and embellishment were printed out from digital images, courtesy of Echo Park's Halloween collection.

I made use of Banana Frog's Tag It, Fanciful and MadFont alphabet set for this project. I stamped the tags and used them as background for the letters. The letters were cut out and sprinkled with stickles. This banner will come in handy when I'm having my Halloween party tonite! 

Your next hop is Annlouise. Having fun hopping! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog! ~

Today's is Colour Focus day and we had this inspiration from Gudrun Sjoden:

Gorgeous dress! Anyway, I based my card on the colours used here:

Patterned paper by Basic Grey Jovial collection. Bingo card is a digi image came from Lettering Delights. Stamped reindeer image is from It's A Christmas Deer set. Deer image glittered using sticklers.

Basing a lot of my card creations on the theme of Christmas. Heaven knows how much I need them! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog! ~

It was my turn to blog on Banana Frog and I played with their 3 new Christmas sets. Two of their sets came with journaling boxes and I challenged myself to use them, not just for journaling, but to see what else I could do with them. 

The first was to use it as a repetitive pattern with the final use as a emphasis:

The second usage was to use it as a background pattern:

Final usage was to create a decorative pattern on the paper:

Patterned papers came from Basic Grey Jovial collection.

Good to know I put them to different use! TTFN!

~ Christmas Cards All Year 'Round: October's Challenge ~

For October's challenge, it has to be a card that has stitching (real or faux) and distressing the card in some way. Here's my card: 

My stitches appeared on the Noel bingo card with the edges distressed a little! Patterned paper from Basick Grey Wassil and tree is a stamped imaged from Banana Frog's Winter Wonderland.

Have to say, I'm sadly slacking in the Xmas card department. So much for wanted to get ahead. I think I need to do at least 24 cards to make up for the last few months of creative inertia! TTFN!

September's Banana Blog Hop!

Welcome if you have come from talented Michelle!

I recently received the 3 new Christmas stamp sets and set out to have a play! I love Xmas cards and I've been making them since the beginning of the year, just so I'm not stressed at the end when I've to give out that many! Anyway, today's post is to show you how you can 'dress up' your stamp images. 

I love the tree image from Winter Wonderland. There is so much possibilities with that particular image. It can look pretty plain when stamped on a sheet but with some glitter, you can give the tree a different dimension:

Here, I played with sticklers and glitter pen to transform the tree into an embellishment.

On the same stamp set is a rather cute snowman. Here's what I did to him: 

He was coloured with Copic markers and I added buttons on him. I created a topper out of him which I will later put on a card or even a tag!

Finally, I played with a tree in Christmas Elegance set: 

Another topper but this time I dressed the tree up. I added buttons to represent them as baubles and added a bit of glitter around. Then I grounded it by adding grass around its base. 

When I'm short of time, I usually create something fast and simple like these. They are then later used either in cards or projects that I may be involved in. Here's a example of how I used the embellished tree: 

I used it on a tag. 

With Christmas only 91 days away, these little toppers/embellishment will come in very handy later for Xmas projects! These Christmas stamp sets are fabulous. I've not played enough with them yet. And if you fancy a chance of winning any of them (or others), drop me a comment. It might just be your lucky day! 

Your next blog hop is Annlouise. Have a very' hopping' time! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog ~

Well, it was my day to showcase on the Banana Frog blog and I made this canvas: 

The butterflies were created from transparency and coloured using Copic markers and glittered using sticklers: 

The flower embellishment were stamped and I added dimension to them by shading with Copic markers: 

Finally, I replicated the vine images at the side of the canvas: 

This canvas will be winging its way to my mom as her birthday gift. Having not done much creative work lately, it took me a while to get into the flow again. Can't say I have much time in the coming few weeks as I will be extremely busy (lots of things have come up and I don't have a lot of spare time these days). Until then, TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop ~

It's time for another Blog Hop. This month's theme focus on 'summer fete'! My eldest recently had a BBQ Sleepover Birthday party. It went well but I always like to ensure he thanks his guests and relatives for the presents he received. Hence, I made them some 'thank you' tags.

The tag, 4x6",  is cut from patterned paper. It shows both the front and back of the tag. I made use of Hiya Chick to decorate the tags. The journaling block is from Sentimental Style. I left some space for my boy to write his 'thank you' message. 

No doubt, these will be winging their way to his relatives as soon as he is done. I made them as tags as they can easily be re-used as bookmarks!

Thanks for dropping by and hope you are enjoying your hop! If you fancy winning a stamp set, don't forget to leave a comment! Your next hop is Annlouise! Have a great day! TTFN!

~ Banana Frog Hop Winner ~

Using a random generator, it picked...

And the lucky commenter is ...

Congratulations! Please email Bev (sales@bananafrog.co.uk) regarding your chosen stamp set! TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog ~

Banana Frog recently came up with some new sets and they landed on my doorstep and I had a play with them. I created this sketch for June's Sketch Focus: 

This is my LO: 

Made use of Studio Calico June 10 main kit for this LO. The butterfly mask in the background is from my own stash. Stamp sets used here are from Banana Frog's Swirls and Butterflies, Totally Tropical, Tropical Taste, DeLouis Ville, Budmo Jiggler (large & small). 

The journaling spot is from Tropical Taste. The butterflies are from Swirls and Butterflies.

The flowery swirls are from Totally Tropical.

Finally the title was created from Budmo Jiggler both in the large and small size. Luv the mini size.... very appropriate for cards.

Check back on the 30th where Banana Frog will be having a blog hop. TTFN!

~ On Display: Banana Frog ~

Some new Banana Frog stamp sets landed on my doorstep and I had a play with them. I created a mini LO (6x4") using Totally Tropical and DeLouisville sets:

Totally Tropical

DeLouisville

Here's my LO: 

 

This is a 6x4" LO. I do a lot of them to post to my parents overseas where it's easy to store in a normal photo album. I used the corner stamp and added the flowers to embellished it. The title was created using the DeLouisville alpha set, which is fast becoming my favourite alpha set. LO created using Scarlet Lime May10 kit. 

Bev has also came out with a new Mixed Sentiments set and this is just perfect for cards! 

Here's my card: 

I made use of the corner stamp again and glittered the flowers with sticklers. I used the sentiment from the new set. 

Luv the sentiment set... can see myself using it often! TTFN!

~ Sketchy Thursdays: 6.10 Challenge ~

Here's the sketch for this week's challenge:

Here's my LO: 

LO created using June's Studio Calico kit. Stamped images from Unity. Date stamp from Banana Frog's Delouisville set. Photo of my boys busking in Birmingham Town Centre to raise fund for Christian Aid. They played for an hour and did receive generous donations during the time they played. There were a fair number of fiver notes being given!

TTFN!