Banana Frog Blog

December's Colour Focus

Welcome to Dececmber's Colour Focus. For this month's inspiration, we took delight in this decorative feature found at Martha Stewart's site: 

Here's what the Froglets came up with: 

Annlouise was so inspired by the birds that she created a canvas based on them. She used the swirly stamp from Winter Wonderland set for the background.

Anthea created a card using Christmas Elegance, It's Christmas Deer and Retro Christmas sets. Her tip is to mix sentiments from various sets to create the font that you want. She inked 'Merry' from the It's Christmas Deer set and the 'Christmas' from the Christmas Elegance set and then stamped them on some cardstock to make them look like they were just one stamp. 

Audrey also created a card using the baubles from the Christmas Elegance set.

Finally, Michelle's project could be a card but she made it into a plaque to stand on an easel on a festive party table. She used large Budmo Jiggler set and also Blizzard. She embossed the snowflakes in silver. Her tip for stamping alphabet: in order not to get them straight, place them on the block in a slightly random way so that any wobbles in the text line are intentional. She then stamped the text with brilliance ink so they have a shine and added festive blings into the dots with some stickles.

 

We hoped our merry projects have inspired you. Have a great Christmas and don't forget to join us for our blog hop on the 30th. 

 

November's Sketch Focus

Apologies for posting this a wee bit late!

Welcome to the second part of Sketch Focus. Just to recap, this is the sketch: 

Without further ado, let's see what our Froglets came up with: 

Audrey created a card based on the sketch. The reindeer image came from It's Christmas, Deer and the alphabets are from Louie DeVille.

Francine flipped the sketch and put her photo on the left side of the page. She liked the distressed looking background and tried to recreate it using an embossed-resist technique with Glimmer Mist and acrylic paint. She used All About Stars set. 

Here are some closeups:

Michelle also flipped the sketch to suit her photos. She used leaves from Totally Tropical, Tropical Taste and Build A Daisy for the embossed inked strip, Kawaii Kokeshi's cherry blossom for the top left and Rosecube for the alphas. Everything was pulled together with a spice big and juicy ink pad.

A closeup view: 

Check back in December to see what in store for Colour Focus. Until then, have fun stamping!

November's Sketch Focus

The year has gone pretty quickly but our Froglets are still working hard to inspire you. This month's offering is a sketch, kindly drawn by Audrey.

Here's what the Froglets came up with: 

Anthea used Hiya Chick stamp set to produce this LO.  

Here's what she has to say: add movement to your stamped images by stamping on different levels on your project. She have stamped directly onto the background cardstock and also onto some scrap cardstock and then cut it out. She placed these elements around each other to add depth and movement.

 

Jo based her card on the sketch. The reindeer came from It's Christmas Deer set and the sentiment frame is from Winter Wonderland set. Those lovely green stars in the greeting frame are from Retro Christmas.

Here's a closeup of the card:

 

Julie created a LO. She stamped the floral scroll design from Totally Tropical set right around the page, including along the edges of the photos using dye inks. 

The title was stamped in two different colours to create a shadow effect using the DeLouisville alphabet set.

 

Finally, Sharmaine came up with this adorable LO. She used the swirl in the Winter Wonderland set, on the butterflies and the large snowflake, found int he Christmas Elegance set, on the ruffle.

Do show us what you have done with the sketch. Upload to our Flickr gallery. Check back later this month for more inspiration. 

 

October's Colour Focus

Welcome to the second round of Colour Focus. Here's this month's inspiration:

These gorgeous clothes are by Gudrun Sjoden and you can find more of them here.

Let's see what the other Froglets have come up with: 

Audrey done a card using It's Christmas Deer set. The image of the deer and baubles have been glittered.

 

Francine went for the brighter colours and produced a LO.

To create the stamped background, she cut a rectangle out of a piece of A4 paper, then placed the sheet onto the cardstock and stamped inside the open space.

 

Michelle produced a lovely vintage LO.

She used The Mastryoshka dolls stamp set to create the embellishments using the medallion in the set to add a pattern to the background for some added interest and the decorative border on the photo to tie the layout together. The dolls are stamped onto some pattern paper, this adds more interest to a flat stamped image.

She also used Rosecube Alphabets for the number 4 and for the journaling frame, it's from It's All About Elegance stamp set.

 

Last but not least, Nat bought these tags from Ikea and transform them from these...

to these: 

They were done using Christmas Elegance and De Louisville stamps and they are ready to be attached to gifts once they're wrapped! What a brilliant idea!

Check back on the 30th when we have our blog hop! Until then happy stamping!

 

October's Colour Focus

October signals the start of Autumn. It won't be long before the clock go back an hour too. So in honour of Autumn, here's our colour inspiration: 

Now aren't those clothes gorgeous! You have Froglet Julie to thank for introducing them! They are by Gudrun Sjoden and you can find more of them here. Here's what the talented Froglets have come up with: 

Annlouise came up with this charming LO using Totally Tropical stamp set. The colours on this LO is absolutely beautiful. 

 

Anthea found the colour scheme a challenge as she usually scrap bright colours. Somehow she still managed to incorporate those colours in her card. She used Sentimental Style stamp set.

One of her tips in adding a touch of colour to the project, but not wanting it to overtake is to give the project a light spray of glimmer mist. This will help to add a finished 'full' look and also a little hint of colour.

 

Julie made a card. She used the snowflake from Christmas Elegance set and added a touch of sparkle with glitter glue and a silver gem in the centre.

A closer look: 

Finally, Sharmaine, another one who found the colours rather challenging, has come up with a striking LO. She used the De Louisville stamps for her title. She also used the Christmas Elegance set for the "Love" that she stamped around the photo as well as the other 'purple' elements. She used the snowflake stamp, puched out the middle with a 0.5" circle punch and adhered them to a 0.5" foam dot. The larger circles were perfect for a 1.5" punch, which meant she didn't have to try and tackle cutting out perfect circles 

Do share what you have come up with using this particular colour scheme! Upload your projects to our Flickr gallery. Check back later this month to see the rest of the inspiration from the other Froglets! Until then, happy stamping!

 

September's Colour Focus

(Apologies, due to internet problems, this post is slightly later than usual).

It's time for the second round of Colour Focus. Here's a recap of this month's colour inspiration: 

Here are what the Froglets came up with: 

Audrey created a page for for her son's mini album. She made use of stamp sets from Postage, Journaling, Super Star, Retro Space, Steelfish Outline Numbers and De Louisville. 

Front


Back

One tip from her: when creating pages of a mini album, double-sided patterned papers work best. Use stamps to create background patterns.

 

Nat made a little decorative envelope from some left-over paper scraps. It can be used to give birthday money or a gift voucher, or to include a card when giving flowers. She used De Louisville alphabet set as it's the ideal size for stamping onto journaling stickers.

Here's a closer view of the card: 

It's always interesting to see how colours can be interpreted by different members of the team. We have a new colour inspiration for October. See you soon.... 

 

September's Colour Focus

The summer holidays just whizzed past pretty quickly and the kids are now back in school. Hence, this month's colour focus takes inspiration from this particular image: 

(image obtained from the book 'The New School of Information Society')

Here's what the Froglets came up with: 

Julie stamped a line of three leaf designs from the 'Tropical Taste' Tadpole set, using a different ink each time. Repetition of one single design makes for a quick way to achieve a striking effect.

Here's a close-up view of the card.

 

Michelle used It's Christmas Deer and Christmas Elegance stamp sets. The backgrounds are made up with Big and Juicy Ink pads in Waterfall and Mountain Meadow using a speedball brayer. The main focal image on each card has been embossed with Blonde Moments black embossing powder.

With Christmas not too far away, it's time to start pondering about Christmas cards!

A closer view of the first card

The second card

Michelle will post a step by step instructions on her blog.

 

Sharmaine created a LO using several stamp sets. She used Build A Bloom set for the journaling lines, Budmo Jiggler for the title and Sentimental Style for the brackety shape under the date/year.

 

 

Check back later this month for the second half of Colour Focus. Happy stamping!

 

July's Colour Focus

Can you believe that half the year is gone? We are now in the summer season and the weather hasn't let us down so far! So bearing that in mind, here's this month's colour inspiration: 

Let's see what the Froglets have conjured...

Anthea has come up with a bright and cheerful card using Hiya Chick stamp set. Her tip is to stamp a flourish around the outside of a circle to add some flair, using nice bright colours instead of the normal black or brown.

Francine made use of Superlicious and Budmo Jiggler stamp sets to create this adorable LO of her boy.

She created a stamped "collage" with the dotted circle stamp by stamping and overlaying images until the stamp was out of ink.

She used Budmo Jiggler to stamp the sub-title directly onto the page.  She started where she wanted the phrase to end, and worked backwards to make sure it fit properly. It is best to write out the word or phrase onto scrap paper to ensure the word is spelt rightly.

Jo used the new Sentiment set to create this card. 

 

Finally, Michelle used Totally Tropical and Tropical Taste stamp sets for this project with some Stazon to jazz up a cheap set of wine glasses. She has more details of it on her blog. 

Look at the table! It certainly matches the wine glasses!

Now who says you can't use stamps for other purposes?

Enjoy the wonderful weather and hope we have inspired you to take out your stamps to play, be it indoors or outdoors! Happy stamping!

June's Sketch Focus

Welcome back to the second round of Sketch Focus. Just a reminder, here's this month's sketch: 

Without further ado, here's what the Froglets have come up with: 

Audrey rotated the sketch as it fitted her photo better. She made use of the new stamps, Totally Tropical, Tropical Taste, Swirls and Butterflies, DeLouise Ville and Budmo Jiggler (both sizes).

Francine came up with both a card and a LO based on the sketch. She used Hiya Chick, De Louisville and Budmo Jiggler as well as Retro Space stamp sets.

Her tip: Instead of using a mat of paper, she cut a part out of the patterned paper to let the kraft show through. After stamping the stars from Retro Space onto the chipboard stars, she used a pen to outline them with dots.

A closeup view. 

Francine also managed to whip up a quick matching card based on the sketch using Hiya Chick stamp set.

Jo produced this gorgeous cupcake card using That Takes The Cake and Cupcake Greetings. 

Julie used the 'Hiya Chick' set which co-ordinated perfectly with her Bo Bunny 'Persuasion' range paper - especially the birdcage stamp.

A closeup detail... now that is just too cute!

Finally, Sharmaine used the Matryoshka Dolls and Super Dreamy sets. She used the doily stamp in the Matryoshka Dolls set and a piece of paper to mask off the area for the title.

That's it for now... come back in July to see what we have in store for July's Colour Focus. If you are keen to try the sketch, remember to upload to our Flickr gallery. Check back on the 30th for our monthly blog hop. Until then, happy stamping!

June's Sketch Focus

It's June and this month, we focus on a sketch, drawn by a Froglet member.

The sketch is open to interpretation and here's what the talented Froglet came up with: 

Annlouise made use of Build A Daisy set and came up with this lovely Spring LO. 

 

Anthea rotated the sketch and came up with this cute LO of her boy using Charming Prince and Fairytale Princess stamp sets. 

Her tip is to colour in the stamped images. It adds character to the page. In this LO, she used Copic markers and had fun colouring and blending them.

Michelle produce this very bright and cheerful LO. She made her own ice cream paper and embellishments using the top of a cupcake from Cupcake Greetings and a triangle from Make A Chain. The faux stitching also comes from Make A Chain and the sun is from Round In Circles and Build A Daisy, as is the sentiment at the bottom and finally she used Bensfolk for her title. A veritable feast of BF stamps inspired by the sun. 

Here's a closeup look of the LO: 

Last but not least, Nat made a card using Hiya Chick set.

Her tip: try stamping onto coloured paper as an alternative to a plain white background, you can then get some great shades and tones of colour using Copic or Promarker pens.

And don't forget the little accents in the set, they are great for adding that finishing touch!

Here you go, some inspiration from our Froglets. Feel free to join in and remember, you can always upload to our Flickr gallery. We love to see what you do with Banana Frog stamps.