Hoppy Wishes

I am honoured to be guest with Penny Black this month for Feature a Creature Challenge - thanks for asking me.  Some of my first stamps were Penny Black who may well be responsible for my cardmaking addiction.

I have always loved frogs.  One of my early memories is going down to the local disused quarry that had a pond in the bottom, armed with my mum's old stockings threaded onto fencing wire (a homemade scoop net) to get tadpoles.  Even as an adult, if I can't get hold of them, I have been known to pay the local school kids for them at $1 each.  I now have one left from this summer and he is just getting his hind legs.  Did you know that frogs are environmental indicators for the health of the planet?  and they are fast disappearing.

This is a one layer card.  I started with the watercolour splash onto the base card (several colours layered), then the tiny splashes painted in.  The image is then stamped, black embossed, and painted with watercolours.  Then I carefully sprinkled gold embossing powder on the places where froggies have the gold speckles.  The line is sticky glue drawn along with patterned antique gold foil rubbed over, and the sentiment is stamped and gold embossed.  This looks just like the frogs I raise and I even think frogs would like this wonderful image from Penny Black.

Frog stamp: Penny Black - Leap of Joy
Sentiment stamp:   Pink Petticoat clear stamp (old freebie set with Papercraft Essentials)