Waffleflower Spring 2018 Release Blog Hop (+GIVEAWAYS!)

Good morning!  I am so thrilled to be a stop on the hop celebrating the Spring 2018 release for Waffleflower!  One of my favorite things about Waffleflower is their collaboration with artists to create innovative and really interesting stamp sets!  And when I saw the adorable critter stamps illustrated by Kamo I fell head over heels for them.  Honestly, I never thought I’d get excited about a frog stamp set…but look at Toadally!!!  Isn’t it adorable?

I had lots of fun sets to pick from for my post today (and I’ll definitely be sharing more soon) but I just had to start with those singing frogs!

I started by creating my background.  I masked off the bottom of a piece of bristol smooth cardstock and blended the sky using shaded lilac and worn lipstick distress ink.  Then I masked off the sky and blended the water with salty ocean and a little mermaid lagoon distress ink.  I spritzed it with water to create the large, lighter areas and then sprayed the whole panel with shimmer spray for a sparkly finish.  I set that aside to dry while I worked on the rest of the card.

Next I stamped all the images from Toadally and colored them with copics before die-cutting them with the coordinating dies.  Once my background panel was dry I die-cut it with the Stitched Layers die and reserved the leftover frame.  On that area I stamped the music notes with versafine, heat-embossed them with clear embossing powder, and die-cut them with the coordinating dies.  I wanted to use them on the background so stamping them on the leftover blended panel was a great way to recycle those scraps.  Originally I intended to pop them up with foam mounting tape which is why I didn’t stamp them directly onto the background but I changed my mind because I wanted the sequins in the shaker to move more easily.

I curved the sentiment on the lid of my MISTI and stamped it onto the background with versafine and then heat-embossed it with clear embossing powder.  Then I arranged my scene using foam mounting tape for my frogs and regular ATG adhesive for the rest of the images.  I adhered a few iridescent clear sequins to the panel so that they’d always be a little higher even if the shaker sequins have settled to the bottom of the card.

To finish my shaker I die-cut the white frame using the same Stitched Layers die set.  I love how the outer frame has the diagonal stitching while the inner frame has the regular stitched line.  I adhered acetate behind the white cardstock and built up the frame with a double layer of foam mounting tape.  I filled the shaker with a mixture of iridescent clear sequins and sparkling clear.  The iridescent sequins really pick up the colors of the distress inks!  I sealed the card and gave it a good shake to get everything moving!  I generally wouldn’t want to be hanging out with frogs in a pond but I’m pretty sure I’d make an exception for this trio and their sparkly home! 😉