Banana Frog Guest Designer

I have been extremely lucky to be invited to be Guest Designer for the Banana Frog blog this month. The stamps I have been sent are superb...Totally Tropical.....Funky Paisley....and Take note....and I could not seriously pick a favourite, I loved them all, and they are definitely sets I know I will be able to use again and again and again.

The sets are truly brilliant value as you will be able to get so much from them and there are so many elements for the money, but I have stayed true to my blog and kept the costs to an absolute minimum for my projects. The main projects and details will be posted on the Frog blog but I thought I would supplement them with a little post on here, particularly as both the cards didn't have proper envelopes so I had to do some adapting. The little "Thanks! card was packaged in serviettes which I customised with inks from a pen and then tied with thread and finished with a co-ordinating tag (I even ironed the serviettes once they were dry from the splatting technique!!.....how dedicated was that).

The second card used an junk mail envelope, which i decorated with a stamped liner and matching panel on the front (to cover the preprinted address).

It's quite easy to line an envelope. Lightly draw round the envelope... there is no need to cut all the bottom section out....it isn't going to be on show.

Just glue the piece attached to the top flap.

The other thing I had to improvise with was the acrylic block......I hadn't got one on the boat so I used various things lids sides of jars....and in this case the bottom of a glass....I was leaning on the seat of my stool which is very firmly padded and this gave a great impression as the bottom of the glass wasn't totally flat.

I made a third card for a friend using similar techniques to the first card, but I also had to do a little masking. As I didn't have a post it note to stamp a mask on I stamped the image on paper and held it in place with some rubbish (not sticky!!) insulation tape.
I also decorated inside the envelope for this one but this time I lined it with a bit of recycled tissue paper. All my cards were made while we were out for a quick trip on our boat (floating shed) so I really didn't have access to any proper crafting stuff, but I so enjoyed playing with the stamps and just a few old pens.

This post is a bit hurried as we are off again for a week on the boat, if I get a chance I might supplement this a bit further with some more of the pen techniques.