Sweet Felt Pumpkins

I recently tried out a new fall decor craft from the October issue of Family Fun. Family Fun is a fantastic magazine chock full of great ideas for crafts, activities, parenting tips, recipes, and more. Each issue I own is dog-eared from all the use we get out of them! :)

This particular craft involves making some fabric 3-D pumpkins to display in your home. The original directions call for furry and fuzzy fabrics, but I decided to use felt instead.

You need:

some orange or yellow felt, twigs gathered from your backyard or street, needle and thread, plastic grocery bags, and a hot glue gun

1) First, trace a circle on your piece of felt. An 8 or 9 inch diameter is a good size.

2) Next, cut out the circle. (please disregard the fact that yes indeed my kiddies are still in their pajamas in the photo)

3) Using the needle and thread, knot off one end and then stitch around the perimeter of the circle in large running stitches. (about a half-inch from the edge)

4) Pull both ends of the thread to gather the felt into a pouch. Crumple a plastic grocery bag and place inside the pouch before pulling the thread even tighter and tying it off.

5) Insert a broken twig into the opening of the pouch and hot glue in place.

6) I decided that my pumpkins needed a little more pizazz and so glued on some green ribbon "leaves" as well. My daughter helped me make the basket by cutting slits around the edge of a paper plate, weaving a ribbon through the slits, and pulling it tightly into a bow to pucker the plate up into a basket shape.

These were so simple to make, and can be a chic way to add some fall to your home. Try using different fabrics (we also made one from a fat quarter of orange fabric) or use a cinnamon stick instead of a twig for the stem. Stuff the little pumpkins with potpourri or add black felt features to turn them into jack'o'lanterns.

It took me less than an hour to make three of these pumpkins, and I plan on taking them to a friend's house as a house-warming gift.

I Need More Contest Entries!

Just a quick note to remind everyone about the Fantastic Froggy Fall Craft Contest? There is still time to enter - in fact, I extended the deadline to September 28, 2009. You have plenty of time to get your creative skills working!

Don't forget - you don't have to have a crafty entry to be a part of the contest. I also have prizes for those who spread the word via Twitter, blogging, and Facebook.

And finally, I have some fall crafts just about ready to post for you all to enjoy. I picked up some beautiful fall foliage, votive holders, pumpkins, and fabulous ribbon at Michaels to make some new projects.

Please send all craft submissions for the contest to jfrogster@gmail.com. If you tweet, blog, or facebook about the contest, leave a comment at the contest post.

Perhaps You Need Some Inspiration...

Inspired yet?? There's still time to enter The Fantastic Froggy Fall Craft Contest! Just email me with your craft idea for one of the four categories described here, and you could win Starbucks cards and a host of awesome goodness from The Framed Frog.

I need people to spread the word too, so head on over to the contest post and leave me a comment on how you blogged about, tweeted about, or mentioned it on Facebook.

I need some more entries! Help me out please!

Announcing - The Fantastic Froggy Fall Craft Contest!

It's absolutely my favorite season of the year - time to visit the pumpkin patch, jump in piles of leaves, send those kiddies back to school, and bake dozens of pies for no reason at all.

In honor of my favorite season, The Scrappy Frog is hosting a Fantastic Froggy Fall Craft Contest with fabulous prizes, sponsored by The Framed Frog. So get your crafty self ready!

Here are the details:
Categories:
1. For Kids - these should be crafts that are easy enough for kids to do with minimal help from adults. These could be fall-themed cards, fall treats, gifts for their teachers, etc., as long as they follow a fall theme.
2. Halloween - these should be crafts geared towards the Halloween holiday. These could be decorations, party favors, costumes, treats, etc., as long as they follow a Halloween theme.
3. Scrapbooking - these would be paper crafts. These could be scrapbook page designs, mini albums, cards, etc., as long as they follow a fall theme.
4. Fall Mania - these would be fall-themed crafts that do not fit in any of the previous three categories. These could be storage ideas, decor, jewelry, apparel, etc.

Prizes:
The winner of each category will receive a $5 Starbucks gift card(or something similar if the winner does not have a local Starbucks, poor thing!). A grand prize winner will be chosen out of the four category winners to receive a custom gift package from The Framed Frog - this includes a French memo board, two photo frames painted to match the memo board, and matching candles. Finally, one of the entries will be chosen at random to receive a $25 gift certificate to The Framed Frog.

Rules:
1. Submit your craft entry in the correct category. You may enter every category, if you like, but only enter each category once.
2. Your craft idea must be original. It can be a twist on an old favorite. Please do not copy an idea off a website and send it to me .
3. All craft ideas must be presented in clear logical steps and with at least one photo or diagram. They should be sent to jfrogster@gmail.com to count as an entry.
4. Most entries will be featured in The Scrappy Frog during the month of October with full credit given to you for your idea.
5. Deadline for entries is 12:00 midnight PST on September 28. Winners will be posted on October 2, 2009.
6. Winners will be chosen after all entries are reviewed and tested by Jeanette Foster.

Finally, I have one more special prize for those that help me spread the word. Leave me a comment below indicating that you have either tweeted, blogged about, or mentioned the contest on Facebook, and you will be entered in a drawing for a special surprise. Do all three if you like, but please be sure to leave me three separate comments then to increase your chances of winning.

I can't wait to see all of your great ideas!
(By the way, since I am a big football fan, football definitely counts as a fall theme! If you have any questions about the contest, please email me at jfrogster@gmail.com).

And don't forget, there are lots of great giveaways and contests out there! Hop on over to the next blog to enter one!

Silly Soapy Play Clay

Hello all! I know, I know, it has been far too long since I last posted on The Scrappy Frog. This summer, The Framed Frog has really taken off, and most of my extra time has been taken up with custom orders. This is great of course, but also very time-consuming. It's hard to find time to come up with extra crafts, make them and photograph them step by step, and then write all the directions to making them.
However, since fall is upon us and Christmas will be here before you know it, I am going to do my best to get as many crafts and clever things to you as I can this season. In fact, I am going to be holding a fall craft contest in the very near future. Prizes will include a gift certificate to The Framed Frog, gift cards to Starbucks, and a few other ridiculously awesome things. You don't want to miss it!
But for now, here is an easy recipe for Silly Soapy Play Clay. This stuff is great because when your kiddies (and you perhaps) play with it, their hands end up smelling like they just washed them. (instead of that strange Play Dough odor)

You need: 2 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of salt, 1 TBS of liquid soap, water, and food coloring

To make:
1. Take the flour, salt, and soap; and mix all of them together in a large bowl.
2. Add 8 - 10 drops of food coloring to the mixture and blend in.
3. Add water slowly and continue to mix until the mixture turns into a workable dough.

And that's it! You can leave out the coloring entirely if you want, or make several colors. The play clay should be stored in an airtight container when not being used.

My children loved this and played with it for hours, concocting birthday cakes and pancakes and little aliens. We also created a a totally yummy play clay that you can mold into awesome creations and then eat them! The recipe for that clay will be in a future post.

Froggy Pond Cake How-To

It's once again time for the Birthday Cake Round-up at Life As Mom. This time I am giving a tutorial on a cake I just did for my daughter's half-birthday. Yep, we love birthdays around here and so celebrate our half-birthdays too! She wanted a frog pond cake (so maybe her momma's obsession is rubbing off on her a little) and here's what I came up with.
You'll need: a 2-layer 9" round cake, enough blue frosting to fill the layers and cover the cake, a small amount of green frosting for the frogs, three bamboo skewers, five large marshmallows, green candy melts (or white ones tinted green), and a tube of black gel frosting.

1. Cover the cake with blue frosting. Lay the back of a spoon against the frosting and pull away to make waves.

2. Toast three of the marshmallows (or use caramel swirl ones like I did) and skewer them. Break the skewers at three different places to make three different hieghts and insert the "cattails" in the cake as shown.

3. Make the lily pads by melting the candy melts (I use the defrost setting on the microwave and stir it every thirty seconds). Pipe the melted candy on wax paper in the shape of lily pads and use a knife to spread it evenly.

4. After lily pads harden (this goes faster if you put them in the fridge), place them on the cake.

5. Next, make your frogs by placing a marshmallow each on two lily pads. Frost over the marshmallows in green frosting and add two frosting dabs to the top of each frog's head for eyes. Also pipe legs on each frog. Make a third frog in the water by piping a large ball of frosting with two dabs of frosting on top.

6. Finally, add detail with a little white icing and the black gel icing. Pipe some green ripples around the bottom edge of the cake. (use a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off).

Add an adorable kid, and you're done! In future posts, I will share some of the froggy crafts we came up with as well. :)

The Framed Frog Announces. . .

Time for another giveaway!  This one is being hosted by the Etsy Chatters Team blog - you can go here to read all about me and my artistic endeavors!

Then you can enter the giveaway simply by commenting, twittering, etc. to get entries to win a $25 gift card to my store The Framed Frog!  That can get pretty much anything in the shop or at least be a good chunk of change toward something bigger.  Please go check it out and enter the giveaway here.  It'll cost you like five minutes.  If that.  How can you pass this deal up?  And why are you still reading this?  Go, go, go!