*Hey Little Froggie*

Less than three weeks before school starts for my kids. Hard to believe how fast the summer goes by. I remember being a kid and getting bored in the summer because summer vacation was way too long. But now I find summer vacation is gone in the wink of an eye. So not fair.

I took the kids to do a little back to school shopping yesterday. We didn't need much, but I'd much rather do it three weeks before school starts than the last week of vacation when you have to battle every other family doing the same thing.

The little one needed a pair of pants and two pairs of shoes. The older one already has a list of school supplies he needs (the school provides them for the little one), and he needed jeans and shoes. I nearly fell over... I went to Sport Chek, had someone measure his foot and they've put my 12 year old son into size 9 shoes!! He is no longer able to wear kids jeans either... the 16s fit him in the waist and length but they just didn't look right across the front.... so he's in a 28X30 men's jean now.

Sniff sniff sniff.

How on earth has he gotten to be 12 years old, 5'3" (+) with a deepening voice and a little facial hair?! Where is my little boy??

On to the card for today....

As promised a few days ago, here is my first card done with my Professional Quality Primsacolor Pencil Crayons, odourless paint thinner and a blending stump.

To start with, I stamped a punch of petals from Pick a Petal and a few frogs from Unfrogettable and I just started playing with the coloured pencils. I decided after playing for a few hours that it was time to make something out of these things. I couldn't use any of the petals as each was a different colour with a different shading pattern. It would be one confused flower!

So a frog card it was.

Colouring was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I followed the directions I found on the Sanford Website. I simply stamped with my Document Black ink (by Stewart Superior). I then ran a line of colour along the inside line of the frog's outline and then started to blend with the odourless paint thinner and the blending stump. Once it was all blended, I added another line of colour in the same spot and blended again using a circular motion with my stump. I kept doing this until I had filled the area.... leaving it darker on the edges and lighter on the inside.

It takes time but it sure is pretty!

This card uses a layout from Pagemaps (April 2005) and the Splitcoast Stampers Colour Challenge #126

Items Used:
*Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Close to Cocoa, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, Whisper White; Classic Crest White (for colouring on)
*Ink: Stewart Superior Document Black; Stampin' Up! Close to Cocoa Classic and Whisper White Craft
*Images: Stampin Up! Unfrogettable, So Many Sayings and In The Spotlight; Paper Trey Ink Circle Borders and Corners
*Tools: Prismacolor Professional Quality coloured pencils, odourless paint thinner, blending stump, Marvy Giga Scallop Circle Punch