These turned out so cute! And they were easy! Best of all, I came up with them all by myself, which gives me some serious bragging rights… Woohoo!
Wanna make some?
To make twelve invitations, you will need:
- 2 Pieces of Green Construction Paper (I chose two different shades)
- 2 3×5 cards or other stiff paper
- 24 googly eyes
- Elmer’s Glue
- Scissors
- Black pen or thin marker
- Decorative 81/2 x 11 paper suitable for printing
Let’s start with a plan! I sketched out the shapes I would need on 3×5 cards, and cut them out.
The top oval is the head, and the bottom one is the body. The left foot is for both front feet, and the right leg and foot is for both back legs. I took a paper cup, cut off the rim, and squeezed it slightly to give me a good oval shape to trace.
Something I read recently said that human instinct causes us to think that disproportionately large heads are cute, since babies have disproportionately large heads. I decided to use that principle here.
Time to cut out! I folded a light green and dark green paper each into sixths. Arranging carefully, I was actually able to fit the head, the body, and two each of the legs, plus two little circles for the eyes, onto a single sixth of construction paper. I cut all 6 layers at once to save time.
To add interest, I used contrasting colors for the head and body versus the legs and eyes.
Time to assemble!
First step, glue the head to the body (I used regular old Elmer’s glue).
Next, apply two dots of glue to the center of the body and glue the front legs on. If, like mine, your froggy feet are a little crooked, you can flip one of the legs backwards to make them symmetrical.
Next, glue the eyes to the top corners of the head, making sure that they stick out above the head.
Now, flip him over and add a couple dots of glue to his little butt. Glue his hind legs into place.
Finally, glue on some googly eyes. I bought my baggie of them at the Dollar Tree. Can’t beat that!
Let them dry on parchment paper, then use a pen or marker to add a mouth and nose.
Now, if you’re doing this for a little boy, you may wish to stop reading now, or at least give the next part your own little twist. But this was supposed to be a PURPLE froggy party for my little princess, and so far, we had no purple. Moreover, I was dismayed to discover that neither of my packages of construction paper contained purple. What to do?
Well, I dug around in the art cabinet and found a dried up bottle of purple glitter paint. I added some water, let it sit for a bit, and then gave Ariel a paint brush and a piece of poster board.
Once it dried, I cut rectangles from it and glued them to the back of each frog, purple side facing forward. I left a good inch above the head of each frog.
I cut around the body, and then cut a little crown from the piece above the frog’s head.
Last step, I promise! I typed out a short invitation message and printed it on a piece of green scrapbooking paper, and glued that to the back.
And there you have it! Aren’t they super cute!?? Felicity loved running around with hers, croaking “ibbit! ibbit!” I’m told that her cousin did the same thing!
Filed under: Makeshiftin', Mommyin' | 10 Comments »