Happy MLK Jr. Day to those of you in the US! K has the day off so I’m quickly rattling off today’s rather crafty garment.
Post-Christmas, K became the proud Mama of two fire-bellied toads. Meet Camouflage (or maybe this one’s Muddy, we can’t tell):
Here’s K pretending to be amphibious:
The frog craze has set in, and K is all about these little green critters. Speaking of critters, no one warned me that they eat crickets. This has made me very unhappy, particularly when we had a dramatic cricket mass exodus (okay, it was only three of them innocently chirping on K’s many strewn books on the floor, but still). Crickets on the loose. I didn’t handle it well, I’m afraid. Below is where the frogs live. Notice K’s demanding warnings.
Anyway. She’s been a fabulous froggy mama, and has been taking very good care of them, emptying out the water dish regularly and carefully scooping out the frog eggs with a spoon to preserve them (yes, we ended up with a boy and a girl and there’s a lot of impassioned croaking going on every evening). We have yet to see a tadpole, but she has high hopes. I read that fire-bellied toads lay up to 200 eggs. Again, not happy about this.
I keep getting sidetracked, but K asked me for a frog t-shirt. She had, as always, very precise instructions, so this called for busting out the fabric paint.
I used freezer paper stenciling for the “I” and the heart and the general shape of the frog. I hand-painted the details on the frog – pretty cute, no?
K adores it.
The tee pattern is my go-to pattern these days, and is the same one I used for the black stripey and floral here. Those t-shirts get worn every week, and I know that she’ll reach for this froggy one frequently too.
But I actually had a different version in mind, so I carved a little stamp. I did, in fact, sew another t-shirt in black and had grand plans to try to stamp the frog in gold, but I used a weird fabric that didn’t stretch much, and K said it was too tight. You win some, you lose some. I’ll show you a stamped version if I get around to it. (I should point out that this frog design was inspired by something similar I saw in a Japanese stamp carving book – mine is not nearly as darling as the one in the book).
Sigh. I think these guys are growing on me. Sort of.
That is a great shirt… unfortunately I know about making shirts with not enough stretch. 🙁
I love all the details you put on the frog. I made my youngest a yoda shirt for Christmas and he loves it!
You should use the stamp to make fun froggy valentines with those cute hearts!!
Good idea about the Valentine’s Kristi! K would love those :-). And yep, the non-stretchy tee was a bummer, but I already have another one cut out thati’m planning on finishing up soon! Thank you 🙂
Adorable! Where do you get your fabric paint? Does it have to be heat set?
Thank you, Greta! I got my fabric paints at Blick Art store, and they do have to be heat set, but only for a couple of minutes on each side.
Now I imagine you feeding live crickets to the frogs! I am not sure I could do this!! Escaped crickets would have freaked me out as well, how on earth did you catch them again? You are a brave woman 🙂 The shirt is very cute and I agree, the frog stamp would be perfect for Valentine cards. (Did you see Handmade by Carolyn ‘ s Jungle January lingerie set inspired by a beautiful blue – red frog? It is amazing!)
I need to check out Carolyn’s lingerie (that came out sounding odd)…As for the crickets, I put on a pair of latex gloves, got a plastic cup and snuck up on each cricket. They’re actually quite easy to catch but I seemed to be screaming an awful lot through the process. K tried to help, but got scared that there might be crickets hidden everywhere and froze in place…the funny thing is, I’m now used to the crickets and find them pretty fascinating — as long as they’re in their cage 🙂
only you could make a frog look that adorable:)
Haha, thanks Lucinda! The real ones are surprisingly cute too – I’m definitely less squeamish about them by now 🙂
Gorgeous Sanae! How cool for K to have her mamma making her designs for her!
I hope you get tadpoles… I have such fun memories of ones my brother and I rescued from a puddle after a few weeks unusually heavy rain!
Thanks, Beth! This was a quick and fun project! So far we’ve had very few egg survivors — one batch got accidentally flushed down the toilet as part of the water dish clean-up, another simply disappeared (do frogs eat their offspring?) and another one accidentally got halved when K scooped them up…I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little relieved, but I also felt sad for the tadpoles-to-be…
The frog shirt is way cool!! I think the frogs look very nice too! I am glad to hear that you are still sewing everything. Even the basics like t shirts. It is a big deal to decide something and to stick to it. good for you!
I try really really hard to stick to things — I have this outsized obsession with keeping my word and it drives me crazy to not follow-through. It’s weird, I know. Thanks for acknowledging that, Max!
I’m so bad with blog reading lately- which means I binge read many posts at once! Yours is always one of my faves … BUT, after reading about the frog eggs, I might’ve gotten a little queasy- ha! So good of you to “preserve” them. A-hem… Anyway, love the shirt- it’s just adorable on K! 🙂
I hear you, Erin! I’ve been the worst with keeping up with blogs…and YES, I totally understand that the frog eggs reference made you queasy because let me tell you, this has been no joy ride for me. I am, admittedly, getting used to the frogs and crickets but…well, the frogs aren’t all that crazy about me either though they do seem to love K (they hop right into her hand when she is cleaning their cage). 🙂