Today’s tutorial is a lot fun! The young ones in your life will LOVE playing with this lily pad hopscotch. Parents will also like this activity as it promotes numeracy, patterns, sorting, and gross motor skills like jumping and throwing. The variations of this game are endless. You can place the lily pads in a standard hopscotch pattern or change it up by arranging the lily pads in a circle. Try hopping on only the even numbers or jumping backwards down the hopscotch path. My daughter likes to scatter the lily pads in a random order and then hopscotch from 1 to 10 that way.
And who can resist this adorable beanbag frog? My son loves this little guy. I think he is drawn the texture of the beans in the bag. Play hopscotch by throwing the beanbag frog onto a lily pad and then try avoiding the lily pad that the frog landed on.
It takes very little time to design and cut this craft with your Silhouette cutter. It’s the assembly that takes a bit of time because there is a lot of gluing involved. You can either laminate the lily pads or use contact paper. If you choose to use contact paper, plan to add and extra hour to your project time. This craft is well worth the time investment though. It is my kids favourite activity that I have made with my Silhouette Cameo.
MATERIALS:
Green, yellow, white, and red paper (plain paper works fine, but green card stock would give the lily pads more stability)
Glue stick
Contact paper (or laminate)
Fabric/thread for the frog beanbag
Sewing machine
2 large Goggly eyes
Glue gun
Silhouette electronic cutter, cutting mat, spatula
3D Flower- Water Lily #26921 and Frog #1276 from the Silhouette Online Store
HOPSCOTCH LILY PAD:
On a blank document in the Silhouette Studio Software, open the 3D Flower-Water Lily #26921 from the Silhouette Online Store. Change the paper size by going to File and selecting Page Setup. Ensure the Paper Size is listed as US Letter. Click OK and your cutting mat screen will adjust accordingly. Ungroup the shape by clicking the Ungroup Selected Shapes icon in the bottom left corner of the screen and increase the lily pad image so that it fills an 8 1/2″ x 11″ sheet of paper. My lily pad was 8.655″ x 8.22″. Now adjust the large yellow pedals to 4.14″ x 4.14″ and the small white pedals to 1.975″ x 1.975″. Place only the lily pad on the cutting mat and click the Send to Silhouette icon (top left of tool bar). Cut the lily pad 10 times.
Remove the lily pad off the cutting mat screen and replace it with the large yellow flower pedals. You will need 3 yellow pedal shapes per flower. Arrange the pedals as shown below cut this sheet for a total of 5 times.
Remove the large yellow pedals from the cutting board screen and replace it with the small white flower pedals. I made a few extra copies of the white flower pedal just in case I made a mistake. You will need 3 white pedals per flower. If you arrange the pedals as shown below, you will only have to cut this sheet once.
Remove the white flower from the cutting mat. On a blank cutting mat, click on the Text Icon. Type the numbers 1 to 10. I used the Apple Casual font with a text size of 400 pt. Cut the numbers out using your Silhouette cutting machine.
That’s all the cutting! Now it’s time to assemble your lily pads. Prearrange your numbers and flowers on the lily pad to ensure there is plenty of room for both shapes. Glue the flower then the number as it is ok to have the number slightly overlap the flower. Ensure the the pedals on the flowers are fanned evenly.
You can either laminate or use contact paper to protect the lily pad from ripping and general abuse from being trampled on. I used contact paper. It took a bit of time to cut the contact paper, smooth out all the air bubbles and cut around the edges. Laminating would definitely give it a more professional look.
There you have it! Your lily pads are done!
BEANBAG FROG:
Place Frog #1276 on your cutting mat in the Silhouette Studio Software. Do not adjust the default size. It should be 8.805″ x 7.290″.
Next, locate the Offset icon (top right). Ensuring the frog image is selected, press Offset. Adjust the offset distance to 0.19″ so that the legs are defined and the toes are a bit bigger for easier sewing. You will now have two images, the original frog and the offset frog.
Delete the original frog shape, keeping the offset frog. Send to Silhouette, cutting your frog pattern on thin paper.
Pin your frog pattern to your fabric. Ensure the fabric is double layered and that the wrong side of the fabric is facing out. Cut your pattern with scissors and proceed to sew around the edge (wrong side still facing out). Leave a hole in the frog’s bum so you can fill it with beans. You will have to make your seam allowances VERY small, especially around the legs and toes. You will want to be able to turn the frog right side out with some degree of ease.
NOTE: You can cut fabric using your Silhouette but you have to iron sewable fabric interfacing on the wrong side of your fabric. I don’t like sewing with interfacing, so I chose to cut from a pattern instead. If you choose to cut your fabric with the Silhouette, you will have to mirror your frog image so that when you place the right sides of your fabric together, they match.
Once the sewing is completed, turn your frog right side out. Then use a funnel to fill the frog with small beans, small enough to fit up the narrow leg holes.
Hand stitch the bum closed and hot glue some goggly eyes onto the frog’s head. You now have completed the frog!
Tip: Beans may go everywhere if you try filling the lower legs before sewing the bum closed. Once the bum is sewn up, ease beans into the legs. Also, don’t overstuff the frog. He’s more fun to play with when he is a little floppy.
That’s all for this week. Leave a comment if you like what you see, if you try this craft out, or if you have any questions. I’d love to know that someone out there is reading this 🙂
Martha
Silhouette Crafting With Martha 
Martha, I love this craft! I think that frog is the cutest bit- did he take a long time to sew up? I used to love hopscotch, though of course I haven’t played in years… perhaps it’s time to make this so I can introduce it to my nieces! I think I would just laminate the lilypads instead of using contact paper, as you suggested!
The frog didn’t take much time at all. It was hard sewing around the toes though. I should have left bigger seam allowances and this probably would have helped. I’m glad you liked it!