Froglife Launches New Online Shop

Just in time for your Christmas shopping, we are delighted to announce the launch of a brand new Froglife online shop! 

With books, greetings cards, explorer packs for families and students, sponsorship gifts and other ideas, there are lots of potential pressies for the wildlife-lover in your life.  We also have a new range of Christmas cards featuring colourful and quirky designs.

Not only will be you be treating someone to a unique and unusual gift or card every time you shop with us, your gifts will also give something back to wildlife.  Every penny we make through your shopping comes back to the charity to support our conservation and education work.  These really are gifts that keep giving, spreading that Christmas cheer from family and friends to amphibians and reptiles.

You can find the brand new Froglife shop here

Our Christmas card range this year includes a Hoppy Christmas Card by artist Ruby Tingle, and two newt-inspired designs from our Great Crafted Newt competition including some lovely knitted creations by Sara Collins.  The cards are available in the shop here – they are available as individual cards and in a pack of 6.



Ruby's Christmas Card is available in the new shop here

Sara's knitted newts are available here

• If you’re shopping elsewhere online you can still support frogs, toads, newts, snakes and lizards by using Give as You Live.  This clever scheme enables big stores such as Amazon, John Lewis, Argos and Cath Kidson to make donations to charities at no cost to you.  You can get started and find out more here.

Thank you for supporting wildlife this Christmas, and happy shopping!

Announcing the Great Crafted Newt Winners!

To celebrate the Year of the Dragon, Froglife has been asking people to make their own ‘water dragons’ in our Great Crafted Newt competition.  As the nights draw in and the newt find their spot for the winter, its time to announce the winners!

“The competition has been a great way of reaching new audiences,’ says Laura Brady, one of the education team at Froglife.  “It’s been fantastic having cuddly newts arriving in the post and colourful pictures coming in via email. You can really see the time and hard work people have put into their creations, and they all have their own characters.  Thank you everyone that entered - I hope they enjoyed making the newts and leaning more about these fantastic creatures.”

We had some help with the judging from author Hugh Warwick, artist Brandon Ballangee, Pebble toys and Mint Publishing, and we are delighted to announce the winners.

Best Newt Accessory - Katherine Forster for her amazing multi functional newt hat, the little newt on top can sit either in the pond hat, or as a lovely brooch!

The Model Newt under 12’s – Ifan Jones, aged 5. Ifan made a fantastic plastercine newt, which he took for a walk and took some amazing photos! When his mum told him he won the competition she said, ‘ Ifan was delighted to hear he had won and it has inspired him to even more craftiness (we may need a new house soon to find room for it all) his latest creation is an A1 picture showing the adventures of newty and his side kick tadpole’ I think we have a great artist in the making here!

Cutest Newt under 12’s – Ifan Biddle also won in this category; as our youngest entry it’s great to see what passion he has for wildlife.

The Model Newt over 18’s – Lynette Plenderleith, who created "Bert Newt(on)" . He is made from modelling clay, and had a very exotic photo shoot all the way in Rocky Waterhole Creek in Brisbane, Australia!

Cuddly Newt under 12’s - Rosanna Russell, aged 11. Rosanna took some lovely photos of her newt in her garden and with a little help from her mum made this lovely newt from fabric, sequins, buttons, stuffing and beads.

Cuddly Newt over 18’s – Anne Johnson. Anne made her beautiful newt by using two balls of wool together to give a close weave, and she embroidered the eyes and mouth on. Anne often knits for charity, and judges Pebble were so impressed, they are looking into possibly creating a replica for their range of ethical toys.

Cutest Newt over 18’s - Anne McKinnie. Her wonderful knitted newt is now being much enjoyed by her 18 month old daughter, which is great to hear!

Most interesting Photo – Dr Sara Collins for ‘Camouflage Newt’. Mint publishing chose this photo of Norman the newt as their favourite photo. After taking Norman on a road trip to their offices they are now looking into possibly using him in a photo for their card range!

A big thank you to everyone who took part, the judges and the orgnisations who supported the competition for helping us to raise the profile of these declining amphibians.  There are three species of native newts in the UK, with Great Crested Newts protected due to particularly bad declines.

Prizes include goodies thanks to Cath Kidston, books by Hugh Warwick and our Patron Mike Dilger, and amphibian related gifts.  Sara’s newts Neville and Norman also feature on Froglife’s Christmas cards for 2012, with the potential to be made into cards by Mint Publishing.  Anne Johnson’s multicoloured newt is also be considered as a new toy in Pebble’s ethical range of crocheted creatures.

• You can see more of the photos from the competition on our Facebook page here
• Froglife's Christmas cards are now available in the revamped online shop here
• You can also order a pack of patterns and ideas for making your own newts from the shop here
• Find out more about our native newts and what you can do to help them here

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