Latest Toad-news and activities
Derbyshire Makes: Cabinet of Treasures, 2026
What makes a place special?
From the old trees of Manor Park to the waters of Shelf Brook; from the crashing river of Kinder Downfall to ghosts following the old paths of Doctor’s Gate, the Glossop area is full of treasures. Those treasures might be landscapes, or stories or histories or uncertainties (why is REDGATE in Little Padfield called Redgate?) but they might just as easily be the house where you live, the park where you play, your family, your friends, the neighbour who always helps.
We have been collecting Treasures: inviting people to add their own treasure: person, place, activity; animal, plant or story, to our Cabinet of Treasures. This has been a Derbyshire-based project but that principle of “treasures” being the things you value and the wonderfully potty doll’s house cabinet that has grown from the activites applies everywhere, anywhere….
Working through Derbyshire Makes with High Peak Community Arts, Creeping Toad has been running public events through April, inviting people to drop in, to think and make and talk and simply be creative!
As we gather these Treasures, we’re building them into tiny rooms with opening doors, into scenes a few centimetres long, into matchboxes.Most of these have gone home with their makers but we’ve been gathering some into a doll’s house of a Cabinet that will go on display in Glossop in May 2026 and become a digital gallery here at Creeping Toad.
as I add this page, work is still developing….to see what’s happened so far, go to: https://creepingtoad.blogspot.com/2026/03/filling-cabinet-of-treasures.html
The finished Cabinet will appear here shortly!
new books from Creeping Toad!
moments of wonder, moments of sorrow, tales from the darkness of caves and the depths of a freezing Arctic night and ideas, inspirations and challenges for exploring your own relationships with the animal kingdoms… go to the Books page
STORYTELLING IN 2024: new information, new workshops, new laughter and wild imaginations. Find out more HERE
Shadows and wonders
Shadow Puppets: visit the Out and About page for a new workshop for schools or public events playing with light, shade, colour and excitement…..there might be dragons, forests of enchanted trees rotating across a ceiling, flying birds, running wolves….
Creeping Toad works with groups to find ways of celebrating the places where people live, work and play
Creeping Toad:
- tells old stories
- creates new stories with poems
- invites explorations
- creates celebrations
There are treasure chests and pirates and dragons
There might be lost tales, mouse maps, finger-tip elephants or fluttering butterflies
We might make wolf masks, processional fish, colourful flags or a woodland of dancing tree-people
There could be tiny bottle lanterns, giant lantern bumblebees or maybe just a simple winter woodland glow for a December tabletop
We might work with ponds and pools, rivers, gardens and parks
There might be trees, wood, moors, mosses and squelchy bogs,
fossils, stepping stones, sand and rock
crystals, caves, shadows and lights….
Creeping Toad celebrates people, places and wildlife
Try the Creeping Toad Youtube channel for stories, poems and cheerful wierdness
https://www.youtube.com/user/Creepingtoad
storytelling, story making, book building, pond-dipping, bug hunting, flower watching, tree chasing, puppets, processions,
lanterns, flags, masks, monsters and more,
who knows what may feature in a Toad project?
challenging, cheerful, inspiring, confidence raising, skills building,
Creeping Toad events, projects and training courses are also,
quite simply,
fun!
