Aloha, all!
I have to tell you that bees and I in the wild together do not get along well at all. I've heard it said that dogs know if you're afraid of them (I'm generally not). But in my case, I could swear that every bee within a mile of me out in our garden senses the fear and heads straight toward it – and me!
But in my Craft Room, I love bees of all sorts. They're such cute critters when they don't have a stinger that can cause me pain! I've especially enjoyed the bee in the retiring (and sold out!) stamp set, Backyard Basics. So I'm especially pleased that the current challenge at Stampin' Up! Only Challenges is, "Birds, Bees and Butterflies." Of course i chose the bee – before I knew he was retiring/
I much prefer demonstrating on my blog things that you can actually purchase through me from Stampin' Up! But I made this card before I knew that it would sell out so quickly. I should have figured this would happen as it is such a delightful set!
I thought for this final outing for the stamp set on my blog, I'd pair these two little guys up with some other products that are retiring. There are actually a few of them that are still available for purchase (see the list at the end of the blog post). Oh, and the Backyard Basics Framelit Set that goes with this stamp set and that I used for the Bee and Flower is also retiring – but NOT sold out!
Before I go over the products that I used in this card, I'd like to point out what I did to make the bees stand out a bit. Even thought I stamped the image onto Summer Starfruit Cardstock, I still colored in the body and the legs of the bee with a Summer Starfruit Stampin' Write Marker. Then I outlined the image using the small end of a Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker.
First I picked the colors. I just love the color, Summer Starfruit, as a color for a bee. Why not also make it the color of the beehive that I made as a background for this card with the Honeycomb Embossing Folder? Another color that will be retiring this June is Primrose Petals. I used a sheet of the Primrose Petals colored paper from the 2012-2014 In Color Designer Series Paper Stack (retiring) to accent the cardstock. I tore it at an angle before adhering it to the card front made up of the honeycomb.
I used two other retiring colors to accent the flower, also from the Backyard Basics Stamp Set. Besides the Primrose Petals color in the flower, I also added in some Raspberry Ripple and Gumball Green. There's even a hint of the Summer Starfruit again in the flower centers.
For embellishments I used some of the Pearl Basic Jewels (not retiring!) and In Color Dahlias (retiring) using the Summer Starfruit as well as the two pink colors. I tied the whole card front together with some Victoria Crochet Trim (retiring AND sold out!), and added a Very Vintage Designer Button, tied with a piece of Gold Baker's Twine.
The good news for those who like to buy things they see here is that the Teeny Tiny Wishes Stamp Set, from which the greeting comes, as well as the Modern Label Punch that I used to punch out the sentiment, will still be around in the next catalog.
Here's a recap of the products I used for this project. If the product is not in the recap, it's retired AND Sold Out!
