sunflower

Have you all checked out the absolutely FABULOUS new release products?! I mean, really. Sunflowers, pumpkins, coffee cups, critters… There’s seriously something for every style and preference. My weekly blogging day for Honey Bee happens to fall on Fridays, so I haven’t posted any release creations yet… which means that I have three projects to share with you today! Let’s get started with the details!

For this first project, I decided to use Seasonal Sweeties and the coordinating dies to create a gloomy, but hopeful card… this one definitely reminds me of Eeyore, so it’s an homage to gray and darker gray. Ha! I started by die cutting and heat embossing the girl with the umbrella and her darling little pup from Seasonal Sweeties onto some watercolor paper, then watercoloring her with my Daniel Smith watercolors.

For the background, I stamped and heat embossed several of the little raindrop stamps included in the Seasonal Sweeties stamp set onto another A2 panel, then did a light blue gray watercolor wash for a gloomy sky background. I die cut some clouds from gray and pale blue shimmer paper to create some rain clouds, popping them up with dimensional adhesive. I added a strip of charcoal card stock at the bottom of the card front, to ground my little duo and create a sort of road for her to be standing on. I heat embossed the sentiment from Seasonal Sweeties onto the same charcoal card stock and used the coordinating dies for the calligraphic words. I popped both my girl and the greeting up with dimensional foam adhesive and scattered some Galaxy sequins about to add some more texture.

For my second project for today, I used the lovely sunflower stamps from Happy Fall Y’all to create this summery project. (It’s been so HOT around here… Fall teased us for a couple of weeks, but then summer came back in full force last week. I am not a fan.) I die cut and stamped several of the pretty sunflowers onto (more) watercolor paper and again watercolored them with my Daniel Smith watercolor paints.

For the background, I wanted a subtle pattern, and sunflowers remind me of a tidy little farm with rolling hills and a chicken coop, and a chicken coop reminds me of chicken wire… and the Hexagon stencil set reminds me of chicken wire. Perfect! (Sometimes it’s tiring being in my head haha!) I blended some Iced Spruce Distress Oxide ink over the top of the stencil, concentrating the color in the bottom right corner, because I wanted it to gradually fade away from my climbing sunflowers. I also die cut one of the coordinating word dies included in the Happy Fall Y’all, both in white card stock,  but I put my Iced Spruce Oxide ink pad directly to the larger “fall” accent die cut to create a custom colored die cut that perfectly matched my chicken wire blending. After arranging my flowers and greeting just so, I added some NEW Fall Equinox sequins here and there to finish the card.

For my final project today, I have used Hey Pumpkin to create a little Halloween card. I’ll be honest. I’ve never made a Halloween card in my life up to this point. My nieces and nephews were too small to understand, and most kids (including my own) don’t really “get” the point of a card at such a tender age. But, my niece and nephew are finally old enough that I think it would be absolutely darling to have my kids send their cousins a Halloween card! And the new Hey Pumpkin set is simply precious. The little hat is optional, so you can make it a non-Halloween project… Plus, that pumpkin was a blast to color. I don’t naturally gravitate towards orange, but I am almost always pleased with the results when I do use it!

To start, I die cut and stamped the main image and the witch hat from Hey Pumpkin using Versafine ink and clear embossing powder, then colored it with my Zig markers. I knew I wanted to put the die cut onto a blended sky background, so I made sure to add some orange behind the trees and around the top edge of the die cut, because you know me and that little white edge…. it makes me twitchy haha.

For the background, I blended Seedless Preserves, Picked Raspberry, and Spiced Marmalade Distress Oxide inks (I’m in love with the new release colors!) down the front of a white A2 panel, then added the greeting from Hey Pumpkin using Versafine and clear embossing powder. I popped up the witchy die cut using dimensional foam adhesive and sprinkled on some of the new Enchanted Plum sequins.

Well, that’s all from me today! I hope you’ve enjoyed all of the fabulous inspiration from the Honey Bee Design team this week…. this release is just so amazing! All of the new products that we’ve been teasing you with are now available in the shop, so go get your shop on! But…..