Honey Bee Stamps

Hello everyone!
And a very Happy Monday to everyone – I am over on the Honey Bee Stamps blog today! YAY!

Today I am sharing a fresh and fun card which features the amazing new Happiness Stamp set!  Isn’t it simply amazing!? One of the really fun things about Honey Bee Stamps greeting stamp sets, is the way that you can build your own greeting – for both the large and small images.

For this card, I paired up two images to create the word ‘happiness’ and stamped this onto some smooth white cardstock using my MISTI and versamark ink. This allowed me to heat emboss the image with white embossing powder, as I wanted to use the ink resist technique on this card today.

Once I had ‘happiness’ stamped, I used some of the other word stamps to build up the whole sentiment. Once again I stamped and heat embossed these onto the cardstock using some white embossing powder.

Once my embossing had cooled, I used a small ink blending tool to add some Broken China distress ink to the central part of my card – just enough so the words could be read clearly, and I faded the edges out to white for a nice soft finish.

Next I used some Lawn Fawn cloud dies to cut out a few cloud shapes. When I had figured out where I wanted the clouds to overlap, I used the large die to cut a section out of the smaller cloud die cuts – this meant that I can nestle them up next to one another on the card, and they almost look like one complete shape.

If you take a close look, you will see that each cloud is made up of two layers, and to add some dimension to the card, I used the cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder on the top layer of the large cloud – just for fun!

The Lawn Fawn Spring Showers die set also has a cute die which cuts out little tiny raindrops, so I thought this would be a perfect addition to this card. So that my clouds were sprinkling raindrops of happiness, I stamped each die cut raindrop with a tiny love heart from the Beautiful Life stamp set. Once all my raindrops were stuck in place, I coated each one with two layers of Ranger glossy accents so they each have a gorgeous glassy domed dimension!

Thanks of joining me today, and next week on the Honey Bee Stamps Blog I have a fun interactive Christmas card to share with you guys!

Whats that? You want a sneak peek? Well, okay then… here you go! 🙂

Until then, have a wonderful week, and I shall look forward to seeing all you guys again next week – when I will well and truly be in the Christmas mood!!  🙂

Happy Crafting!!

Lesley x

Hey guys,

Yes I am STILL in love with Autumn, even though it is starting to feel more like Winter outside these days! I don’t think I am quite ready to let go of my favourite season just yet…. but soon I must face reality and start my Christmas shopping!!… Soon, but not quite yet! 🙂

A few weeks back, I shared an Autumnal Wreath card with you guys on the HoneyBeeStamps blog, and a few days after, on my craft table I noticed the leftover piece of cardstock that I had used to cut out the die cuts. It looked so pretty- almost like a mask or stencil. I decided that it would be fun to try using die cut negatives as a stencil for embossing paste.

To start this card, I took a piece of white cardstock, and drew an oval on it with pencil – I actually used a spellbinders die as I had one in my stash. Next I used a selection of dies from the Honey Bee Stamps Country Wreath die set to cut out leaf shapes within the oval.

I knew I wanted to use embossing paste, but I only had a white colour, so I reached for my gelatos. I chose yellow, red, green and gold. Using a craft mat, I scribbled the gelato onto the surface, then added a blob of embossing paste and mixed the colour throughout the paste with my palate knife.

I used washi tape to secure the handmade mask on top of my cardstock, and carefully added blobs of each colour of embossing paste. I tried to go slow and use small amounts, as I didn’t want all the colours to blend together into a muddy colour. Once I was happy that each leaf had a variety of colours, I gently lifted the stencil away, and put the project to the side to dry completely. This is always the hardest part for me — I can be so impatient!

To be honest, when it was dry, I did not love it. The colours didn’t look quite right, they were too bright, and some of the shapes had lost their leafy-feel. But I don’t give up that easily!

I then took the co-ordinating stamps from the Country Wreath stamp set, and stamped on the top of each leaf. I love the way the stamped image almost creates a debossed image in the dimensional embossing paste! And those colourful blobs really do look like leaves now!

For the rest of the card, I wanted to go for a simple and elegant look, and I really didn’t want to cover those awesome leaves, so I reached for craft foam, mirror card and the Beautiful HoneyCuts die. Its hard to see but on top of the leaves I have stuck the word beautiful, die cut from craft foam, and then layered a piece of acetate on top. Then, I carefully added another die cut foam beautiful on top, before finishing up with a piece of die cut mirror card.

To finish the card, I added a thin golden border to the acetate, and some Honey Bee Stamps Diamond embellishments!

Doesn’t that gold mirror card look so pretty when the light catches it! And I think those leaves turned out sweet after all!

Thanks for visiting, have a great day!