The Life of the Bee...

Hello Friends

I hope you are still staying safe and well in these crazy times.  I had a week off from doing projects as Guest designer for AALL & Create so I could concentrate on making samples for Tracy Evans' Hochanda shows..  

I am sharing the 'how to' for one of those projects today.  It has been shown on Facebook already but I have had several requests for more detail...  The idea originated from a tin I saw on Pinterest a while back. The beautiful bee is from Tracy's newly released Honeybee stamp set #330.

And here is the inside of the tin...

I condensed the photos so as not to make the post too long.  I used the products below, along with the AALL & Create Cells die by Bipasha BK.

1.  Take a piece of card 11" x 1.3/4" and score at 1/4" intervals, scoring on the 1.3/4" side.

2.  Glue along the long side to form a long honeycomb shape.

3.  Once the glue is dry, cut the shape into 1/4" pieces.

4.  Join the pieces together to form a honeycomb shape.

5.  Use black gesso on the inside of the tin.

6.  Stamp the honeycomb from Tracy's Honeybee stamp set onto tissue paper.

7.  Paint the top of the tin, and the reverse side of the stamped tissue with Fresco paint in Haystack. 

8.  Line the inside front of the tin and the sides of the bottom half of the tin with book pages.  I used pages from a vintage book (The Life of the Bee), paint with watered down Haystack paint and splatter with some Vintage Photo Distress Ink to add to the 'aged' look.

9.  Add the prepared 'honeycomb' to the base of the tin. Create faux honey by using Seth Apter's Vintage Beeswax along with some Tim Holtz Distress Glaze in Fossilized Amber, adding the powders in thin layers and heating each layer until the desired depth is achieved.

10.  Add the painted tissue to the top of the tin, using Matte Medium to attach it and then also seal the layer with Matte Medium.

11.  Use Washi Tape to decorate the lower part of the outside of the tin, sealing this with Matte Medium.

12.  Stamp and fussy cut two bees, colour them and emboss with two layers of clear embossing powder.
13.  Stamp and fussy cut the beehive for the inside lid of the tin (not shown).  I wrapped some thin wire around the beehive, added some charms for detail and used 3D glue to raise the beehive slightly.

14.  Die cut Bipasha's Cells die and trim to fit the top of the tin.  Use Vintage Photo Distress Ink to age the die cut, glue in place and add one of the bees.

15.  Finally, add the second bee to the honeycomb inside the tin. 

Here is final view of the finished tin

You can find a list of worldwide stockists for the AALL & Create stamp and die set I used HERE.

Thanks so much for your visit, I really appreciate it.

Take care and I hope to see you again soon.

Hugs, Anne xxx

Honeybee ...

Hello Friends

I hope you are still staying safe and well.  We are still in lock down here, just watching the world going by from a distance.

My Guest designer project this week for AALL & Create is a mini album using Tracy Evans' wonderful newly released stamp set - Honeybee #330. 

 I absolutely love the stamp set and can think of lots of way I want to use it.  I also used the Cells die by Bipasha BK #14 as the cells were a good match with Tracy's stamp set.

I started by cutting one of Eileen Hull's Notebooks (Sizzix 663635) from matboard and covered the outside with Tim Holtz Distress paint in Fossilized Amber.  I used some Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap and stamped the honeycomb randomly over the tissue.

I attached the stamped Tissue Wrap to the Notebook with Matt Medium.

I stamped, coloured and fussy cut the bee hive and the bee.

I attached the beehive to the cover, adding some tiny bee charms and some wire for extra detail.  The numbers, top right are from Bipasha's Cells die (I didn't want to waste them!).

I created two signatures for the inside, by painting more card in Fossilized Amber, stamping the honeycomb in black and adding the die cut Cells, the lovely stamped bee and the beehive.  I coated the bee with Glossy Accents. 

I also stamped the bee onto shrink plastic, coloured it and attached the shrunken bee to the bottom right side of one signature.

To finish off I added some bee charms to a Tim Holtz binder clip to add to the side of the mini album.

You can find a list of worldwide stockists for the stamps and die that I used HERE.

Here is a final look, I am really pleased with the result.

Thanks so much for your visit, I hope to see you again soon.

Keep safe and well.  Hugs, Anne xxx