Bee-Hapee Gift Bag

I love honey and have a high regard for industrious bees so I collect lots of bee papers, dies, stamps, and embellishments.  I have a friend who has 'Queen Bee' in her email address so I love giving her bee related craft items packaged in decorated bee bags. Here is the latest bag I decorated for her using a L'Occitane bag because of it's great golden yellow color.  I tried to just cover up the words on the bag but I got a little carried away and ended up covering almost all of the exterior of the bag.  Hahaha!  I started with a sheet of Disney Winnie-the-Pooh paper because of the honey comb design.  In my stash I found a cute bee ribbon (purchased at HM BFC) which I used to embellish the rim of the bag and made a bee bow with a Darice felt bee.

This close up shows the texture I added by impressing a hexagon in a texture plate. By cutting off the shank of the Darice bee buttons I was able to add more cuteness.

On the back of the honeycomb bag, I added a Whimsy stamped bear and bee hive.  They were stamped, colored with Copic pens, and fussy cut before adhering with foam adhesives.  The labels on the front and back of the bag were made from stamped words that were in the Whimsy set.

I loved the other bear image in the stamp set so I HAD to use it on at least one crafted item for my Queen Bee friend.  I chose to decorate a Sierra Pacific note pad with a magnetic closure.  

It was easy to cover the notepad with printed card stock (Doodlebug) and add the colored bear image plus the stamped words.  

I've found many 'bee items' to fill the gift bag for my sweet friend. I hope she'll appreciate the effort that went into its creation bee-cuzzzz she is truly the Queen Bee!

 

To-Go Cup Gift Card Holder

I thought you might like to see the To-Go cup gift card holder I made to match the birthday card that I posted earlier. Because I didn't have any more of the hand dyed and stenciled paper that I created for the card, I searched my Hawaiian print papers for something that would match.  I found a paper, but it was too thin to use as a gift card holder so I cut an extra set from plain card stock and glued the die cut Hawaiian print paper to it.  Using Kraft-paper colored card stock for the other parts of the cup, I was able to create a card holder that pleased me.  I was happy that the Ai set has both the stamps and dies.  The dies even make impressions that add to the realism and there are word stamps included too!.  On the backside of the card holder you can see the gift card peeking out at the corners.  Amazingly, the gift card color matched the card holder too....can you guess what company logo is on the gift card?

 

A very special little boy is celebrating a 2nd birthday so I decided to make him a Spot birthday card to go with the Eric Hill Spot books we are giving him this year.  I remembered an old Sizzix die that I had to make step cards and thought it would be a perfect base for the images and die cut words.  The Spot clear stamps were from a set that came with a magazine I purchased from Barnes and Noble. They were stamped with permanent black Momento ink, colored with Copic pens, fussy cut, and adhered with foam adhesives. The balloons were enhanced with transparent glitter.

This side view shows how simple it would be to make this card even if you don't have the die....just some straight cuts and a corner clipper. I chose a balloon printed card stock that had a reverse side of colorful twisted banners so that the card and front panels could all be cut from one 12x12 piece of card stock. The word plaques were from a set of die cut pieces I found in my stash of birthday stuff.  I used the Lawn Fawn die cut numbers to cut out the foil '2'.  The 'Happy Birthday' words were also a stamp that came with the Spot stamp set. As a fan of the Spot books, I think the birthday boy will enjoy this card which can be put on display in his room. Here's to another great year of reading!

Happy Dad's Day Card

Although my husband doesn't tell Dad jokes, he is a pretty funny guy. We love to make jokes about him!  I couldn't resist using the new Lawn Fawn stamp and die sets, You Goat This and Dad Jokes for his Father's Day card.  Word pun jokes are so lame that they're funny. The goats are really cute and easy to color....they'll be used on future cards for sure.

Included with the 'You Goat This'  stamp set are the words I used on the inside of the card.  The pretty mint green floral background paper is actually a sheet of origami paper I purchased from Daiso.  There are 60 assorted beautiful floral 6x6 sheets in a pack for only $1.50....a fantastic deal!  (I used dry tape  to adhere the origami paper sheets to the card.)  Whenever anyone was labeled the G.O.A.T.  I didn't understand what it meant and thought they were insulting the person. Hahaha! Rather than calling him an old goat, I decided to use this card to let my husband know that we all think he IS the Greatest Father of All Time!                                                     

 

Imagine Unicorns Card

I couldn't wait to make something with a sheet of Whimsy Rainbow Magic slimline card stock. The sheets are so pretty and colorful. I thought that they would pair well with unicorn stamps and since I hadn't inked up the Whimsy unicorn zebra stamp, it was the one I chose. I thought it would be fun to have the zebra  imagining himself as a unicorn.  I used Versa Magic dazzle ink to stamp the zebra, unicorns and 'imagine'. Then I heat embossed them with Nuvo black sparkle powder.  The images were colored with Copic markers and glittered up with transparent clear powder. They are really sparkly but it's not obvious from the photo.  The clouds were embossed with clear Dazzle ink and Nuvo turquoise powder.  I use clear Dazzle ink because if necessary the stamped image can be wiped off if flaws are seen after the powder is applied but before heating. I chose to frame the rainbow slimline card stock with lavender and found a matching slimline envelope (Paper Accents envelope pack at HM BFC).  This card was made just for fun but I can see using it as a graduation card, birthday card, or maybe even a retirement card. Imagine!

 

Simple Pearl and Gemstone Earrings

I was making two earrings for gifts so I decided to make two extra to sell in my locker box at Hilo HM Ben Franklin Crafts.  The hardest thing about making these earrings is choosing the pearls and gemstones to make matching pairs.  I use just one ball end gold filled head pin for each earring in the pair.  A needle nose plier was used to form the small loop (and wire wrap the excess wire) from which the earring will hang from the gold filled ear wire.  The other essential tool is the side cutting clipper (see lower left hand of tool set) Although I did buy this small amazing tool set from HM  BFC, for this simple jewelry project I really only used the two tools mentioned. I work over an empty open box from Big Island Candies which is set upon a folding TV tray in front of our flat screen TV. It's a simple but productive work area for me.  If you are looking for an easy craft project you should try making earrings. I think you will really enjoy making wearable crafts.

 

Bokeh Friendship Card

This simple card was inspired by the Whimsy Stamps paper pack called Bokeh Bliss. I loved the beautiful designs even though I had no idea what bokeh was. A Google search revealed that bokeh refers to the out of focus dots that a camera lens captures in some photos.  Anyway, I decided that most of the sheets in the 6x6 paper pad would pair well with this old Hero Arts wooden handled stamp, Design Block Happiness Grows. It was super easy to stamp the design onto the paper with clear ink and heat emboss it with silver embossing powder.  Using a Sizzix die, I cut out a square to fit on the 5" square card blank and used double stick Heiko tape to adhere it. The last step was to glue on the acrylic dewdrops.  This friendship card (good for many occasions) was a snap to make and I was able to make it and blog it in just two hours!  You know I'm going to make more and now you know what 'bokeh' means too!

 

Welcome Little One Card

Since I had all my baby crafting supplies out and an extra piece of the printed card stock that I had leftover from the previous baby shower card, I decided to make a matching baby card. Also, I wanted to test out a new scallop frame die from Whimsy and I thought that this card would be enhanced by the fancy edging.  I started with a card blank with a shimmer finish. I intended to align the scallop die almost to the edge of the card fold so that the card would have a scallop hinge.  However, I cut through both layers and had to deal with two scalloped pieces.  The solution was to fold the top edge of the back piece and glue it to the front piece.  I think the resulting card is better than what I had planned.  It was simple work to use the smaller straight sided die to cut the printed card stock and adhere it to the scalloped card blank.  Also super simple was using the Echo Park word dies to cut the purple shimmer paper and glue them onto the card front.  

The cute giraffe was made using the Sizzix stamp and die set. I colored the giraffe with water color pencils and tied a pastel Heiko ribbon around her neck.  While going through my baby crafting supplies, I 'discovered' a really good word stamp that I forgot I had. It was a no-brainer to use it inside the card...jazzing it up with some Doodlebug dimensional heart stickers.  I think that it is fun to coordinate the shower card with the baby card....wonder if the parents will notice?  I imagine they'll be way too busy with the 'little one'....LOL!