Bee Happy Bear Card

I've had an interest in bees ever since a hive decided to take up residence between the double walls of our house.  They built quite a large hive until it was evident that we had to remove them or risk the collapse of our side wall.  We tried smoking them out but that didn't work for long.  Bees are persistent insects.  Reluctantly, we resorted to poison but we felt really bad because we know that they worked so hard to build the hive.  To make up for the bee deaths, we decided to get involved in the Alan Wong Adopt a Bee Hive project at the U.H. of Hilo Agriculture dept.  We've pledged money to support the program which raises bees in box hives. We even have a hive with our name on it!  In return we learn about the progress of the bees and receive bottles of honey.  The honey is delicious!  Thank you bees!  

I made this card to honor the bees and even decorated the inside with my friends and their honeycombs.  I used the products below to decorate this card.  Leave a comment if you want to know more about a procedure or bee item.  You can leave a bee-utiful message too!  I love hearing from you!

 

Get Well Chicken Soup Card

I don't make too many get well cards but as my friends and family get older I guess I'll need to have a stash on hand.  Anyway, this one is for someone who is going in for a procedure.  I decided to make a humorous card to hopefully lift up her spirits.  Originally, I was planning to color the image with Copic pens, but the details were too small to avoid bleeding out.  I decided Derwent watercolor pencils (HM BFC) would be a better choice.  Unfortunately, I should have changed out the selected paper as marker paper does not handle watercolors very well.  It turned out okay and maybe made the card seem more wonky and distressed...like the Distressed Ink (from HM Ben Franklin Crafts) I used on the background.  As a last minute change I tilted the scalloped image to add to the off centered look.  Hope the recipient doesn't think her eyes are playing tricks on her. LOL!

 

Spot's First Birthday Card

I love the Eric Hill Spot books so of course when I saw the Spot stamp set as a freebie in a magazine, I immediately bought it.  That was many years ago and I finally inked up the stamps and made a 1st Birthday card that will go with a gift set of Spot books.  For the background I chose a balloon print paper from a Doodlebug Design paper pack.  I originally was going to do a raised letter HAPPY BIRTHDAY like what I saw on the Hero Arts site.  However, I only had a script Happy Birthday (My Favorite Things) and when it was cut out the paper turned out to be too busy and the lettering too scripty to make a readable message.  In the end I just cut out three layers of white card stock and one layer of dark blue card stock.  It was difficult to glue them together but I think it looks cool to be raised up.  I slightly shifted the blue layer to give a bit of a shadow effect.  Spot, the small creatures and balloons were stamped, colored with Copic pens, and fussy cut.  The small green hill was cut with a Lawn Fawn die. The balloon strings were difficult to cut so I replaced them with black wire.  All the pieces were adhered with foam dot adhesives.  The ends of the wires were tacked down with glue so they wouldn't injure anyone or get caught on anything.  Gold glitter Stickles gel paint was used on Spot's crown.  Doodlebug Design sticker stars were added to the balloons before being covered with Stickles crystal gel paint. (Perhaps Glossy Accents might have given the balloons a more balloon-like surface...next time.)  Oh yes, I hand printed the 1st on the balloon before adding the gel paint.  Okay, that's it...I think. Please feel free to ask me questions or send comments. (see below). I love hearing from you!  

 

Dim Sum Birthday Card

This card is for a no-frills kinda gal so I kept it simple.  My new Mama Elephant dim sum stamp set was a perfect fit.  I started by texturizing the light blue green background with a Sizzix embossing folder.  I think the woven texture looks a bit Asian and reminds me of the woven tops of dim sum steamers. Because the cute dim sum characters were left white, there was very little coloring to do. However, I did have to do a lot of fussy cutting as I don't have the matching die set.

I decided to decorate the inside of the card too.  After a bit of searching, I found my old Lawn Fawn stamp set with the fortune cookie stamp, fortune strip, and chopsticks.

Because I had extra stamped and colored food characters, I decided to make a mini calendar.  (It saves time to stamp and color extra pieces for a later project.  I store them in the stamp package.)  I circled the birthday girl's birthdate.  Yay! I used up another calendar, only a few more to go. *wink*wink*  Hope this post gives you some inspiration for a quick local style card.  See you again....soon! 

 

Birthday Donut Magnet Card

It was my goal to make a vintage birthday card for my 'young' girlfriend.  While we don't exchange gifts anymore, I do like to include a little something-something to make the card special.  This year I decided on a magnet. I started with a coaster from Celebrations(next door to BFC Mapunapuna).  I stamped the Whimsy image right onto the back of the coaster and colored it in with Copic pens.  For the dress I stamped the image onto a yellow printed paper and fussy cut it out before gluing it down.  For a little more dimension and sparkle I decorated the double donuts with white Nuvo dimensional paint and fake sprinkles.  I colored the tiny spaces with colored pencils which was not the best idea because when I sprayed the decorated coaster with a protective coating, the pencil colored areas bled a little.  That's why I colored in the background a bit rather than leaving it white as planned...*wink*wink*

For the card front I used a Whimsy dotted stencil, Color Box rainbow ink pad, and Hero Arts blender brush.  I liked the comic book look of the dots.  After gluing on a magnet sheet  to the back of the coaster, I added some Heiko double stick tape to adhere the magnet to the card.  The magnet can be removed easily from the card and used as a refrigerator magnet.  I tried hard not to put too much on the magnet so that it would still work and not be so fat that the post office will charge me extra postage.  (I think I'm under the 1/4" thickness.)  I like the way this card turned out and I hope my friend will like it too. I have plans to make more magnet cards....keep visiting this post to see them!

 

Daiso Lucky Cat Notepad Magnets

About the same time that I purchased these twine bound Japanese notepads from Daiso (only $1.50!!!), I saw the cutest Mama Elephant stamped images on Eunice's (A Star for Chiemi) blog site. (I am a follower of Eunice's posts because she has the cleverest projects that are always done to perfection!)  The Mama Elephant images were just the perfect size for the note pads and using the dies made the work super easy.

By gluing on magnetic sheets (form HM Ben Franklin Crafts) these notepads will be easy to access and find.    I think these decorated notepad magnets will make great tuck-ins for happy mail.  They would be sweet table favors as well.  HAPPY CRAFTING!                     

 

Snarky Cat Resin Magnet Calendars

Ah, yes.....more calendars....what to do?  Well, I've been itching to ink up the Tim Holtz snarky cat images so I thought I'd give them a test run on some resin magnets.  I had some leftover Asian coaster from Celebrations so I decided to use them as the base.  I trimmed them down a bit to fit the images and words and to cut down on the weight that the magnets would have to hold.  The backs of the coasters were plain white so I just stamped on them with permanent black ink and colored them in with smudges of Tim Holtz Distress Ink.  I liked the messy look of the inks on the porous coaster surface, but if you prefer more bleeding and splotching, I recommend you stamp onto a watercolor paper and then color and adhere that to the coaster back.

Magnet sheets were glued onto the back of the printed side. Although the sheet magnets do have a sticky adhesive I felt a little extra glue couldn't hurt.  Next LED 1minute setting resin was applied to the front of the magnet and set with the LED light.  

Although the resin did warp the magnets a bit, I loved the shiny surface.  The calendars adhered well to the resin surface and covered up the words which will make a cute reveal at the end of the year. HaHaHa!