Bee Nice

Hi all.  Bees are nice and very necessary for pollination and of course the yummy honey they produce.  I have lots of papers which I had with a magazine quite a while ago and had not been used, and I have seen this fragmented card technique a lot lately so thought I would combine the two.  The magazine was the first in a series called Diary of an Edwardian Lady and also has quite a few stamps, a few dies and an embossing folder, and it hasn't been used very often, in fact the little added bees were having their first flight...lol.

I started with the papers choosing two different ones from the pack which I thought went together well, and I decided on a 6" square card and the central piece a hexagon for a slightly different look, cut from a snippet of green card.  I have seen several versions on Pinterest using a hexagon and just a single piece for the background, and this card by Di on her blog here using snippets in two different patterns, for which she used a die, made me decide to try a version from scratch, and thought that by placing the hexagon on the piece of card and laying down the strips temporarily I would be able to take the edge of one of the papers and mark the shape with a pencil, adding a bit on for safety.  This is basically what I did but I didn't want the different pieces to overlap one another so there was a lot of extra pencilling and cutting to get the shapes butted up but still covered by the green 1/4" strips..these were snippets too.  After finally cutting all the pieces I put the card together, and I decided to add a second green hexagon over the top from another snippet of green card, and before placing it I added the sentiment heat embossing it with WOW Metallic Gold Embossing Powder.  I then decided to stamp and cut out two of the little bees to embellish it and I also used snippets of white card for this.  I stamped them with Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink and coloured them with my alcohol pens ( you should use Memento with alcohol pens but as this was minimal colouring it was OK) and added some Clear Wink of Stella Pen on the wings for a bit of sparkle.   I then added a little foam square on the back of each to give them a bit of dimension.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the challenge but can see the worth of buying a die to do this as it was very time consuming and I nearly gave up several times, but having spent a lot of time on it I was determined to finish it.  I think that if I could make templates for the shapes for this card with the hexagon in the middle so that it simplified the marking and cutting it would be easier, but for a different shape and position of the centre, and a rectangle not a square, it would mean starting from scratch again and frankly life is too short for it to be worth the effort.  The only way I would do another from scratch is if it was just one piece of patterned paper with the shaped centre and added strips over the top. 

I am entering the following challenges:

Snippets Playground Challenge - No, 491 Where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.  (All the green card and some white for the little bees were snippets).

Love Those Pretty Papers Challenge - Oct. '24 Anything Goes/Halloween Colours/Papers.

Allsorts Challenge - Week 802 Anything Goes/Magical, Myths and/or Legend.

NBUS Challenge - No. 67 Where we us our Never Before Used Schtuff.

I am also joining in with Darnell's I.D.E.A.S., a challenge she has set herself but says anyone can join in.  This is Week 2: D = Dies. (Just the hexagon shape in the centre, actually doubled up so cut twice).