Farewell Hexagon Hive

Todays card doesn't focus on a stamp set, but a diecut thinlit. In fact, todays card has no stamping at all!

And back to the more involved cards! Going all-out with the honey/bee references, I ran some Hello Honey cardstock through the Big Shot with the hexagon thinlit. I had a few scraps of the bee paper from the English Garden DSP, so rather than stamp me some bees I cut them out of the paper. I did get a little inky by lightly sponging some Hello Honey ink on the edges of some of the cut out pieces from the hexagon thinlit and layered these in spaces where hexagons weren't cut out in the thinlit.

The leafy twigs are from the Bird Builder punch (which I'm still a bit stunned is retiring). I wasn't going to have any layers popped up on dimensionals, so give the card a little more dimension I didn't stick the twigs down flat all over. Just a little glue from the fine tip glue pen where the twigs overlapped, and a mini glue dot under one leaf on each twig to secure them at the other end.The bees are also attached with a mini glue dot, just one under their bodies so their wings can be bent up a little.

I used a couple of the sponged hexagon shapes inside the card to dress it up a little in there too.

Whenever I am working with yellow and green I find myself thinking of "green & gold" - often Australia's sporting colours - but by minimising the green I think I successfully avoided this card eliciting an "Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi!" effect.

133685 Hello Honey A4 cardstock, 133683 Mossy Meadow A4 cardstock, 138345 Delightful Dijon A4 cardstock, 119982 Soft Suede A4 cardstock, 138440 English Garden DSP, 133643 Hello Honey stamp pad, 132965 Hexagon Hive thinlit die, 138275 Greetings thinlit dies, 117191 Bird Builder punch, 133773 sponge daubers, 138309 Fine-tip glue pen, 103683 mini glue dots

Sunburst Shine

Today's card has been brewing in my head for some time and I'm glad I finally got to work out my vision for it.

When I saw the Sunburst die in the Occasions catalogue, I got the idea of using the die off-cuts - as is my habit of late - for additional sun rays. Once I got to fiddling around with the bits I decided that I would use them on top of the main die cut part. This is what it looked like once I had all the Sunburst pieces put together.

I have also had the idea of using the metallic threads for stitching kicking around in my head for some time, and I thought it would work really well with the Sunburst die as more sun rays. When I was doing the colours for the sun I realised that the die had little holes in it that would work great as a guide for the stitching.

I used three In Colors in this card, two of which will be retiring soon. I know I have said it before, but I see it happen every year... people wait till the retirement list comes out to purchase In Colors products and sometimes they have sold out within the first day and they miss out. So this is another reminder - get in and order those 2014-2016 In Colors before it's too late!

Sunburst Sayings clear mount stamp set & Sunburst thinlits die bundle  140807, Tangelo Twist A4 cardstock 133684, Blackberry Bliss A4 cardstock133682, Crushed Curry A4 cardstock 131288, Delightful Dijon A4 cardstock 138345, Perfect Plum A4 cardstock 108615, Blackberry Bliss133642 stamp pad , Perfect Plum stamp pad 126963, gold metallic thread 138401, Metallics sequin assortment 138390, 2" circle punch 133782, Circle collection framelit dies 130911, dimensionals 104430

Feeling Special?

Time for another card using thick Whisper White cardstock for the cardbase.

I had thought I would load this one up and really give the cardbase a workout... but ultimately opted for another simple card. The outlines for the flower and leaves were stamped in colour rather than the standard black - or for this card that would have been Early Espresso. I inked up the flowers and leaves in the same colour as their outlines, then lightly stamped them off before stamping on the card to give a little more variation in the colours. To help the sentiment layer stand out I went around the edge with the Lost Lagoon marker.

Today's colours are:

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I Have A Mint Crush

I've been busy busy busy again, so here's TWO cards I managed to make a few days ago.

I'm sad about a number of stamps that are retiring, and this Handcarved background stamp is one of them. I love it's informal chevron-ish look. I sponged the colours on with daubers and didn't worry about being too neat - but also didn't want to be overly messy and get some horribly muddied colours. I teamed this background with some more retiring products, the Label Love set and coordinating Artisan Label punch.

For the next card I decided to stick with the same colour scheme but go for a completely different look. I don't have a lot of Thank You cards in my stash, so decided to make one with the Because You Care set. If you haven't noticed it, it's a hostess set in the Occasions Catalogue and won't be available after June 2. I let a piece of Mint Macaron cardstock take centre stage on this card, it's definitely my favourite of the new In Colors, so expect to see a lot of it! Some of the items used in these cards, like that yummy Mint Macaron cardstock, can't be ordered until June 2nd, but don't forget June 2nd is a wonderful day when you can order from the current catalogue, the Occasions catalogue and the new 2015-2016 catalogue! That said, any retiring items you like you really shouldn't wait to order as they are only available while stocks last.

And the colour combination for both cards:

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