Card Factory 2015–Two Bee Cards

My next collection of cards for the Card Factory is on the theme of bees. I have made two so far.

I began by inking up some backgrounds cut from offcuts of card from other projects in the Card Factory, using my new Fossilised Amber distress ink, smooshing and spritzing it on my craft sheet and dragging the card pieces through the wet ink. I always keep my offcuts in case I want to make something smaller with them – waste not, want not!!

First Card

The first card has a die-cut window with a bee in it, with its wings embellished with Glossy Accents.

I embossed one of the inked backround pieces, using a Fiskar’s texture plate in a honeycomb pattern, using my Cuttlebug.

It didn’t show up very much, so I inked over the top, using my brayer to apply Vintage Photo distress ink to the raised pattern, and then I distressed the edges with the same ink, using a home-made ink blending tool.

I cut a window in the top, using one of my new Dorice circle dies. It was really funny about these dies. I ordered them some time ago on Ebay, and was told there was a fairly long delivery date on them. I was convinced I had received them, and couldn’t find them anywhere, and got very frustrated looking for them, turning the place upside down and wasting lots of energy in the effort! Then I got an email last week saying they’d been dispatched, and a few days ago, they arrived! Did I dream them? Anyway, I am glad they did eventually turn up, and I hadn’t lost them after all!

After cutting the window, I stamped my medium bee from Stampotique Originals onto another offcut of card, using sepia archival ink.

I inked the background with more Fossilised Amber distress ink, using an Inkylicious Ink Duster.

Here is the window with the bee in it. I embellished its wings with Glossy Accents.

I matted and layered the honeycomb piece onto some thin brown card with a slightly marbled effect, and then mounted it onto a white A5-folded-to-A6 sized piece of card which I had previously distressed around the edges with Fossilised Amber distress ink. Here is the card completed card.

The sentiment was stamped on another offcut of card, using one of my clear sentiment stamps that I got when I first started, and I’m afraid I don’t know the name of the set or the manufacturer. This small strip was matted onto the same brown card as the main part of the card, after I’d inked it with a little Fossilised Amber and distressed the edges with Vintage Photo distress inks.

Second Card

For the second card, I wanted to make a grid background, stamping with the tiny bee that came with the medium bee stamp I used for the first card. I worked out a suitable spacing for alternately spaced rows of bees and I’ve kept a note of this in the packet with the stamps so I can refer to it again. It took quite a while to work out, and then a little while longer to draw out on the background piece, but at least this way I get a nice even result, and it’s worth the trouble, I think.

I stamped the small bees using sepia archival ink, stamping right over the edges of the background piece to give a nice overall effect. You can see the grid lines I have drawn.

I took the circular piece of honeycomb that I saved from the first card after I’d cut the window, and inked the edges, and those of the background piece, with Fossilised Amber distress ink, using my home-made ink blending tool.

I stamped the circular piece using the medium bee stamp, and heat-embossed it in gold. I made another sentiment strip the same as for the first card.

As before, I distressed the edges of the A5-folded-to-A6 white card base with Fossilised Amber distress ink, and assembled the card.

I have got several more background pieces inked and ready to be made up into more bee cards for this set.