Beehive Explosion Box Pt 6

This afternoon I completed the lid of my beehive. I had great fun doing this, because it involved some experimenting to get the effect I wanted. Having looked at some pictures of beehives online, I discovered that they are often covered with roofing felt against the weather, and I wanted to reproduce the look and feel of this material with its bituminous gritty surface.

In the end I used a mixture of thick matt acrylic gel medium and pumice acrylic gel medium to give the gritty texture, coloured with black acrylic paint, which I applied with a palette knife and allowed to dry before proceeding. The roof is constructed of double-thickness cardstock, the outer layer being cut from the recycled cover of an architect's specification booklet, which had a rather nice dull black hammered surface, which I thought would be good just in case the gel medium mixture did not cover it adequately. (I never throw anything away that might come in useful!)

Here is the completed exterior of the beehive, now just awaiting a base and final decoration.

This is the lid from above, which shows the texture quite well:

The ridge piece is made of cardstock which has been inked with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Walnut Stain. The nails are mini-brads, which I held in a pair of jewellery pliers and sanded to remove the paint, and to give a somewhat rough surface. After inserting the brads, I attached the strip to the ridge of the roof with double sided tape.

Finally, this is the inside of the lid. Using double sided tape, I attached a square of card which I had embossed with the beehive Fiskar's Texture Plate and inked with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Pumice Stone.

To finish the box, I need to make a square base slightly larger than the box. Beehives have a projection near the bottom, to allow the bees somewhere to land as they enter the hive, and I am not sure how to do this yet, because anything sticking out is going to prevent the box from exploding properly. I also want to add some grass and flowers around the base, not thick enough to prevent the box exploding, but just enough to prevent the flaps falling absolutely flat - I like the look of an explosion box when the flaps are slightly raised when exploded, like the petals of a flower. I will probably also add some more bees to the outside, including a few on acetate strips.

So... a bit of pondering required until this project is complete!

Beehive Explosion Box Pt 5

Today I finally managed to complete the inside of the explosion box. I spent a long time cutting out the bees last night (oooh how I could do with a Cricut - the job would have been done in minutes, with no sore hands as a result!!) - after I'd cut out the first lot I realised they were too small, so I had to do some more. I am much happier with the result now. They are outlined with black marker and coloured with coloured pencils.

This afternoon I cut the pieces of acetate and attached the bees - these suspend the bees over the central flower, and when the box explodes, they move, making the bees appear to be flying around. I used this device on my previous explosion box, and I like the effect so much that I think it will probably be a signature feature on all future ones too!

As well as making some of the bees fly, I have also stuck some on the flaps of the box, on the honeycomb.

This final view is taken from the side, which shows the bees "in flight" above the flower.

With the addition of some silk leaves around the flower to cover the base, this completes the inside of the box. I am hoping that when the outside is done, the flaps will not fall completely flat when the box is exploded - I quite like the look of it when they open more like the petals of a flower, because it gives the box more dimension when it is open.

I have several more bees, which are going to be used to decorate the outside of the box. Depending on how it goes, I may have some more on acetate strips, flying around the door, but this may not be practical when the box explodes, so I shall have to experiment.

Still to do: the lid, which will have more woodgrain embossing and distress inking to match the sides; and probably some flowers and grass around the base of the hive, which will help support the flaps as the box explodes. The whole box will be attached to a base which extends out a little from the base of the hive.

God's Knitting

When I was clearing out my room to make my ARTHaven, I came across a piece I'd made years and years ago, to illustrate some thoughts I'd been having at the time about how God is in control of our lives, however chaotic they might seem to us.

I had the thought that our lives are like a piece of knitting that God is doing - a work in progress. For anyone who has done Fair Isle (multi-coloured) knitting, you know that the back can end up as a tangle of different coloured yarns that are carried along, to be picked up when you want a new colour in the row. What we see is the back of this knitting. God is in control of the design, which He planned before the foundation of the earth (Ephesians 1:4) - He knows how it's going to turn out. While the work is being done, it can be messy on the back, which is the only bit we see.

However, with the eyes of faith, opened by the Holy Spirit, we may catch a glimpse of the right side of the work, but in reflection only ("through a glass darkly," 1 Corinthians 13:12) but when we are face to face with the Lord, we will see the whole picture, the right side, in all its beauty and splendour.

Throughout the work, the golden thread of God's love is present. Although I didn't think of this when I was making this piece, I did incorporate a cross into the design.

This was an experiment, really, and I didn't spend a lot of time getting a nice glossy finish on it - it's pretty roughly put together, but if you don't mind seeing the staples holding the knitting in place etc. I hope it means something to someone!!

Here is the piece closed, showing the "wrong" side of the knitting. I'd like it to have been a bit more messy than this, so that the design didn't show up quite so clearly:

Here it is, open, showing the right side of the knitting in the mirror.

I hope this strikes a chord with someone, somewhere... If your life seems in a total mess at the moment, and without purpose or direction, and you can't make sense of it, remember that God, who loves you, has the design in His hands, and sees the final picture.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).

May God bless you all.

Beehive Explosion Box Pt 4

I've now finished the tags for the explosion box. When I printed out the designs, they came out extremely dark on the laser printer, so I had to increase the transparency to over 75% and do some editing to make them work correctly. I was then able to colour them using colour pencils, blending the colours where necessary, and then picking out the detail with a very fine permanent black marker.

I then cut them out, and backed them with card which I'd embossed with the honeycomb Fiskar's Texture Plate to match the rest of the box. Then I discovered that the large ones didn't fit in the holders! Today I worked on those and they now fit properly. I also inked the backs of the tags with Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Pumice Stone and Wild Honey.

Here are the finished tags.

This is close-up of the small tags for the inner box:

and here are the larger ones for the outer box:

For details of the story behind these tags, please see my previous post, here.

This picture shows the embossed and distress inked backs of the tags:

Finally, here is a mock-up of the box so far, with the flower attached in the centre:

I am very pleased with how it is coming together so far, and with the way the colours have co-ordinated.

Beehive Explosion Box Pt 3

I've been quite busy over the past couple of days working on the beehive explosion box. I have made the panels for the outside of the beehive, out of strips of card matching the main structure of the box, which I embossed with one of my new Fiskar's Texture Plates, the woodgrain one. I then inked them with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Walnut Stain, which has picked out the woodgrain pattern very nicely. To give the effect of the slightly overlapping layers of the beehive, which in real life are lifted off to expose the comb inside, I attached the top edge of each piece with hot glue from my glue gun (I don't want these coming off) and the bottom edge I attached with strips of double-sided sticky foam, to lift them away from the surface.

Here's a picture of the outer box in the folded position (i.e. not exploded) and held in place with an elastic band. You can see the added dimension given by the foam strips.

Here's one of the box laid on its side, to show the detail of the embossing a bit better:

I have spent a great deal of time since then designing the eight tags to go in the tag holders on the inside of the flaps of the box - I have made four larger ones for the outer box, and four smaller ones for the inner box. After a lot of thought about how best to do this, I decided to keep everything as flat as possible, to avoid too much bulk, and the problem of the flaps catching when the box is exploded. I have designed these tags on my desktop publisher (Serif PagePlus) with the help of my photo editor (Serif PhotoPlus). I have saved them as PagePlus documents as I can set the size exactly, and will print them on cream card and then cut them out. They will probably be backed with beige card embossed with the honeycomb design and inked. I will colour the tags in the same way as a digital stamp, probably using coloured pencils, keeping the colours fairly limited to tone with the general gold/brown/cream of the project.

I thought it would be fun to make tags to illustrate some of the many activities which take place inside the hive, which is in effect a self-contained city - a community of bees, each having their own role in the collective, but in a humorous way - very anthropomorphic, but I make no apology for that!

I have saved each tag as a jpg file so that I could upload them and share them. At this stage, they are still greyscale, of course, not having been printed out. Photos of the finished tags will follow in due course.

This is the Food Store, showing the honey which the worker bees have made, and which in real life they store in the honeycomb, not in jars, of course!

This is the nursery, showing the bee larvae in their wax cells in the comb - I like to think of these as little cradles! The larvae are all genetically identical, the baby sisters of the adult worker bees. Special "nurse" bees are appointed to feed them, and when the time comes for them to pupate in preparation for their emergence as adult bees, these workers cover the cells with a lid of wax.

This is the "Drones' Club." Those of you who watched "Jeeves and Wooster" on TV, based on the novels of P.G. Wodehouse, will recognise this scene. The young men in that series were all rich, air-headed young men who lived lives of idleness and were only interested in getting up to silly pranks, eating and drinking, and falling in and out of love with young ladies. They congregated in a London Club appropriately named "The Drones' Club." In the hive, the male bees, known as drones, are vastly outnumbered by the workers. Apart from the Queen, they are the only fertile bees in the colony, and they do absolutely nothing all their lives to contribute to the life of the hive; the workers feed them, and then when a new queen arises, she makes a "nuptial flight," flying as fast and as high as she can, and the drones all chase after her. The strongest one reaches her and their aerial mating is followed by the death of this drone, and all his brothers. This tag shows them at leisure - relaxing, drinking, enjoying music, dancing, and fighting.

In the hive, the worker bees are not called that for nothing; they do not have time off, but I thought it would be fun to imagine them having "down time" and enjoying some entertainment, so I have given them a cinema where they can watch - what else - bee movies!

During the life of the colony, there comes a time when the Queen will lay eggs in special, enlarged wax cells, and the workers feed them differently from worker larvae; this special food enables them to develop into fertile bees, i.e. young queens, which will have to leave the hive and form new colonies. This food is Royal Jelly. In this tag, I have put the Queen in her royal palace, seated on a throne, surrounded by her royal jellies, with some jelly moulds hanging behind her throne.

In this tag, "Food Inwards," the fruits of the outside workers' labours are shown. Worker bees have a structure on their rear legs which looks like a basket, and into this they can pack a phenomenal amount of pollen from the flowers they forage for food. You can often see bees with great yellow lumps on their legs! My hubby and I always imagine them going off shopping with their little wicker baskets and coming home with the provisions for the family! This is "first stop" back into the hive for them, where they offload their supplies.

One of the most remarkable things which has been discovered about life in the hive is the way the worker bees communicate with one another. Like many other communal insects, they use chemical communication, but in order to tell other workers where to find a good source of food, the returning workers do an elaborate dance on the surface of the comb, moving rapidly in a semi-circular pattern, waggling their abdomens as they do it, the size of the waggle indicating the richness of the source, and the angle of the dance the direction in relation to the sun where this food may be found. In this tag you can see the workers learning their dance routines in the "Dance Academy" - note the tutus they are wearing!

In the final tag, we have the Female Workers' Union building, showing their badge and motto.

I have not presented these tags in any sort of order, because all these activities are taking place simultaneously, producing a harmonious whole which is one of the miracles of creation. When I think of the complexity of the collective, and how it comes together to produce what is like a single organism of many parts, I am amazed at the handiwork of our Creator God. Add to that the fact that without the bees, we would not be fed. We depend on them for the pollination of many thousands of acres of fruit orchards and much more. Honeybee populations are in decline today, for many reasons which have yet to be fully explained, and the situation is serious. These wonderful little creatures deserve study and appreciation! I have never wanted to keep bees myself, but my grandfather did, and invented a queen segregator which may still be in use today. (Unfortunately my hubby is allergic to bee stings so we couldn't keep bees even if we wanted to!) This explosion box is a gift for a friend who keeps bees in London. When she visited last year, she brought a jar of the most delicious honey I have ever tasted. As well as being a gift for her, this project is a tribute to all dedicated bee keepers who do so much for us all.

Sorry this has been such a long post to read, but I couldn't just show you these pictures without an explanation and a reason for my appreciation!

Beehive Explosion Box Pt 2

I haven't felt well enough to get into my ARTHaven today (if I feel better later I might do a bit more tonight), but I had a good session working on the Beehive Explosion Box last night.

I have inked the flaps with Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Pumice Stone for the edges, and a bit of Wild Honey (appropriate!) for the middles, and just Wild Honey on the tag holders. After that I did two layers of clear embossing on the cells with "honey" in them. Unfortunately, in this picture that I took this morning, this doesn't show up very well at all, but just makes them look green! The embossing pen is pale blue which does give the gold a greenish tinge, but it's not quite as bad as on the photo. Also, the photo hasn't picked up how shiny they now are. Subsequent photos may show this up better. It's really difficult to photograph these things well - you get a good effect with artificial light but that alters the colours. I think a daylight bulb will solve a lot of the problems.

Still to do: Decorate the outside of the flaps of the outer box, stick the tag holders down, make the tags and other decorations, assemble the box, make the lid and embellish it, make the flying bees on their acetate strips.

Beehive Explosion Box Pt 1

Having cut the basic box shapes a few days ago, this afternoon I made good headway on my latest project, an explosion box in the shape of a beehive for a bee-keeping friend for her Christmas present. I am intending this to be quite lighthearted and amusing, with tags and embellishments illustrating the various aspects of life in the hive, from queen to humble worker.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the basic box shapes cut out:

I chose two shades of beige 12 x 12 cardstock, one slightly lighter than the other, for this project.

I scored the darker cardstock 4 in from each side, and cut out the corners, for the outer box, reserving the pieces. I cut down the lighter 12 x 12 sheet to 10 1/2 x 10 1/2, and scored at 3 7/8 in from each side, again cutting out the corners, for the inner box.

Before I could make a proper start, I had to get the right tools for the job. I made a successful Ebay bid for a lovely set of Fiskar's Texture Plates (I keep calling them Texter's Fixture Plates! - my foggy brain lol! - sounds like something to attach you to your mobile phone so you don't lose it!!) and in this set was a beautiful honeycomb design, which is just the right scale for my project.

Here is a picture of the sandwich required for this embossing:

A-Plate, Fiskar's Texture Plate, cardstock, tan embossing mat, C-plate. I got this information from a Youtube video giving instructions how to use these texture plates with the Cuttlebug machine, and it works extremely well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euOHlmtlYks

I cut pieces of cardstock to match the outer and inner boxes, to cover the inside of the box flaps. I embossed these with the honeycomb texture plate, choosing the debossed (reverse) side:

and then glued them down onto the insides of the box pieces with my glue tape gun. This is a mock-up of the box pieces with their linings adhered:

The next step was to make the small pockets to hold the tags. I decided to make these look like bits of comb with some cells filled with honey, and some empty. I spent some time experimenting to get more or less the effect I wanted - this proved quite difficult. In the end I found some scraps of yellowish-cream cards in my stash, with a slightly streaky background pattern, which I embossed in the same way as before - the measurements of these were 3 x 3 for the outer (larger) box flaps, and 2 1/2 x 2 1/12 for the inner (smaller) box flaps.

After embossing these pieces, I cut an irregular shape for the top edge, and also cut round the other edges, following the shape of the embossed honeycomb design.

I randomly selected the cells I wanted to fill with "honey" and painted these with my Pentel Metallic Brush - a pen which I bought ages ago and hadn't even opened, let alone used - this was to replace another gold pen I'd had which had dried up. This first pen had a ball point, and you made the ink flow by pumping up and down on the tip. It was absolutely hopeless, because you got absolutely nothing, and then you got a great blob of gold paint which ruined anything you were trying to decorate! This new pen has a long brush tip, a bit like a brush-tipped marker, and there is a button on the further end of the pen, which you pump up and down until you see the gold paint travel down the brush. When it reaches the tip, you have enough to begin work. This is so much easier to control than the other method. When it becomes faint, you repeat the pumping action. I did get a bit of a blob, but did the pumping over my craft mat just in case, and was able to mop this up with the brush as I worked, so I didn't waste a drop!

This is what they look like so far - I've only done the big ones as yet.

The next step will be to paint each gold cell with my Versamark pen and then heat-emboss each one with clear embossing powder, to give the effect of the glossy honey in the cell. This pen is pale blue in colour, unfortunately, which gives the embossing a slightly greenish tinge over the gold - I tried using a clear adhesive but it went on too thick and boiled when I used my heat gun to melt the embossing powder, giving an unsatisfactory result. Using the Versamark pen, the effect is quite good with a second, or even a third, layer of embossing powder to build up the effect. I have yet to finish the gold painting and then proceed to the heat-embossing, but here is a mock-up of the box so far, with the inner box laid on the outer box, with the tag holders laid in place, to give the effect of how it will be when it is finished.

Finally, I think I may put a flower in the centre, and I've done this mock-up with a couple of pieces of demolished silk chrysanthemum and a little felt flower I've got:

I may put a bee in the centre. The flower will serve to cover the attachment of several acetate strips which will have bee embellishments on the ends - these bees will appear to fly around when the box explodes.

Watch this space - more to follow!

OT Appointment for Referral to Wheelchair Services

I had a very positive morning today. I had an appointment with my occupational therapist at our small local hospital - she had to postpone last week's appointment because she was off sick with a very bad back. She still didn't seem well enough to be working, in my opinion - the poor lady could not get comfortable in any position, and said that not only had she got low back pain, but sciatica too - can I ask those of you reading this who believe in Jesus to pray for her, please? She is such a lovely lady, so caring, so practical and so friendly, and she has helped me such a lot since I've been ill.

She is referring me to Wheelchair Services with a view to getting a new wheelchair (Rolls Royce Mark II). It's a bit complicated because I need a power chair, but prefer a manual one with a power add-on, and as it is most unlikely that they will have a wheelchair that I want, and which will be suitable for the conversion, I shall probably use the voucher scheme, whereby they give you a voucher to the value of the wheelchair they would have prescribed for you, which you can then add to the cost of one purchased privately.

She is writing them a letter in addition to completing the normal form prescribing a wheelchair, setting out the options. She took some measurements and we had a chat about what I want and need.

We also talked about how I am, and how I am not as well as I was. She said that since it's a while since I've been seen at the hospital, she would like to set up a reassessment for me, with herself, the physiotherapist and possibly a nurse, to discuss how I am managing, and whether there is anything else they can provide for me, to make life easier. It's a wonderful team, and I so appreciate what they have done for me already. Before the meeting is set up, I am to think about how I manage to do things (or not) and what I need help with - it's hard to think of these things when you're asked on the spot!

I told her that I had just reapplied for DLA, and if I am turned down (which is likely because they seem to be turning down everybody at the moment, in the hope that they won't bother to appeal, so saving money for the state, grrrr) she said she would support my appeal. I shall tell them that I have been referred to Wheelchair Services. If they still turn me down after that, I shall begin to wonder whether this state benefit is wrongly named - "Disability" Living Allowance? If the professionals have prescribed a wheelchair for someone it is surely because they are "disabled"!!!

So everything is moving forwards now, and I feel very encouraged and supported.

Sorting my Embellishments

I've now separated out all the beads and shells from the cheap jewellery I bought at the village fete on Monday, and it's a lot easier to see them, and the potential in them for embellishing my projects.

I thought I'd keep the chains, as they might also be used to decorate something.

Now I've got to find somewhere to keep them all - where I can find them when I need them!

Hibiscus Flowers

I've been feeling really frustrated lately, because I've SO wanted to get into my ARTHaven and have some Fun but was prevented from doing so by having to do other things and then having no energy left over.

However... Today I was determined, and after spending some time setting up my hubby's laser printer and printing off some music for my dad (the printer is a dream and is going to be soooo useful in my creativity!!) I was able to sit down and do something creative, just for the fun of it - with no particular end in view.

I am soooo grateful to Penny Duncan (see her blog: http://pennyduncancreations.blogspot.com/) for her wonderful tutorials, and have been wanting to try some of her flowers recently. Today I made some of her hibiscus flowers. Until I get my Cricut cutting machine, I have to cut these by hand from her .pdf file, and this wasn't hard as the shapes are very simple, but it did take a long time. Also, colouring the flowers took me longer than expected, because I initially chose colours that were too pale, and had to go over them again with darker ones to get the effect I wanted. After accenting the petals and leaves with purple and green ink pads respectively, I then spritzed the flowers and leaves with my Tim Holtz DIY glimmer mists in spun sugar (pink), wild honey (orange) and chipped sapphire (blue) mixed with Perfect Pearls (in perfect pearl colour) for a bit of sparkle. The petals and leaves were assembled with hot glue from my glue gun, and the centres were the ones I bought the other day in the cake department of our hardware store.

I am very pleased with the result, considering this is my first attempt, and I am sure I will get better at it (and quicker) with practice.

When I spritzed them, there was quite a bit of glimmer mist on my craft mat, and I didn't want to waste this, so I got some card scraps and mopped it up on them - with some quite interesting results. I am going to keep these pieces for use in other projects.