Hap-BEE Friday, Friends!

We have enlisted some very talented designers to help Surprise Melissa (the owner of Honey Bee Stamps) for her 2^nd Honey Bee Stamps Birthday. Be sure to hop along for all the fun & prizes!! Each stop on the hop will have a drawing for a FREE stamp set of their choice from the Honey Bee Stamps store. Be sure to comment at each stop to enter all of the drawings. The winners will be announced on the Honey Bee Stamps Blog on May 3^rd at Noon PST.

 I have to say this month’s new release is my favorite so far. I sat down to make one card and ended up making a few more. I’m telling ya, my mind was buzzing with ideas for these new products.

My first card is this cute bee hive card which is a shaker card.

I made this card using the new Hive card die and Hive stencil set. I also used two of the bees from Busy Bees and the Bee-You-Tiful sentiment set.

I love that the stencils make shading the hive super easy. I used my distress inks and finger daubers to do the shading. the inside of the shaker has the new layered hexagon die cover plates cut apart, and I used Nuvo Drops to add Honey like accents. I filled the shaker with the special birthday Honey Jar sequins mix and of course that cute little busy bee!

Next card is another hive, but this time I used only the stencils. All 4 of them actually. I used the hive cut out to lay down color, the two shading stencils to give detail, and then when I was all done with that I used the hive cut out piece as a mask and applied the blue distress ink background.

The leaves are from the Busy bees stamp set. I just made a branch with a zig clean color real brush brown marker. The hexagon confetti / sequins is in the spring sequins pack. The cute little bee is from the Build a Bee stamp set.  The bee is actually on a little action wobbler and, with the addition of the google eyes, it makes for a very fun interactive element.

This next card was totally inspired by a pack of acrylic mirrored hexagons I have been hoarding. You could achieve a similar look with mirror cardstock that I used as an accent strip along the side of the card.

I colored my little build a bee with my zig markers and added some hexagons that I cut out using the new stack hexagon dies. I also added those awesome hexagon mirrors. I think the patterned paper along the side added the perfect final touch. I love this sentiment from the Bee You Tiful sentiment set. I think it’s the perfect card to remind someone how bee-you-tiful they are, inside and out.

Okay, now a super quick card that is great for any of our new buzz words…

This card was super quick to make! I had a piece of cardstock that was already stamped and embossed using the Zen Bouquet stamp set. I trimmed it down to A-2 size and used the new Hello Buzz word dies to do a fun inlay look. This could work with your favorite patterned paper too.

You can keep it simple and leave it just black and white, Or you could color it in to make the word stand out even more! The main panel was cut using the Honey Bee Stamps Double stitched A-2 dies.

These next cards were so much fun to make. I did one card with Color burst watercolor powers and the other with distress oxide inks.

I couldn’t decide which I liked better so I thought I would show you both!

I used the Stick with me stamp set and the prickly sentiments stamp set for the sentiment. The bee is from the Busy Bee stamp set.  I had one little hexagon outline cut out left over from another project so I stuck it on one of the sentiment strips. I thought it was a fun little touch. Which one do you like better?

Last but not least is my first real attempt at no line coloring. I took the jar from the sweet as honey stamp and die set (which was a part of Honey Bee Stamps very first release, and one of my most used stamp sets!) and I decided to turn it into a mini Terrarium with the help of the new stick with me stamp set.

I colored the cacti, plants, and rocks with my Copic markers and then added a bit more detail with my colored pencils. For the background I used the hexagon stipple plate die. On the little banner, I used a sentiment from the prickly sentiments stamp set.

The jar is layered with 4 pieces of cardstock instead of using foam, (I had scrap paper I needed to use up). The sentiment is popped up with one layer of foam tape. I finished the card off with a bit of twine around the top of the jar. This was probably my most challenging card but I had a lot of fun. I will be practicing those no line coloring skills more often now!

Here is a photo of all the cards created today. Supplies are listed below.

I hope I inspired you with ways to use these awesome new products (and some of your older ones too). Come back soon BEE-cause I will have lots more projects to share!

Don’t forget to leave a comment for your chance to win your choice of stamp set from Honey Bee Stamps!

Next up on the Hop is the kind & talented, Yana Smakula! Buzz on over and see what beautiful creation she has to share with you today.

Here is the lineup for the Hop in case you get lost:

Honey Bee Stamps

Jennifer McGuire

Stephanie Klauck

Amy Rysavy

Lisa Cisneros

Sandy Allnock

Taniesa Vlasak (Thats me!)

Yana Smakula

Nichol Spohr

Supplies used (Affiliate links where available, thank you for your support!)