A Bunch of Bees (and bugs) by Reneé Matarese

 Hello Ai fans!

Today I'm sharing 3 cards.

One is my card for the Stencils and Masks challenge and the other 2
were made for friends.

I used the 5561 – Birds and Bugs Set on all 3 of my cards.  I also used the 5562 – Journal Letter Die Set on all of them.  I have a tip for the little letters below.

For this card, I mounted the letters onto the banner from 5463 – Slimline Dies Set.

I don't really own any stencils so I decided to get creative and make my own.

I used a honeycomb die that I have and I cut it on some heavyweight cardstock.

I then used washi tape to hold my stencil down.  I inked over it with some yellow ink by using a sponge.

Viola! A homemade stencil that I really liked!

For my next card I stamped the bees on a piece a die cut using 5061 – Square Double Stitched Dies.
This card was made for a friend who let my 24 year old son dig through her record collection before she got rid of it. He was so excited and came home with about a dozen albums.  We wanted to thank her for thinking of him.

Here's my tip to make your life easier.

You know those sticker sheets (invoices) you get from Ai?  What do you do with them?  Probably just throw them away.  I glued some cardstock to mine and then die cut my letters out of it.  I didn't need it all for these cards so the leftover scrap has been filed away for another day.  Now you have letters that are like stickers.  No need for fussing with trying to neatly get glue on the back of these small letters.

I'm ALL about recycling what you can. A while back a friend gave me the prettiest bee blanket.

This heart on my card was the tag on it.  It was way too cute to just throw out so I saved it knowing I'd find a use for it one day.



The day arrived when I found out a former co-worker was ill.  I sent this to him hoping it would brighten his day.  I used a micron pen to draw the flight lines of the bees.  In order to make sure my letters are even I use a ruler to place them.

I hope you will BEE inspired by my cards and will join in on the challenge.
See you next Sunday!