honeycomb – The Art of Cobwebs

Haaapy Monday! Can you believe it’s already the 22nd of May?? I had to do a double take when I looked at the calendar. (Although why it’s called a Calendar I don’t know. Surely it should be called a CalenDAY? It makes sense! Calenday. “Sweetheart . . . What date does it say on the calenday for a week on Monday?” See? Calenday. I think we should start a movement and all begin to call it a Calenday. That will get things put right!)

[thinks to self: perhaps I should write to Mr.Trump, and Mr.Putin, Prime Minister May, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe, French President Francois Hollande ….. and of course I shall drop The Queen a note about this. I’m sure Her Majesty will agree that this is a grand idea!]

Aaaannnyhoo…. I made a card and I promised myself that I wouldn’t do a big long post and bore everyone to tears, so I’ll get on with showing you the card.

It was all made on a scored 6″x6″ white card.

Measured, cut and fixed in place the hessian you see in the photo (below), and while that was drying, I distressed some pale(ish) blue gingham paper, tearing it and rolling it in places, added some blue gingham ribbon and fixed the paper and ribbon two-some, in place, on top of the hessian.

Next came fussy cutting some honeycomb from a sheet of honeycomb printed paper then adhered it to the gingham paper. Time for a little decoupage: to make the dresser, where the chicken has laid her eggs, and one little chick has already hatched. 🙂

If you look really closely you just might be able to see that there’s a cobweb in the space where the drawer is missing, – to the right hand side, in the upper corner of the drawer space. I thought that was a nice touch considering who was making this. lol

Can’t see it? . . . here it is . . .

I added bits of straw in various places, and a tiny wooden rolling-pin – hanging on some cotton. The silver bumble bee you see hanging below the large red petal flower is also hanging on a thread, so giving the buzzy bumble a ‘flying’ movement.

The lovely, fluffy marmalade coloured feather was donated by one of our chickens: Miss Edna BIG BIRD, HUGE EGGS Chicken. She’s so accommodating. I ask for a feather and she does the ‘chicken wiggle’ and out pops something perfect. lol

The flower adornment was made using some pretty coloured stamens, some loofah strands, a tiny piece of muslin which I pulled some threads from to make it kind of ‘feathery’ around the edges, and that lovely ‘blousy’ flower from my stash.

Finally, it was time for some attention to the inside: using some distressed yellow gingham paper, cut to size, I made an insert which I then stamped and added a Country Chicken ticket in the lower right hand corner.

OH! And I added a bow made from the ribbon, to the front of the card!

And that, as they say, is all there was to it!

The papers and ribbons are all part of the DoCrafts ‘Home Sweet Home’ range. I bought them about a year ago and used some of them, but then Summer moved to Autumn and so I put them away reminding myself to get them out again this year. And … as strange as this might sound, I actually remembered! Ha! Miracles really do happen. 😀

Everything else came from my stash.

So, changing the subject …. I was thinking about Mondays, and I’ve worked out that Mondays were invented as a punishment for all the fun we have at the weekends! Seriously. It makes total sense when you think about it. We all do have more fun at the weekends, and we obviously needed something to kind of get us back into line – so Monday was invented. SOO…. Just get it over with and within 24 hours, it will be Tuesday, after that . . . it’s all heading towards Friday 😀 … can’t get better than that! So lets change things round a little. Smile today. Be happy. Be all twinkly eyed and joke around. Beat the system!

Oh … and just to get you started, here’s a Monday Special:

Q: What do you call a parade of rabbits hopping backwards? . . . A: a receding hare-line.

Have a great day out there. Be nice to yourself, and each other. And … remember to look both ways when you cross the road!

I saw a magazine on the supermarket shelves and fell in love with the Bee themed ‘freebies’ which were being given away with the issue. I got home and, over a coffee, I flicked through the pages, and found a few pages of ideas for what you could make with the papers. I fell totally in love with one card, and knew that I’d make it at some stage, because it was just too lovely not too.

Last week gave me the perfect moment. I needed to make a ‘Thank You’ card and thought the bee themed card I’d found in the magazine would be perfect, and so, changing some of the papers, and adding my own sentiment, I made my version of the card.

In the magazine the maker had used some black corrugated card for backing the main central picture. I had no black corrugated card. I had red, blue, yellow, pink, kraft brown, green, orange …. practically a whole rainbow … but no black. “I’ll just use black card” I said to myself. But … I really loved that corrugated look. So … I did the next best thing….

I pulled out a sheet of the yellow corrugated, drew up the measurement I needed in pencil, and, taking a (cheapy) permanent marker pen, I began to turn that yellow card into black card. I chose yellow in case any of my colouring was a bit uneven, it would at least look like it was meant to look like that (can we say ‘distressed’?) – as it would tone with the yellows on the card. See … I do think ahead sometimes! lol.

By the time I’d filled the square, I’d emptied that pen. Thankfully I had another, because I needed to colour up four Candi dots for the corners!

I added ribbon, … and I like my ribbon more than I liked the ribbon in the magazine. My ribbon has flowers on it! (Much posher! lol) Then fixed everything in place.

In the magazine they’d used a very pale shade of lemon paper as backing paper – but I preferred something a little warmer. So chose a lovely, yummy yellow which looked like it had gently kissed the orange paint pot.

For the sentiment, I inked up some plain white card, then using a stencil and two ink pads – a shade of warm yellow and a pale burnt orange, – I gently inked through the stencil to make a honeycomb pattern over the card. I then stamped the ‘Thank You’ sentiment and cut it using a die, and backed it with some plain black card.

I added the four Candi dots; a ribbon bow at the top of the card; the sentiment; and finally added some bees which I’d cut from some of the printed cardstock.

Then I turned my attention to the inside. I’m not that keen on blank insides, and always try to put something in a card which adds to the whole thing in some way. I chose a decorative die and using some black card die cut it and fixed it in place with glue. VOILA! One thank you card for my wonderful neighbour.

Thank YOU for popping in for a visit!

Well ….. today is the last Monday of January 2017! We made it through the first month of the year! Give yourself a mental cheer! February will be a doddle because its way shorter than any other month – so it’ll a walk in the park. Yes? 🙂

Have a truly wonderful week. May nothing stop you from making good choices. May you carry an inner warmth which, every time you think about it, makes you smile. May you share a joke or a smile with another person. And may you do something which helps to change someone elses day around. Make someone feel better about themselves. Smile at a stranger. Pay someone a compliment. Just be nice to people. Everyone you meet really does have something which troubles them. They need help to smile sometimes, and maybe this week it will be your turn to help them. Give them a reason to smile.

Here …. here is my chance to make you smile. This squidge is a visible squidge, from me, direct to you, because I think you’re truly amazing . . . .