Last week when making my Design Team card for CAS Colours & Sketches, I started playing with the bee from Garden in Bloom. He didn’t make it onto that card, but I loved him and this is now the second card in a week to have at least one bee. Happily, the Garden in Bloom set is not on the retiring list so I don’t have to cram as many bees as possible into the next month! This week’s challenge as CAS on Sunday is a tic tac toe.

What this means is that you choose the elements on a line in the grid and incorporate them into your card

I’d pulled out buttons and other embellishments in an attempt to try to use them up so the ribbon and button were easy and I just needed to add dry embossing. The ribbon is a piece of retired hello honey baker’s twine. I first worked on threading the thick twine through the vintage faceted designer button (40% off on the retiring list!), using tape to make a smaller stiffened end. Once I’d achieved this slightly fiddly task, I realised that the button with the twine through it was now a little wobbly. It worked much better to pull the twine out of the button and just use a glue dot to add the bow to the button! You live and learn, right?

I dry embossed a piece of very vanilla using the spring flowers folder and stamped the bees onto that. The stamping didn’t need to be perfect (and wasn’t due to the embossing) because I was going to mostly cover it. I also stamped three bees on scrap paper in archival basic black and cut out their bodies which I coloured using the hello honey stampin’ write marker. I attached the new bodies using a glue dot in the centre which allows the wings to be curled up a little – and showing the wings stamped onto the embossed layer. All that was left was a sentiment, which is from Watercolor Wishes (this hasn’t retired – phew!).

The product which is on the retiring list which confuses me, is the envelope liners framelits. I use these on a high proportion of my envelopes and there isn’t a replacement. I’m not sure what’s happening there. I would encourage you to grab it as soon as possible if you don’t already have it – it’s lovely being able to easily line envelopes. Don’t forget to use the hostess code of RJ6V9VRQ (and don’t check the no contact) so that I can send you your freebies if you spend more than $50.

I have to say that there’s some really great stuff in the new catalogue – I can’t wait for the preorder to start (on May 3).

See you tomorrow,

Liz