Trixie Likes Bees

Hello everyone, Lora here for Gypsy Soul Laser Cuts.
Beatrix Mellifera likes honeybees.
A lot.
And they like her.
She draws them, studies them, talks to them and generally looks after their well being.
She cultivates their favorite flowers and fusses over them when it gets cold and shoos away naughty insects that might do them harm.
She is a great friend and guardian.
She's a little quirky, but aren't we all?

She has lots of personality and if you ask about bees, she can talk about them for a very long time. And she has great hair...

I began with the Art Doll Nicho (which is coming to the store soon).
I glued down the inside folds of the box and clipped them together until the glue set.
NOTE: the flaps are not glued down, just folded in to help the clips hold the wet gluey bits.

Next, I painted the inside of the box cream and aged up the corners a bit with some brown ink using a Q-tip and cut the papers front and back using the nicho as the template. Notice that when I cut the back paper, I included the circle (head). I did this to give added strength to the piece when I glue the collage sheet face onto the circle.

In the picture above, I glued the box on to the backside of the nicho, painted the side of the box cream and inked it up a bit to give it a little patina. After it dried, I dry fit the paper on to the back, pushing it over the box carefully, adjusting the fit as needed. I carefully removed the paper after I had a good fit, added glue and stuck it down.

I glued Beatrix' head on and then the front papers. I added bits of cotton lace around the nicho opening and gave her a pretty lace collar. I attached the brass bee to a small cork and did the same with some of the sequin flowers, cutting the corks to different heights to give things depth.

I put the flowers and little bits of glitter and sequins in the box before I added the bee. That made it a lot easier to add or subtract detail without having to work around a big object.

 I made a little skirt out of leftover paper and arms and legs for Beatrix from a collage sheet (you can get this or something similar at Alpha Stamps)

 I stuck a command strip on the back of the box to attach her to this pillar. You can do the same thing anywhere in your house.

A little lace, glitter, sequins and a pretty bee....... you can't go wrong!

Thank you for stopping by!

SUPPLIES:
Art Doll Nicho (coming soon!)

Additional:
Acrylic paint
Graphic 45 Olde Curiosity Shoppe paper
Collage sheet
Tea stained lace
Sequins
Glitter

Mine Tags Taste like Honey

I have always been drawn to encaustic art, yet I have never quite managed to begin the process for using it in my own crafting. For quite awhile I had been planning on using Gypsy Soul's Honeycomb & Bees in an encaustic project--because shouldn't every honeycomb project be created with beeswax?

That is why I was delighted when Seth Apter developed his Vintage Beeswax Embossing Powder. I combined the Honeycomb & Bees with the Embossing Powder to create a faux encaustic look on  three golden honey-colored tags.

To make the tags, I began by collaging vintage dictionary pages about bees onto manilla tags.

Next I cut the Honeycomb into sections and painted them and two of the bees 

with yellow paint. When dry, I added flecks of white paint and inked the edges with brown ink.

I hope you forgive me, but I had so much fun creating these tags that I forgot to take photos of the next few steps.

I spritzed the tags with Tattered Leather Spray and dried them with a heat gun. I then flicked droplets of High Impact and Glimmer Glam Paint onto the tags. After drying with a heat gun, I inked the edges of the tags with brown ink. 

Next I dabbed tiny drops of glue randomly on the tags and added gold flakes to the tags. I also covered one of the bees with gold flakes.  

After adhering the honeycomb and bees to the tags, I covered each of the tags in embossing ink and coated with Vintage Beeswax embossing powder. I set the powder with a heat gun and repeated this process four more times to give the tags the encaustic look. 

Finally, I painted each tag with matte medium to remove the glossiness. After the tags were dry, I threaded ivory ribbons through the holes. 

Thanks for stopping by the blog today. I hope that this project inspires you to BEE creative. Have a fantastic week. - Betsy

Great Stuff

Honeycomb & Bees- Small
Seth Apter's Vintage Beeswax Embossing Powder
Acrylic paint
Vintage Photo Distress Ink
Tattered Angels Glitter Glam Paint
Tattered Angels High Impact White Paint
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Tattered Leather Spray
Embossing Ink
Gold flakes
Matte medium
Ribbons