Valley Inspirations with Andrea: January 2020

Golden Honey Speciality DSP and the coordinating Honey Bee Bundle

Welcome to 2020 and my first blog for the year. I have had a great break over the Christmas - New Year period. I hope you have too.

Honey Bee, Art with Heart, blog hop, Stampin Up, Andrea Sargent, Saleabration, 2020, watercolour wash, die cutting, 3D project, Golden Honey Speciality, DSP, Mini Catalogue, Detailed Bees

This is a wonderful time to grab some great Stampin' Up! deals. It's Sale-a-bration time.

Tonight's blog hop is the first Art With Heart Blog Hop for 2020. This month we are featuring cards using the amazing products that you can earn for free during our Sale-a-bration promotion. This is a fantastic opportunity to obtain limited edition products. Until the 31^st of March, with every $90 you spend on Stampin’ Up! products you will earn free products from our Sale-a-bration brochure.

Hostess’ earn bonuses too! When you host a party with sales above $500 you receive an oh so cute Little Ladybug set in addition to the usual Hostess benefits.

Sale-a-bration also has an amasing bonus for recruits who join during this promotion. For the joining fee of $169 you can choose your starter kit of products to the value of $235 plus Mini Paper Cutter, 6" x 6" Designer Series Paper sampler and their choice of stamp set.

Tonight I'm using the delightful and delicious Golden Honey Speciality Designer Series
Paper (it is free when you spend $90 on Stampin' Up! products). This speciality DSP has more body than most DSPs and the designs have touches of gold on one side of each sheet of 12x12 paper. It is special and was designed to coordinate with the Honey Bee Bundle of stamps and dies from the January - June Mini Catalogue.

Inspired by this gorgeous paper I decided to create a custom-made box for delicious nougat that I found when holidaying in Margaret River, WA back in November last year. I have one left to give as a gift. I also made a coordinating card.

This box was made from a 7"x12" piece of the gold & black stripe paper. It was scored, burnished & trimmed then adhered using Tombow Multipurpose Liquid Glue. Tombow is my "go to" glue at present. The trick is controlling the amount of glue that comes out on your paper so it doesn't squish out and go everywhere. I used Tombow liquid glue for both projects, so unless I mention a different product, know that I used this liquid glue to adhere pieces together.

The box was decorated with Whisper White 1/4" Crinkled Seam Binding Ribbon (which can be found in the Mini Catalogue), some golden honey comb (die cut out of Gold Foil using a die from the Detailed Bee dies); and a gold bee that was die cut out of a different design from the Golden Honey SDSP. I am so impressed with the way Stampin' Up! coordinates its products; and this includes the way the Detailed Bee dies not only match the stamped images but also images in the DSP. The sheets of golden bees is so lovely.The die cut golden bee and honey comb was popped up on Mini Dimensionals. A small piece of So Saffron Metallic Bakers twine from the Sale-a-bration Metallic Bakers Twine & Sequins Combo Pack was added to the ribbon bow.

The coordinating card features a piece of the same gold & black striped Speciality DSP as well as the coordinating Honey Bee Bundle. The Detailed Bees dies not only cut out the stamped images but there is also a detailed die to cut a beautiful bee. I used this die to cut bees out of both Gold Foil and Basic Black cardstock. With the latter, I ensured none of the detailed bits fell out (a small piece of sticky tape is hidden underneath).

Now back to how the card was made. The card base used half an A4 piece of Thick Whisper White cardstock and was scored in half. A piece of Shimmery White cardstock was trimmed a little smaller than the card base. A light watercolour wash was painted over part of the shimmery white piece using a Pineapple Crush ink pad and Aqua painter. Once the wash dried, a Black Stampin Write Marker was used to flick some black speckles over the card front. This card front was adhered directly to the card base.

A couple of pieces of Honey comb was die cut from Whisper White cardstock and adhered over the Pineapple Crush wash. The piece of black and gold SDSP was popped up on Dimensionals across the card near the bottom. The detailed die cut bee was added to one side of the strip of SDSP with Mini Dimensionals. A sentiment from the Honey Bee stamp set was stamped onto a piece of Basic Black cardstock in Versamark and then heat embossed using White Stampin Emboss powder. Then, this was die cut using the smallest long/thin Stitched Rectangle die. The sentiment was then adhered to the SDSP. Two little gold foil hearts, cut using the Detailed Bee dies, were adhered to finish off the card.

I love adding coordinating elements to the inside of the card and also on the envelope. Inside the card, a thin strip of the same SDSP was adhered at the bottom and two bees we stamped in Black Momento Ink. The Honey Bees stamps are DisINKtive stamps which is a Stampin' Up! specialty. DisINKtive stamps enable you to stamp with an impact of varying shading with one stamp. The wings of the bees show this effect beautifully. Two bees were also stamped on the envelope in Pineapple Crush with some speckles from the Black Stampin Write Marker.

If you are interested in anything I have shared here, please do not hesitate to contact me for more information or to purchase Stampin Up!'s quality and coordinating products and obtain some free Sale-a-bration products.

Well that's it from me for this Art with Heart Blog Hop. Thank you so much for spending some time here at Valley Inspirations. I do appreciate it.

The next demonstrator to share their Sale-a-bration inspiration with you is the talented Cathrine Proctor. I always love her creations and I am sure you will too. Just click on the arrow to be taken to What Cathy Made