Mixed Media Bumblebee | By Christina Rannow

Hello, crafty friends! Christina here to share my latest project featuring products from the beautiful Block Print Garden collection. I combined the Buzzing Bumblebee and the Honeycomb Cut Out with some distressed and salvaged elements for a striking mixed media design. I had so much fun creating this card that’s a little out of my comfort zone, and I can’t wait to share my process with you! Let’s get started!

First, I die cut the Honeycomb Cut Out from a white cardstock panel that I had stamped with a text background stamp. I used a metallic gold ink to stamp the text a little imperfectly, which was the look I wanted for this design. My next step was to rip the stamped cardstock for some distressing into a smaller square, leaving the edges raw. I also tucked some ripped vellum behind this panel, securing it with glue, letting the edges peek out here and there. Then, I attached it to a square of yellow cardstock with a textured dot detail and a decorative edge using foam squares. Finally, I mounted everything to some patterned paper and trimmed out the top and bottom with strips of black cardstock die cut with the same decorative edge as the yellow square.

Next, I die cut and assembled the components for the bumblebee and the floral swags. I used white cardstock and vellum for the wings of the bee and looped some decorative gold twine in with them too. The body is die cut from yellow cardstock, and the black stripes were added using a Copic marker. Then, I die cut the greenery for the swag from the Foliage Bunch set and built my flowers using components from two die sets: the Block Print Star Flowers and the Block Print Garden Heart. I secured everything to my card front and moved on to the last few steps of my card design.

First, I heat embossed a sentiment from the Poppy Stamps Sentimental Banners set with gold embossing powder and die cut it with a stitched sentiment strip. I tucked another sentiment strip die cut from vellum behind this one before attaching it to my card front. The final steps were to add a few matte gold pearls and a decorative gold twine detail.

Thank you so much for visiting today! I hope you’re inspired to step out of your comfort zone a little during your next crafting session!