The Simon Says Stamp Flickr challenge #52  theme is “CUT IT OUT!” This means creating a card using some die-cutting.

Wallis Simpson (formerly the Duchess of Windsor) once said, “You can never be too rich or too thin.”, however my take on the quote is, “You can never have too many stamps or too many die-cuts.” LOL

That being said, I tried to use NO stamping and only die-cutting on this project. However, I wimped out a bit on this when I realized I need a little texture for the background. So I used a background stamp.

The SSS Hexagon Pattern Circle die reminds me of a honeycomb and bees, so I decided the card was going to be a B-day card.

I used the SSS Painted Happy Birthday wafer die and cut it out of black cardstock. To emphasize the “bee” or “B” theme, I cut apart the word birthday so I only used the “B” and the “day” for the birthday part of the sentiment.

I realized as I planned the layout of the card, it kind of looked plain. So I used one of my new background stamps from Concord & 9^th (absolutely love their stamps) to simulate the wood you would find in those wooden beehives in apiaries.

The structure of the card was simple after die-cutting all the pieces. I used a piece of A2 sized orange colored cardstock and stamped the wood background onto it with some orange ink for a more subtle tone-on-tone pattern. I later cut this down by a quarter of an inch on each of the dimensions so that it was 4-inches by 5.25-inches.

Using the solid circle die that comes with the Hexagon circle die set, I cut a circle in the exact spot I wanted the open hexagon circle to be. I mounted the solid circle piece to the back of the hexagon circle and this was mounted onto black fun foam for dimension.

The orange wood background piece was mounted onto a top-folding A2 portrait-oriented card base and then the entire circle piece was placed over the die-cut hole in the card front. I made sure that the woodgrain behind the circle lined up with the wood background piece before adhering it to the front of the card.

I die cut a cute bee from black cardstock with Paper Smooches’ Bee Dies. There are two bees in that die set and I used the one that was carrying a little heart. The black outline of the bee was used and I also die cut the same bee from some bright yellow cardstock scrap and used that for the bee’s stripes and wings. The black-outlined bee was adhered to the bottom left of the circle and I then glued the little stripe and wing pieces in using a glue pen. The heart at the bottom of the bee’s feet was die cut from a scrap of yellow/gold glitter paper from my stash. I added a tiny black enamel dot for the bee’s eye (also from my stash).

The “Happy”, “B,” and “day” word pieces were mounted onto black fun foam and then glued to the front of the hexagon circle.

There is a lot of assembly involved when making a card using mostly dies, but it is rewarding once the final project is complete. I like the dimension on the card created by the raised sentiment and different die cut pieces.

Hope you have a bee-you-tiful day!

Supplies used in making this project:

Dies:  Simon Says Stamp: Hexagon Circle wafer die set, Painted Happy Birthday wafer die; Paper Smooches: Bees die.

Stamps:  Concord & 9^th: Barnwood Background stamp.

Ink:  Simon Says Stamp: Orange Peel.

Cardstock: Simon Says Stamp Cardstock: Burnt Orange (for the hexagon circle); Orange Peel (for the card front); Black (for the sentiment, bee outline piece, and card base); yellow scrap cardstock from my stash (stripes on the bee’s body and wings).

Other: Small black enamel dot (for bee’s eye) from my stash; yellow/gold glitter paper (for bee’s body stripes) from my stash.