Busy Buzzing Bees - A class with JOFY

On 26th May my plans changed unexpectedly and so I was able to attend a class at the Craft Barn by Jo Firth-Young, (JOFY) designer for PaperArtsy.

The class was to make this fun box canvas with two of Jo's stamps sets.

We were given a small box canvas which we painted with our choice of colours from the Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic paint range. Then we stamped the message and some honeycomb patterns directly onto the canvas, some of the patterns overlap the deep sides of the canvas. We painted in the hollow outlines for two of the words with white paint.

A printed page from an old book was supplied and this we painted with a wash of white paint, stamped the hive, then pained in shadows. This was cut out and stuck into position on the canvas.

The flowers were stamped onto tissue paper and painted, then cut out! Quite tricky cutting out these as they were on very narrow branches! It went very quiet while we all concentrated hard at this point.

We stamped large and small bees onto card and painted in the details, before cutting them out. We cut the wings off the large Bees! - but added new ones made by stamping on acetate. 

Bees and flowers were added to the canvas, again they were wrapped around the sides.

The wings of the tiny bees were folded up so they appear to be in flight.

A tiny hole was drilled in the top of the canvas so one large bee could be added by means of a coil of fine wire - from where he could hover over the canvas. The hole was tidied up with a tiny button.

And one lovely bee buzzing around on a wire from the top.

I finished off with a marker to go over any of the stamped lines which had acquired a little paint, and the gems were added to the flowers.

This was a great class and I thank Jo for teaching it and sharing lots of hints and tips along the way. 

It was also lovely to meet Dame Judi Dench in the Farm shop next door during our lunch break. 

I will certainly use this technique again and I have now acquired some of Jo's stamps to play with at home. 

Thanks for looking

Lynn x