Hello. welcome to my little crafty blog. I’m just posting a simple card today, but the theme was inspired by an article in this morning’s paper about the first World Bee Count that launches this week. Now I’m very fond of bees, as my name (Deborah) means industrious or bee-like! There has, however, been a very sharp decline in the bee population in Britain, and in other parts of the world. This is worrying as they are key pollinators, so very important to our food supply. A free app (the World Bee Count) is being released on Friday, and the researchers want us to use our smartphones to snap shots of any bees we see and upload them onto the app. There’s more information at http://www.beescount.org

Back to my card – I’m entering my bee birthday into this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge #432, designed by Jen Timko

Given my affinity for bees, I couldn’t resist this ‘Honey Bee’ set from Stampin Up! when I saw it

I started by stamping the beehive in Adirondack Butterscotch ink, and then cut it out with the coordinating die

I’ve kept the colours in black and yellow, so cut a strip of black card and stamped the sentiment (from the ‘Everyday Sentiments’ by Julie Hickey) onto it and then embossed with Gold Satin Pearl Wow embossing powder

Next was the small bee stamp, in Archival Black ink, and again cut out with the coordinating die. I added his yellow stripes with a Promarker and attached him using Pinflair glue to give a bit of depth

I finished off with three dew drops from Papermania, which I though looked like drops of honey

So please do take some time to check out the World Bee Count – there are about 270 bee species in Britain, but you’re most likely to see honeybees and bumblebees.