Bee Furry!

I am love with this furry bee. Well, all things furry, really. But don't you just love a furry bee? I shouldn't say this in black & white because I'll bring myself bad luck, but I've never been stung by a bee. An evil red wasp, but never a bee. And I remember these big clumsy furry bees on our honeysuckle where I grew up. You could totally touch their fur - they were too fat to get mad about anything. I love a furry bee. I went to the world's best preschool - Mrs. French ran it in Bryan, and we had geese and ducks and all sorts of creatures in the yard that we could play with. One that I particularly liked one day was a white, fuzzy ASP!! I didn't know any better. If you're me, and something is fuzzy, you pet it. Anything else is unthinkable. So I plopped my butt down in the yard, picked up this gorgeous white fuzzy asp, put him on the palm of my hand and patted him like there was no tomorrow. Some of his fur was short and some was long. I guess he liked me. So when recess was over Mrs. French came out to get me (I've never been good at coming in from recess) she saw me and froze in horror at the asp in my paw. She went and got the janitor, who, much to my dismay, put a baby food jar over the asp on my palm, and then whacked the other side of my hand until the asp fell into the jar. Only after that did they tell me that those things sting. Clearly a lie - it didn't sting me! I never really believed adults about anything after that. Still don't. ;) These two furry bees are stamped in Brilliance Graphite Black and colored with Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre and Black Copics. The bee is outlined in Cool Grey #1. Then a little Martha Stewart Gel Craft Glue and some Dazzling Diamonds glitter and my bees are perfect. They are stamped on 3x3 Whisper White Stampin' Up! notes, and I used my SU 1/4" punch to punch a circle. I tacked it to the INSIDE of my card, and then on the front of my card I went around it with my Impressor embossing tool. Easy. The words are from Min Positive Words by Starving Artistamps.

Yesterday, when I got this in the mail, it stopped my heart. My brother in law & sister in law had a tree planted in Spot's honor in Yellowstone. The company that does this is called 4 Paws Forever and there's a link now in my new "Blue List" of things I love to the right. I cannot believe this beautiful drawing on the front of the card - it just squeezes my heart every time I look at it. I'm going to get it framed today. The picture doesn't do the delicate little drawing justice. What an incredible gift. Last year they named a star for Spotty!! They love animals and are incredibly sweet people. They adopted the most adorable dog - Lefty - that you've ever seen. Wow.

Check out the new Starving Artistamps Gallery Blog. There are some beautiful things here. These women are extraordinarily talented. I think you'll especially like Teresa's silhouette card that was posted yesterday using DSP from Stampin Up! Beautiful.