The New Bee Day Card is On the Shelf!

My new Bee Day greeting card arrived back from the printer yesterday, and it’s waiting for an invite to the next birthday party! I have this birthday card listed in my ETSY shop already. This weekend it’s going up on my Shopify store (Hint: my newsletter subscribers get a freebie! Read to the end!)

Inspiration

For this card, I sat down really wanting to capture summer. The Raven birthday card is a hit all year, but I created the card last fall when I was tuned into the crows in my neighborhood that sit on top of the streetlight and call to their friends when they see good things hanging around. I imagined what they would do if they saw CAKE!

Digressing again…my husband calls it sparkles. Back to the bees. I wondered, “if bees had a birthday party, what would that look like?” I imagined at first, lots of bees together but I didn’t have the patience that day to make a whole bee day party…(that one is on the list for “someday”). So, I wondered what would one little bee do? Probably in reality, the bee would just flutter its wings and wiggle its butt, but in Lisaland, she’d have a banner and would be giggling about the bee day pun. So there it is….

Subject Matter

I created this from watercolor, and pen and ink, and honestly, the first go-around I made with this was terrible. I had to re-work it. I am used to drawing ravens in all kinds of situations, but not bees. It’s still a bit new, and the first bee looked pretty grouchy, (which is actually typical for them this time of year) and kinda wonky. The colors were muddy and the legs looked weird.

So, the paper I used was a little forgiving and I was able to salvage the work and clean it up in Photoshop. The result was way better. She looked nicer. Less sting-y. More party-friendly. And way more festive. Her colors were more defined. Her expression less snarky, and ‘Happy’ was in a font I really liked. I was originally aiming for a more flourishy, or farm type font, but this one, with the wood etch seems just right…

The Stuff Inside

So the card design went to the printer, and they did an amazing job. I have recently upgraded all my card stock to 100% recycled, and although it’s a bit more expensive, I sleep better at night knowing I am doing my part to harm less trees in the making of my cards. The upside is, my print house I use is carbon neutral and the envelopes I’ve recently started using exclusively are 100% recycled too. I’ve got a few stragglers of my older envelopes that aren’t made with recycled paper, but soon, I will have nothing but eco-friendly greeting cards.

That makes me, the bees, the trees, and y’all pretty happy.

So, here’s a little tip: My newsletter subscribers get a discount on all new releases! Be sure to click subscribe. With each new release, and at certain times of the year, I have discounts, giveaways and ebooks – woo hoo!

So, subscribers, the discount link for the bee card will come out this weekend to your inboxes and for anyone who hasn’t subscribed yet, you still have time to join, right here.

Update! The link has been sent out but don’t worry! I will send out another reminder this week so be on the lookout!

Rest assured, I respect your information by not selling it out for others’ use.

Enjoy the rest of your summer and I would love to hear what you think of the card!