Bzzz.... A wooden frame of bees in Summer !

Good morning all ! That's the end of week on Winged Things, and my turn (Coco) to illustrate this theme very inspirful. As soon as I read the theme, I knew exactly which products I wanted to use: BEES !
I was really excited, I love bees and had already beautiful Bees stamps on purpose... but now I can say that I love even more Tando's ones !!!
I had for a while a pack of Bee Set Large, but no precise idea of what to do with them. Then I received the Bee Set Small, and things became obvious. I chose altering a wooden frame bought for 1 Euro in a discount shop a couple of months ago... So happy with this recycling... cheap, trendy and soooo funny!!!   

Here are some step by step instructions if it can help. I will not give them all the times but I love sharing my experience and I think it's well worth doing it today ! Hope it will inspire you something similar with these wonderful bees and honey jars !! Maybe to decorate a kid bedroom for example... (or keep it for yourselves like me hahaha).
I first covered the plain frame with a light coat of Gesso at every place visible. Then I added a bit of texture using Grunge Paste on my Tando Leaves 2 Mask and another honeycomb mask. Once dry, I started to paint the background and all sides with opaque paints (I used Dabber Willow and a bit of Dabber Lettuce). I then added layers of translucent paints afterwards here and there, and also some Treasure Gold directly using my finger on the textured parts and on the edges. I played with several shades of green paints, especially my Fresco Finish Hey Pesto and Zesty Zinc colours that are translucent - nice effect guaranteed ! -. 
To add interest, I also covered some parts with a darker green colour (Espresso Dabber), and added a thin coat of Crackled Glaze over it before painting these parts again (but let's well dry before !..) in Willow + Zesty Zinc paints... You can see the light and nice crackling effects at the bottom near the jars in particular, I love this technique that I learned from Leandra Franich during a class she made in Paris. 
  

I used one small butterfly of my Butterfly Mask and I inked it with a cut'n dry and my Distress Peeled Paint ink (you can see it on the top left side), and I also stamped some Nature words using the same ink for a tone-on-tone effect. To highlight the edges and the textured parts, I put some Treasure Gold with my finger over them. At this stage, I naively considered my background as finished !! :)

 So... I could start painting my bees and the lovely combined elements. I chose one big and two small bees, and one large honeycomb and hive from my two Tando's Bees grab bags. I used lots of paints again (mainly Haystack, Smoked Paprika and Vanilla) + Distress Pumice Stone for the shades and the funny eyelids around the eyes (aren't they cute ?!..).  I drew the wings with a thin black marker and slightly painted them, then highlighted them using a white pen for a bit of transparency. I also added the word "Honey" on the two jars in Archival Coffee and small wooden alphabet stamps.  

My Stampotique flowers and small bees were stamped in Archival Jet Black on scraps of paper, and then painted (the bees) in Haystack and Smoked Paprika - a bit watered down -, with some extra stickles for the finishing touch !     

  

I used the following Tando products:-

Bee Set Large

Bee Set Small

Leaves Mask Set of 2

Butterfly Mask

Please pop on over here for more photos and details, and the list of all supplies. You could also be surprised by the verso of my recycled frame LOL !! Hugs, Coco xxx