create a valentine's day buzz!

you've seen my unusual yellow heart decor in previous posts.
now that it's February, i'm taking the Valentine's theme a BIT further... 

BEE my Valentine, won't you?!

i'm having fun with this and can't wait for you to see what i made...

continue reading to see what inspired this happy theme, and how to make those buzzin' bees! 

these vintage Valentines, spied on Pinterest, inspired this theme...
and as soon as i thought 'bees', i thought of The BEE Movie. that thing cracks me up.
then i remembered another project completed years ago for a corporate client.

back in the 'two thousand oughts', i was hired as a designer
by the company that produced all of the West Coast Gift Shows.
my role was to create display sets and displays of vendor products
in a huge display area at each show. (along with presenting visual merchandising seminars)
and each show had a different theme, so i was constantly creating props and sets to fit themes.

one year, the Seattle Gift Show theme was 'Catch the BUZZ'...

and i took that theme about as far as i could by creating little bees and giant flowers as props:

 

the small bees were held aloft with clear fishing line or twisted wire,
and were made more visible by the dotted 'flight lines' that rambled all over the displays.
and by the bright orange-red giant poppies that i created with tissue paper.

the bees were a quick project - here's the simple process:


i used baling wire for these, as it bends pretty easily.

a large yellow pompom was encircled by the wire in a spiral twist, forming the stripes.
you can keep your pompom as rounded as you'd like based on how large the spiral is.

that wire continued out behind some of them to form a twisting 'stem' to replicate a flight path,
that part of the wire was cut off on bees that were to be hung from fishing line
(so they'd spin!)

another small piece of wire was bent into a figure 8 shape,
then tucked between the spiral wire and the pompom to hold the 'wings' in place.

the bees that i created this time have one extra detail:
i dusted them with iridescent glitter!

 the other element in this project is the 'honeycomb' heart.
you've seen that wood heart-shaped garden planter before as door decor.
and filled with paper flowers on my front porch.
now, i've turned it into mantel decor...
because the pattern of the chicken wire holding the moss is exactly like that of a bee's honeycomb!

i painted the moss and the chicken wire with yellow paint,
then painted the wood frame white.

when dry, i wrapped a yellow ribbon around the exterior frame,
tipped it on its side, and added a buzzing bee on a wire.
it gets the 'BEE my Valentine' message across quite clearly!

this honeycomb heart is one of three projects created to sit together...

i had SO much fun noodling these and creating them...
watch for the 'oh, HONEY!' pot and the 'BEE mine' sign in my next two posts!

i hope they inspire you to create your own BUZZ this month ;)

links to previous related posts:

garden heart door decor 

paper flower-filled heart planter 

BUZZ display at the 2008 Seattle Gift Show

(on my retail design blog)

shared online:

funky junk interiors | diy salvaged junk projects #562

thank you for featuring my project, Miss Donna!

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