The Queen Bee Is On Etsy!

As of this morning, there’s a brand new listing on Etsy! It’s for the Queen Bee cards! Thanks for all the love on Facebook and Instagram you’ve shown me over this design! I’m pretty excited about it and hope you are too!!

One thing to note when you look in the etsy store… These cards are going for $30/set of six. I know that’s a little higher than my regular price point, but here’s why: The little bees’ legs were very difficult to deal with… I spend a lot of time making each set perfect. And the crown adds another step to the production. The gold paper I used on the set pictured is particularly difficult because it is so thin. But because of all of this, the finished product is beautiful and very different from anything else you’ll find in any stores! Which makes it totally worth the price tag! 😉

I can do this design in many different colors, and on many different color cards, so if you have a special request, just let me know and I’ll try to make it happen!

More listings coming later this week! 🙂

This Friday’s Favorite: Bee Rings!

This week I’ve been extra thankful for the many wonderful people and blessings in my life!

I am thankful for the birth of our Savior and for the celebration of His birthday leading to so much fun and cheer! Christmas parties, great food, spending time with family… I love it all! Christmas is for sure my favorite time of the year! I also love the gifting part of the holiday. It’s so much fun picking out gifts for others, and I won’t lie… It’s pretty fun to get stuff too! 😉

So, you may or may not know this, but I’m a pretty big fan of bees… Duh. Two of the wonderful people for whom I am thankful are some really special friends named Elish and Mandy. They each gave me a bee ring as a Christmas gift and I cannot get enough of either of them! I might be borderline obsessed… If you’ve seen me any in the past week, I’ve definitely had either one or both of these babies on…

the beautiful bee rings!

Aren’t they awesome! I love how different they are, and I love that I can wear them together on the same finger! I also got another fantabulous one from my parents that I absolutely adore, but it’s definitely more of a dressy ring not suited for everyday wear!

These rings (and people) are my Friday Favorites this week!

Favorite Find: Coral Bee Shirt

My Favorite Find this Friday is from an old favorite: TARGET! It’s sad how much I love this store… But that’s beside the point…

My brother-in-law’s lovely girlfriend and I had some good girl time at Target last weekend (while the boys were nerding it up in Best Buy) when she stumbled upon this little gem! She knows how I love bees (and she actually loves them too!) so when she showed me this I said I had to have it! Several minutes later it occurred to me that I might should check and make sure I had the right size…

I love the color and the little details.

I plan to wear this baby year-round! With a blazer and skinny jeans in the cooler months and with some white linen shorts and sandals when it gets warmer. Thanks, Mary Margaret, for showing this to me! 🙂

Y’all have a great weekend!

Favorite Friday Find: Beehive Mercury Votives

This weeks Favorite Friday Find makes me really happy!

While making a Target run earlier this week I stumbled upon some beautiful beehive mercury votive holders that I instantly fell in love with! With a price tag of $1.49 a pop, there was no way I could pass up a bargain like this. Beautiful AND bee related? Sign me up!

I luh-huv mercury glass and I think different styles of it look so beautiful when all mixed together! The warm goldish silver tone of these partuicular beehive beauties was going to fit right in with the current collection of mercury glass I’ve got going!

These babies also got me really into the Christmas mindset because that’s usually the time of year that I break out my whole MG collection for some holiday mantle decor!
Yay for the holidays!!

Favorite Friday Find: Buzzing Beauties!

My favorite find this week is, hands down, these awesome accessories from Rachel Pfeffer. I say accessories instead of jewelry because let’s be real. This is more than just jewelry. This stuff makes a STATEMENT!

Rachel Pfeffer Honeycomb ring

I subscribe to fab.com emails and saw the above picture in the email. I could not help but click on it, which led me to finding THIS incredible necklace:

Rachel Pfeffer Mini Honeycomb Necklace

As I’ve been known to do, I waited too long to buy either, and now the fab.com sale is sold out. BUT I did wander over to her website where I found all the bee goodies, plus more. MUCH more. All of which will completely take your breath away.

I’m compiling my wishlist, and hope to be the owner of one of these gorgeous pieces sometime in the not-too-distant future! 🙂

Where It All Began…

Making stationery is something I’ve been doing off and on for probably 5 or 6 years now, but it wasn’t until last year that I decided to name my line The Lovely Bee. I started thinking back to what exactly inspired me to choose this name for my company, and it’s sort of a neat story!

My fascination with bees started back in 2007 when one of my besties, Lindsey, and I lived in Oxford, England (NOT Mississippi!) right after college. We went through BUNAC (which I’m not sure even exists anymore) but it was a great company that hooked us up with temporary work visas and helped us get our feet on the ground for a few months of working abroad. (I was a waitress/barista and she was a mystery shopper… We had some awesome jobs!)

Here’s a page from our time in England. The picture of us sipping tea is surefire proof that we were in jolly ol’ England at tea time! The sign on the fence represents my love for dog humor, English style!

During a day off in Oxford, we decided to visit the Oxford Botanical Gardens and really had a great time looking at all the beautiful plants. We also saw tons of BEES flying around from flower to flower, so I got a few pictures of these guys!

One of Oxford’s botanical bees

It also so happened that I’d just finished a book called The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (which is definitely one of my favorite books EVER.) The book became even more special after I learned that my mama had been reading the exact same book 7 time zones to the left at the exact same time I was! (If you’ve never read the book, I highly recommend it. The thing that made the divine timing of her and me reading this book at the same time was because the book is about the relationship between a mother and a daughter… SO COOL!) The book also gave me an appreciation for bees.

After becoming uniquely fascinated with these little buzzing creatures, my sweet husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) gave me a bee necklace for Christmas that year that I RARELY take off. I’ve been through three chains but have managed to keep from losing the bee charm through the years. It’s such a special piece of jewelry to me!!

I SO love this necklace!!

When coming up with the name for the business I had such a passion for, I thought it might be a good idea to name it after something else that I’m crazy about, so BEES it was!

The Lovely Bee by Laurel

The bee in The Lovely Bee logo was hand drawn, as was the laurel wreath surrounding it. The laurel wreath was my mama’s idea, being that my name is Laurel and all. 🙂 Maybe one day The Lovely Bee will be able to afford a little logo update, but for now, it’s just perfect for where “we” (me and my shop dogs!) are as a company! Right now, I’m just so happy and so blessed to be able to get to do what I love!