A new design for Green Hive Honey's Bees Knees

Here is the original 40 oz jar and label design of "The Bees Knees" from Green Hive Honey Farm of Camden, Maine. Just recently Magy and Clay decided to do some smaller jars containing 1lb of the delightful elixir so a new jar was resourced and a new label needed - a much smaller, rectangular one. So the original was 3.3" diameter thus:

...a nice amount of space to fill - and the new size is 2.5" deep by 1.5" wide rectangle - a mite trickier to work with and get all the visuals and the necessary type in - but I rose to challenge and here is the result:

Front label

Back label

Luckily - or smartly for I am being humble - I had originally created all the attendant motifs for the design and logo as individual parts when I painted them in watercolour so after I had scanned and cleaned them they are easy to move around as necessary and resize for new layouts.

I printed the labels up on full sticky sheets and cut them out individually with my trusty Xacto and a cutting board that is as old as the hills.

Don't you love the way they look all laid out together - they look like old fashioned trading cards or the cards one - not me but one -  used to get in cigarette packets in another age.

...and here are the new jars filled and ready to go off to "Fresh off the Farm" in Rockport - see the Green Hive there in the background?

Coventry Tartlets made with Green Hive Honey...yum!!

How lucky am I that I get to make delicious Coventry Tartlets using Green Hive Honey which is not only raw and local but also packaged with a label I designed...this is the Bees Knees for me!!!
This is a simple and really delightful recipe which could be an easy addition to your Thanksgiving array of desserts.

I began with an oh-so-easy tart crust gleaned from my friend and baker Lindsey Schortz of
let them eat cake , Belfast...it is astoundingly easy and so reliable...it doesn't shrink and gives a rich almost cookie like crust...YUM!!!

Pre-heat your oven to 325F...thank you!!

EASY PEASY SWEET TART CRUST: I made 10 miniature tarts from the recipe here:

1 1/2 cups/6ozs of unbleached white flour
 

1/2 cup/2ozs confectioners/icing sugar

1 stick + 1 tablespoon/ 4 1/2ozs butter VERY COLD

1 large egg yolk

a tad of milk or cream if your dough doesn't stick together

1. Sift dry ingredients together into a medium sized bowl.

2. Grate the butter into the dry ingreds, and rub in until like breadcrumbs.

3. Add egg yolk and blend carefully until the dough sticks together

4. Mine didn't stick together with just the egg yolk so I added baby drop by baby drop some cream until it did start to come together...be careful once it does start to come together it does so quite quickly...don't let it get sticky!!

5.My mini tart cases are about 1 1/2" round so I rolled a ball of dough about the size of a large walnut and popped one into each case.

Then joy of joys I just squashed and pushed the dough to line the tart cases one by one...isn't that simple? I let the dough be quite thick as it so delicious and cooks through very evenly and nicely!!

Now fill the cases with this simple creamy deliciousness:

Coventry Tartlet filling:

4 ozs cream cheese/ 1/2 an average pack

1/4 cup/3 ozs raw honey or regular - doesn't have to be raw

1/8 cup/1 oz butter (I always use salted because I like the flavour)

1 egg yolk

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated ye olde nutmeg

2 teaspoons (or one if you like and just want a hint) lemon juice.

1. Cream butter and cream cheese together.

2. Add honey and cream some more.

3. Add rest of ingredients and cream together and then fill the cases to quite full, the mixture expands a little as it cooks but not a lot...when it is cooled it will fall but that's just the way of this recipe....

Pop your little darlings into the pre-heated oven at 325F and cook for about 25 minutes until nicely and evenly browned...until they look like this dreamboat below!!

Sorry about the wonky spacing in this post...I made one draft and when I published it it was all deleted and it is hopping around all over the place so I am leaving the odd spacing as I don't want to type it again for the third time...thanks for your patience!!

Happy baking!!! I will have another recipe coming before Thanksgiving...Cranberry Steamed Pudding with (Green Hive Honey) Sauce...ooh la la!! 

My Green Hive Honey Farm Label Design

 

Just recently I was asked by Magy and Clay King of Green Hive Honey in Camden Maine to design a label/logo for their delicious honey. How could I refuse when A. I was asked so nicely and B. they wanted a design with a pink background with gold foil accents and complementary fondant icing colours and C. I love honey...now tell me that doesn't sound like a dream job for yours truly...lover of pink and all things sweet??

So I betook myself to the place where their honey is made and availed myself of these photographs for visual inspiration.Above you see the Green Hive Honey bees doing their job...buzzing and dancing and busying their days away in their idyllic environment not far from the town centre of Camden, Maine.....

This is a corner of the garden where they do their work and make oodles of delicious amber coloured honey which is lovingly extracted by mechanical means from the comb.

"Organically raised “girls” busily buzz in

orchards, fields, and gardens making

exquisite wildflower honey. Brought to you

straight from comb to jar, our raw, boutique

honey is nature’s purest gift from happy

bees. Never heated, thereby naturally

preserving the healing properties only honey

affords."

Just look at that deep amber colour...so beautiful, and I can vouch right now to how divinely this honey tastes....Magy and Clay gave me a jar to sample and inspire the muse - help get the creative juices a-flowing

 

And thus they flowed. I started the process by designing three separate but similar layouts, seen below in the order in which they came to be.

...and the final sketch and winner was....ta dah, not only Magy and Clay's favourite but mine too...I'm so glad they choose this design below, although having created them myself, and thus being ever so slightly biased in that regard, I would have been more than happy to move forward with any of the three.

And so the work begins on the layout.....

and continues with the watercolour paint-up with my trusty Winsor Newton Number 7 sable brushes, Winsor Newton watercolour paints and Arches watercolour blocks....joy of my creative life all.

And here below Ladies and Gentlemen the final label design...scanned, cleaned up and with a computer added pink ground and darker pink border...for who in their right mind wants to paint a pale pink ground around such a complex outline...not me for sure. I have learned my lesson with that in the past...put the grounds on after you have scanned the handiwork and make your life SO much easier.
The word Honey, the honeycomb and the central bee outline will all 'bee' in gold foil on the finished labels...won't that be divine?

This design is already available in the Green Hive Honey Farm Cafe Press Store and will soon be available as archival prints from the Green Hive Honey Farm Etsy shop along with jars of the glorious honey. I'll post on My and Green Hive Honey's Fan pages when the Etsy shop is ready for business.

My sincere thanks to Magy and Clay King for being so gracious and easy to work with...it was my delight!! Now I must find a British dessert with honey as the featured ingredient and do a blog post on that...suggestions anyone?

And now to the Bee Loud Glade with you!!

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core. 

 Buzz Buzz everyone!!