Happy Lunar New Year!

Yesterday marked the beginning of the Year of the Rooster in the Chinese calendar — it is also considered a spring festival, but you can tell that to the snow falling outside. I wanted to make a card to celebrate the new year, but of course don't have any rooster stamps! The closest I have are baby chick stamps — and while of course cute yellow chickies may grow up into roosters, I'm not sure it's quite the symbology I was looking for. ;) So I went to my fallback position of paper lanterns, used the current CAS(E) This Sketch design, and came up with this: 

For the lanterns, I found a tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers for DIY lanterns using die cuts and a crimper (I had to borrow one). Especially on the patterned paper, the crimping is very subtle. It shows up a bit better in close-up: 

I added a bit of emboss-resist sky to the top corner of the main panel; the branch is misted to colour it. 
The Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge is Anything Goes, so I'll be linking my card there as well as the All That Glitters is Gold challenge at Shopping Our Stash.  

(I rotated the sketch 180°)

Supplies: PTI white cardstock, Memory Box Brioche patterned paper, gold pearl paper, PTI Uncorked & Paper Smooches Botanicals 1 stamps, Versamark & tumbled glass distress inks, pale gold pearl & Ranger clear embossing powders, Hero Arts spring branch & Spellbinder oval dies, Darice crimper, Mr. Huey's water cooler colour mist, glue dots

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Happy Naughty or Nice New Year!

Here's wishing you a happy and healthy 2017! A new year, a new month, and a new Naughty or Nice Challenge, of course! 

We're calling it Ready, Steady, Go — show us your New Year's card, or new anything, really. I'm still waiting on my after-Christmas purchases to arrive, 😉 so here I am with a celebratory New Year card: 

Champagne glasses and shine, what else is needed? With the aid of my MISTI, I was able to  stamp my two champagne glasses, complete with bubbles, side by side. They and the sentiment are embossed in silver. I also spritzed the black base with shimmer mist, both for sparkle and just maybe because I forgot to prep it before I used my embossing powder. 🙄
New year, new supplies... new your choice! Hope you will join us. 

Supplies: Stampin' Up real red & basic black cardstock, Simon Says Stamp Cheers stamps, Versamark, Ranger silver embossing powder, Tsukineko sparkle sheer shimmer spray

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Belated... Happy New Year?

Yes, I'm a week late posting this Chinese New Year card I made... but in my defence, I wanted it to get to its destination before I posted it. And I may have hoped it would travel from my house to there in two days. Maybe not. :D Better late than never, here it is: 

We are now in the Year of the Sheep! (It can also be the Year of the Goat; I don't have many goat stamps...) I was sure this sheep was holding a little gift, so thought it would be perfect for a not-very-traditional New Year's card. Of course, when I got the set out, it was the cow holding a gift, and the sheep had a cupcake. So I masked the sheep's front legs with washi tape before stamping and embossing her. I also stamped her on a post-it note so I had a mask for sponging the background. Then I stamped, embossed, coloured and fussy-cut the cow's front legs and adhered them to the sheep. I popped the present up just a bit with a double layer of glue dots for a hint of definition. 
Simon Says Stamp is having an Anything Goes Wednesday challenge this week, so I'm entering. 

Supplies: white & red cardstock, Simple Stories Summer Fresh patterned paper, Pink Cat Studio Farm Animals & Neat & Tangled Gifts for You stamps, Memento Luxe grey flannel & Simon Says Stamp schoolhouse red inks, clear embossing powder, red Spectrum Noir marker, Marvy gold metallic marker, Wink of Stella clear glitter marker

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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! A few days into the new year already, but I had a nice little holiday break from blogging. My fellow Drunken Stampers and I are back today, though, with a timely challenge: 

This is the final challenge in our current "person/place/thing" theme -- and that thing is New Year's Day. You can go with whatever inspires you about heading into the brand new year. 
I knew right away I wanted to make a New Year's card for my husb, so I went for a celebratory fireworks card... with Minnie Mouse. ☺

I had planned to use Mickey on my card, since he's my favourite, but this Minnie stamp looked just too celebratory not to choose. The fireworks were a different challenge, since I don't have any fireworks stamps. I went through a bunch, and found a wedding bouquet with streamers -- cutting the clear stamp in half, I stamped the streamers twice, then added the flourishes and stars. Works for me at least! Some shiny silver paper to offset the black-on-black finished the card. 
Now it's your turn! Whether you want to illustrate this year's resolution, make a festive beverage card, or simply anything that inspires you about the start of 2014, come and join us! 

Supplies: white, Stampin' Up basic black & Recollections silver cardstock, Inkadinkado Disney, Basic Grey Forever, Paper Smooches Birthday Buddies & Studio G stamps, Versamark ink, Zing clear embossing powder

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Year of the Dragon

The Chinese New Year was celebrated this week! (Monday, to be exact.) It supposedly also marks the beginning of the spring season, although the weather here at the moment would beg to differ. We have now entered the Year of the Dragon, which just happens to follow the Year of the Rabbit -- that's me! While I do have bunny stamps, I am lacking in the dragon department, so went very traditional for my New Year card:

For me, one of the neat things about this card is that much of it is made with things I have won! The lanterns are part of a Black Leaf Design Solutions digital set I won on the DYSU challenge blog. They are paper-pieced with some My Mind's Eye paper I won from my friend, Meg. And the twine the lanterns are hanging from is one of five colours of twine I won from the Ribbon Carousel Challenge! (Yay, me! Granted, these wins took place over quite a stretch of time.) For the little dragon medallion, I went back to my teacher roots and found the image on Scholastic.com. I did manage to supply the red and white cardstock all by myself. ☺

The Simon Says Stamp Challenge is calling to me to link this card! And since the Year of the Dragon is supposed to be one of extra good fortune, here's hoping! 

Supplies: white and Stampin' Up real red cardstock, My Mind's Eye Life of the Party Lime Twist patterned paper, Black Leaf Design Solutions Festive Chinese Lanterns digital image, gold gel pen, black baker's twine, dimensionals

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