Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Chinese New Year is a very important holiday

in the Chinese calendar. You find all sort of

info about it HERE.

This year is the year of the Monkey.

For my card I used a digital monkey image

by Michael Strong.

You find the monkey on Michael Strong's

blog HERE as a free download.

When you have the iage on your computer,

you can print it any size you want. For the top

of the card I created a border with the monkeys.

I wanted tomake some paper lanterns. That makes

me think of China, so I printed some larger monkeys

for the lanterns. Here yucan see how the lantern 

is created:

With a circle die I cut  a circle out of the paper.

You also need a crimper.This is a small one for

a small circle.

Roll the circle through the crimper.

To give it a paper look I used a little white ink

on the raised parts. When you want an image

on the lantern, you have to stamp or print this

before you roll the paper through the crimper!

The sentiment is also a die.

Now I also promised another Valentine card today

and this is also celebrated in China. It is called 

Qixi Festial or Double Seven Festival and if you want to

know more about the tradition you can read about it here.

So here is a card with the paper lantern for

Valentine. I cut out the heart in the midle of the 

golden circle and added a red circle behind it.

Little hearts are dangling at the bottom and

the chinese character for love is stamped

and embossed in black. I was thinking you

could write inside somethinglike: you light

up my life!

Thank you for looking!

Have a creative New Year!