Happy Chinese New Year

Today the Chinese New Year starts and this year is the 

year of the rat. Goodbye year of the pig.

The Rat:

If you are born in the year 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984,

1996 of 2008 than you are a rat and rats are believed to be

very industrious and thrifty, dilligent and positive.

Of course I wanted to make a card for the new year and I came across

 a wonderful tutorial here by Frenchie. The tutorial is HERE.

It is a tent card.

I added a little of my own.

The heart is a stamp by Michael Strong

and the sentiment is from my stash.

On the side of the rat I added the flower stamp by Michael Strong.

The are embossed in silver. I was inspired by seeing this decoration

when I googled for the rat image.

Thank you for looking

and have a creative day!

Sketch Saturday #546

Today I share my card with lots

of freebies, that i made for a sketch challenge

and the Chinese New Year (Febuary 5).

The Chinese year has always animals.

We say goodbye to the year of  the dog

and welcome to the year of the pig.

If you are born in one of the following years:

1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 

you are born in the sign of  the pig.

Pig(猪—Zhū)

People born in the year of the Pig think logically and are able to fix whatever problem they're in. They aren't good communicators, but they're kind and able to provide for the family. Most of them are wealthy. Their only obvious fault is that they lose their temper easily.

• Science
  Pig is Yin, and its earthly branch is Hài.
• Folklore
  Pigs are the symbol of wealth. Their chubby faces and big ears are signs of fortune as well.

You find this sketch on the 

Sketch Saturday Blog.

I found this fun image as phone wallpaper

 and it was easy to use as a print for my card.

I wanted to share the link with you, but cannot

find it again. So here the image.

This little piggy is a free digital image on the 

blog of Michael Strong HERE.

I printed the pig twice to make it more pop out.

For a little bling I added the sequins.

The sentiment with the Chinese characters I found on

the internet and share here with you, so you can use it too:

Thank you for looking

and have a creative day!

Dog for Chinese New Year

Did you know the Chinese New year is in Febuary?

To be percise it is Febuary 16 and it is the start of

the Year of the Dog.

For this you find a wonderful FREEBIE on the blog

of Michael Strong HERE.

Thank you very much, Mike!!!

So I downloaded the image and for this first quick

card, i colored the image in Photoshop and cut it 

out with scissors. The card is 5"x 5" and for the

background I use the Tim Holtz rays stencil with

red ink. Then I cut out the circle and added some red ink too.

Around the black strip of paper I added the red ribbon

from my Diana Larson stash.

The chinese dog character is a stamp.

Thank you for looking

and have a creative day!

Happy Chinese New Year!

As today a lot of people celebrate the Chinese

New Year, I want to wish you all a very happy

and healthy Year of the Rooster.

On Michael Strongs Blog I found

this free digital image HERE and after downloading

I coloured it in photoshop and 

printed it several times.

The first layer is cut out with 

an oval stitched die from Stampin' Up!

and then I cut the next images with

scissors to give it more dimension.

The layers are taped together with 

foam tape.

Thank you for looking

and have a creative day!

Inspiration for Chinese New Year: The Year of the Rooster

On January 28 the Chinese New Year takes place and

their years always have the name of an animal.

 This year will be the Year of the Rooster.

Here you find some more information about the

signifigance of the rooster and if you where born

in a year of the rooster and what it means for you.

This card looks complicated, but below I explain 

how to do it and you notice how easy it is.

I used:

The Year of  the Rooster stamp from Art Neko

Holiday Greetings also from Art Neko

Start with stamping the rooster with versamark ink at

random on the background panel. Emboss it with white

embossing powder.

Now color the paper with red and orange ink 

with a blending tool The white embossing powder

works as a resist.

Take the sentiment and stamp with black ink.

Finally add some drops of water. Heat set.

Stamp the center piece with the rooster in black ink and color

with pencil. To assemble the card wrap some red/white

twine around the background panel, add the rooster with foam tape.

The happy new year is stamped on a piece of white paper and cut 

into 3 pieces and looks like the rooster is shouting it.

For this card I used the same rooster stamp and here the

background is even more easy!

 I used a piece of matt silver paper for the back panel.

Stamping the rooster at random with black ink.

For the center piece I embossed the rooster in red.

On the silver background I added some silver holographic

sequins to add some bling to the card.

Thanks so much for looking

and have a creative day!

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!

Sunday Scrap Page: Monkeys

Official Chineese New Year celebrations are 7-13th of Feburary

and marks the start of the Year of the Monkey. So Michael Strong

offeres a serie of free digital monkey stamps on his blog

for you to use for your cards or other projects.

You can find thes images for downloading HERE.

They sure are great fun if you want to make some

Chinese New Year cards. Thank you Michael Strong

for making these fun digital images.

I used themto make this scrapbook page about my

twin grandsons, they sure are two fun monkeys!

I used Club Scrap Celebrate paper.The monkeys I printed 

on the blue paper and colored them with pencil. Each monkey

is colored a little different. The bottle caps came also with this kit.

With a 1 inch circle punch I punched 3 circles out of a piece

of silver scrap paper I had left over from the cards the other day.

They fit exactly into the bottle cap. I added these sticker

numbers and put the sticky glass on top. Perfect embellishment

for the monkey to hold.

The sentiment is a quote I found on the internet and typed on 

the computer and then printed on the grey paper from

the Celebration kit. The tiny words you see on top

of the pictures are also stickers that were on the number sheet.

This sheet is fom one of my very old Club Scrap kits

from my stash of never used sticker sheets. Not a big fan of

stickers, but here they came in handy!

So hop over to Michael Strong's Blog

and get your own monkeys!

Have a creative day!

Chineese New Year: Goat

Today I share with you my card for the Chinese New Year.

You can read all about it here:

http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/2015.htm

It is on Thursday Febuary 19, 2015.

For this occasion Michael Strong has made a 

digital goat image that you can download for

free from his blog here:

http://www.blog.strongstamps.com/

You also find an explanation on how you

can use the digital image and change it

in a photoprogram called picasa.

Also I did use some real stamps.

The sentiment and the little goats are from

a Art Neko set called:

Chinese New Year sheet

You will have this for a long time,for it \has all

the symbols for all the Chinese years.

Now there is more to the card, for when you

 open it up, it looks like this:

Yes, inside it is a pop-up card!

In the red layer, I cut this strip before glueing

it to the yellow layer. This way I could add

the goat to pop up.

On the top,behind the goat, I added Mike's

mini stars,representing the fireworks.

It is stamped and embossed with red embossing powder.

On the goat I added a few glitter stones.

On the bottom of the card I created a place

were to add  you can add some words

and your name with the decoration of

the Art Neko stamps.

Thank you for looking!

Have a creative day!