Chinese Thank You

I knew my thank you card for my friend Patti had to be two things...red and Asian themed. Those of you who frequent her blog (Creations by Patti) know these are her favorites, and also that she comes up with the most awesome papercrafting projects. Patti's currently on blog vacation for the summer, but look out, paper crafters! Come September, she is ready to blow you away with all the amazing projects she has in store.

I used the Chinese character for "thank you" as my focal point for this card. I found this, as well as the border on the internet by doing image searches on Google. The hexagonal medallion is from "Traditional Chinese Motifs", a Dover Book Series which includes a CD-rom of all the images. Imported all these to MTC for tracing to cutfiles. That part was easy...the hard part was getting my Cricut to do the cutting!

I thought mylar sticker paper would be a good choice for the intricate cuts in the medallion but ran into trouble as the tiny cut mylar pieces lifted off its backing and began sticking to the blade, creating quite a mess! Second time around I decreased the pressure to low and used the multi-cut feature, which seemed to improve the cut. Maybe a new blade would have helped too...
Added Mei Li from Sisters Stamps first release to the front of this window card...still struggling with my copics, as you can see! This time I tried LysaQR's coloring technique on YouTube for the hair...learning more everyday!

And on the inside...colorful washi paper for the background and the medallion flips open with a place for my sentiment. Had fun with this, and learned quite a lot too...in fact,I think this might be the first card I've done entirely in Make The Cut, cartridge-free and without Design Studio.