Sister Stamps Release #16: Year of the Ox

It's time for Sister Stamps Release #16, and included with this newest release are the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Ox and Year of the Tiger stamps. Today I'm sharing an anniversary card I created using the new Year of the Ox stamp together with the Year of the Rat stamp (from Release #14). 

When my daughter and son in law were first dating, we were pleased to learn that he was born in the Year of the Ox, a good match (according to Chinese astrology) for her, who was born in the Year of the Rat. LOL, I know it sounds silly but coming from Asian roots, our family tends to hold on to these traditional beliefs. In fact, there is a very cute folk legend about the Chinese zodiac animals which explains how the clever Rat got to be the first and the strong, kindhearted Ox became the second animal in the 12 year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac. (Click on the link to read the story)

For this card, I decided to color the Ox and Rat in nontraditional fun colors to give it a whimsical feel...remember Paul Bunyan's blue ox? (I think this ox is waaaay cuter!) The Chinese character behind them is the Chinese symbol for "shuang xi" or "double happiness". MTC was used to create the cutfile for the symbol, cut in red cardstock and sprayed with Tsukineko Sparkle spritz.

Placed the symbol and stamped images onto gold cardstock and washi paper and onto a gatefold style card...

...and to keep the gatefold nicely closed, I added little square tabs to top and bottom on the right side of the card to slip into the gap on left side of the card.

The gatefold card opens...

...with some interesting Chinese astrology info on  relationship compatibility between the Ox and Rat...

...And this flips open for the anniversary greeting inside.

 

I guess this card would also work as a fun and novel kind of wedding card, by using the Chinese zodiac animals of the year the bride and groom were born.

Hope you've had the chance to pop in at the Sister Stamps blog to see the adorable sea creatures in this newest release and possibly even win one! And please check out the Design Team blogs for some fabulous inspiration on what you can create with these new stamps:

 

Jenny: Sister Stamps Official Blog

Debi:   Crafty Buzz

Eva:     Crafting This And That

Kerry:  Kerry's Chilling

Patti:    Creations By Patti

Laura:  By TKG

Linda:  Simple and Sassy Creations

Linda on You Tube: Lfundoo's Channel

 





Wedding Card #4

Though I've titled this as "Wedding Card #4", in truth it was the first of the four wedding cards I made this summer. I decided to post this last because this was also the card I chose to use for our Cricut Club card swap (more about this later), and I wanted to wait till that was over before posting this.

Created in Design Studio, I used shapes from the George cartridge for the base of this gatefold card with it's heart cutout window. The one thing I always have trouble with when it comes to making  gatefold cards is trying to figure out a way to keep the card nicely closed...

...so I welded on little "tabs" to the top and bottom of the basecard to tuck in between the base of the card and the front embossed top layer, and that seemed to do the trick!

 Embellishing the card was fun...top front panels of the card were embossed using the Elegant Lines folder from Stampin' Up. The scalloped heart shaped window frame was created in Design Studio by welding circle outlines from Plantin Schoolbook to the heart shape in George. Swans are from the Wedding Solutions cartridge, four layers plus a shadow cut from gold foil cardstock. And leafy branch accents were cut using Stampin Up's bird punch.

 Here's what the inside looks like when the card is fully open. After spending so much time measuring and re-measuring and tweaking the cutfile for this card, I thought it would be a waste to make only one. That's when I decided I would use this as my card for our Cricut Club card swap as well. Coming up with twenty of these was a bit of a challenge...it's a good thing I got started early working on this! We had our card swap last weekend, and each of us went home with twenty different and amazing "Cricut" cards. Still haven't had a chance to photograph them all, but will definitely share them when I do...you are in for a treat!

Sending Love on Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day! Without a doubt, one of my favorite holidays because I enjoy making all this cute stuff to give away. Finally had dh install my Christmas present, the Cricut Design Studio and started playing around with it. But it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Got so frustrated with it that I was ready to toss it out the window. Luckily though, I found a lot of helpon line at the Cricut message board. The amazing ladies there had answers and solutions to almost every frustrating problem I had. And I was just stoked to see some of the awesome creations some of these ladies had posted to share. My first attempt at using Design studio is this pair of gatefold Valentines for dh and dd.


The scalloped heart was created by welding circles to the heart using Design studio and the George cart, and the arrow by welding rectangles and hearts.


Design studio enabled me to size the puppy and kitty from Paperpups cartridge to fit perfectly into the heart shape.


Design Studio at work again to make these Valentine tags. Welded tag shape from Plantin Schoolbook together to create a folded tag/card and more welding with hearts from George and letter from Mickey Font for Jason's tag. Placing the heart shape on the tag shape cuts a window in the tag and I embossed "i love you" using a Cuttlebug template to show thru the window.


Really love how these little boxes turned out! Used Tags Bags Boxes & More cart for the very
first time and Design Studio cut the heart window for the cute little teddies to stand in. They're actually key holders that I got on sale at Fisher. These were made for dh to give to special friends of ours at his work place.










These little goodie bags were so quick to make, again thanks to Design Studio. Pink hearts were glittered with ultra fine prisma glitter. Bags were filled with my favorite Dove chocolate
hearts, candy coated Hersheys Kissables and heart shaped Peppermint Patties (with pink mint
centers...yum!)




And last but not least, I decided to try a heart "mesh" again
using Design Studio's weld function. Hearts are from George and the swirls are actually the number "6" from the Celebrations cart.
Ashley's name is the Jasmine cart welded to a heart from George.