Red Chinese Lantern Card for Chinese New Year 2012

Red and Gold are traditional Chinese New Year colours. The color of Red in chinese culture usually means good luck and Gold symbolises wealth and happiness. Red lanterns are also symbolic in Chinese culture and festivals. Red lanterns are supposed to warn away evil spirits whilst expressing warmth, happiness and joy. Hence, when you send your friends Red and Gold Chinese New Year greeting cards with Red Lanterns, your cards will symbolise all these well wishes for them in the coming year. So here is another Red and Gold Red Lantern card to inspire you.

project recipe
stamps: Friends Never Fade (WM 121522, CM 120618), Teeny Tiny Sentiments (WM 119185, CM 120024), Baroque Border Standard Wheel (109675)
ink: Encore Gold Pad (retired)
card stock: Real Red (106578), Brushed Gold (124917))

tools: Modern Label Punch (119849), Word Window Punch (119857), Oval Punch L (119855), Oval Punch XL (119859),  Standard Handle (102971), Heat Tool (106587), Crimper (101618)

the added pizzaz: Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder (109129), Stampin' Dimensionals (104430), gold tassel cord and beads

cardessence tips

• Since the Encore Gold Pad is retired, I recommend using the Versa Mark Pad (102283) and emboss all images with the gold embossing powder;
• use the oval punches for your lantern shapes followed by running the punch outs through the crimper.

Happy Chinese New Year

A-viary Happy Chinese New Year 2012

hAppY nEw yEAr everyone

I hope that all of you have had a Merry Christmas and celebrated the New Year with a bang. This year, I decided to be brave and convinced my husband to take our sons to the New Year's Eve Family Fireworks display in the city. And so we did, along with an estimated 50,000 Melbournians enjoyed an early evening of festivities and carnival extravaganza until 9.30pm when the skies exploded in a colourful display of fireworks.

It was a lot of fun, the weather was pleasant at 30-33'C with a light breeze and no mosquitoes or flies. We had caught the special New Year's Eve free train service to and from the city and the crowds were so very orderly. I was super impressed with all the organisation of the whole event by the City Council of Melbourne and the Melbourne Metro Train service - all which made our first New Year's Eve fireworks experience very enjoyable.


This year, Chinese all over the world will celebrate Chinese New Year - the Year of the Dragon, on 23 January 2012. With all the Christmas and New Year festivities over, it is time to focus on our Chinese New Year greetings.

For today's post, I'm resurrecting a card I made for CNY last year. Apart from Christmas, sending CNY greetings is the next most popular card giving event (that I know of). When Stampin' Up! released the Aviary SS in last year's Summer Mini Catalogue, I immediately saw the potential for using the bird cage images as Chinese Lanterns, particularly this one below.

The centre image is the primary Aviary SS image I used to create these 3 lanterns. I made the 2 smaller lanterns on each side of the larger one by cutting the lower portion out. I also hand made the tassels as I couldn't find retail tassels small enough to suit. Check out Nezumi World for easy tassel instructions. Here's the project recipe.

project recipe

stamps: Aviary (WM 122051, CM120452), Teeny Tiny Sentiments (WM 119185, CM 120024), Daisy Dash Jumbo Wheel (retired)
ink: Encore Gold Pad (retired)
card stock: Real Red (106578), Brushed Gold (124917))

tools: Modern Label Punch (119849), Word Window Punch (119857), Jumbo Handle (103661), Heat Tool (106587)

the added pizzaz: Crystal Effects (101055), Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder (109129), Stampin' Dimensionals (104430), gold tassel cord

cardessence tips

• since the Encore Gold Pad is retired, I recommend using the Versa Mark Pad (102283) and emboss all images with the gold embossing powder;
• I recommend that you always apply Crystal Effects before cutting out the images because it is easier to hold on to larger pieces of CS than smaller ones.

happy stamping until next time