It’s an oriental Christmas

My blog and I are experiencing a few technical display issues (more so I than my blog) please bear with me while I try and work out what the heck i have done lol.  I think it is fixed :$ This is what i get for blogging at midnight!

Well ... Today started out with the best intentions of just having some fun and a play around with black and white to try and get a nicely negative.  With no white ink or white embossing powder in the house, white paint it had to be and baby boy oh boy, I managed a negative and a grand one at that!  Mission accomplished ...  right now what the heck do I do with it?

Righty oh... there is a Versamark challenge on this week as well (not that I need an excuse to get my heat gun and embossing powders out lol) so a squish onto Versmark, coat of clear emboss powder and wellah ... This is looking good (still don’t know what the frig I am going to do with this yet).

Top left hand side corner has been clear embossed, you can see the difference in highlights by comparing the swirls beside it.(I took photos along the way only because I thought this technique / play was going to be my blog for tonight :))

So the clogs get ticking again... Oriental is on somewhere too! And with oriental for me goes hand in hand with vintage! Yeah baby, now you’re talking, thinking and the hands just have to keep up! 

I find I am always more inspired when I know who the card is going to so I got thinking of Lyn (my step mother-in-law) her house deco is oriental from pieces she has collected on her travels (one of the perks for working for an airline :)  Originally this was meant to be a Birthday card but in truth the way the embellishments finished around the sentiment area it really felt & was  looking to me like a used bonbon  with the coins falling out of it.  The flower with the tips glittered reminded me of a snowflake so Christmas it was going to be and Christmas we did succeed!

I used my negative from my play-around as the bottom layer and distressed the edges by tearing and clear embossed it as it really seemed to highlight the negative image.  I then layered on another torn and distressed piece (the felt floral ~ also mounted this layer with foam tape to add some dimension) and I edged the edges with charcoal ink and sponged it over  in places on the print as well to give a worn old look.  I curled the top right hand corner over to add focus on the swirl and added some vintage pearls to the swirls ends.

I love this fan! The image (perched birds) was free from mygrafico (thank you so much –I hope I did it justice).  I sized it to the size I wanted, copied it four times and pasted ~ I also did reverse the image so the two frames were symmetrical.  I charcoal inked the edges, fan folded it and unfolded it and clear powder embossed it and then assembled again.  I hot glue gunned it onto the gorgeous button from my stash and added some pearl to the button as well to add some extra elegance and keep the pearls presence in the card.

Sentiment was computer generated.  I charcoal inked the edges to show distress, clear powder embossed it as well and added the Chinese coins I found in my button jar.  I also tucked the curl under the coins.

Pretty paper flower turned snowflake.  I used up handmade paper scraps I had laying around and did some origami (how oriental is that!)  kite folds and played around and it was born. I added the 3 silver buttons from my stash as well and added clear glitter to the white tips to add a shine.  I mounted the flower/snowflake onto the fabric chopstick case/ holder (that I unpicked).

(Forgive the blur but my camera really did not like taking a shot of the base, I think it was because light was fading and I hate to use flash on my cards :( )

Remember the days when you used to go out for Chinese and they used to have the Chinese zodiac paper placemats? Well ... Yes I have some of them in my stash too (my house used to be very oriental before children ~ If I had pointy chopsticks around now days Chloe would end up stabbing herself (while running away from me trying to catch her) or she would stab her brother, so with them packed away in the back of the cupboard for 6 years now I thought I should use ‘em’ before I end up tossing ‘em’. 

I used the placemat as the first layer on the easel and keeping with the card I added the distressed clear embossed negative black (with pearl swirl end highlights) and distressed sponged felt floral as well.  I taped the left over fabric to some card stock and hid the raw edges underneath to make it ‘neat’ and  added the fabric strip on as well. I also layered them so each layer has the curl.  I broke one of my chopsticks (it was too long otherwise) hot glue gunned it onto the fabric and used that as the mount for standing the card.  I love the oriental lady picture on the end of it and the light green colour of it works so well on the fabric.  I also like that I was able to add another oriental piece to the bottom to ‘keep the flow’.

I mounted it all onto red cardstock and I also added a gold embossed edge to the base where the card mounted on (why not! The gun was out all ready and I so love that finish on cards and on this one it really finished it off!)

What do I love:

I soooo LOVE it ALL!  I really did not think it would turn out as well as it did.  I have never combined Christmas, vintage and oriental even in a sentence together!

Challenges for this little stir-fry are:
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday – FTTC88 Ink and edge distressing. (Tuesdays) - I won !
Tuesday Throwdown - #21 Three elements (three buttons on flower/snowflake) (Tuesdays)
 Simon Says Stamp – Easy no cook challenge ~ 3 types of embellishments, 2 patterned papers & 1 image – I have embellishments of buttons, pearls and glitter, patterned paper is floral and the white tip paper for the flower/snowflake petal is patterned  and 1 image (it is a repetitive image but still 1 image) *Please let me know if I have ‘pushed the rules’ so to speak and do not qualify – I fully understand* I have also added this note to the comments – got to keep things fair :) (Wednesday)
* Your Next Stamp - #27 Nicely Negative (Wednesdays)
 My Grafico - #70 Anything goes *also note this is my second entry into this challenge this week ~ Can’t see in the rules if that is ok or not * I have left a comment stating so in the comments section* (Wednesdays)
* Gingersnap Creations – GC74 Spicy Supply Challenge ~ Versamark (Wednesday)
 Some Old Girl – Let’s see some FABRIC (Thursday’s)
Winter Wonderland – Give it a vintage look (Fridays)
 Paper Cutz - #63 Anything goes (Fridays)
If The Shoe Fits – A Holiday for the holidays (Fridays)
Our Creative Corner – Embellishments! The more the better (Saturday’s)
 The Secret Crafter - #105 Oriental (Saturdays)
 Allsorts Challenge – Bingo ~ Buttons, flowers, mist/stickles (Saturdays)
Sketch Saturday - #125 Sketch

Fair winds and following seas.
~♥~The Navy Wife ~♥~