New Year's Card and Blog Candy Winner...

Did all of you have a good New Year's? After I read everyone's comments, I was surprised to find out that most of you stay at home and watch the ball drop on TV. You guys seriously need to come to Hawaii for some New Year's Eve- Island Style! I'll admit, before I married my husband, my family didn't celebrate New Year's like other's do, but now that I live in Hilo, it's all about New Year's!


Speaking of New Years... I never got a chance to post this card until now. Aunty Jan gave me this card awhile ago, and I was saving it for a New Year's post... but since I was not home for the holidays this year, I couldn't access all of my photos to post it. She used Kiyoko for this New Year's card.. I love how it looks so sweet with the pink and silver. She told me that the small flower background stamp that she also used on Kiyoko's kimono was from Japan. The sentiment stamp is by Printworks.



And here's a close up of Kiyoko



So I guess you are wondering who won the New Year's blog candy? Vera Yates is our lucky winner! Congrats Vera! Please email me your address so I can mail it out to you. Thanks to all who played this time. Check back next week as we will introduce you to our Release #5 images!

Li See Envelope Tutorial

It's Release Day! Yippee! It's our last release for 2011, but don't worry, we'll have some fun new designs next year.


Just wanted to share the instructions on how to make the li see envelopes I featured in yesterday's post. Since I couldn't find a tutorial online, I thought I'd share this with all of you!

Supplies:

• 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" red paper
• 6 3/8" x 3 1/4" red paper
• double stick tape
• Your favorite Sister Stamps New Year's Release Image

Tools:

• Paper trimmer
• Scoreboard
• Scissors
• Corner rounder punch
• Copics

Directions:

1. Score 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" paper with the 4 1/2" side at the top at 1/2" on each end.
2. Turn paper so that the 8 1/2" side is at the top and score at 1" and 7 3/4".
3. Cut off all corners on score lines.
4. Trim edges at slight angle to reduce bulk (optional)
5. Fold on all score line. Use bone folder for good crease.
6. Use the corner rounder punch and round the corners of the 1" flap. This will be the opening of your envelope.
7. Apply double stick tape to the two long flaps and adhere the 6 3/8" x 3 1/4" paper on top.
8. Apply double stick tape to the bottom flap (flap where corner is not rounded) and seal.
9. Stamp and color Sister Stamp image and adhere to front of envelope.
10. Embellish as desired.

Thanks for all the great feedback on this release! And thanks to our Guest Designer, Leanne Poe and of course Debi!

Li See!

Are you excited? Only one day left until Release Day! Just wanted to thank Debi and our guest designer- Leanne for all their awesome samples. Hope they've inspired you to get going on some New Year's projects or at least keep them in the back of your mind until you are ready to start making them.

Although I'm not Chinese myself, my cousins are, and I spent a lot of time with them growing up. I remember receiving Li See (or Lai See) packets for Chinese New Year or any other occasion. Li see packets are red in color since its considered to be lucky and normally have gold because red and gold usually mean wealth. And don't quote me but I read somewhere that "Kung Hee Fat Choy" means Good Luck and Prosperity, or something to that effect. So with all that New Year's info in my brain, I thought it would be most appropriate to make my own li see packets featuring our new images!


First up is the Lion Dancers image. My favorite corner die cut is from a Sizzix border die set. This one looks so asian to me, so I incorporated it into this project. I also used my Hero Arts Prosperity kanji stamp since you give li see to give them wealth/prosperity right? I embossed the image using black embossing powder on my favorite gold cardstock. Look who's back!


And here's a close up of those dancers...


Next up are the firecracker kids... Since this image is pretty wide, I decided to turn the packet sideways so that they would fit better on the envelope. For this one, I kept it simple and cut the kids and firecracker string out. Used the label die by PTI and embossed it using my cuttlebug embossing folder for some texture. Added on Island Scrapbooking's new "Kung Hee Fat Choy" sentiment. Don't know if you can tell, but I also added some gold glitter stickles to make it look like the fire crackers were popping.
Here's some close ups of the girl and boy.


And my last li see packet features Kiyoko. I used another stamp from that Hero Arts set- this time used Happiness. Embossed the gold background strip using the same Cuttlebug Embossing folder as the previous packet. Decided to paper piece Kiyoko's kimono using washi paper. Cut out Kiyoko and added some gold stickles to her sparklers to make them sparkle.

Here's a close up of Kiyoko...


Hope you enjoyed my li see packets! Don't forget you can pick up your new stamps tomorrow (11/1/11)! And there's still time to enter into our blog candy giveaways. Go back to each introductory post for this release for your chance to win by 11:59 pm HST (tonight).

Sparkly Kiyoko!

Everyone's played with sparklers before right? Well, when I was young, I was chicken..(I mentioned that in my last post) and did not like those jumping jacks since they always seem to attack me! So the safest thing for me to play with was sparklers. Sad times yah? It makes me happy that my daughter is fearless and plays with whatever is available, from when she was young. Sparklers are very boring for her, but I still enjoy them!


Kiyoko is my mom-in-law's japanese name. We always have New Years' at Grandma's house, even when I was young, it was always at my Grandma's, so I thought it was fitting to name this image after my daughter's grandma. New Year's in Hilo is very special for me. Not only is it New Years, but New Year's Eve is also my husband's birthday, so many of our friends and family stop by my mother-in-laws house to wish him Happy Birthday. Even those that we do not see very often seem to make it for a little while to say hello. Plus Hilo is FREEZING around New Year's time, so everyone is bundled up in the cold, playing firecrackers. New Year's will be very dull once we can't buy firecrackers anymore! I'm sure the other New Year's traditions will be remembered, but oh how we will miss that smell of smoke on New Year's Eve!


Here's the card I made using Kiyoko... I must admit that this is the second card that I made for this introductory post. The first one was made in a rush and I just wasn't happy about it, so I decided to try again. This time I made it into a shaker card! I haven't made one of these in ages because I hate the foam tape and what it does to my scissors. Well, I lucked out this past weekend and found a roll of thin foam tape at a local craft store on Oahu while visiting. That was a good find! Made making my shaker card oh so easy! I cut the circles from my new Sizzix wafer thin dies that are larger than my Spellbinder set and a great size for Sister Stamps images.



I guess the stickles I used on the sparkers wasn't quite dry yet, so all the microbeads were sticking to it. The frame was made using my MS punch set on my favorite gold cardstock. Topped it off with some red cherry blossoms by Wild Orchid Crafts. Here's a close up of Kiyoko...

I made this into an easel card, so here's what it looks like when the card is opened. I chose one of my new labels from the Labels #3 Spellbinder set. It had an asian appeal to me, so I thought it matched. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set that has a great variety of sentiments for all occasions.


That wraps up our introductory posts for this release! Check back soon for more samples of Release #4 images and our Guest Designer reveal. Oh! And don't forget to post a comment on THIS POST (follow rules on Firecracker introductory post) and tell me where you go to celebrate New Year's.

Supplies:

• Kiyoko image- Sister Stamps
• Cherry blossoms- Wild Orchid Crafts
• Microbeads- MS Crafts
• Punches- MS Crafts
• Stickles
• Smooch
• Labels #3 die- Spellbinders
• Circle dies- Sizzix
• Oval die- Spellbinders
• New Years Sentiment- Hero Arts
• Swirl background stamp- Hero Arts
• Gold mica powder
• Foam tape
• Cardstock- Bazzil
  

Release #4 Images Revealed...

Wow- can you believe how fast October is flying by? It's already time for our reveal of the Release #4 images! Yes, yes, we have some New Year's images coming up on 11/1, which should give you plenty of time to create all those New Year's projects. I have some special projects to share with you this week so check back to see all the fun. Plus I have another special guest designer helping us out this month, so stay tuned to find out who it is...