Chinese New Year Blog Hop, the year of the Snake

Welcome to the Chinese New Year Blog Hop! I'm so glad you could join us. The Year of the Snake officially begins on Sunday, February 10th so be sure to wish all your Chinese friends longevity, happiness, wealth and good fortune during this two-week festival!
  
My traditions involve eating a lot of good food, and usually getting some new clothes.  Chinese New Year was a lot more fun when I was a kid because I would get money in little red envelopes from my parents/aunts/uncles/grandparents, etc.  You could make quite a lot of money on that day, and the great thing was that you were allowed to spend it on whatever you wanted.
 
Unfortunately, I am now married, and have to return the favor by giving red envelopes to my kids and parents/grandparents. Ellie has already asked me several times how much money she is going to get for Chinese New Year because she wants to make sure she has enough to buy a Barbie.  (SUPER!)

Anyway, back to the hop:  how 'bout a few cards using the free digis created especially for this occasion?  If you're not an expert in digis, never fear.  I'm not either.  My cards are very low-tech.  I used Powerpoint for each of my cards.

First, a couple of cards made with the free digi from Dalhouse Designs.  I love quilts, and when I was looking at the image it kind of reminded me of a quilt block.  The actual image has 2013 on it.  I just imported the image into Powerpoint and covered that up.  Then I printed a whole bunch of the blocks on red cardstock and cut them out.



Then the fun part - embossing!  Each of the red squares was embossed with clear embossing powder.  It was interesting to see the effect on the printed image...the embossing powder embossed differently on the printed image vice plain cardstock.  It's hard to see in the photo, but it added some extra texture.  That gold piece is also embossed.



I couldn't decide if I like the snakes pointed in our out, so I made one card in each style.  I used a sentiment from CTMH's Say it In Style set to finish it off.  
My final card uses the digi from Fresh Squeezed Stamps.

The image is printed on vellum, and then I used alcohol inks (my first time using these....it's so easy and so fun!) to add that blue color to the vellum.  The lanterns were colored in using a Faber-Castell big brush marker and Spectrum Noir markers.  Using a tip from my friend JJ, all of the color was added to the backside of the vellum.



I was a little concerned about tihs one - I might get in trouble with my mom since blue is not a color associated with happiness/blessings in Chinese culture (it's a funeral color), but I only have a few colors of alcohol ink right now, and I'm just going to pretend that it's sky.



Here's who you'll be hopping with this week for a chance to win one of five fabulous prizes listed below:  

Designers

Emily Leiphart

Alice Wertz

Chunyuan Wu

Kryssi Ng

Mary Johnson

Miriam Prantner

Pamela Ho

Sparkle Smith

Artists/Sponsors

Angie Blom Designs

Dahlhouse Designs

Deasy Designs

Fresh Squeezed Stamps

Lisa Hetrick Design

Avocado Arts
Mama Elephant

You have until Friday, February 15th at 11:59 p.m. EST to comment or enter your digital project for a chance to win one of the five fabulous prizes. The winners will be chosen via Random.org and announced on Emily's blog  Saturday, February 16th. Winners will have until Friday, February 22nd at 11:59 p.m. to claim their prize. Second chance winners, if any, will be redrawn and announced on Saturday, February 23rd.

Many thanks to our digi artists and sponsors for their contribution to this blog hop. We loved using the artists' drawings and we know you will, too. Thanks to our generous sponsors, we have so many amazing prizes to give away. And thanks to Emily for organizing this fun hop!

Thank you so much for stopping by to celebrate with us! Now it's time to head on over to Pamela Ho's blog!!

Supplies Used
Cards 1&2
Paper/Cardstock - Recollections - Red Cardstock; CTMH - Black cardstock
Stamps:  Dalhouse Designs Digital; CTMH - Say it in Style
Ink:  Versamark
Other:  CTMH - Gold and Clear embossing Powder; Tombow - Mono Adhesive
Card 3
Paper/Cardstock - CTMH - White Daisy and Black cardstock; Recollections - Vellum
Stamps - Fresh Squeezed Stamps digi
Ink:  Ranger - Adirondack Alcohol Inks Butterscotch and Stream, Blending Solution; Faber-Castell - Scarlet Red Stamper's Big Brush Pen; Spectrum Noir Markers - CR11; CTMH - Cranberry Grosgrain ribbon; Tombow - Mono Adhesive and Vellum Adhesive