Places from Abroad:China

The Altenew April challenge From Places Abroad: The Forbidden City, Beijing, China brings a lot of memories back to me... my husband and I travelled about 4000 kilometers through China more than 10 yrs. ago. It was a wonderful and very interesting journey and we love to remember it.
So - of course - I HAD to play with this challenge this month!

I love Chinese paintings with the typical red signature on one side or corner - and so I tried to mimic one of these with the Altenews "Vintage Roses" stamp set and my own asian signature stamp.

As I love to use vellum lately, I embossed some golden stripes (background stamp from Hero Arts) and stamped one of the roses on a piece of handmade paper.

I centered everything, as Chinese people love all things balanced out.

Here are the inspirational pictures of the challenge:

... and a close up of the card...

I´ll also link it up to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. 

They are showcasing Hero Arts products this week - and I used the Hero Arts "Canvas Stripes" stamp for the background. I like it a lot because of the uneven structure of the stripes - a really cool effect!

I think it´s always fabulous to see how well products from different companies go together!

... which means "thank you"!

It´s high time

Yes, it´s high time to participate in 2 fun challenges, which both end April 25th!

 ----- Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge ---- and ---- Sparkle and Shine Challenge FOUR ----

For these 2 challenges I combined products from Penny Black (die set "hooray"), Altenew (stamp set "Vintage Roses") and Memory box (die set "Resting Birds"). I´m soooo sorry, that I don´t have anything from Winnie&Walter by now... :-(

I´m totally in love with glitter paper and die cuts and vellum at the moment - want to use these components all the time!

In addition I gave the birds some dimension with Glossy Accents:

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Mix it up!

Today I´d like to participate in the Essentials by Ellen April Mix It Up - Challenge... it requires to mix products from 2 companies - in this case Essentials by Ellen (Ellen Hutson) and Lawn Fawn.

I needed a quick and happy packaging for 2 chocolate bars and came up with this idea:

I mixed the Essentials by Ellen die "Limited Edition You Rock", which consists of the gem and the "you" and the Lawn Fawn word die "Scipty Thanks" . To be able to combine them, I cut off the "s" ... which brought a new idea to my mind: I do not have a "to"-word die in my stash - but this Lawn Fawn die is very versatile - I stretched the use of it by cutting off the "h" and the "nk" to get this:

Thanks for stopping by today!

(PS: The Butterfly is "Lydia Butterfly" by Memory Box.)

Polka Dots

Polka Dots suit every occasion - even a card/gift for a man: I made a little something for my Dad ...

I´d like to enter it into the City Crafter Challenge which is all about Polka Dots this week!