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"!