Year of the Shrago!

Happy Chinese New Year!

There is a bit of confusion over what animal sign is associated with the year 2015. Some say it's the Year of the Sheep. Some say Year of the Goat. Some say Year of the Ram. Apparently, we have options this year because those are all the ways "yang" is translated into English. So I propose we say it is the Year of the Shrago.

In the Year of the Shrago, you will find your Mo Joe Juice will be flowing at new all-time high levels of creativity. Bravo!

All this is my way of reminding you that I am guest designing for a wonderful challenge going on over at Inkspirational with a photo that has an Asian influence. We would love to see you participate! There are many floral designs you can come up with even if you don't have any traditionally Asian stamps, plus there are always digital images available.

I have more inspiration for you today. (Did you get your beverage? Okay, good.)

So last week when I was doing my original card for Inkspirational, I heat-embossed two "Love" symbols on the pretty origami paper. The first one you can find here or on the Inkspirational site. I thought for this second card, a butterfly I found in my drawer would make a nice accompany mint:

Rather than a Spellbinders rectangle die for embossing, for this card I used a rectangle mat die, which I believe came from PTI. It's a perfectly fine card, right?

Well, ahem, yesterday I thought I should deepen the grooves of my embossing to make it more pronounced, so I reached for an angled thingie that I have in my carousel for doing rub-ons. It was a bit dirty on the end, but it looked like it would work, so I took my metal ruler and grooved.

Aacckk! It turns out, gasp, that wasn't just some stain on the end, it was dog-gone INK! Sah-lap! What a dumb-dumb! INK! That'll make you drop a thing like a hot potato and fly backwards in your chair!

Well, hey now, it was too pretty to throw away, so I just inked the whole way round to fix it:

I even like it better. Here's a close-up of the sheen and shine:

And there you go. I do hope you will play along with the Inkspirational Challenge in any way that inspires you!

I'm also entering:

• CASology "Monochrome" challenge.
• Less Is More: "Wings"

And, then, since whenever I see a butterfly, I want to play in Mrs. A.'s Butterfly Challenge, I looked across the pond to see the brief. Beg your pardon? This month we are to use a ribbon with our butterflies. Well, chile, there is a blank space inside that rectangle in that lower right sweet spot, so ho ho how about this?

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Part Two

Now let's turn our attention to a more whimsical card. It turns out I don't have an image of a Shrago. Nor, (I don't think) of a Goat or a Ram. But I happen to have a NBUS sheep from Paper Smooches!

This card makes me grin. I like the current CTS sketch, so I started with that. Hammy pointed me to my star collection, which made no sense, but when I opened the drawer and worked my way to the back, I found this awesome bit of ribbon I've had since the last century. It's gorgeous IRL, so that became my band and, well, I have to admit, stars and celebrations DO go together!

I then did an acrylic block watercolor background using the same colors in the ribbon. I stamped the sheep on the dry watercolor and fussy cut it. Then I made a stitched oval using my Lil' Inker dies. My NBUS sentiment from the Stampendous set "Retro Ornament Set" was laid out on an acrylic block before stamping so that it would curve to fit the oval. Then I popped on the sheep and punctuated the design with a little star cut from my watercolor paper using my NBUS Framelits dies.

Once I took the photo, I realized that I really should have embossed the card with the stitches, too, so I ran it through my Big Shot to do just that. Here is one without the stitches:

And here is one with the stitches:

 

I felt like I was too clever by half when it worked! Erm, well, not really. Unfortunately, it squished my oval panel and now it looks like somebody took that wool and put it in the washing machine and now it's a too-tight sweater over those pop-dots! Oops.

I am entering my non-squished Year of the Sheep card in:

• CAS(E) This Sketch
• Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge: Anything Goes [Paper Smooches Stamps]

~~~

Part Three

I am trying to make two cards for every one card and, as it happens, I had just enough of that pretty ribbon to make one more card, thusly:

 

For this card, I used a different sketch (below). I used a stitched circle instead of an oval and cut it out of craft foam and I used a kookoo bird instead of a sheep.

The birdie is really new NBUS. It is the result of another instance of enabling, except this time I can't remember who did the enabling. The stamp set is by Tim Holtz, called "Bird Crazy." There are six birds in the brood and you will be seeing all of them. They moved in here and immediately hit it off with the hamster!

For this card, I did a little cosmetic surgery on the head and tail feathers and then I colored her with my colored pencils. The "Hey" is also NBUS from Avery Elle. The eyeballs are, I think, from Darice.

Once again, after taking the photo, I wished I had stitched the card base, so I popped out her eyeballs and ran her through the Big Shot. Here then, is the "after" shot:

That's better, no pop-dots to squish on this one. She nails you with that look, doesn't she? You're not quite sure if that's a "Hey, how's it goin'?" or a "Hey, whadder you lookin' at?" Or, maybe a "Hey! Why did you squish me?"

Challenges

• Freshly Made Sketches: Sketch
• Cure For the Monday Blues: Photo Inspiration. (My first time here.)
• The Card Concept: Photo Inspiration "Get Well Soon." I was inspired by the stars. My card is clean and simple and if it doesn't bring a smile to someone not feeling well, they are badly sick. Like in a coma.
• Shucks, I missed the Feathered Friends challenge at The Paper Players.

Any of the challenge links will provide you with information on rules, sponsors, and prizes!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS!* 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower! Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor!

  

 

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