Chinese New Year Blog Hop (Day 1)!!

Chinese New Year Blog Hop 
January 22-23, 2012 
Year of the Dragon
   
Ni hao!...and WELCOME to the Chinese New Year Blog Hop! This hop is in honor of Alex, the little boy my friend April's family recently adopted from Taiwan. To celebrate his culture, we want to share some Chinese-inspired projects with you (although I didn't fully understand this expectation at first, so this first project that I have to share with you for day one of this two-day hop is more "New Year"-themed than it is Chinese-inspired, so I hope that's okay and that you will enjoy it anyway)! I will be sending this card to April and her family next week to congratulate them on their "brand-new addition"!! :)

If you arrived here from Dena's blog then you are in the right place! If you just joined us, you can also go back to April's blog at www.curlsandgrins.blogspot.com to see everyone's amazing creativity 
from the start of the hop!

For my project today I created this standard-size card...
(remember, you can click on my image to see it up-close!)

My card features products that are all from Close to my Heart! I used the Hooray Bouquet D1491 stamp set with the Roxie papers X7140B. The flowers were cut from our fantastic Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge that allowed me to cut my paper to perfectly fit the images I stamped on them (no scissors needed)! The "dry-embossed and then sanded with sand-paper" leaves and frame were also cut using this "must-have" cartridge! To create the "cracked glass" effect, I applied liquid glass about 1/8" thick to fill in the entire oval shape inside the frame (I did this after I stamped the sentiment; and make sure you use a permanent or pigment based ink for stamping as I didn't do here, water-based inks can bleed under the liquid glass and you may notice that my ink did run just a little bit). You can use a pin to poke any air bubbles that you might get as you are applying the liquid glass also. Then I let it dry over-night. To crack it, I simply put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes to get it nice and cold, then I removed it and bent my cardstock in different directions to create all the various cracks. Then I used a sponge-dauber with a Desert Sand ink pad to swirl the color over the cracks and let the color soak in. Wipe with a clean tissue to remove any extra ink residue and...you're done creating "cracked glass"!

We have some great blog candy to offer from April Nourse and PSA Essentials. To be eligible, you must simply comment on each blog on each day's post. We'd love for you to become a follower of each of our blogs too!
 THANK YOU for stopping by and
Happy Chinese New Year everyone!
Your next stop is Theresa's blog! Enjoy!!