Happy New Year – or should I say - Happy Congratulations

Well today seemed like an appropriate day to share this card.  As it is the start of the Chinese New Year – Year of The Horse.

And although there are no horses here…. there is a Chinese lantern theme….

This card is the one I made to swap with my fellow team members at our Quarterly Training last Saturday. I loved this little Happy Congratulations stamp set when I saw it in the new Spring Summer Catalogue – and my overactive little crafty brain has come up with lots of alternative ideas to make using it – but more of those on another day! I can feel another mini series coming on……

For now – here is a card just simply showing off the little beauty in all its glory. The words are from the stamp set too.

A few alternatives for you – firstly just a switch of the card base colour. My swap  - below- was done on a Crumb Cake card base…. though I do personally prefer the white above … but my swap cards always seem to be on a white base – so I had thought I would do something different for a change!!

You will notice that 3 of the lanterns are a different  pattern…. the wiggly Coastal Cabana to the right is just a 3/4” circle punched from the new Fresh Prints DSP stack.

The other 2 are stamped and then punched… the central flowery Crumb Cake one being a hexagon originally (Six Sided Sampler) and the other one to the left being punched out of the blossom branch image from the Hopeful Thoughts stamp set. All 3 of these were then lightly daubed around the edges with Crumb Cake ink.

And here is the same layout but another colourway…. no alternative lanterns here – just as they come in the set….

The only other change is the use of the Happy Birthday wording from the Perfectly Penned stamp set…. this wording has rapidly risen to the top of my favourites list!!!!

You may recognise the colour scheme – another WWWU Challenge sample…..Apologies to my fellow Jems… I couldn’t post this to the Colour Challenge folder until after Team Training – and then I mistimed it… this weeks challenge was already up & running!!!

SU! Supplies

Stamps – Happy Congratulations, Six Sided Sampler, Happy Congratulations, Perfectly Penned

Punches – 3/4” Circle Punch

Inks – Crumb Cake, Coastal Cabana, Pink Pirouette OR Crumb Cake, Soft Sky, Soft Suede, Crushed Curry