Happiness in Kanji

Hello all, I have a card to share with you today that I just love, although it was a big challenge.  Well it should be a challenge because I was following one of the sketches from a challenge on the Cricut message board.  So I guess first I should share the sketch with you.

Sorry it is a bit blurry so I can't make out where the sketch came from to give them credit.  Well it looks simple enough right? Wrong!  Well I wanted to use my Cricut to cut it so I went to my Gypsy using good old George and Plantin Schoolbook I created a cut file for it.  After working on it and doing several, well a lot of test cuts I found that the angles and meeting at the corners came out best using a square card, so my card is 5.5 x 5.5.   

So here is my finished card, I will get back to the cut file in a minute with some pictures.

Both the black and the red paper is glossy paper, which doesn't show up well in the picture.  The symbols on the red squares and the happiness are all Dazzle stickers.  The Kanji symbol for happiness I cut from the Pagoda cartridge.

Here is a closer look at those symbol stickers, I also added some red/gold small circle stickers to the corners of the gold square.

So here is a screen shot of my Gypsy screen.  One of the hardest parts was the diagonal line down the center.  The Cricut doesn't have just a straight line cut (that I could find) so I took just a skinny rectangle line and stretched it out and then pulled it as close together as I could.  

 Here is it still on the mat.

This what it looks like as I pulled it apart, you can see that a slight piece was left from that diagonal line.  Obviously this was my sample cut, as I didn't want to waste that glossy paper if it did not come out right.  After all the tweaking this was my final cut file.

Thank you so much for stopping by today, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think of my card and cut file.  

Challenges for this card

Art With no Boundaries  Anything Goes  ends  7/28

Make It Monday  Always anything goes  ends 7/29

Simply Create Too  Use it twice (at least) ends 8/2

Asian Themed Card

I love red & black together when making an Asian card, I just think it fits well.  This card was made following a sketch this week on the Cricut message board.

The Asian lady is Cuttlebugged using one of the folders in the Asian pack.  I ran it through on Core'dinations black cardstock with a red core.  I sanded it down to expose the red, but I wanted a brighter red then what came through so I rubbed a red ink pad over the raised areas to give it more color.  The background red paper I stamped randomly with some Asian themed stamps using my Versamark watercolor.   At Stamp TV the challenge was to make your own patterened paper so I will be adding this to their challenge.  I will also being adding it to the "Anything Goes" challenge at Penny's Challenges The fence was cut a 4 inches wide using Pagoda cartridge.

I added a couple of red & gold Dazzles to the fan and framed the lady with shinny gold paper.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed what you have seen here enough to leave me a comment, I just love to read them.

Kanji Word..................Celebrate

I have not made an A2 (5 1/2 x 4 1/4) card in a very long time so this card looks so little to me.    I have had Pagoda for some time now but have not really used it much even though I like the Asian theme.  Inspired by Rachel on the message board who made a beautiful card using Pagoda I thought I would pull it out and give it a try. 

I used the colors for this weeks Ad Color Challenge which were, red, brown and white and the sketch is one from RQAs challenge this week.  I can hardly make a card anymore with out following a sketch LOL!  The background paper is from DCWV Autumn stack and the red square are glitter red.  The Kanji word means celebrate and if you look close the red underneath it the word "celebrate" is cut out, kind of hard to see but once you know it is there you can see it.  I added drops using my Viva Pearl Pen to the corners.

  The white circle is vellum, I Cuttlebugged it and the red square with one of the folders from the Asian Collection.  The silver thing on the bottom square is a metal brad that I thought fit the scheme of the card well.

Thanks for stopping by and would love to hear what you think of this card.

An Asian Card

I made this card a while back but wanted to share it with you.  The special part of this card is the paper, the gold part.  My son-in-law brings me all kinds of special papers, what more could a gal want!  This gold one is my favorite and is so so pretty, it is linen like with a pearl sheen to it.  As you can see it embosses great very crisp and deep.  I used two of the embossing folders from the Asian pack, the lantern cut is from Pagoda.  I really need to get in a explore this cartridge more.

It is a very simple card but I just wanted to show off the beautiful paper.