China: Jade

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there!  Ryan supervised as his dada made waffles with strawberries and cream for breakfast :)

I'm sharing two more China layouts today.  The first one has been seen 'round these parts before:

I didn't really notice until I was flipping through the finished albums, but I really like doing horizontal strips of patterned paper on my layouts.  And here is what comes next:

I think it's a law in China that the tour guide takes you to places specifically for you to shop and spend all your moneys.  And we did buy that jade pixiu (pronounced pee-shoo) so it worked this time.  See the pictures here.  Anyway, this is not my favorite layout but I tried.  I don't know, it's just not my favorite.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, Stampin' Up! had a color called Mint Melody which was the perfect match for the pixiu.  I only had a little bit of cardstock from an assortment pack I bought way back when, and I never got the matching ink, so I had to be creative with how I used it.  I stamped white swirls on it for the mat and used some to cut out my title.

Since I only had I think two pieces of the Mint Melody cardstock, I never cut a sample for my color swatch book.  But here's the palette anyway:  Peekaboo Peach, Dusty Durango, Brocade Blue, and Mint Melody.

I'm off to go play with the kid...or else get me another waffle, I haven't decided yet.  Have a great Sunday!

Supplies, Shanghai Museum layout:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Gifts from the Orient (floral vase), Asian Art (coin and characters), Ancient Asia (dragon vase), Asian Artistry (flower)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black, Marina Mist, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Primrose Petals, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Crushed Curry DSP
Accessories:  circle punch, Circles & Ovals Framelits, lettering template 

Supplies, Jade layout:
Stamps:  Gorgeous Grunge, Stars & Swirls
Ink:  Brocade Blue, Whisper White, Basic Gray marker
Paper:  Peekaboo Peach, Dusty Durango, Brocade Blue, Mint Melody
Accessories:  1/2" circle punch, lettering template

Shanghai Museum

Hey kids!  Since Scrappy Monday got pre-empted by the Nacho blog hop, I thought I'd share my scrappy goodness today.  So I did the Gifts from the Orient Friday Flashback pretty recently, and I just had to use the stamp set one more time.  However it wasn't still out on my desk, I'd been a good girl and put up my toys so I had to pull it back out again to make today's scrapbook layout.

China pictures!!! (HI MISSY!!!)  Our very first stop on our very first full day in our very first Chinese city was the Shanghai museum.  And I think I used half of my Oriental stamps on this layout--Gifts from the Orient, Ancient Asia, Asian Art, and Asian Artistry (yeah, those are two different stamp sets).  I think I have most of the Asian stamp sets that SU! has produced, though there are a few I'm missing.

Today's color palette:  Primrose Petals, Crushed Curry, Marina Mist, Whisper White, Garden Green, and Basic Black.  I continue to love Thick Whisper White cardstock.  I think regular Whisper White might be relegated to being inside card liners on really dark cards...

Cheers, y'all!  And wasn't Chinese New Year not too long ago?  Happy Year of the Monkey!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Rough Type, Gifts from the Orient (floral vase), Asian Art (coin and characters), Ancient Asia (dragon vase), Asian Artistry (flower)
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Basic Black, Marina Mist, Garden Green, Crushed Curry
Paper:  Primrose Petals, Basic Black, Thick Whisper White, Crushed Curry DSP
Accessories:  circle punch, Circles & Ovals Framelits, lettering template

Friday Flashback: Gifts from the Orient

Happy Friday, y'all!  Already time once again for a Friday Flashback, and this week's featured stamp set is Gifts from the Orient.  Let's take a trip back through the stampy archives...

Also features Rough Type, Dream Gardens

Here's a scrapbook layout from my parents' visit to Okinawa in 2008.  Wow that was nearly 8 years ago, crazy.  Anyway, the origami crane above the title is from today's stamp set.

Also features Petite Patterns, Warm Words

And here's a card from the same time period, I made this for my parents when they visited and gave them a kokeshi doll too.  So I pulled these two out of the archives and I was absolutely SURE I had made at least one more card with this stamp set, I remembered it quite vividly so I just spent 15 minutes looking for the picture of it in my Splitcoast gallery only to find out that for the card in question, I used a different Asian-themed stamp set.  *sheepish grin*  So that's it for the flashback part, let's see some new stuff!

This card was the combination of three different challenges, starting with the latest from CAS(E) This Sketch:

I turned the sketch on its side, but I kept my card CAS because it's only two layers of white cardstock and the strips behind the oval are stamped red lanterns.  Speaking of red, the Retro Rubber Challenge this week is a color combination:

So for Retro Rubber-ness, I've had Gifts from the Orient since 2008, and I got Rough Type when it was first released in 2010.  Both well over a year old, though that alphabet never has time to get dusty in my house ;)

Anyway, just one more challenge, the theme at the Male Room:

Yep, I used pink on a dude card.  Granted, not a lot of pink, but I did use pink :)  I'm sending this card to my dad because it's punny and he appreciates a good pun.  "Hai" sounds like "hi" but means yes in Japanese (or if you want to get more nit-picky, it's more like "I acknowledge what you're saying" rather than "I agree with you") but it just made me giggle a bit when I thought of it and yep, Dad will like it.

After I finished my hai card, I just wasn't quite ready to stop for the day so I made one more:

When I do the Friday Flashback posts, I almost never look at the older project pictures first so it's just coincidence that I used the same two stamps from the set on my two new projects.  That, and those are my favorite stamps in the set.  Anyway, this one is for the challenge at Fusion:

I went with the sketch more than the paper hearts picture, though I think I could do some thing with green, orange and purple.  Maybe another time.  Anyway, this good luck card I think also counts for the Male Room challenge again.

So that's it for me today.  Hope you have a great weekend, y'all!  I think we might go see Kung Fu Panda 3...

Supplies, Hai card:
Stamps:  Gifts from the Orient, Rough Type
Ink:  Basic Black, Real Red, Pink Pirouette, Crumb Cake, Smoky Slate, Mint Macaron, Blendabilities
Paper:  Thick Whisper White
Accessories:  Ovals Framelits, Neutrals Candy Dots

Supplies, Good Luck card:
Stamps:  Gifts from the Orient, So Happy for You
Ink:  Real Red, Bermuda Bay, Basic Black
Paper:  Real Red, Thick Whisper White, Confetti Celebrations & Perfectly Artistic DSP
Accessories:  Circles Framelits

Friday Flashback: Dream Gardens

Welcome to this week's Friday Flashback!  Today I get to feature one of my favorite stamp sets, Dream Gardens.  Since I used to live in Japan, I pretty much buy every Oriental stamp set Stampin' Up! makes ;)  So let's flash back!

I discovered pretty early on that I love this lady stamped in craft ink on patterned paper and then heat embossed.

I did Japanese Christmas cards one year.  See, you can use a non-Christmas stamp set and make perfectly festive Christmas cards.

Alternate Christmas card design; my hubs liked this one because he said the layout reminded him of kimonos with the obi around the middle.

Quick and easy thank you card for some friends of ours whom we met in Okinawa.

I shared these pages a few months ago and I was unhappy because I did the title and then decided to mat the kimono lady instead of stamping her directly on the paper, so it looked out of whack to me with too much space above the title.  It stuck in the back of my head for a while and finally I got it back out and added the little origami crane from Gifts from the Orient and voila!  Fixed.

And here's today's new card:

I love blues and greens together, they're very peaceful to me.  Something about using shades of those two colors together just makes me happy...which might be why 98% of the stuff we own is blue and/or green ;)  Anyway, I pulled out my favorite Baja Breeze (sniffle! please don't really be retired forever) and I picked the two stamps I'd never used from the stamp set.  I love that dream kanji stamp, don't know how it hadn't been used on something before.  And I used a couple of DSP scraps on this too.

Thanks for joining me for this week's Friday Flashback.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Supplies, last card only:
Stamps:  Dream Gardens
Ink:  Baja Breeze, Always Artichoke, Midnight Muse
Paper:  Baja Breeze, Midnight Muse, Very Vanilla, Always Artichoke retired DSP, retired Green Tea DSP
Accessories:  circle punches, Dimensionals