Three Minute Thursday -with Tart and Tangy

Good Morning! It's Three Minute Thursday here but, more importantly, it's Chinese New Year! This is an enormously important celebration for Chinese people all over the world and I'd like to send everyone my best wishes for this year of the rabbit.

So, today's three-minute card is a Chinese new year card. I cheated a little because I don't have a Happy Chinese New Year stamp, so I started timing the card after I'd printed the sentiment.

I chose the citrus image from Tart and Tangy because tangerines and oranges are often given as gifts at this time as the Cantonese words for them sound the same as the words for luck and wealth.

This card was made for my daughter's Chinese teacher - but then I realised that she teaches Mandarin, not Cantonese. I'm sure she'll know! And then I realised that I'd got so carried away with my design that the card didn't have any rabbits on it...

...So then I thought I'd add a rabbit inside the card and obviously that took the card way over three minutes! All in all, Three Minute Thursday has turned out to be a bit of a disaster time-wise today! But, on the other hand, the initial card design would be useful for summer invites and notecards so perhaps you'll overlook it this time...

Here's how to make this card:

• Cut an 8cm square piece of Whisper White card stock.
• Stamp a sentiment in the centre of the card stock using a stamp-a-majig for accurate positioning. TIP: Blocky sentiments look good with this design - I used the Fathers' Day sentiment from Occasional Greetings but Happy Birthday from Afterthoughts (hostess) or one of the sentiments from On a Pedestal would work really well too.
• Stamp the sentiment onto a post-it note and trim to size. Use this to mask the sentiment on the card stock.
• Stamp the citrus image all over the card stock using Pumpkin Pie ink. Now sponge More Mustard ink over the whole area using a sponge dauber, paying particular attention to the edges of the mask. Remove the mask.
• Cut a 9cm x 18cm piece of Cherry Cobbler card stock. Score and fold in half to make a card blank and attach the stamped image to the card front.

Supplies

Stamps: Tart and Tangy, Occasional Greetings

Ink: Pumpkin Pie, More Mustard

Card stock: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White

Other: Cherry Cobbler marker

Since I've already blown the three minutes, and anyway I'm in a Chinese New Year mood, here's another celebratory card:

I've been told that chrysanthemums in various shades of red are also big at Chinese New Year so I thought I'd use these two-step stamping flowers from Greenhouse Garden on this card. Have you noticed how much I use these self-adhesive rhinestones at the moment? I love them!

Here's a close-up of the sentiment. I used my computer to print the numbers because I haven't got my set of numbers yet (I really need them but something pretty always tempts me first!) The 'be' is from a sentiment in Just Believe!

Well, now that I'm in a thoroughly Chinese mood I think I might plan a Chinese feast for later. Happy Chinese New Year! Have a great day!