Chinese New Year card and lucky envelope 2018

Hello and welcome! Hope you had a great week.  Today, I am sharing some cards I made for Chinese New Year (CNY) and some lucky envelopes.  It’s tradition to give lucky envelopes/ red packets to your juniors or even your elders during CNY for good luck.

When I first saw Hero ArtsColor Layering Koi stamp set, I thought this was perfect for making a CNY card. Koi has many positive symbolism in Asian culture, signifying good fortune, prosperity and success. Just google it and you will see.

I started by stamping the koi on some white scrap paper just to work out the color combination I wanted to use. I then cut out the image and used it to trace the outline of the koi on my card. I used a Molotow masking fluid pen to cover the image using the outline I traced as a guide. This was left overnight to dry.

I then watercolored the background of the card with bluish/teal and pink. The masking fluid will protect the area where the fish will be stamped later from the watercolor. After the watercolor dried, I rubbed off the masking fluid.

There was 4 layers to the fish but I only did 3 different layers combination. For the white koi, the image as stamped using SimonSays Stamp (SSS) Slate (2^nd layer) + Altenew Autumn Blaze (3^rd layer) + Versafine Onyx Black (clear emboss)(4^th layer). For the orange koi, I used Altenew Sunkissed/Orange Cream (1^st layer) + Altenew Autumn Blaze (2^nd layer)  + Versafine Oynx Black (clear emboss)(4^th layer).

Lastly, I stamped the sentiment from Mama Elephant – Lunar Extras on the card, stamped the water ripple from the Color Layering Koi stamp set using white pigment ink and added some accents using Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops.

Finally, I added tons of Winkof Stella to the fishes. You can see how the fishes shimmered, it was really gorgeous in real life.

The card was then trimmed to size using a die-cut frame/ trimmer and affixed on a red card base.

I also did a few mini lucky envelope using Mama Elephant Lucky Envelope die and Lunar Animals stamp set.

I die-cut the lucky envelope from red and maroon card stock. This year was the year of the dog so I stamped the dog image on a yellow card stock (as I cannot find any gold/pearl card stock in my stash).

I drew in the shirt on the doggy using Pigma Micron 0.1 pen. The image was colored using Copic E23 and R35. I had very, very limited copic so used only 1 color for each shade. I used the Nuvo Crystal Drop Ebony Black to fill in the eye and nose to give it more dimension.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you find today's post useful.

Wishing you a prosperous Chinese New Year for those celebrating; and wishing everyone lots of good fortune and success in the coming year.